[HN Gopher] The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs
___________________________________________________________________
The high-stakes race to engineer new psychedelic drugs
Author : gtsnexp
Score : 91 points
Date : 2022-07-31 10:24 UTC (2 days ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| anglojlo wrote:
| Just legalize the ones we got already.
| throw819352119 wrote:
| I have a friend who has severe depression, including self harm
| and thoughts of suicide. So far guided meditation sessions and
| antidepressants have had little effect.
|
| I have read that some illicit drugs can be effective in treating
| depression, even after just one or two uses. Can anyone suggest
| what might be the best option out of ketamine, shrooms, LSD or
| MDMA?
| scythe wrote:
| Speaking very broadly, ketamine has shown positive effects on
| depression, MDMA on PTSD, and psychedelics on grief and to some
| extent anxiety. So it really depends on what your friend is
| dealing with in their personal life.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| By "psychedelics" do you mean psilocybin? As Ketamine and
| MDMA are also both psychedelic
| scythe wrote:
| I mean "classical" psychedelics whose activity is primarily
| mediated through activation of the 5-ht2a receptor.
| cannaceo wrote:
| Ayahuasca, then MDMA.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Please don't give your severely depressed friend random street
| drugs in hopes it will magically help them.
|
| You are not equipped to purity test them, severely depressed
| people can become more suicidal on rebounds, and you are almost
| certainly not equipped to care for them if they hit a major
| health issue.
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| If their depression stems from isolation and the inability to
| relate to, trust, or connect with others then I'd recommend
| MDMA.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> As psychedelic therapies for mental health go mainstream,
| companies are recruiting chemists to create patentable versions
| of hallucinogens.
|
| Same old same old. Let's tweak this molecule to make it "novel"
| while retaining it's cool properties. Then we can patent it and
| own the market. In this case they also get the advantage that the
| existing molecule is illegal.
| labrador wrote:
| I'm not above making money off it if I can despite the Nurse
| Ratched vibe: https://www.psychedelicfinance.com/
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| 'Engineered' experiences, huh? To what end?
|
| At least the article 'tuned in' to Shulgin. More on Sasha and
| Ann's prolonged studies, along with a big bibliography, here (Web
| 1)
| [https://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/shulgin_alexander/...]
| labrador wrote:
| It's sad that the only way to legalize is to force people to see
| a qualified therapist and take patented psychedelics in order to
| benefit from the experience, but that's what the normies want.
|
| I've taken them with a therapist and it was meh because the
| doctor/patient relationship became weird under the influence. On
| the other hand I've had peak experiences by myself alone in a
| redwood forest on a fresh clear morning.
| standardUser wrote:
| Mushrooms are being lightly legalized in some cities and
| states. And while a lot of that is under the umbrella of mental
| health or spirituality, it is not being confined to medical
| environments. The normies appear to be losing that particular
| battle. And I think they're set to lose a lot more.
| labrador wrote:
| There are some spots in American where that is very true,
| such as my hometown of Santa Cruz
|
| That said, I am not opposed to a therapeutic setting if
| that's what people who never tried them feel comfortable with
|
| Leading the psychedelic renaissance: https://maps.org/
| cflewis wrote:
| As a normie for whom ketamine treatment was a life changer, I
| can attest I would never ever have taken it without specialist
| supervision. And by specialist, I mean someone qualified, not
| some dude who has done plenty and has a K dealer.
|
| I would hazard there's a large contingent of normies for whom
| the difference between supervised medical treatments that
| happen to be psychedelics and just the act of taking
| psychedelics is too large a leap.
|
| I personally hate the experience. The hate is part of the goal
| of being able to stop being in control all the time, but it
| doesn't mean I like it. I also hate the hangover feeling
| afterwards, but the neuroplasticy benefits have been profound
| and so I keep doing the treatment.
|
| TL;DR benefits are there, normies should be allowed them too,
| non-normies I assume can still do black market work.
| rjbwork wrote:
| >non-normies I assume can still do black market work.
|
| Why do you want non-normies to have gun toting government
| thugs put them in a concrete box for 20 years because they
| don't want to get a permission slip to do the same thing you
| did?
