Psilocybin found safe for consumption in largest ever controlled study • Hacker News Board

Re: Psilocybin found safe for consumption in largest ever controlled study

#51

Post by taxidump » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #28

ergothus wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've always been on the skeptical side of medical marijuana usage in all but the most extreme cases, Really? I've always found the milder claims fairly believable (fighting nausea or chronic low level pain relief). As an anecdote, I can attest to dealing with kidney stone pain well (rather than stopping the pain it reduced how much I noticed it) and it ended up more effective and felt less dangerous than the opiods…

Personally, I'm a skeptic that 1. CBD+THC offers any additional medical† benefits over CBD used alone; 2. that it makes any medical sense to prescribe a (non-dose-controllable) plant over a pill, or at the very least an extract with tested dosage. I'm not skeptical of the medical benefits of (some of) the compounds in marijuana; I'm just a skeptic of prescribing marijuana itself as a way of delivering those compounds…

>Personally, I'm a skeptic that 1. CBD+THC offers any additional medical† benefits over CBD used alone;

Why?

>2. that it makes any medical sense to prescribe a (non-dose-controllable) plant over a pill,

Some medication, in pill form, is highly toxic.. see opiates which is a common alternative to thc for pain relief.

How did your comment reach the top?

Re: Psilocybin found safe for consumption in largest ever controlled study

#52

Post by ianai » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

LinuxBender wrote: post #40

ianai wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d steer you toward kava kava as a legal and otc way to change your mind and emotions for the better or more open. Also St. John’s wort.

I would add in the non essential amino acid L-Theanine [1]. Has a nice calming and focusing effect. [1] - https://examine.com/supplements/theanine/

I get that from matcha in the morning. Very focused, almost driven sort of energy. Definitely a nootropic for my purposes.

Re: Psilocybin found safe for consumption in largest ever controlled study

#53

Post by ianai » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

LinuxBender wrote: post #42

mothsonasloth wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After googling, it appears that kava causes liver damage, thanks but no thanks

Yes you probably would not want to take it for an extended period of time [1] There is not a direct causation link to liver damage as of yet. It may be that people have a preexisting issue that is exacerbated by kava. [1] - https://examine.com/supplements/kava/

There was something of a hit campaign against it at one point. I forget the specifics, but it’s safe if you do your homework and buy from proven sources.

Re: Psilocybin found safe for consumption in largest ever controlled study

#54

Post by semi-extrinsic » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

dmurray wrote: post #37

arkades wrote: post #8

This is NOT a trial that was designed to assess the safety of psilocybin. This was a trial meant to show that a particular dosage of psilocybin is /safe enough/ to pursue further research in that dose range. This was a /phase one/ clinical trial. Phase One: administer small doses under very close supervision in a tiny number of people to determine whether it's immediately dangerous, or safe enough /for further study/…

Are controlled experiments necessary for proving safety? Intuitively, there shouldn't be a placebo effect, and you could get twice as powerful a study by giving twice as many people the drug and using statistics for the general population as the control group.

Why shouldn't there be a placebo effect? It's well documented for basically any drug, even for alcohol. Serve people non-alcoholic drinks but tell them otherwise, and they get drunk.

Re: Psilocybin found safe for consumption in largest ever controlled study

#55

Post by JackRabbitSlim » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

arkades wrote: post #8

This is NOT a trial that was designed to assess the safety of psilocybin. This was a trial meant to show that a particular dosage of psilocybin is /safe enough/ to pursue further research in that dose range. This was a /phase one/ clinical trial. Phase One: administer small doses under very close supervision in a tiny number of people to determine whether it's immediately dangerous, or safe enough /for further study/…

https://www.caymanchem.com/msdss/14041m.pdf

Acute toxicity level 4 for Oral ingestion

https://www.ilo.org/legacy/english/protection/safework/ghs/g...

Defines Toxicity level 4 as ~ 2000 to The most potent strain of "magic mushrooms" are at most ~2% by weight(Psilocybe azurescens)[0]. So according to all the de facto standard literature, a potentially fatal dose of magic mushrooms is over 3 ounces of dried mushroom per kilogram of body weight. At 68 kg I would need to ingest over 5 kg to come up to the lower bound of the LD50.

No one without an axe to grind could realistically argue toxicity is a real valid concern.

[0]https://www.shroomery.org/8700/Psilocybe-azurescens-taxonomy...

Re: Psilocybin found safe for consumption in largest ever controlled study

#56

Post by freedomben » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

tempsy wrote: post #13

freedomben wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very optimistic as well. My family has hard-to-treat depression and there's a lot of reason to be optimistic about psilocybin. Michael Pollan's "How to Change Your Mind" was a fantastic read. It only makes me wonder what other possibilities have been out there but banned and therefore unavailable for study and experimentation. Luckily the days of censoring and hoarding information seem to be coming to an end. Of…

From my experience it's incorrect to think of psilocybin as some magic pill that will magically make your depression go away. I'm in the camp that depression is rarely just some "chemical imbalance" in the brain that you were unlucky to be born with, and yet that is how we currently think of it and treat it. It's most often the case there is something in one's past, very often from one's childhood, that has been avoi…

> From my experience it's incorrect to think of psilocybin as some magic pill that will magically make your depression go away.

