hallucinogens

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Mr. PC
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Re: hallucinogens

Post by Mr. PC »

This has become an interesting thread.
There must be some good reason that these hallucinogenic drugs are illegal
Sorry, but this has got to be the most awful statement I've ever heard.
Measurement/observations that are not dependent on the observer (i.e., is objective), that appears the same no matter who observes it, give us true information about "reality".
Oooh, I've never heard such a good argument for the existence of a higher power. Although I've thought about the axiom of science, I've never heard a religious person use it to defend their beliefs. A Pegan could say, by the same reasoning, that their intuitive belief in Odin is equally valid.

Now, if a person did sincerely believe that this axiom discredits science, then they must also by the same logic discredit the measuring tools of their own senses. Therefor belief in the writings of the bible are also not to be believed, because the writings can only be seen using human sensory input.
Many people enjoying hallucinogens responsibly is a baseless statement.
Actually, if he had said "most" people, it might have been baseless. Many is a relative amount. If he knows 'many' in his own life, that still counts as many on a global scale.

No one has given any hard evidence (assuming the axiom of science ;/ ) stating whether hallucinogens are either damaging, or not. I'm not worried about the downsides of the experience, I'm curious whether DMT (I know you brain floods with it every night) when taken during wake, has been found to cause no lasting affects (lower I.Q., memory loss).
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Re: hallucinogens

Post by dime »

Mr. PC wrote: Sorry, but this has got to be the most awful statement I've ever heard.
if you say so :)
panacea
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Re: hallucinogens

Post by panacea »

Mr. PC, you can ask all you want for hard evidence and you might even get some, but at the end of the day hard evidence in the health world can always be reversed later (there's always a mess of 'hard evidence' about fat being both good for you, and bad for you, for example). There are clear, common-sense guidelines which many on here have stated before, which is that to eat wai, stay away from things like drugs (not the loose term, but the social term), including alcohol, even if a bunch of blogs say a glass of wine a day is healthy, to space your meals because how much you eat is just as important as what you eat, to exercise, to breathe with your nose, to not get overheated or too cold, etc.

the fact is that you can find an answer or excuse to do just about anything and have them tell you it's good for you, it has benefits, or it's healthy - only these common sense rules will keep you straight in the gigantic mess that is peoples opinions.. the dangers with psychedelics is that you don't know what will happen. are you really so desperate for a change that you need to rely on them and can't find something else to entertain you such as a movie (which also can change your perception)? as fictor said, you have a psychedlic experience every time you dream, so you've already experienced 'different states of mind'. if fictor isn't making things up just to support his own claims, then there's no need for psychedelics at all, just enjoy your dreams.
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Re: hallucinogens

Post by fictor »

Mr. PC wrote: I'm curious whether DMT (I know you brain floods with it every night) when taken during wake, has been found to cause no lasting affects (lower I.Q., memory loss).
There is no research suggesting any lasting negative effects from taking DMT, as far as I know. Besides, since DMT has been used by humans for a very long time, any negative lasting effects on the intellect would probably have been noticed by now. Lastly, DMT is produced in the human body, and this indicates that the body has a good way of breaking it down, without leaving toxic metabolites or harming itself in any other way.
panacea wrote:the dangers with psychedelics is that you don't know what will happen.
In fact, we do know quite a lot of what will happen if you take psychedelics. Dying, getting addicted or permanently ill is probably not going to happen.
panacea wrote: are you really so desperate for a change that you need to rely on them and can't find something else to entertain you such as a movie (which also can change your perception)?
A movie is very different from a psychedelic experience. It is a much more passive experience, and does usually not do much more than entertain you. A psychedelic experience is not a film of hallucinations, like many people seem to think. It is an experience that rocks the very foundations of your reality. Your senses can get mixed up (you can taste sound and smell colours etc.), you can get a sense of being very small, very large or becoming another object, like the chair you sit on or an animal. Your thought pattern change, and flows outside the usual patterns, that you have developed over the years. Some times, your very ego, the sense of being YOU, can dissolve. All this can be extremly liberating, exciting and it can learn you a lot about yourself and show you how to think in a new, different way. This was the case for Nobel Prize winner Kary Mullis. He said, in an interview published in California Monthly, that "Back in the 1960s and early '70s I took plenty of LSD. A lot of people were doing that in Berkeley back then. And I found it to be a mind-opening experience. It was certainly much more important than any courses I ever took." The late Albert Hofmann (the inventor of LSD) claimed that Mullis told him that LSD had helped him develop the polymerase chain reaction that helps amplify specific DNA sequences (this is what he won the Nobel Prize for), and Mullis said in response to this: "What if I had not taken LSD ever; would I have still invented PCR? I don't know. I doubt it. I seriously doubt it." (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis)