| [deleted]
| labrador wrote:
| I'm excited by what you describe and glad for it, but my
| sadness is that I could still be arrested by possessing
| mushrooms I picked for myself in a forest. I've been
| confronted by the authorities over this issue and believe me
| it is not a pleasant or healing experience.
| Gatsky wrote:
| These drugs clearly have risks. I know a case who took LSD and
| amputated his genitals during the trip (heard this first hand
| from the urologist who reattached said genitals). Sure, many or
| even most people will be fine, but some clearly won't. Sure, he
| has a mental illness and took too much and was alone, but
| that's exactly the issue. Do you have any suggestions how to
| make these drugs broadly safe without giving in to the
| supposedly unreasonable demands of the 'normies'?
| game-of-throws wrote:
| Is it really what "normies" want? Or is it just what drug
| companies/lobbyists want?
| criddell wrote:
| I think at least some normies want that. I'm pretty much as
| normie as it gets and I've been watching Michael Pollan's
| series on Netflix _How to Change Your Mind_. One day I might
| want to try LSD, psilocybin, or MDMA (those are the episodes
| I 've watched) but probably wouldn't until I could buy from
| an FDA regulated company. I don't trust dark web sources or
| the neighborhood guy who knows a guy.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Reach out to a friend and explain your situation, I'm sure
| you can find what you're looking for. These substances are
| ubiquitous. You might benefit from having a friend around
| while you're tripping, anyway.
| km3r wrote:
| You can and should test any substance you acquire from an
| unregulated source.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| tayo42 wrote:
| You can test what you buy with multiple reagent tests to
| make sure what you have is what you think it is. You can
| even send to labs if your extra paranoid. Also the dw runs
| on reviews. Some one selling something fake won't last
| long. Some have reputations from years of selling.
| gjs278 wrote:
| labrador wrote:
| In America we live in a democracy (last I checked) so it's
| the mainstream public who decides in the end. The people in
| various western states were the first to decide that
| marijuana should be legal. So by normies I mean mainstream
| voters who worry about their children having uncontrolled
| access to psychedelics. Normies believe rules are made to be
| followed and laws are there for a reason.
| TylerE wrote:
| Legalization would decrease underage availability, if
| anything.
|
| To quote an older friend who grew up in a dry county in
| Alabama: "The bootleggers didn't care how old you were
| which was a good thing because I liked to drink and when I
| was 16 I looked 13"
| NickC25 wrote:
| Probably a mix of both. People who have some experience with
| drugs might want the benefit of the trip, but people who are
| a little more hesitant of the idea of mind-altering
| substances that last 8+ hours, such as LSD, might be more
| comfortable with some sort of watered-down experience backed
| by a major pharma brand and delivered by a licensed
| therapist.
|
| Of course, drug companies and lobbyists also dream of such
| outcomes.
| criddell wrote:
| Is an inexpensive drug that can "cure" PTSD after a very
| small number of doses a dream or nightmare for drug
| companies and lobbyists?
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Someone does lsd and shoots up a gas station.
|
| Was it the lsd or were they just already nutters? Nobody
| knows.
|
| Telling people to take strong drugs that are purity
| tested and in a supervised clinical setting is sensible,
| not some conspiracy.
| NickC25 wrote:
| A nightmare - as said companies will have a fixed amount
| of revenue per patient, and it won't be recurring.
|
| Wall Street doesn't like companies that go against the
| ingrained model of "extremely expensive long term care as
| a service".
| colinsane wrote:
| what of the insurance companies though? if they no longer
| have to pay for recurring treatments, then more of the
| customer's monthly premium can go to the shareholder.
| Wall Street gets their recurring revenue one way or
| another.
| criddell wrote:
| Insurance is regulated. Typically they can only hold on
| to about 20% of the premium. If they collect too much
| money, you will get a rebate check mailed to you.
| heap_perms wrote:
| I think utopia would be to have _both_. That would mean
| legalization, and free distribution, but you can still take it
| in a therapy setting if you want to.
| mathgladiator wrote:
| Do we really need new ones? Maybe, we just need to decriminalize
| nature and let a shamanic class arise to guide us on a spiritual
| journey of self-awareness.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| What could possibly go wrong?
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Freedom is default. Your burden is to explain why an
| individual can't take a psychedelic drug.
| LocalH wrote:
| Things are certainly not going "right" now, where everything
| medical has to be gatekept
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Shamanic rituals have been the cornerstone of many of the
| great civilizations of the past. Why are substances that
| induce introspection and a sense of belonging to something
| greater than yourself banned?
