

Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning In Again - tgerhard
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/science/12psychedelics.html?src=me&ref=homepage

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josefresco
Hey this "friend of mine" subscribes to Playboy and in this months issue
there's a pretty decent article on the use of MDMA, LCD etc. for people who
are dieing and need "end of life treatment"

~~~
pmichaud
MDMA might save your life (or marriage) if you find a person who can teach you
how to take it (attendant... guide... whatever).

~~~
pw0ncakes
I could be wrong, and I stopped using recreational drugs altogether after
developing panic disorder in 2008-- I don't know if there's a connection
between my past drug use and the disorder, but I thought the first attacks
were bad salvia "flashbacks" or possibly God punishing me for being reckless--
but I think that everything beneficial that can be achieved with psychoactive
drugs can be achieved, in time, with meditation. The difference is that
meditation takes time and discipline before you start having experiences,
while drugs provide experiences right away, but aren't always safe.

I've often made this analogy. Meditation is like riding your bike into the
woods. When you start out, you're not in shape so you don't get very far, but
you don't end up farther in than you can handle. Psychedelics are like
hitchhiking: you get a lot farther, don't always know where the fuck you are,
and can _usually_ get back safely (but not always).

~~~
anatta
Your analogy of meditation being like riding into the woods is great. Its only
flaw, however, is in the assertion that both meditation and psychedelic
experience arrive at the same mental state. Minus that, likening meditation to
progressive, incremental bicycle trips into the forest is accurate and sets a
person up wonderfully to begin the discipline.

Psychedelic drugs provide an experience of absorption like a trance. When one
is absorbed in such a state, it's the first direct experience of a sense of
self that is immaterial (but finite). Buddhist meditation (samadhi or "right
concentration" in the Noble Eightfold Path) goes very far beyond that and into
very different states of consciousness.

Gil Fronsdal is a Stanford Ph.D who teaches clearly, logically, and in
stepwise progression. You can learn here:

<http://www.audiodharma.org/talks-intromed.html>

If you're interested in empirical studies of samadhi, Dr. James Austin
published a book called "Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of
Meditation and Consciousness" from MIT press.

I hope this helps alleviate your panic and brings you clarity and harmony of
mind.

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mkramlich
Good rule of thumb: drugs are bad. Don't mess with them.

Exceptions: some aren't so bad, like caffeine or aspirin or wine. But always
use in moderation.

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pw0ncakes
Psychoactive drugs shouldn't be illegal, but they can be dangerous. They
provide a lot of spiritual and psychological benefits for a lot of people, but
have also wrecked a lot of people. Cocaine, heroin, amphetamines (including
Rx) and alcohol are probably the worst, as far as I've seen. Psychedelics
don't seem to be as damaging in general-- I think it could even be argued that
alcohol is more dangerous than psilocybin-- but becoming an acid-head is a
terrible idea. I find it astonishing that, although psychedelic experiences
can be very interesting and illuminating, the vast majority of frequent drug
users (e.g. 2-4x/month LSD users) are exhaustingly boring people.

Psychedelics are a completely different class of drug, of course, from coke
and alcohol. Most people lump together utterly different behaviors (cocaine at
a party vs. shrooms in the woods) into "doing drugs", and that isn't really
fair. I think psychedelics have a lot of value to offer humanity, but they
_are_ dangerous and we, as a society, need to rediscover safe means of using
them.

~~~
danieldon
_"could even be argued that alcohol is more dangerous than psilocybin"_

That anyone even entertains the notion that alcohol isn't significantly more
dangerous than psilocybin demonstrates how extremely misguided the public is
about the subject.

 _"but have also wrecked a lot of people ... becoming an acid-head is a
terrible idea ... are exhaustingly boring people."_

