Live data from Hacker News

Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

thetyee.ca

21–30 of 204 posts

Re: Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

#21

I don't understand the controversy. We know full well the natural world is full of substances with significant impact on our bodies. Many such substances can even on average be harmful, but when used correctly, they are beneficial. Opioids come to mind first and foremost. It's not controversial to give e.g. serious accident victims a shot of morphine. Why are investigations into medicinal use of shrooms or marijuana…

Playing the devils advocate, and I think this is a pretty strong point against shrooms: while opioids cause harm, their harm is incredibly mechanical (it’s just addiction) and can be managed well. Shrooms play with your brain. We barely know how that works and quite frankly a lot of the research into managing the depressive episodes with shrooms may just be that you become more stupid and therefore less prone to thin…

James Farina has spent decades doing non-clinical research on long term effects of psychedelics. For what is worth, the effects seem to go the other direction.

Other than that, I think you are absolutely right tho, mushrooms can induce severe changes. I am not for legalization. And I believe your point is why most people under legal psychedelic treatment are terminal patients.

Re: Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

#22
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of it is basically racist propaganda that entered the public consciousness and became "true". Hallucinogens though... aren't just drugs that change something a little. They can give people profound religious experiences. Some people become an unsettling kind of prophet for a religion of the drug. In the 60s-ish era there were people that wanted to change the world with the drugs with plans to dose populations an…

> They can give people profound religious experiences. Some people become an unsettling kind of prophet for a religion of the drug. Like 0.01%? For every McKenna, Timophy Leary, etc, there were millions doing LSD in the 60s. And the "prophets" were mostly a fashion of the era too. When that died, in the 80s, and 90s and so on, you still had LSD, and shrooms, and Ecstasy, and others, but no "prophets".

I don’t know, I have met plenty of people that revolve their lives around their favorite drug and talk about them like a kind of religion. Most of them are rather low grade, but as i take it, it is a characteristic of hallucinogenic drugs not just a passed fad.

Re: Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

#23

I don't understand the controversy. We know full well the natural world is full of substances with significant impact on our bodies. Many such substances can even on average be harmful, but when used correctly, they are beneficial. Opioids come to mind first and foremost. It's not controversial to give e.g. serious accident victims a shot of morphine. Why are investigations into medicinal use of shrooms or marijuana…

Some of it is basically racist propaganda that entered the public consciousness and became "true". Hallucinogens though... aren't just drugs that change something a little. They can give people profound religious experiences. Some people become an unsettling kind of prophet for a religion of the drug. In the 60s-ish era there were people that wanted to change the world with the drugs with plans to dose populations an…

Governments and regulations. They've even created poster designs to make it visually evil.

https://mashable.com/2016/04/18/anti-weed-film-posters/

Re: Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

#24

I also highly recommend mindfulness meditation to reduce fear of death and improve quality of life

For at most, 11/12 people. For some folks, it makes anxiety or depression worse than when they started.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2251840-mindfulness-and....

Re: Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of it is basically racist propaganda that entered the public consciousness and became "true". Hallucinogens though... aren't just drugs that change something a little. They can give people profound religious experiences. Some people become an unsettling kind of prophet for a religion of the drug. In the 60s-ish era there were people that wanted to change the world with the drugs with plans to dose populations an…

Governments and regulations. They've even created poster designs to make it visually evil. https://mashable.com/2016/04/18/anti-weed-film-posters/

Some of those old posters have "its" spelled as "it's", was this how it was spelled before or is this a spelling error?

Re: Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

#26

I don't understand the controversy. We know full well the natural world is full of substances with significant impact on our bodies. Many such substances can even on average be harmful, but when used correctly, they are beneficial. Opioids come to mind first and foremost. It's not controversial to give e.g. serious accident victims a shot of morphine. Why are investigations into medicinal use of shrooms or marijuana…

I completely agree to you: a terminally ill person should be given whatever substance they want and even advised to take whatever a drug if it can make their last moments happier. Even if it's addictive or harms health - they don't need to maintain healthy living and society integration any more so why not?

I wouldn't even limit this to patients which are actually going to die soon and have no choice. Any patient eligible for euthanasia should be allowed to take any substance they want. It is absurd to let a person die but forbid them to take a shot of a substance "because it can harm their health" or whatever. I would even suggest them to take psychedelics - this may (or may not - a proper setting can be important) bring peace of mind and even sense of meaning in both dying and living, they pretty much may even change their mind.

Re: Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

#27

Which psychedelics (shrooms, acid, peyote, salvia, ketamine, ayahuasca) would be best for endogenous, treatment-resistant depression? If there are any with a proven effect, do they have to be taken periodically?

Ayahuasca changed my life completely, for the better.

I went from years of depression to zero depression in the first profound session. And I'm not a religious guy.

I highly recommend.

Re: Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

#28

I don't understand the controversy. We know full well the natural world is full of substances with significant impact on our bodies. Many such substances can even on average be harmful, but when used correctly, they are beneficial. Opioids come to mind first and foremost. It's not controversial to give e.g. serious accident victims a shot of morphine. Why are investigations into medicinal use of shrooms or marijuana…

Some of it is basically racist propaganda that entered the public consciousness and became "true". Hallucinogens though... aren't just drugs that change something a little. They can give people profound religious experiences. Some people become an unsettling kind of prophet for a religion of the drug. In the 60s-ish era there were people that wanted to change the world with the drugs with plans to dose populations an…

Right. So these are some very good reasons to be _careful_ about any research you do with this stuff. But to ban it, say no, never, crazy stuff, is incomprehensible to me.

Re: Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments and regulations. They've even created poster designs to make it visually evil. https://mashable.com/2016/04/18/anti-weed-film-posters/

Some of those old posters have "its" spelled as "it's", was this how it was spelled before or is this a spelling error?

Still an error - just poor copyediting.

Re: Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

#30
post #19

Which psychedelics (shrooms, acid, peyote, salvia, ketamine, ayahuasca) would be best for endogenous, treatment-resistant depression? If there are any with a proven effect, do they have to be taken periodically?

Ketamine is not generally considered a psychedelic. It's a disassociative. I don't think I've ever seen a study comparing this in the way you describe, but from piecing together other papers I recall seeing I would say probably psiloc(yb)in, possibly DMT ("ayahuasca"), with LSD and mescaline (peyote/san pedro) being qualitatively similar. All of these are primarily serotonergic. I'd be surprised if Salvia does jack s…

>> Ketamine is not generally considered a psychedelic. It's a disassociative.

Yeah, I don't think people who say that have done a high enough dosage. :P

Post reply on HN