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Sometimes they cause psychotic breaks and Timmy eats off
| Becca's ear or runs buck naked into the woods and dies.
|
| You know, that sorta stuff.
| asdff wrote:
| The rituals are already happening. We just choose to ruin
| people's lives over it.
| stocknoob wrote:
| What could possibly go wrong with a society full of people
| living unexamined lives?
| [deleted]
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Mostly they end up kind of boring or being jerks. That is a
| very well known outcome.
| mathgladiator wrote:
| I'm sure lots can go wrong, but the justice department is the
| wrong place for these issues to be resolved.
| NickC25 wrote:
| There was an NYT article not too long ago whose entire point is
| that "true" psychedelic drugs are too dangerous to go mainstream,
| but isolated chemical compounds that provide some of the chemical
| effects of LSD / Mushrooms / Ketamine without the "trip" were a
| much better way to go. The reasoning was that they could engineer
| a way to chemically induce neuroplastic change in the brain
| without the liability of visual or auditory hallucinations.
|
| Talk about missing the forest from the trees.
|
| The whole transformative experience is the "trip" itself. Dosing
| myself in a therapist's office sounds terrifying. The best
| experience I've ever had was taking a hit of LSD in my living
| room and spending the day with a pen and paper, writing down
| thoughts as they came to me.
| user90323432 wrote:
| The problem is that Pharma companies can't patent and sell a
| full spectrum product. They can only make the big bucks by
| getting a certain compound approved after going through the
| full FDA process on that one particular compound. It's the same
| thing we saw with kratom. The FDA had multiple attempts over
| the last 7 years to ban it, while kratom is basically as
| harmless as coffee. It took a massive grassroots effort to stop
| the ban. Then shortly after it comes out that GlaxoSmithKline,
| who the FDA head (Scott Gottlieb) at the time of the attempted
| ban sat on the board for just a year prior, was trying to bring
| synthetic 7-hydroxy-mitragynine (7hm is thought to be a main
| active ingredient in kratom) to market, which it has a patent
| on. Follow the money people
| jokowueu wrote:
| i have tried all the psychadelics that dont provide "trips" .
| all of them were complete failures yet they show effects on
| mice for some reason but when did that ever matter.
|
| The only interesting one that was impressive was tabernanthalog
| but even though it didn't produce a twitch response in mice it
| clearly had a psychadelic effect
| elevaet wrote:
| How did you end up getting to test tabernanthalog and these
| other novel compounds?
| jokowueu wrote:
| I belong to a group where we group our money together to
| either get the required precursors to make them or hire
| chemists over seas . It's quite easy but larger quantities
| are required to bring down the cost
|
| There are a lot of other substances as well just recently
| we were able to procure very cheap rapamycin for people
| with autoimmune issues
|
| If you are interested in joining or just look around reply
| to me here
| kennyloginz wrote:
| How do I join? ( serious question)
| 14 wrote:
| Where does one buy LSD this day and age. Doesn't seem very
| popular in my neck of the woods and have not heard anyone
| having it since I was in high school 20 years ago.
| Fargoan wrote:
| There's an international network of computers used for
| communication and commerce. You can find it on this network.
|
| "1P-LSD - PsychonautWiki"
| https://m.psychonautwiki.org/wiki/1P-LSD
| kaoD wrote:
| I recommend staying away from street dealers. There was a
| huge influx of NBOx compounds sold as LSD blotters since 2017
| (apparently there was a global LSD shortage around that year,
| and IIRC they're cheaper to produce?) Their safety profile is
| not well-understood but it looks like it's riskier than the
| (very safe) LSD due to their vasoconstriction effects, and
| fatal doses aren't that high compared to active doses, unlike
| LSD which has a huge buffer.
|
| Also people tend to describe their trips as being
| subjectively less pleasant.
|
| And please, if you have to resort to dealers, invest in a
| cheap testing kit. You might be lucky and find a nearby non-
| profit that can not only do a cheap reactive test, but also a
| purity test.
|
| Stay safe out there.
|
| EDIT: Sibling comments also mention compounds like 1P-LSD
| sold online. I'd still test those even if bought from
| reputable vendors.
