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Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients

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

#51

Post by tonyedgecombe »

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…

do as you want with those trafficking, and keep them illegal.

If you keep them illegal then you lose control. If they are made available from your local chemist then you can legislate for quality and strength.

Keeping them illegal also has a massive unwanted side effect in terms of encouraging criminal gangs and violence. All that would go away if customers could just stroll down to their local Boots and buy a packet of spliffs.

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

#52

Post by rStar »

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.

hallucinogenics, for those that have a positive experience, are so foreign and outside the bounds of normal life, while making you feel like you have new insight into your own life, that people just want other people to have that experience. kind of like the first time you see the ocean or the grand canyon or a sequoia.

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

#53

Post by samizdis »

VectorLock wrote: post #4

I'm glad we have erowid for recording people's tripping experiences.

And, of course, we have the excellent first-hand accounts of Alexander and Ann Shulgin in PiHKAL; which covers many psychedelic drugs and notes their effects at varying dosages. (It also covers synthesis.)

Widipedia article here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PiHKAL

Electronic copies of the book used to be widely available online, but I can't vouch for any links that have turned up in a quick search a few minutes ago. Hard copies are still available, and are probably more complete and/or safer.

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

#54

Post by viraptor »

varispeed wrote: post #46
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…

The problem is that in many western cultures suffering is being regarded as a virtue and happiness as a great sin especially if achieved by using substances rather than through other actions. You can glaringly see that where people with chronic pain are denied access to medicinal cannabis, for example here in the UK. You can only receive treatment through a private medical clinic which costs hundreds and sometimes th…

> Do they fake chronic pain to get high?

Not trying to undermine the other part, which is true and I wish more countries would move faster. But this may be part of the problem officially. Yes, people routinely seek regulated drugs from doctors by faking symptoms. Enough to create systems where you can register people receiving prescriptions so that other doctors know not to prescribe multiple overlapping doses.

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

#55

Post by C19is20 »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #26
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 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 eli…

I'm dying, can I have....? No, it'll make you sick. I'm dying for a cigarette. Oh, ok, no problem.

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

#56

Post by vidarh »

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…

Decriminalisation keeps many of the worst aspects of the war on drugs in place. Aspects that are damaging and immoral in that they cause far more harm than they prevent.

Even drugs like heroin should be fully legalised. Subject to prescription, maybe. But the harm from a clean, consistent heroin supply is vastly lower than the harm caused by the manufacture and smuggling alone, and decriminalisation of possession does not address that. Decriminalisation also does not address the cost issue which is a major problem with many drugs. A medical grade supply for a typical heroin user costs in the $10-$20 range (we know because e.g. the UK NHS buys heroin for hospital use; if you're given diamorphine for post-op pain, that's heroin).

But the biggest problem with the "drugs are evil" narrative is that it has damages serious discourse about which drugs are lower or higher risk.

LSD and psilocybin for example are certainly vastly lower risk than e.g. heroin and cocaine.

In fact, there's a famous case of a group of patients checking in after having snorted what they thought was cocaine, but which turned out to be LSD. Their blood levels suggest they would have ingested hundreds to thousands of normal recreational doses. They all walked out of there with no lasting harm.

In terms of other drugs, some drugs exists largely for time-limited circumvention of drug laws or because they're easier to create or smuggle, and would see their demands crash if less dangerous alternatives were legalised.

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

#57

Post by Rillen »

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.

It just might be the same thing as everything someone is doing more then others. Like building legos in your lego cave, going golfing every week etc. etc.

Yes the experience of LSD is shattering your own reality but for me, i'm very conscious to not promote it in something everyone needs to experience.

Having a flashback on the toilet 4 weeks later and thinking 'does it ever go away, am i imprisoned now, did i break my brain' for 10 minutes, is something difficult to handle.

Also while doing it and experiencing once, i'm fine with doing it every decade once, still not promoting it to everyone.

Giving LSD to someone on their death bed without prior experience? Holy shit no.

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

#58

Post by jaynetics »

pedro1976 wrote: post #8

I want to reccommend a pretty inspiring JRE podcast with mycologist Paul Stamets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ

JRE = "Joe Rogan Experience" (for those non-americans who can only come up with "Java Runtime Environment" like me)

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

#59

Post by francescopnpn »

mettamage wrote: post #44
xyzal wrote: post #2

Anecdote: I have suffered from anxiety since I can remember. I had the opportunity to take psilocybe a few times (always took about quarter of a dose than my trip-mates, out of fear of a bad trip, and most of the times had just subtle perceptual distortions), and the following days/weeks always seemed unusually serene.

Your dosage cannot be emphasized enough (!). First time I took it, half a dose, I felt like a 12 year old child. It was a lot of fun. Second time I took it, a full dose, I had a bad trip. But I was with my girlfriend, so it was never too bad. I also learned that I trust her completely emotionally. I relied on her a lot. Third time I took it with a very close friend (15+ years of knowing, inspired each other to study…

different people have different tolerances. clearly your sweet spot was "half a dose" dude.

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

#60

Post by Rillen »

surfsvammel wrote: post #48
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 think it's a left over from the eighties, as a response to the hippie areas romantic view of such drugs. I also believe that is why, for example, LSD is so stigmatized.

Imagine being a parent, never done LSD, not having a single clue what it can do and seeing your child becoming crazy, different, telling you things you can't comprehend and never had an desire to do so.

I can see why it is frightening to many 'normal' people who are just living their lives, wanting to have a house, family, job, holidays and perhaps partially overwhelmed by all of that already anyway.

I brought weed brownies to a birthday party for me and also for good friends to try if they wanted to. They live in 'rural' areas. Its common for them to drink alcohol, a lot. Drugs? no never no interest don't care.

While i already had ~5 year of experience with weed, they didn't even see it once. why would they? They have alcohol, it works for them, its common, easy and fun.

They had a really really hard time of even trying a brownie. They didn't even get why i would smoke weed if the effects are shallow. They didn't knew that you will not see halluzinations.

i think i'm over curious. This leads me to not being happy about what i have and looking for new. They are under curious and they are happy with that they have. Is that a problem? No its just different balanced.

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