This little story is meant to illustrate the impact psychedelics can have on a persons life, and in this case, on the society.
panacea wrote: as fictor said, you have a psychedlic experience every time you dream, so you've already experienced 'different states of mind'. if fictor isn't making things up just to support his own claims, then there's no need for psychedelics at all, just enjoy your dreams.
I am not making up the fact that we hallucinate every night to support my claims, no :) The fact is that psychedelic states can be reached through both dreams and meditation. But to learn to get there, and controll these experiences in some way, often takes years of practise. Taking a psychedelic substance, like LSD or DMT, creates such an experience within seconds or hours, depending on the administration method. Many people argues that this it what makes it "wrong", that one should not take a shortcut, but I see no real basis for such an argument. Do you?
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RRM
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Re: hallucinogens

Post by RRM »

fictor wrote: This little story is meant to illustrate the impact psychedelics can have on a persons life, and in this case, on the society.
There are also stories about people jumping from rooftops, believing they can fly.
Experimenting with psychedelics can have disastrous effects,
and the risks are not small.
panacea
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Re: hallucinogens

Post by panacea »

here mr pc, better than any hallucinogen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN4KC_zlW4g
fictor
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Re: hallucinogens

Post by fictor »

RRM wrote:
fictor wrote: This little story is meant to illustrate the impact psychedelics can have on a persons life, and in this case, on the society.
There are also stories about people jumping from rooftops, believing they can fly.
The difference is that these are just stories. As far as I know there is just two documented cases of people dying from throwing themselves out of a window on LSD. In one case there is reason to doubt that LSD had anything to do with it, and the other might be a case of the CIA giving LSD to an unwilling and/or unknowing person (http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_death.shtml see "suicides"). These cases sparked the popular urban legend that people tend to jump of buildings on acid.
RRM wrote: Experimenting with psychedelics can have disastrous effects
What are these effects?
RRM wrote:and the risks are not small.
I fully agree that there are risks. However, I argue that these risks are not ase big as the public believe. My arguments, as stated before, is that:
-People generally do not die or get serious injuries from psychedelics
-Most people who takes psychedelics does not have any lasting negative effect
-Psychedelics are not addictive
-Psycheelic is not considered a "gateway drug"

The most risky aspect of the whole thing, in my view, is that these substances are illegal, so you expose yourself to the risk of getting arrested and the risk of getting an unpure compund (black market = no quality check).
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Re: hallucinogens

Post by panacea »

I for one don't assign any value at all to your arguments because:
-they are against public opinion and lack any sort of evidence other than your experiences, which mine contradict with
-you are coming off as extremely biased towards being partial to drugs, regardless of any negatives presented
-you are naive enough to believe that something isn't addictive just because it doesn't say so on a government website or bottle, when just about everything can be addictive from a cheeseburger to thrill seeking. it's not just the external addictive properties we have to take into account, but the pleasurable effects things may potentially make us feel. i know a listed side effect of artificial dmt hits is 'euphoria'. If you seriously think that euphoria, along with going for a mental roller coaster ride is not potentially addictive then you need to connect the dots again.
-taking any sort of recreational drug has the potential to be a gateway drug, that is the whole point - once you do something like that once, it's generally much easier to do it again, assuming you didn't have an awful experience the first time. If for nothing else, you learn where to get access to such things and the temptation is much easier to fulfill.

split hairs all you want about the technical terms of gateway drugs, or addictive substances, the end results are the same, and the dangers are just as real
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Re: hallucinogens

Post by fictor »

panacea wrote: -they are against public opinion
So was the fact that the earth is round, not flat. Public opinion is a lousy argument in any theoretical discussion (I am pro democracy, but that is another matter)
panacea wrote:(...)and lack any sort of evidence other than your experiences
What? All my claims are backed by references, yours are not. I will go over it again, just to be clear:

-People generally do not die or get serious injuries from psychedelics - When we talk about psychedelics, we traditionally talk about LSD, psilocybin and mescaline. We could easily fit a few other tryptamines like DMT into this group, and maybe a few dissociatives like salvia or ketamine. In any case, lets stick to the traditional definition, just to avoid any misconseptions. All these substances have one thing in common; it is etremly hard to take an unintentional deadly overdose. The lethal dose is many times that of a normal recreational or therapeutic dose. Also, the substances have very low toxicisity, and if you try to find documented cases of deaths from overdoses, or even indirectly caused deaths, you turn up empty handed, or with very few cases, compared to the number of people who have taken these substances. Hence my claim; most people dont die (or hurt themselves badly).

References:
-There have been no documented human deaths from an LSD overdose.[47] It is physiologically well tolerated and there is no evidence for long-lasting physiological effects on the brain or other parts of the human organism.[48] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysergic_acid_diethylamide)
-Psilocybin has a low toxicity and a relatively low harm potential, and reports of lethal doses of the drug are rare. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin)
-(...)mescaline is one of the safest drugs known. There have been no verified human deaths from mescaline ever, although K. Trout states that there is one unconfirmed (and unconfirmable) report of a person who died during military experiments with the drug, after receiving a 15 gram dose intravenously (or about 150-200mg/kg). In experiments with rats, the LD50 for mescaline has been established in the range of 800-1200mg/kg orally. Considering the human dose of mescaline is around 200-500mg orally, this means you would have to try very hard to take a fatal dose. It would be extremely unlikely to happen accidentally. (http://www.erowid.org/ask/ask.php?ID=1778)

-Most people who takes psychedelics does not have any lasting negative effect - See the above links and arguments. These are substances with a low potential for doing any physical, lasting damage to your body. With normal use (no massive overdosing) no lasting negative effect would be psyhcological, and I failed to find any research claiming that most people get such effects from psychedelics. All I can find is anecdotes from people feeling worse for a period after taking psyhedelics, but then again one have research documenting people feeling better, so this is about subjective feelings, not about lasting damage. I believe my claim stands.

-Psychedelics are not addictive - LSD is not considered addictive by the medical community.[12] Rapid tolerance build-up prevents regular use, and there is cross-tolerance shown between LSD, mescaline[13] and psilocybin.[14] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysergic_acid_diethylamide)

-Psycheelic is not considered a "gateway drug" - The definition of a gateway drug, is a less harmfull drug, that in turn increases the likelihood that users will take another, more harmfull drug later. This is a theory that is disputed, and there is research arguing both pro and against it. However, the typical gatewaydrugs are tobacco, alchohol and cannabis, not LSD, psilocybin and mescaline. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_drug)

panacea wrote: -you are coming off as extremely biased towards being partial to drugs, regardless of any negatives presented
How I "come off" is not an argument in itself. I believed drugs like these where very dangerous, until I discovered that I had been fooled. If you where able to set aside your preasumptions and look at the information I am sharing with you, I think you would see that you too have been fooled. Secondly, I really dont see any negatives presented, othe than baseless claims of drugs being bad in general. I never said psychedelics are toys, but the risks are not as big as many believes, and there is a very real medical potential.
panacea wrote: -you are naive enough to believe that something isn't addictive just because it doesn't say so on a government website or bottle, when just about everything can be addictive from a cheeseburger to thrill seeking.
Please, there is addiction, and there is addiction. Doing something again because you liked it the first time, is not addiction. After doing something a number of times, you will of course develope new neurological pathways and be more likely to do it again, and this can be called addiction, I agree. However, I am talking about substances in themselves being physically addictive, some to the point that you get physically ill (or even die) if you do not get your dose. Psychedelics does not have these properties. Again; LSD is not considered addictive by the medical community.[12] Rapid tolerance build-up prevents regular use, and there is cross-tolerance shown between LSD, mescaline[13] and psilocybin.[14] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysergic_acid_diethylamide)
panacea wrote: i know a listed side effect of artificial dmt hits is 'euphoria'. If you seriously think that euphoria, along with going for a mental roller coaster ride is not potentially addictive then you need to connect the dots again.
Euphoria is not only one of the effects of "artificial" DMT, but of all kinds of DMT (produced in mammals, plants etc.). Of course, when a person experiences something good, they may want to do it again later. However, to call this addiction, I do not see as right. Let me explain; you use the term rollercoaster ride. Euphoria is also a usual effect of rollercoaster rides. Personally, I love it. I do it maybe once a year, or once every second or third year. Would you call it addiction? A friend of mine described the feeling of smoking pure DMT as passing out or having a seizure. In other words; extremly uncomfortable. Yes, there is euphoria, but it is not the main effect of the drug. Any person seeking just euphoria, would turn to opiates or stimulants and be better off. The bottom line is that psychedelics can be enjoyable, fun and interesting, but it is not usual to do it very often (and it is somewhat impossible, due to tolerance buildup and cross tolerance).
panacea wrote: -taking any sort of recreational drug has the potential to be a gateway drug, that is the whole point - once you do something like that once, it's generally much easier to do it again, assuming you didn't have an awful experience the first time.
That is not the definition of a gateway drug. You are using the term without knowing its real meaning, or just applying your own.
panacea wrote: split hairs all you want about the technical terms of gateway drugs, or addictive substances, the end results are the same, and the dangers are just as real
Exactly what dangers are we talking about here?
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RRM
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Re: hallucinogens