|
| Anyways, their safety profiles aren't really that well
| understood either. They're suspected to be just metabolized
| into LSD and therefore pretty safe, but they're very new
| (~2015) and after all they're research chemicals (or rather,
| not-yet-researched chemicals). In comparison LSD had been
| known for decades and it's pretty well understood.
|
| I guess this is what prohibition leads to...
| nick__m wrote:
| It's been at least decade since I did LSD or it's derivatives
| but I still read about them and I known that if you live in
| Canada a search for indole lysergamine and ALD-52[1] should
| lead you to a shop!
|
| 1) https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/ALD-52
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Seems pretty testable. Co administer the LSD with something to
| knock out the individual, and ideally prevent them from
| dreaming.
|
| You could determine if the benifit(s) arise from the the
| process, experience, and dis/associations of the trip or simply
| the subconscious biochemical fuckery.
| turdit wrote:
| the word you were looking for was probably "psychoactive" not
| "neuroplastic"
| NickC25 wrote:
| Perhaps.
|
| The whole point of the article is that psychedelics increase
| neuroplasticity within the brain, and that pharma companies
| are trying to synthesize a molecule that does exactly that,
| but without the hallucinations.
|
| Here's the article in question - perhaps there's something I
| missed that you might understand better than I do:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/15/opinion/hallucinations-
| ps...
| heap_perms wrote:
| " _Talk about missing the forest from the trees. The whole
| transformative experience is the "trip" itself. _"
|
| I couldn't agree more. In fact, the trip itself is not a nice
| side effect, it's the precondition to get measurable, long-term
| positive changes.
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| That is a claim that would require a study to confirm. No
| such study has been done to my knowledge.
| thrown_22 wrote:
| This is like asking for a study to prove you really love
| your children.
|
| Anyone asking either doesn't have any or needs help.
| yababa_y wrote:
| Studies have been done! Here is the latest one, for
| psilocybin. The mystical experiences are deeply related to
| therapeutic outcome https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10
| .3389/fphar.2022.8416...
|
| Here is the first one I am aware of:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3050654/. So
| 14 years of evidence backing up this claim.
| joshuajill wrote:
| These mystical experiences are part of the outcome, not
| an environmental variable. There maybe anecdotal or some
| other kind of evidence in the sense of what the effect of
| the supporting environment is on the long term.
| joshuajill wrote:
| Research on psychotherapeutic use of hallucinogens is done
| on this premise. At this point I believe it would be
| unethical to perform such a study. It would risk exposing
| subjects to psychological harm.
|
| Edit: on the premise that the environment is crucial for
| the outcome. This means creating a safe comfortable
| environment. Maybe with these new drugs will show otherwise
| in time.
| joshuajill wrote:
| These are the current guidelines
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18593734/
| sharklazer wrote:
| My belief is that the "trip" is us being able to observe more
| about our brains than we typically access. My personal
| experience indicates to me that the "trip" is removing
| filtering processes the brain uses to remove noise and
| irrelevant information to the task at hand. When in a "trip"
| then, it's more like we are seeing what our brain sees--the
| things that appear auditorilly and visually are due to neural
| circuits overfitting and subsequently not being able to
| filter the misreads and "extra data".
|
| I've always thought of it like a self-diagnostic mode/tool
| where we get exposed to debug data that our brain normally
| would filter out.
| nickparker wrote:
| Anyone curious about psychedelic methods of action,
| particularly based on their personal experience, should
| read Surfing Uncertainty or at least the SSC review/summary
| of it.
|
| The predictive processing interpretation of these drugs is
| that they change the balance between top-down predictive
| generative models from our "deep" brain and noisy bottom-up
| sensory percepts from the peripheral brain. When you get
| super-resolution like experiences of banal everyday
| textures, that's your peripheral brain failing to filter
| them out for lacking novelty, when you get psychedelia
| style visuals that's intermediate "layers" of abstraction
| running amok, and when you go off on extended narrative
| experiences fully detached from reality that's the deep
| generative models doing their own thing unmoored from the
| error signals your senses would otherwise generate.
|
| It's an awesome book in many other respects, but IMO the
| best bit is how many plausible mechanistic explanations it
| offers for psychedelic experience.