I don't think you are accusing me of saying that, but just to be clear I completely agree with this. Michael Pollan's book also doesn't paint it as a "magic pill." No doubt some people assume that, but I don't believe it exists.

I do wonder about the accuracy of Freudian ideas, such as something in ones childhood being the cause or at least playing a role. It's certainly possible. Being raised by depressed people sucks, and there's a lot of scars that probably contribute to why depression seems to be inherited.

Re: Psilocybin found safe for consumption in largest ever controlled study

#57

Post by oarabbus_ » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #28

ergothus wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've always been on the skeptical side of medical marijuana usage in all but the most extreme cases, Really? I've always found the milder claims fairly believable (fighting nausea or chronic low level pain relief). As an anecdote, I can attest to dealing with kidney stone pain well (rather than stopping the pain it reduced how much I noticed it) and it ended up more effective and felt less dangerous than the opiods…

Personally, I'm a skeptic that 1. CBD+THC offers any additional medical† benefits over CBD used alone; 2. that it makes any medical sense to prescribe a (non-dose-controllable) plant over a pill, or at the very least an extract with tested dosage. I'm not skeptical of the medical benefits of (some of) the compounds in marijuana; I'm just a skeptic of prescribing marijuana itself as a way of delivering those compounds…

Hydroponic cannabis is grown in highly controlled environments and the dosage levels are tested to be within an acceptable range. There are also dozens (hundreds) of other cannabinoids found in marijuana which (may) have additional medical benefits.

>It's like prescribing willow bark for a headache when aspirin exists.

Willow bark contains salicin, not aspirin, while marijuana contains both THC and CBD. Willow bark also doesn't have the same blood-thinning effects of aspirin, which makes both viable pain relief choices for different populations.

This really just sounds like "plants bad; pills good!"

Re: Psilocybin found safe for consumption in largest ever controlled study

#58

Post by tempsy » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 10:11 PM UTC

filoleg wrote: post #49

tempsy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience it's incorrect to think of psilocybin as some magic pill that will magically make your depression go away. I'm in the camp that depression is rarely just some "chemical imbalance" in the brain that you were unlucky to be born with, and yet that is how we currently think of it and treat it. It's most often the case there is something in one's past, very often from one's childhood, that has been avoi…

Agreed. Imo, psilocybin won't just magically fix a chemical imbalance in your head. But it can open you up (for the duration of its effect) to some thoughts and ideas that could help you resolve your internal issues causing you depression, and those thoughts and realizations are what can help with getting rid of depression, as those realizations can stay with you even after the trip is over. Which is somewhat similar…

yeah not sure why my comment was downvoted tbh. i guess there is a large segment of the population that thinks of illness as something that happens to them, and doesn't want to take responsibility in controlling or mitigating it without a so called magic pill.

Re: Psilocybin found safe for consumption in largest ever controlled study

#59

Post by arkades » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 10:15 PM UTC

JackRabbitSlim wrote: post #55

arkades wrote: post #8

This is NOT a trial that was designed to assess the safety of psilocybin. This was a trial meant to show that a particular dosage of psilocybin is /safe enough/ to pursue further research in that dose range. This was a /phase one/ clinical trial. Phase One: administer small doses under very close supervision in a tiny number of people to determine whether it's immediately dangerous, or safe enough /for further study/…

https://www.caymanchem.com/msdss/14041m.pdf Acute toxicity level 4 for Oral ingestion https://www.ilo.org/legacy/english/protection/safework/ghs/g... Defines Toxicity level 4 as ~ 2000 to The most potent strain of "magic mushrooms" are at most ~2% by weight(Psilocybe azurescens)[0]. So according to all the de facto standard literature, a potentially fatal dose of magic mushrooms is over 3 ounces of dried mushroom per…

Acute toxicity and LD50/fatal dosages are fine when you're worried about acute overdoses or unintentional ingestions.

Those are not the measures we are concerned with when we're talking about uncommon or rare effects (which, like the Vioxx deaths, had an incidence of one in /thousands/ at standard dosages), or effects that manifest with /chronic/ usage (e.g., over years of use, as is common with anti-depressant therapy).

What you're discussing is apples to oranges.

Re: Psilocybin found safe for consumption in largest ever controlled study

#60

Post by arkades » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 10:18 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #32

arkades wrote: post #8

This is NOT a trial that was designed to assess the safety of psilocybin. This was a trial meant to show that a particular dosage of psilocybin is /safe enough/ to pursue further research in that dose range. This was a /phase one/ clinical trial. Phase One: administer small doses under very close supervision in a tiny number of people to determine whether it's immediately dangerous, or safe enough /for further study/…

Still big news that anyone is even doing phase 1 trials, since you wouldn't tend to bother if you didn't intend to follow up with further phases. I.e. "X is safe in a phase 1 trial" is never a useful terminal fact that you set out to prove and then, having proven it, do nothing more.

The vast majority of drugs don't make it through phase 3. Most will fail by the end of phase 2. If we trumpeted every time a prospective intervention underwent the earliest phases of study... well, I guess we'd have what we have had for years. Constant claims of miracle drugs on the way, with almost no subsequent impact on human lives.

If you find the endless hype a source of optimism and hope, then ... well, I guess I /am/ glad you have another source of optimism and hope. I don't share it, though.