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MDMA and psilocybin are approved as medicines in Australia

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Re: MDMA and psilocybin are approved as medicines in Australia

#161

Post by epistemer »

dntrkv wrote: post #122
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything I've learned about therapeutic psilocybin treatment is that the doses involved are actually quite a bit higher than I've ever done on a trip at home. For example for psychedelic therapy with psilocybin, you would see a therapist a few times with no psilocybin, then you would have a session where you take something like the equivalent of 1 gram of dried mushrooms, and go through that session with the therap…

5 grams? Most people would absolutely lose their shit on that. Even an eighth of good mushrooms is enough to obliterate most people. Like complete ego death. How long do these sessions last? What are the logistics? I’m very curious.

5 grams is the idiotic recommendation from Terence McKenna that people blindly follow because he was a good writer and had an almost psychedelic stand up routine with public speaking. He was basically a type of cult leader.

It is absolutely terrible advice. The advice should be "less is more" not this McKenna "heroic dose" bullshit like some kind of dosage sport.

Re: MDMA and psilocybin are approved as medicines in Australia

#162

Post by MrScruff »

sirsinsalot wrote: post #142
MrScruff wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not arguing that caution shouldn’t be applied but I think it’s a bit more subtle than that. MDMA is prone to abuse in the recreational use sense, but it’s not really habit forming in the same way other drugs are. Sure, you can always find edge cases but compared to many other drugs (including alcohol) you’re unlikely to meet many daily users.

I somewhat agree. Daily use doesn't produce the high being sought, but it is very habit forming. I know from personal experience and that of many people around me that doing molly every weekend quickly becomes a dependency and will mess you up very quickly. In a therapy setting I'm sure risks are low, but I wouldn't make such black and white comparisons against alcohol or say, cocaine. The reality of addiction is mor…

I’d refer you to the extensive research on the topic by David Nutt, Professor of Pharmacology at Imperial College and former government drugs adviser. It’s possible to compare the ‘relative harm’ of substances, and they will, partly by the nature of the different ways they interact with our reward systems have different risk profiles. Again, not dismissing the risk, but sane drugs policy does require an evidence based assessment of how each substance impacts society and individuals.

Re: MDMA and psilocybin are approved as medicines in Australia

#163

Post by tdehnel »

petesergeant wrote: post #53
aeturnum wrote: post #25

This is fantastic! I am generally very pro-psychadelic - they seem like they can offer unique aid to people and they are not very prone to abuse. The only "downside" is that, because outcomes vary widely (though are generally not negative, simply unhelpful), it's hard to call them "medicine" in the way that, say, asprin is medicine. However, with the proper understanding, I'm hopeful they can be a really helpful tool…

> because outcomes vary widely, it's hard to call them "medicine" Is that so different from any other psychiatric medicine?

This is rationalizing rhetoric. Full-on psychedelic drugs are very different from any other psychiatric medicine. Users should know this difference and be prepared to mitigate the risks.

With psych drugs, the most common experience is that user takes them for a few weeks, and reports or doesn’t report some subtle change in their psyche. A bad experience is mostly limited to “didn’t work”. If the drug “doesn’t work” they stop using it and try something else.

With psychedelic drugs, the effect is 100% going to be felt within less than an hour, the effect will be very strong and is guaranteed to be one of the most memorable experiences of the user’s life. A bad experience could easily consist of being rapidly confronted with some deep truths about the user’s self and ego. There is a reason psychedelics have been linked to schizophrenia: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abst...

Re: MDMA and psilocybin are approved as medicines in Australia

#164

Post by tdehnel »

MrScruff wrote: post #134
sirsinsalot wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It being MDMA and psilocybin is a bit odd. MDMA is very prone to abuse. Not saying it doesn't have therapeutic uses, but it is certainly a drug that needs huge respect and caution.

Not arguing that caution shouldn’t be applied but I think it’s a bit more subtle than that. MDMA is prone to abuse in the recreational use sense, but it’s not really habit forming in the same way other drugs are. Sure, you can always find edge cases but compared to many other drugs (including alcohol) you’re unlikely to meet many daily users.

You moved the goalposts by switching from “abuse” to “daily habit forming”.

Abuse doesn’t require daily or even regular use.