|
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-
| un...
| zionic wrote:
| >long-term positive changes.
|
| Proponents frequently mention things like this, yet _no one_
| who publicly admits to psych use is someone I want to be.
|
| All the people I've ever met, and friends who didn't but
| started down that road, aren't "all there" anymore. They'll
| preach day and night about the "benefits", but from the
| outside looking in it's obviously a coping mechanism.
| recyclelater wrote:
| I publicly, to my peer group at least, state I have enjoyed
| benefits of psychedelic drugs every five or ten years, I am
| pretty sure I have my shit together compared to most
| people. That being said i know the people you are talking
| about, but they in my experience use drugs much more
| frequently. Multiple times a year, and regularly also smoke
| weed etc.
|
| Obviously biased when talking about myself, but I think you
| can split your judgement into a frequency argument rather
| than a binary yes or no.
| treeman79 wrote:
| 35 years of dealing with friends and family addiction
| issues.
|
| They all believe it doesn't affect them negativity, that
| people can't tell.
|
| They are all wrong. We can see the changes in them. Good
| or bad.
|
| The ones that make an effort to get off for awhile are
| usually shocked when they realize how they were being
| affected.
|
| I have never seen positive long term affects in anyone of
| them. Even though they all claim otherwise.
|
| My 2 cents
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > They all believe it doesn't affect them negativity,
| that people can't tell.
|
| > They are all wrong. We can see the changes in them.
| Good or bad.
|
| Well the post you replied to didn't address being able to
| tell.
|
| > The ones that make an effort to get off for awhile are
| usually shocked when they realize how they were being
| affected.
|
| 5 years is a while, surely?
|
| > I have never seen positive long term affects in anyone
| of them. Even though they all claim otherwise.
|
| Do they still claim that after 5 years of non-use?
| recyclelater wrote:
| Addiction issues are a totally different animal. Just
| look up the definition of addiction. I'll comfortably
| stand by my statement of use on the order of every few
| years being wellllllll within the margins of reasonable
| use.
| [deleted]
| temp0826 wrote:
| Are they happy? (Are you happy?)
| thrown_22 wrote:
| You do it a few times and move on with your life. The
| Beatles famously only did it a handful of times during
| their most productive period and stopped all together
| eventually.
| sianemo wrote:
| While I may not be someone you want to be for specific
| reasons relating to our individuality, I am a long time
| psych user and I'm demographically and overall culturally
| someone that is presented as desirable to be. I'm in a
| reasonably high income percentile, I lack unsecured debt,
| I'm happily married, I have a diverse social circle and
| several personal hobbies, I stay physically active, and I
| enjoy intellectual pursuits.
|
| I'd be very curious to know what specifically about me, or
| about something you assume about me, would make me someone
| you don't want to be?
| User23 wrote:
| I know alcoholics who are well to do, out of debt,
| happily married, and have a diverse social circle and
| several personal hobbies, get exercise, and enjoy
| thinking. None of that shows the merits of alcoholism. I
| can't speak for the person you're replying to, but I
| could guess that it's your drug addiction that they have
| no desire to emulate.
|
| Addicts insisting that their addiction isn't one is
| cliche for a reason.
| rjbwork wrote:
| The idea of accusing someone of being a drug addict in
| the context of psychedelic use is absolutely hilarious.
| You sound completely uninformed and pretty much nobody
| should take you seriously on this topic.
| thatcat wrote:
| alcohol is neurotoxic and addictive. psychs are
| neurotrophic and non-addictive, but the purity isn't
| guaranteed. Impurities are common in blackmarkets.
| sianemo wrote:
| Setting aside the hilarious disrespect of assuming that
| I'm a drug addict from single comment on the internet,
| you are capable of realizing that taking issue with
| people who use a drug only because of the mental and
| social association you have of people who use the drug is
| a super tight loop of circular logic, aren't you?
| scythe wrote:
| High frequency of use is a necessary condition for
| addiction.
| toss1 wrote:
| >>necessary condition for addiction. Necessary, but not
| sufficient
|
| You might also note that the GP said nothing about
| frequency of use, only "long time psych user", AND that
| no one here has defined "high frequency" in terms of an
| actual threshold for addiction.
