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The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs

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Re: The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs

#161

Post by InCityDreams »

scythe wrote: post #81
User23 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know alcoholics who are well to do, out of debt, happily married, and have a diverse social circle and several personal hobbies, get exercise, and enjoy thinking. None of that shows the merits of alcoholism. I can't speak for the person you're replying to, but I could guess that it's your drug addiction that they have no desire to emulate. Addicts insisting that their addiction isn't one is cliché for a reason.

High frequency of use is a necessary condition for addiction.

High necessity of use is a frequent condition for addiction.

Re: The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs

#162

Post by psyc »

mkoryak wrote: post #22
NickC25 wrote: post #5

There was an NYT article not too long ago whose entire point is that "true" psychedelic drugs are too dangerous to go mainstream, but isolated chemical compounds that provide some of the chemical effects of LSD / Mushrooms / Ketamine without the "trip" were a much better way to go. The reasoning was that they could engineer a way to chemically induce neuroplastic change in the brain without the liability of visual or…

sounds like you had a good trip. If you had a bad trip, you might feel differently about it.

Please. A million people have gotten back on the horse after having terrifying trips, myself included.

Oh, you said might

Re: The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs

#163

Post by astrange »

zone411 wrote: post #91
zionic wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>long-term positive changes. Proponents frequently mention things like this, yet _no one_ who publicly admits to psych use is someone I want to be. All the people I've ever met, and friends who didn't but started down that road, aren't "all there" anymore. They'll preach day and night about the "benefits", but from the outside looking in it's obviously a coping mechanism.

Read a meta study like https://mindmedicineaustralia.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Long... . From section 3.3-3.4, you can see that psychedelic use is beneficial for anxiety and depression and results in improved well-being, increased openness to experience and increased spirituality. Psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for substance abuse has positive effects. The safety profile shows that they are not risk-free but that…

> psychedelic use is beneficial for anxiety and depression

The claim is that psychedelic use is beneficial /because/ it's psychedelic, but this isn't necessarily true (because of the rule that the boring outcome is the most likely). You could probably invent a kind of ketamine that does absolutely nothing interesting and yet still has the benefits.

> increased spirituality

Is that a positive effect? Imagine all the people you know turning into Gwyneth Paltrow.

Re: The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs

#164

Post by psyc »

vorpalhex wrote: post #102
tastyfreeze wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shamanic rituals have been the cornerstone of many of the great civilizations of the past. Why are substances that induce introspection and a sense of belonging to something greater than yourself banned?

Sometimes they cause psychotic breaks and Timmy eats off Becca's ear or runs buck naked into the woods and dies. You know, that sorta stuff.

If you don't know what you're talking about, it's good form to lead with that.

Re: The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs

#166

Post by astrange »

huetius wrote: post #11

With the collapse of the SSRI hypothesis, I feel like there was a missed opportunity to interrogate what it is about the affluent, technological society that makes such a staggering number of people so depressed. It seems that we will instead (characteristically) plow forward with even more powerful drugs.

Nothing new has happened with SSRIs. Everyone always knew perfectly well they don't work by "raising serotonin levels", but they do still seem to work.

Re: The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs

#167

Post by TaupeRanger »

yababa_y wrote: post #112
TaupeRanger wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a claim that would require a study to confirm. No such study has been done to my knowledge.

Studies have been done! Here is the latest one, for psilocybin. The mystical experiences are deeply related to therapeutic outcome https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2022.8416... Here is the first one I am aware of: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3050654/ . So 14 years of evidence backing up this claim.

No, none of these studies compares drugs that induce the supposed neuroplasticity effect without the trip to normal hallucinogenics. The claim was that the trip is what makes the drugs work, but we haven't investigated that question yet because the new drugs aren't available.

Re: The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs

#168

Post by vorpalhex »

papascrubs wrote: post #158
vorpalhex wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes they cause psychotic breaks and Timmy eats off Becca's ear or runs buck naked into the woods and dies. You know, that sorta stuff.

Citation needed?

https://m.startribune.com/man-on-lsd-attacks-others-in-rainb...

https://www.ktvu.com/news/man-allegedly-took-lsd-before-wild...

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/tourism/os-bz-disne...

I can keep going...

Re: The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs

#169

Post by vorpalhex »

psyc wrote: post #164
vorpalhex wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes they cause psychotic breaks and Timmy eats off Becca's ear or runs buck naked into the woods and dies. You know, that sorta stuff.

If you don't know what you're talking about, it's good form to lead with that.

I dropped sources in a sibling comment.

I'm all for counter arguments but please actually make a counter argument and not a sarcastic statement.

Re: The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs

#170

Post by yababa_y »

TaupeRanger wrote: post #167
yababa_y wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Studies have been done! Here is the latest one, for psilocybin. The mystical experiences are deeply related to therapeutic outcome https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2022.8416... Here is the first one I am aware of: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3050654/ . So 14 years of evidence backing up this claim.

No, none of these studies compares drugs that induce the supposed neuroplasticity effect without the trip to normal hallucinogenics. The claim was that the trip is what makes the drugs work, but we haven't investigated that question yet because the new drugs aren't available.

There are good salience-based reasons to think the effect is important too. The trip is what makes these drugs work, at least. It seems implausible to me that the trip is merely some threshhold side effect that gets triggered with higher likelihood at the therapeutic doses. At therapeutic doses you’d expect to see a lot more effective non-mystical trips if the trip was an ancillary addon. But, they’ve modified ibogaine in such a fasion: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33299186/. So we will see!
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