Post by RRM »

fictor wrote: The difference is that these are just stories....
...
What are these effects?
The effects are that you will no longer perceive reality as you normally do,
which may lead to you doing things that you would not normally do,
which may cause any kind of harm to you or others.
-People generally do not die or get serious injuries from psychedelics
The only way to ensure that is by having controlled trips supervised by capable non-triping others,
which is hardly ever the case, i believe.
The most risky aspect of the whole thing, in my view, is that these substances are illegal
Thats most risky indeed.
So, in all not a smart thing to do.
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Re: hallucinogens

Post by fictor »

RRM wrote: The effects are that you will no longer perceive reality as you normally do,
which may lead to you doing things that you would not normally do,
which may cause any kind of harm to you or others.
I agree that a radical change in perception might cause irrational and potentially dangerous behaviour. On the other hand, psychedelics does not typically lead to this type of actions. Other substances, like alcohol, does. Perhaps we would see more accidents with psychedelics if it was used at the same scale as alcohol, but that is speculation. The fact is that very few harm themselves or others while on psychedelics, even though one can argue that the risk for doing so is present.
RRM wrote: The only way to ensure that is by having controlled trips supervised by capable non-triping others,
which is hardly ever the case, i believe.
Yes, a trip sitter is always wise, especially when trying a substance for the first time. Many people use trip sitters (I have acted as one several times), but I will agree with you that most people probably do not use sitters, at least not every time. Still, they usually do not die og injure themselves or others.
RRM wrote: Thats most risky indeed.
So, in all not a smart thing to do.
That depends on what benefits it might have. All things are risky. One have to evaluate if the juice is worth the squeeze (to use a Wai-compatible expression ;) ), or if the risk is too big. Most bank robbers get caught, so I choose to work for money instead. Most people who use psychedelics does not end up dead (until they eventually die from something else), so some people chose to take the risk of getting arrested and/or having a bad experience. The prize being a good time, a lifechanging experience or just to get ones curiosity satisfied.
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Re: hallucinogens

Post by panacea »

public opinion in itself is a lousy argument. It wasn't my argument. My argument was that your argument is against public opinion AND has no evidence backing it up. The evidence you did post (the wikipedia article for example) supports what I've been saying all along:

-There have been no documented human deaths from an LSD overdose.[47] It is physiologically well tolerated and there is no evidence for long-lasting physiological effects on the brain or other parts of the human organism.[48] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysergic_acid_diethylamide)

This is because the dangers of LSD are not directly physical, but psychological (which can lead to secondary physical harm, by injuring yourself for example during altered perception/mood). How utterly convenient of you to leave this out when it's in your own source. Like I said, you are coming off as biased when you do this, it's not 'ridiculous' of me to say this when you post a source and outline only the positives of a drug and totally skip over the references for the adverse effects (just like big pharma does).