|
| The fact is that for all drugs, and especially for the
| psychedelics, there are far many more people who use
| occasionally and responsibly than the subset who are
| addicted. AFAIK, the psychedelics are not considered
| addictive at all, either physically/physiologically or
| mentally.
| LocalH wrote:
| Psychedelics are largely not "addictive". Certainly not
| physiologically, and almost certainly not mentally.
| zone411 wrote:
| They actually show promise for stopping additions.
| [deleted]
| digdugdirk wrote:
| This post suggests sustained long term usage.
|
| The compounds being discussed can have major long term
| effects from one/few experiences.
|
| If 5 "trips" over the span of as many years in someone's
| early twenties provided a decade of long term positive
| changes, would you classify that as a coping mechanism?
| ruined wrote:
| as with anything, there is a set of people who are _too
| excited_ , and they are all evangelists
|
| you know plenty of people who aren't vocal about their
| experiences because they understand it's not appropriate or
| acceptable in the situations you have shared.
| asdff wrote:
| OTOH I think you'd be surprised at how many people you know
| in your daily life probably are taking psychedelics these
| days, especially on the west coast.
| zone411 wrote:
| Read a meta study like
| https://mindmedicineaustralia.org.au/wp-
| content/uploads/Long.... From section 3.3-3.4, you can see
| that psychedelic use is beneficial for anxiety and
| depression and results in improved well-being, increased
| openness to experience and increased spirituality.
| Psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for substance abuse has
| positive effects. The safety profile shows that they are
| not risk-free but that there are few negative long-term
| effects.
| ad-astra wrote:
| This is the kind of anecdote that I used to hear about
| smoking weed. Tripping can be abused as a means of escape
| like many other things (work etc), but over-use without a
| proper cool-off/reintegration period can definitely throw
| one off psychologically. It's a powerful tool that should
| be feared and respected (like the ocean) for its ability to
| fuck you up if you're reckless.
| scythe wrote:
| People who do a bad job of concealing their illegal
| activities probably make other failures in judgment, too.
| The most well-adjusted psychedelic users I've met were the
| ones who only told me after I had known them for years.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| It's like when med chemists trialled a cannabinoid-blocker as
| an experimental appetite suppressant. Surprise surprise, it
| gave the participants depression and suicidality.
|
| Like, what did you expect?
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/nrcardio.2010.148
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Well, I love my therapist, and research suggests that
| psychedelic assisted therapy is effective. I've never taken a
| large dose of mushrooms because I am nervous about where it
| would take me, so personally doing that with my therapist could
| be pretty nice. Tho expensive lol.
|
| I've only really done LSD once tho and it was interesting, and
| seemed more low key than shrooms, so maybe I should try that
| again.
| ActorNightly wrote:
| You likely did a starter dose of LSD. Also, it doesn't depend
| on stomach processing to activate, which means its not diet
| dependent - shrooms very much are. Plenty of people make a
| mistake of taking shrooms after eating a meal, not getting
| anything after an hour, taking more thinking their shrooms
| are weak, and then when it hits they are taken for quite a
| ride.
|
| The right way to dose shrooms IMO is not eating 4 hours
| prior, ground up fine (and optionally put into gel capsules
| if you can't stand the taste), and taken with OJ. This gives
| you a very strong and peaky trip at minimal doses, but the
| peak lasts for 2-3 hours, whereas LSD is generally a whole
| day affair event at lower dosages.
|
| Its also worth while imo to grow your own shrooms. There is
| this philosophical meta element of taking charge and creating
| your own medicine which then you take can better your own
| life, which can be a very positive thought during the trip.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Oh sure. Yeah I've done all that, including growing them.
| But I always take them on an empty stomach. The thing is
| that shrooms bring up a lot of deep emotions for me which
| can be hard to handle. I don't have much experience with
| LSD but that trip was more cerebral and easier to deal with
| than the emotional roller coaster of shroom trips I've had.
| Maybe it was just the dosage, I don't know.
| recyclelater wrote:
| It's not more low key it's actually much more intense, or
| rather can be depending on dosage. Easier to exact dose with
| LSD. Mushrooms are over quicker and as a result can be more
| pleasant.
| akvadrako wrote:
| Well you can get a guide (or just an experienced friend) for
| less than a therapist.