It's also interesting that many people can't help but view this issue through
the prism of their own cultural biases, stereotypes and anecdotes.

~~~
pw0ncakes
_That anyone even entertains the notion that alcohol isn't significantly more
dangerous than psilocybin demonstrates how extremely miguided the public is
about the subject._

I could be wrong, but as I understand it, they're different categories of
danger altogether. Alcohol can kill you. Psilocybin can't, but it is _at least
possible_ that it can lead to mental illness. Although the probability of
psilocybin leading to lifelong psychosis seems to be astronomically low,
that's a fate I'd easily mark as 10 times worse than early death... so there's
more downside to the psychedelics. At least with psychedelics, the risks are
more subjective and much more poorly understood.

Ever have a terrifyingly bad trip? Or a panic attack? If the answer to both is
no, and you haven't been to war (I haven't), you have no idea of the depths of
negative human experience, nor of post-event fallout. Having suffered from
panic attacks and endured bad trips, I'd be terrified to go anywhere near even
a 1 in 1 million chance of lifelong mental illness, even though I take that
risk of death every day just by being alive.

I don't know what the probability of having a psychotic break on shrooms is. I
bet it's low, but it seems to happen. The open question is whether these
psychological events were "waiting in the wings" so to speak. It has been
argued that the people having these problems were doomed to have them anyway,
and that the drugs merely sped them along, but the jury seems to still be out
on that one.

With alcohol, we have an extremely dangerous drug but we know what the dangers
are, and we're generally pretty good at dosage control (which we have to be,
since the ratio between a fatal dose and the average recreational dose is so
low). When I buy a beer, I know how much alcohol I'm getting and can control
the dosage.

In cultures that use psychedelics for religious purposes, there's no increased
risk of mental illness for users of the substances, which leads me to believe
that the substances themselves are actually pretty safe, but we're talking
about people who have been using the substances responsibly for decades. It's
difficult to use them in our context so pristinely-- the supply comes from an
illegal scumbag market that provides unreliable goods, dosage is erratic,
users are generally uneducated about what they're doing and have psychological
hangups (I believe that guilt/fear about using drugs is one of the causes of
bad trips).

 _It's also interesting that many people can't help but view this issue
through the prism of their own cultural biases, stereotypes and anecdotes._

Look: I've actually used these drugs, and I know that for many people, they're
provide wonderful experiences. I've had a few great experiences on them, even
though I don't use them now and probably never will.

The people I'm talking about are the party types who are using these drugs all
the time, to the point that drugs are the only things in their lives. That's
what I mean by "acidhead", "e-tard", etc. and that's a terrible road to go
down. I'm not talking about the person who uses acid a couple times per year
or even a couple times per month. I'm talking about the people who use them so
intensely and frequently that they start organizing their lives around drugs
instead of the other way around. (I highly doubt that you're in this category,
seeing as you post on HN.)

~~~
danieldon
_"I don't know what the probability of having a psychotic break on shrooms is.
I bet it's low, but it seems to happen"_

That's the point. Although the relationship between psilocybin and psychosis
is unclear, it's already very well established that alcohol aggravates mental
disorders and causes psychosis. On top of that, all available evidence
suggests that psilocybin is very physically safe, while all available evidence
suggests that alcohol is very physically unsafe.

There is absolutely no rational reason to believe that psilocybin is anywhere
near as dangerous as alcohol, and it's a gross disservice to even entertain
the myth.

Furthermore, alcohol isn't the only legal substance that is connected with
psychosis; a number of prescription drugs and even caffeine are linked to it.

 _"That's what I mean by "acidhead", "e-tard", etc. and that's a terrible road
to go down"_

But do these stereotypes really provide any value to this discussion? For just
about any thing there is a subculture that indulges in that thing and people
who hate that subculture. Should we ban plush animals because people find
furries intolerable?

~~~
pw0ncakes
_On top of that, all available evidence suggests that psilocybin is very
physically safe, while all available evidence suggests that alcohol is very
physically unsafe._

This is interesting. What about the danger of bad trips? For example, I know
that if I drink 2 beers, I'll get a buzz and as long as I don't drive, I'm
safe. I don't know that with regard to shrooms. I've never had a bad trip on
those, but I've had terrifying salvia trips, and I have a problem with panic
attacks, so I don't have that assurance and would tend to avoid using them.

Do you believe that psilocybin would be relatively safe if used under proper
circumstances? I'd love for that to be true.

~~~
Psyonic
I'd feel pretty confident saying that a low dosage isn't going to cause a bad
trip capable of long-term damage. At high-dosages, sure, there's some danger
there, although even then, there is a huge difference between a bad trip and
an unenjoyable trip. Sometimes the most important trips long-term are those
that were uncomfortable at the time (facing unpleasant truths).

Also, going back to alcohol, with 2 beers, I'll give you that the risk is low.
But as that goes up, not only does the potential damage from the alcohol go
up, but also your behavior. Increased aggression, etc. I know a guy who broke
his hand because he punched a wall while drunk, etc.

Also... do you know any true alcoholics? I mean the real dysfunctional kind?
They are worse than any e-head I know. Waiting outside the liquor store at 11
am til it opens, drinking the entire bottle the moment they leave, etc... They
are right up there with the worst of drug addicts. I've never even heard of
that happening from mushrooms.

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bluedanieru
It's really irritating when scientists "rediscover" what people have known for
years. Yes of course psilocybin can give people intense, potentially life-
changing experiences. Did you think we were making all that shit up?

And it's not even that there is now empirical evidence to make it "true."
These guys aren't the first to do these sorts of experiments.

~~~
moron4hire
Well, what's irritating to me is the _reason_ they've had to "rediscover" it:
the prohibitions our government imposes on what private individuals do to
their own bodies.

~~~
NEPatriot
As far as drugs go... Our bodies belong to Pfizer/Merc. Commercialization of
drugs.

