LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison • Hacker News Board

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#141

Post by detritus » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 2:37 PM UTC

zelly wrote: post #125

a2h wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ergotamine Tartrate. Interestingly, ET is used to treat cluster headaches and migraines.

LSD treats cluster headaches, for some people permanently: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/06/lsd-alleviates-suici...

As does Psilocybin in Magic Mushrooms. Back when we used to sell the stuff (UK, 2005 or so), we had a small 'lab' (a grand term) run by someone who suffered serious cluster headaches and had gotten involved with us through our selling of 'shrooms.

We used to sell to quite a few people who similarly suffered from the condition, and used mushrooms to treat it - but it was an impossible thing for us to market or advertise, due to the way the MHRA (Medicines and Health Regulatory Agency) dictates what beneficial claims can be stated about retailed items.

- ed typo, grammar

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#142

Post by Dumblydorr » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 2:40 PM UTC

CivBase wrote: post #92

mindfulhack wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more acceptable and state-sanctioned to sell drugs that kill people while keeping them subdued, than ones that keep them alive and open their minds. I don't want to sound like a crazy 'conspiracy theorist' or a 'hippie', but I don't know to distill this sad and truthful statement more simply than that.

You might sounds less like a 'hippie' if you avoid the phrase 'open your mind'. It implies that psychodelics provide users with some kind of enlightenment rather than just hallucinations and euphorea. Makes it seem like anti-drug politicians are trying to hide some sort of dark secret which can only be unlocked by taking LSD.

Open the mind is a figure of speech. If you think its hippie, you have your speech buried in the 1960s. Opening the mind is about accepting sensory data without mental heuristics (like concepts) titled over everything.

Opening the mind is used a lot in Buddhism and meditation to describe how consciousness is not inherently stuck in loops of negative thought, but that by opening the brain's perception of anything happening, we can see more clearly and without egocentric concern.

If anyone reading is thinking psychedelics and meditation are just hippie mumbo jumbo, check out Sam Harris or Dan Harris or Joseph Goldstein, who will show you how meditation is useful and not woo woo.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#143

Post by skissane » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 2:42 PM UTC

saul_goodman wrote: post #130

skissane wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A case report from 1974 says that massive LSD overdoses can cause bleeding and hyperthermia, symptoms which could potentially be fatal without medical attention (but, in this case, medical attention was received and all survived) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1129381/

Don't buy the hype, it's impossible to die from overdose of LSD. The one case I've read of it happening was highly suspect.

What hype? I think it is very likely that a sufficiently high dose of just about any drug, LSD included, will kill someone. If no one has died yet, that just means no one has ever taken a big enough overdose.

We know the LD50 of LSD in rabbits, rats and mice [1]. Surely, there exists a human LD50 as well, it is just that hopefully nobody will ever be evil enough to do the necessary human experiments to determine it. (That's true for all drugs – just because we can't ethically discover the human LD50 doesn't mean one doesn't exist.)

What's the biggest overdose anybody has ever taken? This case report is the biggest one I know about. And yet, they each only consumed "two lines" of 3mm by 4mm by 30 mm, which is less than a gram, administered nasally. They were hospitalised. Would they have lived without medical attention? We don't know, but quite possibly not. And surely it would have been physically possible to take an even bigger overdose than that. How do we know an even more massive overdose would not have been fatal?

People rarely take LSD intravenously. I think a fatal overdose of LSD would most easily achieved with intravenous administration. That's what the animal study LD50s are calculated based on.

Unless you are trying to commit suicide or murder, you wouldn't do it. And if you are trying to do either, there are far more practical methods than massive LSD overdoses.

[1] https://maps.org/research-archive/w3pb/2008/2008_Passie_2306...

EDIT: I deleted my back of the envelope calculations about how much the people took in mg/kg. I don't have confidence I'm doing it right so better not to.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#144

Post by nlh » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 2:44 PM UTC

I found this line from the article particularly interesting:

“The court concluded that the 20 years served are sufficient for meeting the goals of incapacitation, deterrence, retribution, and rehabilitation.”