|
| Also, LSD is not lower key than shrooms; maybe you took a
| smaller dose or personally have a tolerance. But with high
| doses they can both be very intense.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Shrooms bring up a lot of emotions for me, while LSD felt
| more cerebral. I found the LSD easier to deal with. But
| then, I have less experience with it.
| mkoryak wrote:
| sounds like you had a good trip.
|
| If you had a bad trip, you might feel differently about it.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| "Good trip" and "bad trip" are older terms created by
| recreational drug users who wanted to get high and have a
| good time.
|
| Today, in therapeutic contexts, they use "easy trip" and
| "difficult trip" to give patients a sense of what to expect,
| and some context for how to interpret the experience they're
| about to have.
|
| Some trips are like tropical vacations; peaceful respites.
| But others feel closer to climbing a perilous mountain, or
| trekking through endless desert, or slogging through dark
| marshlands.
|
| Some of the most fulfilling journeys in life can be quite
| uncomfortable and hard, and notably, 70% of people that have
| bad/difficult trips do not regret the experience.
|
| What makes the trip is worthwhile is if it causes you to
| learn and grow in a meaningful way.
| sharklazer wrote:
| I've had several bad trips in my life. I think they are the
| most impactful and clarifying. Uncomfortable for sure. Good
| trips let me know I'm comfortable with myself. Bad trips
| usually lead to uncovering or bringing to the front things
| that need to be addressed in my life.
| sianemo wrote:
| I have had good trips and bad trips on a variety of highly
| psychedelic substances, and I've had a lot of those trips.
| Trying to engineer the trip out of the drug to get a desired
| psychoactive result free from pesky side effects like not
| being as grounded to reality for a while is absolutely
| missing the forest for the trees. Not to say that it can't
| produce some benefit but it's leaving a lot of unexplored
| potential on the table, largely in deference to failed
| puritanical ideals about recreational drug use.
| golergka wrote:
| I've had many bad trips throughout my life, and they have
| always been the most educational. Learning about your
| shortcomings and confronting your demons and traumas isn't
| supposed to be a pleasant experience.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It's not that simple at all. Bad trips can be more
| therapeutic than good ones. If you have tripless
| neuroplasticity, (a possibility I doubt) then what's your
| feedback mechanism? You might wind up selecting for shitty or
| dysfunctional behavior.
| [deleted]
| ngold wrote:
| Couldn't agree more. One of my best trips was in a closet
| reading Peters principle.
| scythe wrote:
| >the liability of visual or auditory hallucinations.
|
| The visual/audio effects aren't what gets you on a trip,
| though. It's the headspace, the distortion of "automatic self-
| recognition", and to some extent, the role of the crucial
| 5-ht2a receptor in the sleep-wake cycle: all 5-ht2a antagonists
| are soporific, and almost all psychedelics produce insomnia as
| a side effect. A bad trip leading to worse after-effects
| practically always proceeds through a sleepless night.
| danaris wrote:
| > Dosing myself in a therapist's office sounds terrifying. The
| best experience I've ever had was taking a hit of LSD in my
| living room and spending the day with a pen and paper, writing
| down thoughts as they came to me.
|
| And I personally know people for whom the exact opposite is the
| case. I'm very much looking forward to the rise of psychedelic
| therapy.
| NickC25 wrote:
| And that's a good thing! I am in NO way advocating for a one-
| size-fits-all approach. There should be many different
| avenues available for those who wish for different
| experiences. For people who aren't experienced with
| psychedelics, doing it in a place they are comfortable in is
| of utmost importance. The same logic applies to those who are
| experienced with the substances.
|
| If you want to trip in nature, or on your couch, or in your
| therapist's office, or wherever else you might find to be the
| optimal set/setting for your experience, you should be able
| to do so.
|
| That said, I'm all for taking whatever works in a setting
| that works for the user.
| dmix wrote:
| You mean the isolated subparts right, not actually doing LSD-
| style drugs in a clinical setting?
|
| Every person I know who had a 'bad trip' did so at a concert
| or some place they weren't alone or in a quiet area outdoors
| with close friends (not that there aren't rare exceptions to
| this rule).
| WalterSear wrote:
| > The whole transformative experience is the "trip" itself.
|
| IMHE, it's not, at least in regards to (racemic) ketamine and
| depression. The benefit doesn't appear until ~24 hours later,
| and the effect scales with dosage, but not trip intensity or
| outcome.
|
| I found taking it almost unpleasant at times, but the
| subsequent effects uniformly profound. Unfortunately, I
| developed a rare health issue, or I'd still be taking it.
| debenedictis wrote:
| I too developed a rare health issue, OABSS.
|
| "In our study, OABSS (overactive bladder symptom score)
| significantly increased with the combined use of ketamine and
| marijuana (P = 0.016). Cannabinoids are the active components
| of marijuana, and select cannabinoid receptors, CB1 and CB2,
| have been identified in the human detrusor and urothelium."
