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LSD: Not Even Once

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Re: LSD: Not Even Once

#271
post #126
post #52

> About 160 µg later Serious? You went with a strong dose on your first try and you blame Steve Jobs ? I mean, don't get me wrong, he was a dick what with driving a un-plated Porsche just so he could park in handicap spots and all, but this is 100% your fault. According to erowid, a starter dose is around 25ug.

Wonder if the first time he drank he chugged a fifth of vodka.

If you did that you might feel bad and be dehydrated the next day but you won't be suffering from psychosis or have permanent brain damage.

That's the problem with drugs. They're just not safe in the same way. No matter how hard the addicts cope.

Re: LSD: Not Even Once

#272
post #248
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tail risk is real though. I do hope someday we’ll have accurate estimates of those risks. In the meantime it seems pretty clear to me that the expected value of these drugs is negative. I think it was Charlie Munger who said “in the best case scenario you feel good for a few minutes. In the worst case scenario it ruins your life.”

This is true for anything though. For example: I dance (professionally), surf and snowboard. All three of them have caused me injuries, though only one of them left me with something permanent (very minor, more of an annoyance thankfully) and people have gotten extremely serious injuries and even death from all of them. Should we stop doing them recreationally because of possible risks?

No, because they all have significant upsides that far outweigh the tail risks

Re: LSD: Not Even Once

#273
post #248
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tail risk is real though. I do hope someday we’ll have accurate estimates of those risks. In the meantime it seems pretty clear to me that the expected value of these drugs is negative. I think it was Charlie Munger who said “in the best case scenario you feel good for a few minutes. In the worst case scenario it ruins your life.”

This is true for anything though. For example: I dance (professionally), surf and snowboard. All three of them have caused me injuries, though only one of them left me with something permanent (very minor, more of an annoyance thankfully) and people have gotten extremely serious injuries and even death from all of them. Should we stop doing them recreationally because of possible risks?

If the dance involved slamming your head off the pavement repeatedly until you start smelling colour then yes we would stop that form of dancing.

That's why we have things like alcohol and don't have things like heroin. It's all about risk vs reward. Heroin makes you feel much nicer than alcohol but it's almost certain to fuck your life up so we don't do it.

The head slam may be cooler than interpretive dance, but we don't do it because it gives you brain damage.

Re: LSD: Not Even Once

#274

The popular LSD and psychadelic advocacy online and elsewhere is an expression of the mainstream ideology. The foundation of our collective ideology tells us these drugs should have some profound life-altering and improving effect. Obviously, when examined critically, the premise is ridiculous on its face. Everyone I know who regularly does these types of drugs is not really doing much else with their lives. As for S…

You seem to have heard one extreme, that cannabis cures diseases, and you’ve snapped back to the other extreme where you state there is no such thing as a medical use of cannabis. Have you seen the studies? Have you looked into CBD? Yes, there’s a lot of exaggeration if you’re listening to some person who knows nothing about science, but there are true benefits with it as well. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath…

You can't exactly placebo cannabis. Anyone taking part in the study wants to take cannabis so when they take the unmarked plant product out of the packet they will tell the person running the study how amazing it is. The scientist will then report 100% success because everyone taking part is loving the new treatment.

Imagine if medical heroin was a new discovery. "I had depression so I took medical heroin and now I'm cured, we should be giving this to kids instead of pills". Because it makes you feel good and that reduces pain, people would believe it's a magical cure for everything rather than just being a painkiller. Ironically, medical heroin would actually be a safer and more effective cure for all of the things cannabis is being suggested for. The only real downside to heroin is the cost and that's what causes the societal problems.

Re: LSD: Not Even Once

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Psychedelic trips with mushrooms and with LSD are very similar, often you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. When there are visuals I find them to be more "organic" on mushrooms and more "sharp/electric" on LSD, but that’s very subjective/suggestible. But there are "social" trips where there are no visuals, usually when in a group and experiencing the substance together, there I wouldn’t be able to tell LSD and Psy…

> Psychedelic trips with mushrooms and with LSD are very similar, often you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. Having done both about a dozen times, this is not my experience or the experience that others have shared. Even a large dose of mushrooms only has subtle visual effects, while LSD makes the world look like a van Gogh painting.

Having done both far more than that, that's not my experience. I have had wildly visual mushroom trips (at higher dosages) and subtly visual LSD trips (at lower dosages). At comparable dosages and settings the main difference to me is just the duration.

Mushrooms in particular are hard to standardize a dosage of. Eat enough of some strong ones and things get plenty visual.

Re: LSD: Not Even Once

#276
When I was about 30 years younger, I drank alcohol-- a lot of alcohol. Often.

Then I married a woman who didn't drink much (some members of her family never drank-- ever, not even a drop) and I thought about how we should raise our kids. (We had 3.)

I haven't had a drink in a long time, and I don't miss it a bit. I'd feel even more so about drugs. I encourage everyone to think carefully about what you put in your body.

Re: LSD: Not Even Once

#278
Ya know, I have a hard time finding sympathy for LSD users who have bad trips. I say this as someone who has quite enjoyed it in the past.

People complaining about LSD, to me, sound like people complaining about being shot out of a cannon. You knew what was going to happen once you lit the fuse. You chose to shoot yourself out of the cannon. Not liking it is to be expected for a significant portion of the population; but stop pretending like it's some horrifyingly dangerous activity. This is the mental equivalent of pissing yourself while bungee jumping and warning other people that if they try it, they are 100% going to piss their own pants.

Re: LSD: Not Even Once

#279

Had a similar experience, but with the much more tame marijuana. It was a 6-hour long panic attack for me. Similar to the author of this, I read for years of how "the only way it could ever harm you is if you were crushed by 100 lbs of it" on sites like Reddit. It wasn't until after getting high that I heard about marijuana amplifying stress tendencies in a minority of people. I've always been high strung, and maybe…

As someone who has been consuming lots of marijuana in the past 25 years, my recommendation is to not consume marijuana when in a bad mood or in stressful situations. I see drugs (including alcohol) as mood amplifiers.

Also, THC triggers panic attacks in many people, regardless of their mood or whether any stress is going on in their life.

Re: LSD: Not Even Once

#280
If you are currently or were recently on SSRI antidepressants, there is a danger of triggering serotonin syndrome from LSD or psilocybin.

> Some recreational drugs, such as LSD and cocaine, and dietary supplements, including St. John's wort and ginseng, can also cause serotonin syndrome when you take them with these antidepressants.

https://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/serotonin-syndrome-ca...

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