Re: MDMA and psilocybin are approved as medicines in Australia

#165

Post by crtified »

retrac wrote: post #12
ilostmyshoes wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could one possibly harm their reputation by using a legal medication

Bluntly, using psychiatric medication is an indicator of mental illness. And some people judge such people very negatively, presuming they are unfit to handle serious responsibility. This perspective is sometimes official; in Canada, commercial airline pilots can't take antidepressants without informing the government, and Transport Canada routinely suspends such pilots. [1] Physicians are subject to similar, if less…

Perhaps wanting control over the lives and property of others is the real mental illness, as it results in quite unreliable things happening in the world and throughout history.

Re: MDMA and psilocybin are approved as medicines in Australia

#166

Post by likeabbas »

tsimionescu wrote: post #112
likeabbas wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people feel the need to control other people’s substance intake? It’s not your life. If there’s no direct harm to you then it should be none of your business.

There's a difference between seeking to control and trying to recommend against. Same as people recommend you eat apples more than you eat chips, and are against portraying chips as healthy, without meaning that they'd want to ban them.

I agree there is a difference but the parent above specifically mentioned what is available in stores today as if to say they would be against allowing people to buy whatever drugs they want.

Prohibition does not stop usage. It just makes the drugs cut with more harmful substances. I wish people would understand that

Re: MDMA and psilocybin are approved as medicines in Australia

#167

Post by epistemer »

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #6

I have had the happiest moments of my life on MDMA. Everyone should have experienced it at least once. Let me put it another way: No matter how happy you have ever been, on MDMA you can be happier. Somewhere between 3 and 100 times as happy. You gain perspective. Now, with experience, I would only ever use it with purpose. Dating someone seriously? Have a night on MDMA and you will experience love beyond comprehensio…

We really need this to be legal someplace in the world. Fentanyl at this point makes any street pill an insane proposition to me.

I am surprised a country hasn't already embraced a type of psychedelic and MDMA drug tourism.

Fentanyl ultimately changes any moral argument for keeping these drugs illegal.

It is really completely immoral at this point to be nudging people towards fentanyl overdosing.

Re: MDMA and psilocybin are approved as medicines in Australia

#168

Post by dep_b »

andrewstuart wrote: post #148
dep_b wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How the hell do you even dare to lob MDMA in the same category as Oxycontin? I have seen pretty much every substance abused daily (amphetamines, different types of legal medication, alcohol, marihuana, heroin) by people I knew, but I have never met anybody that took MDMA on a daily basis or had a strong dependency on it. Medics pretty much agree everywhere that MDMA is less addictive than alcohol which is in turn muc…

>> How the hell do you even dare Comedown rage?

Haven't touched it in decades.

But dragging in misinformation to somehow associate MDMA with the ongoing opioid crisis in the US is completely messed up and pretty much how we ended up in this situation in the first place.

Re: MDMA and psilocybin are approved as medicines in Australia

#169

Post by nmca »

MrScruff wrote: post #162
sirsinsalot wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I somewhat agree. Daily use doesn't produce the high being sought, but it is very habit forming. I know from personal experience and that of many people around me that doing molly every weekend quickly becomes a dependency and will mess you up very quickly. In a therapy setting I'm sure risks are low, but I wouldn't make such black and white comparisons against alcohol or say, cocaine. The reality of addiction is mor…

I’d refer you to the extensive research on the topic by David Nutt, Professor of Pharmacology at Imperial College and former government drugs adviser. It’s possible to compare the ‘relative harm’ of substances, and they will, partly by the nature of the different ways they interact with our reward systems have different risk profiles. Again, not dismissing the risk, but sane drugs policy does require an evidence base…

I'm broadly pro harm reduction & happy about psych legalisarion, but the details of the Nutt studies are, aha, pretty Nutty. The most cited one just involved taking some doctors and asking them to yolo out some qualitative harm estimates. Not ideal evidence-based medicine.

(I would provide a close cite but I only recall from his book "drugs without the hot air" & am on mobile)

Re: MDMA and psilocybin are approved as medicines in Australia

#170

Post by myshpa »

LoganDark wrote: post #100
aeturnum wrote: post #25

This is fantastic! I am generally very pro-psychadelic - they seem like they can offer unique aid to people and they are not very prone to abuse. The only "downside" is that, because outcomes vary widely (though are generally not negative, simply unhelpful), it's hard to call them "medicine" in the way that, say, asprin is medicine. However, with the proper understanding, I'm hopeful they can be a really helpful tool…

We hope to be able to try it some day, since we have DID and heard that psychedelics can actually help a lot. It's a shame that we'll probably have to wait years, though... -Emily

The nature provides.

-Paul (Stamets)

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