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6510790/
| [deleted]
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Sad really. As this headline might as well be: "Big Pharma:
| Patents Equal Profits."
|
| There are plenty of cultures and associated history to support
| using what we already have available.
|
| The only reason to invent anything new would be to control access
| and make a buck. We're going through that with the Covid vaccine.
| What does it take for us to learn from our mistakes?
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/07/13/1111137...
| BLO716 wrote:
| Here's a legit question - what is single driving factor for
| increases in substance abuse? Asking for a friend.
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| For many people it is the same as it ever was, an escape from a
| bleak and miserable reality.
| scythe wrote:
| In adolescents, it's exposure to violence and/or family
| members' drug abuse. The latter is very unsurprising.
|
| https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2000-13544-003
|
| >Major findings were (a) adolescents who had been physically
| assaulted, who had been sexually assaulted, who had witnessed
| violence, or who had family members with alcohol or drug use
| problems had increased risk for current substance
| abuse/dependence; (b) posttraumatic stress disorder
| independently increased risk of marijuana and hard drug
| abuse/dependence; and (c) when effects of other variables were
| controlled, African Americans, but not Hispanics or Native
| Americans, were at approximately 1/3 the risk of substance
| abuse/dependence as Caucasians. (PsycINFO Database Record (c)
| 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
| akimball wrote:
| Dysphoria
| kodah wrote:
| I recently did LSD. It wasn't my first encounter with
| psychedelics but none have done what LSD did. I have a good bit
| of trauma that I'd attempted to work through throughout my life.
| The thing is, many of those things are settled. I cannot change
| them, I've course corrected my life away from my actions being
| influenced by these things, and on the exterior I think most
| people would find me well adapted. I was pretty miserable on the
| inside though; those traumas hue the depths of your soul in ways
| that intentional and advertent action cannot rectify, only mask.
|
| LSD gave me the power to set those things to sea and give them
| the burial they needed. Not all of them are gone, but I'm in a
| much better place because of it.
|
| There is nothing different that I need, just make it so I don't
| have to order it on the dark web.
|
| Edit: Happy to answer questions about my experiences. Can also be
| reached on Libera if public questions are not what you want.
| standardUser wrote:
| I think most of us are desperate to see ourselves from a
| different perspective (whether we realize it or not), but
| that's really hard to do when success in our day-to-day lives
| depends on us having a stable vision of ourselves and our place
| in the world. I think a lot of experiences, including a lot of
| drugs, can help either provide a temporary new perspective, or
| even shift our everyday view of ourselves and our lives more
| permanently. LSD seems to be one of the most effective.
| mysore wrote:
| mdma is generally even more powerful for healing trauma.
|
| Or rather MDMA can accelerate healing by released "stored
| unprocessed memories"
|
| LSD can help you by showing you a possibility of whats possible
| by dissolving the prision of identity and seeing the world from
| a non-local perspective.
| randomopining wrote:
| How big of a dose?
| kodah wrote:
| It was about a single tab. Not enough to have any color
| blending or anything like that.
| huetius wrote:
| With the collapse of the SSRI hypothesis, I feel like there was a
| missed opportunity to interrogate what it is about the affluent,
| technological society that makes such a staggering number of
| people so depressed. It seems that we will instead
| (characteristically) plow forward with even more powerful drugs.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Just because it hit the news last week doesn't mean the window
| has closed. You jsut have to be willing to get in
| arguments/break up with people who dislike hearing their
| assumptions questioned.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| I don't think that the collapse of the serotonin hypothesis
| means that SSRI's don't work, just that they don't work via
| increasing serotonin levels.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| "High" stakes? Someone at Wired likes a good pun...
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