Deterrence and rehabilitation (yeah, right) I knew were “goals” of the US prison system, but I never realized that “incapacitation” and “retribution” were actual legally-stated goals.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#145

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

h0l0cube wrote: post #38

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was arrested and searched the police didn’t even find the 200 tabs I had on me. They found everything else, but LSD is incredibly easy to hide from regular law enforcement. They found everything else, but in typical stupid-police fashion, they ballsed that up too and ended up entering a nolle prosequi (do not prosecute) at the district court level. The police prosecutor was sufficiently annoyed, and I was suff…

> and set a strong precedent Which was?

I can't respond extensively at the moment, come back in 10hrs or so. My time zone suggests I should go to bed :)

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#146

Post by x86_64Ubuntu » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

peroporque wrote: post #126

kitteh wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friend of a friend got caught with two sheets in the 90s and I think he got 20 years for each one. Downstate Illinois. My recollection was the weight of the blotter paper was considered as the drug itself and that easily increased the federal sentencing guidelines.

I will never understand how people in the US are okay with this. Don't people care about justice at all over there?

Not really. When you ignore all the marketing material about "freedom" and such that accompanies a discussion about the US, you see that we are an extremely authoritarian country.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#147

Post by jungturk » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 2:48 PM UTC

carlmr wrote: post #134

tazjin wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The common miscommunication here is that people perceive the statement as saying "psychedelics are the ONLY way of learning certain things", whereas what they should perceive is "psychedelics are ONE (very efficient) way of learning certain things". The thing is that for people whose normal life does not include pursuing knowledge and understanding just for the sake of it (and I think this might be most people), it's…

What exactly do they learn from it?

The central revelation, as I see it, isn't so much about facts or content (e.g. truth, purpose, ultimate meaning) but rather about how flexible the hardware/software package is that underlies our cognition and sense of the world - the experience of your mind behaving in novel ways.

I suppose there's nothing terribly transcendent for observers about seeing Doom run on an iPod, but it's definitely surprising to see how the flexible the hardware/software can be.

Subjectively, though, it can feel pretty transcendent when its your runtime being hacked in new and different ways.

If the iPod had a sense of self like we do then maybe it would be floored seeing itself run Doom (though hopefully it wouldn't confuse Doom for ultimate truth).

"The mind is vaster and more fluid than our ordinary, waking consciousness suggests. And it is simply impossible to communicate the profundity (or seeming profundity) of psychedelic states to those who have never experienced them. Indeed, it is even difficult to remind oneself of the power of these states once they have passed."

https://samharris.org/podcasts/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life...

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#148

Post by Sargos » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 2:49 PM UTC

peroporque wrote: post #126

kitteh wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friend of a friend got caught with two sheets in the 90s and I think he got 20 years for each one. Downstate Illinois. My recollection was the weight of the blotter paper was considered as the drug itself and that easily increased the federal sentencing guidelines.

I will never understand how people in the US are okay with this. Don't people care about justice at all over there?

We're not okay with this but we have no way to change the laws that are made by our Lords.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#149

Post by solaceb » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

dontcarethrow2 wrote: post #79

thelittleone wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one thing powers fear most is losing said power. Open minds present a threat to power structures. LSD has the ability to open minds. So does meditation... just that it typically takes way longer :)

I agree, just to add in my own words -- it gives you a fresh perspective, as if your staring at the world from the eyes of a tree. But is it really that important for those in power to maintain a certain narrative/perception? These sentences sound too rough..

IMO, yes, because there is nothing holding the country together besides the perception that the US constitution protects & ensures our freedom. If that perception falls, then there could substantially greater political unrest, even moreso than what we have experienced this summer

And LSD and other psychedelics definitely make you rethink the validity of government, period. Let alone the efficacy of the powers that be to ensure safety and prosperity

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#150

Post by rabite » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 3:07 PM UTC

vikramkr wrote: post #137

peroporque wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will never understand how people in the US are okay with this. Don't people care about justice at all over there?

You see giant protests occupying cities for weeks and your first thought is that americans are totally OK with the state of things? All those folks on the street in Hong kong - they must just be out there celebrating their loss of liberties! It's a big party!

Yeah but the giant protests occupying cities for weeks are not about psychedelics sentences at all. They are generally in support of the state of things, funded by hostile billionaires in hopes that small businesses will be destroyed and that any potential competition in the middle class will disappear with them. People aren't asking for lower LSD sentences, they are demanding an end to "racism" and some kind of penance because a career violent criminal with heart disease passing counterfeit currency overdosed on fentanyl while being arrested.