Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

thetyee.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 204 posts

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

#31

Post by abyssin »

turrini wrote: post #27
blkknightarms wrote: post #3

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.

I'd love to read your story. Did you write about it? The years of depression, traveling to the ayahuasca place, the sessions, the changes you made in your life afterwards.

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

#32

Post by teataster »

fsloth wrote: post #20
rich_sasha wrote: post #6

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 presume the main reason for the controversy is the prevailing dogma "Drugs are evil". This dogma has been used to enact countless bills of legislation in most rich countries, which in turn have encumbered the justice and police system, which in turn have put thousands upon thousands of people into to the correctional system for years. After all that busywork, lives destroyed and taxpayer money wasted, it is really…

I believe there is some sort of nonsequitur on the proposed argument. You can stop the war on drugs and keep the "drugs are evil" narrative. It's called decriminalization. Stop bothering people for possessing, producing or using drugs, do as you want with those trafficking, and keep them illegal. This could be done progressively without loss of face by government. Oh wait, that's what the article is about!

Drugs, including alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceuticals are dangerous, and utmost caution should be had if using. If you can brew your own beer or grow your own cannabis, you probably have learnt a thing or two about caution. Either that or a professional cautious-person (doctor) will do the administration.

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

#33

Post by netcan »

rich_sasha wrote: post #6

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…

It's almost like asking "why are sex scandals controversial." You could come up with all sorts of arguments for or against the controversy in any specific case... but it kinda doesn't matter. When something is controversial, people argue for and against it by definition. Sex scandals have always been. Some of the oldest writing we have is basic law codes. Sex just seems to always attract controversy, even if taboos differ between cultures.

Mid altering substances are taboo, have been throughout modern times. Shrooms & grass are established recreationally, so controversy. Enough controversy to trump the normal medical exception from the taboo.

So yes, basically. It is really the picture of a sick old lady smokin' a massive spliff. That's the problem. Smoking spliffs is taboo. If old ladies do it, the taboo can't hold.

Taboos have two parts: the thing that's taboo and the ways a culture maintains it.... ie the controversy. Taboos dissipate unless they're forcefully guarded. Someone does a thing. No one makes a big deal. Someone else does the thing. It quickly becomes normative.

If you're old enough, think of the homosexuality taboo. How important it was (when I was a kid) to make sure no one thought you were a homo. Now it isn't, at least in my surrounds. We enforced the taboo on each other. When we stopped. It stopped.

The old lady with a spliff is like the supreme court of literal common law.

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

#34

Post by shekharshan »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #24
joeberon wrote: post #14

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... .

I would recommend unvarnished Buddhism, not mindfulness in a pill that is being taught by these crazy apps. Buddhism teaches mindfulness in the context of wisdom and morality, not just mindfulness. Moreover the word itself is a horrible translation of the Pali word “Sati” which means “remembering to be aware of the state of your mind”. The key is “remembering to be aware”, not just “awareness”.

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

#36

Post by GordonS »

Story time.

I recall one afternoon my friend and I picked and took some mushrooms (they grow in abundance at a certain time of year where I live), when I was perhaps 15 years old. We didn't take a huge quantity, but enough for a mild, pleasant experience.

That same evening I realised that I had to write an essay for school - it wasn't like me, but I'd completely forgotten about it, and now had a single evening to write a whole essay... bah, how could I possibly do that?!

I sat down, and... it just flowed. Words, sentences, paragraphs, ideas, characters, just sprang to life on the page - and it was good, really good! My mind felt amazing - like my consciousness had been expanded. I'd never felt such pure imagination and joy of knowledge before.

By the end of the evening I had unquestionably the best essay I'd ever written, and about twice the target length.

A week or so later when I got the results, it was a B, and I was kind of shocked - it was a masterpiece, dammit, and normally I pretty much got straight A's in English regardless! The teacher called me back after class - he told me what I submitted was way better than A+ work, more what would be expected at university level, or by a published author. He also asked who wrote it, because "it obviously wasn't you" - he didn't believe my insistence that I'd written it. He couldn't prove anything, so gave it a B and strongly warned me not to "pull a stunt like this ever again".

Of course, people can have great ideas and do great work without hallucinogenic drugs - that should really go without saying. But the results with such drugs can be utterly incredible - also keep in mind the effect is not only while using the drug, but afterwards too. The first time I k-holed on ketamine (many years later), it felt like I somehow understood the universe itself, and my mind felt incredible for 2-3 weeks afterwards.

A cautionary tale though. Later as a 15/16 year old again, we took an insane amount of mushrooms one night after something terrible had happened. Hundreds of them. I kept finding myself in the corner of the same room, staring at a troll (an hallucination). It seemed like it had happened a hundred times, and was pretty frightening. It was like being trapped in a never-ending nightmare. I later spent several hours shivering uncontrollably on a bed. It was a long time ago, but I guess the whole thing lasted at least 12 hours. I've never touched mushrooms or any other hallucinogen since, and I doubt I ever will, even if as an adult I wouldn't be as irresponsible as I was as a kid.

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

#37

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

colechristensen wrote: post #22
coldtea wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I don't think it's (just?) the drugs.

We can observe the behaviour in many types of interests.

This being HN, the obvious example is programming language zealotry. Other common examples are sports and cars. We see people walking down the street covered in car brand livery and think approximately nothing of it, and some of them will bang on about their chosen interest endlessly.

I tend to think it's more like a flaw in human psychology. Or maybe a strength of our inquisitive nature that sort of gets hijacked by an almost neurotic obsession.

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

#38

Post by john_minsk »

teataster wrote: post #32
fsloth wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume the main reason for the controversy is the prevailing dogma "Drugs are evil". This dogma has been used to enact countless bills of legislation in most rich countries, which in turn have encumbered the justice and police system, which in turn have put thousands upon thousands of people into to the correctional system for years. After all that busywork, lives destroyed and taxpayer money wasted, it is really…

I believe there is some sort of nonsequitur on the proposed argument. You can stop the war on drugs and keep the "drugs are evil" narrative. It's called decriminalization. Stop bothering people for possessing, producing or using drugs, do as you want with those trafficking, and keep them illegal. This could be done progressively without loss of face by government. Oh wait, that's what the article is about! Drugs, inc…

I like it;-) DIY or nothing.

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

#39

Post by rytill »

shekharshan wrote: post #34
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... .

I would recommend unvarnished Buddhism, not mindfulness in a pill that is being taught by these crazy apps. Buddhism teaches mindfulness in the context of wisdom and morality, not just mindfulness. Moreover the word itself is a horrible translation of the Pali word “Sati” which means “remembering to be aware of the state of your mind”. The key is “remembering to be aware”, not just “awareness”.

Why is that difference in phrase key?

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

#40

Post by coldtea »

colechristensen wrote: post #22
coldtea wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

On the personal level, that's the same with startup life, programming, gaming, veganism, cars, PC/Alt-right, environmentalism, body building, nerdery, sex, drink, sports, the stock market, politics, religion, and tons of other things besides, all the way to D&D.

But that doesn't mean psychedelics are especially prone to that.

Post reply on HN