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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

#81

Post by matthewdgreen »

ojr wrote: post #79
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…

To be honest it is more harmful than beneficial, these drugs can have a short term side effect of racing thoughts, distorted reality, increased heart rate, paranoia, etc, these effects are well known but people like riding rollercoasters. Long term harmful side effects include onset of schizophrenia, bipolar and psychosis, lung cancer, etc. More people are using drugs like shrooms and weed recreationally than medicin…

Are these long term side effects as common with a single dose of psilocybin? Or are they mainly the result of stronger psychedelics given over multiple doses.

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

#84

Post by etripe »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #17
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…

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…

Become stupid temporarily, or permanently due to brain damage? If the latter, that's a very strong claim.

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

#85

Post by the_only_law »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #17
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…

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…

I can go to a store right now If I wanted and take my pick of one certain recreational, legal neurotoxin.

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

#86

Post by washadjeffmad »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #17
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…

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…

Chronic pain does affect the brain, which we already know has long term physiological and neurodegenerative effects. However, we don't have any evidence that psilocybin causes any lasting harm, especially against cognition.

Opiate harm is also not limited to addiction. Overdosing and liver toxicity from (abuse of) prescribed opiates is real and driven by their steep curve of tolerance. Opiate withdrawal for many can be harsh enough that it's worse than the pain being managed, leading to perverse outcomes like theft, violence, exploitation, and addictive cycles. Inhibitions are also altered under the influence and during withdrawal leading to riskier behaviors and accidents.

Those are the low-hanging rebuttals. We already know the societal cost of opiates far, far outweighs the damage of other recreational substances because of its availability, potential for harm, effects on interpersonal relationships and mental state, and propensity for addictive abuse. Psylocybin has mild potential for mental addiction but none of the cofactors for abuse or deleterious side effects on health.

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

#87

Post by sokoloff »

teataster wrote: post #68
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, no government control is exactly the point of no legalization. Violence and gangs and ridiculous prices are a symptom of criminalization. If in order to produce and consume you face several years prison, gangsters happen. If nobody cares if you produce, your neighbor might start producing, he might have a surplus and accept some cheese in exchange.

I’m pretty glad that the government is involved (in a regulatory/oversight fashion) in the chain of events that results in me having a bottle of $0.02 vitamin D3 pills in my cabinet.

I know they’re safe; I know what’s in them; a year’s supply costs less than a meal in an inexpensive restaurant.

I don’t care if someone wants to make their own, but it seems like harm is minimized if these chemical substances that alter your body are treated similarly to other such substances.

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

#88

Post by cranekam »

momirlan wrote: post #76
paufernandez wrote: post #73

With all these articles I wonder about survivorship bias: where are the ones about people which had a bad experience with psilocybin?

When you are dying of cancer, a bad trip is a small inconvenience. A therapist will make the chance of that very small anyway.

Yep. If psychedelics were to be given to terminally ill patients it's fair to assume it'd be under the guidance of someone who knows how to help things go well and in a comfortable environment. It probably wouldn't involve said person dropping a full dose and hitting a concert only to find the rest of the crowd are ogres and the music is stabbing them.

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

#89

Post by kortex »

Rillen wrote: post #57
colechristensen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Eh, if I were slowly dying over the course of weeks, and I were given 50/50 odds: "this wild ameliorate your mortality salience, or break your brain and make you crazy" I'd still take that. Heck, if you're worried about being crazy, you are probably less worried about death.

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

#90

Post by slfnflctd »

kakkan wrote: post #75
GordonS wrote: post #36

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 wri…

Another aspect which is absolutely need to good is the company that you take the drugs in. Once, I took LSD with a couple of "friends" of mine, which turned out to be a sort of devil-worshiping ritual to indoctrinate me into their cult. Apparently all of them had went through this process where they played a niche genre of music called "darkpsy" which is absolutely horrendous to your ears. From my experience of the e…

Sorry that happened to you. Many years ago, I went through something loosely similar (actually it happened like 3 times in different ways). The gist is that I started to suspect there was 'another level' going on with a group of people, some kind of hidden ritual relating to some kind of secret power, and that it was at least partly nefarious/evil.

I've thought about this a lot since, and I think much of it was being a situation where boundaries and intentions were unclear, and having that crash headlong into the belief systems I'd been raised with. My mind was reaching for explanations for my sensory overload & the firehose of novel data coming in-- so the war between 'demons' and 'angels' I had been repeatedly taught was real as a kid was what it latched on to.

I have learned since then that this is one of many common adverse reactions to tripping in a bad situation. I strongly, strongly encourage therapy! Uncertainty in this area can lead to misguided forays into cults, conspiracy theories or even a psychotic break.

By the way, I had never heard of darkpsy, so I decided to check it out. It's definitely interesting to me sober (I like weird stuff), but I would absolutely not want to listen to this back in the days when I was tripping. What was done to you was cruel, whether it was really meant that way or not.

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