"LSD may temporarily impair the ability to make sensible judgments and understand common dangers, thus making the user more susceptible to accidents and personal injury. It may cause temporary confusion, difficulty with abstract thinking, or signs of impaired memory and attention span.[49]
Adverse drug interactions
There is some indication that LSD may trigger a dissociative fugue state in individuals who are taking certain classes of antidepressants such as lithium salts and tricyclics. In such a state, the user has an impulse to wander, and may not be aware of his or her actions, which can lead to physical injury. Anonymous anecdotal reports have attributed seizures and one death to the combination of LSD with lithium.[50] SSRIs noticeably reduce LSD's subjective effects.[51] MAOIs are also reported to reduce the effects of LSD.[50]
Mental disorders
LSD may trigger panic attacks or feelings of extreme anxiety, colloquially referred to as a "bad trip". No real prolonged effects have been proven, however people with such conditions as schizophrenia and depression can worsen with LSD.[52]
Suggestibility
While publicly available documents indicate that the CIA and Department Of Defense have discontinued research into the use of LSD as a means of mind control,[53] research from the 1960s suggests there exists evidence that both mentally ill and healthy people are more suggestible while under its influence.[54][55]
Psychosis
There are some cases of LSD inducing a psychosis in people who appeared to be healthy before taking LSD.[56] In most cases, the psychosis-like reaction is of short duration, but in other cases it may be chronic. It is difficult to determine whether LSD itself induces these reactions or if it triggers latent conditions that would have manifested themselves otherwise. The similarities of time course and outcomes between putatively LSD-precipitated and other psychoses suggest that the two types of syndromes are not different and that LSD may have been a nonspecific trigger.[citation needed]
Estimates of the prevalence of LSD-induced prolonged psychosis lasting over 48 hours have been made by surveying researchers and therapists who had administered LSD:
Cohen (1960) estimated 0.8 per 1,000 volunteers (the single case among approximately 1250 study volunteers was the identical twin of a schizophrenic and he recovered within 5 days) and 1.8 per 1,000 psychiatric patients (7 cases among approximately 3850 patients, of which 2 cases were "preschizophrenic" or had previous hallucinatory experience, 1 case had unknown outcome, 1 case had incomplete recovery, and 5 cases recovered within up to 6 months).[57]
Malleson (1971) reported no cases of psychosis among experimental subjects (170 volunteers who received a total of 450 LSD sessions) and estimated 9 per 1,000 among psychiatric patients (37 cases among 4300 patients, of which 8 details are unknown, 10 appeared chronic, and 19 recovered completely within up to 3 months).[27]
However, in neither survey study was it possible to compare the rate of lasting psychosis in these volunteers and patients receiving LSD with the rate of psychosis found in other groups of research volunteers or in other methods of psychiatric treatment (for example, those receiving placebo).
Cohen (1960) noted:[57]
"The hallucinogenic experience is so striking that many subsequent disturbances may be attributed to it without further justification. The highly suggestible or hysterical individual would tend to focus on his LSD experience to explain subsequent illness. Patients have complained to Abramson that their LSD exposure produced migraine headaches and attacks of influenza up to a year later. One Chinese girl became paraplegic and ascribed that catastrophe to LSD. It so happened that these people were all in the control group and had received nothing but tap water."
What? All my claims are backed by references, yours are not. I will go over it again, just to be clear:
All of your claims are not even close to being backed in full by references. Rather you make wild, biased claims then listed references for DIFFERENT claims below them. For example you had references for there not being any documented deaths with LSD, and that it's not known for causing physical harm, this is a totally different argument than the fact that LSD can cause harm because under the influence of the drug your perception is altered and are therefore more likely to injure yourself. Saying something is "safe" because it doesn't harm you using method A while it can and does harm you using method B is absolutely ridiculous and again, extremely biased and irresponsible.
With normal use (no massive overdosing) no lasting negative effect would be psyhcological
LOL. You just said all your claims are backed up by references, yet your own references say that normal use CAN CAUSE lasting psychological effects! What a biased and untrustworthy claim! It's outright lying what you are doing.
How I "come off" is not an argument in itself. I believed drugs like these where very dangerous, until I discovered that I had been fooled. If you where able to set aside your preasumptions and look at the information I am sharing with you, I think you would see that you too have been fooled. Secondly, I really dont see any negatives presented, othe than baseless claims of drugs being bad in general. I never said psychedelics are toys, but the risks are not as big as many believes, and there is a very real medical potential.
Actually, it's the hidden dangers of these type of drugs that worry me the most. You seem to be fascinated with pointing out how great and safe these drugs are but I can see the bigger picture, because whether you like it or not the definition of a gateway drug was used properly in my previous post:
https://www.google.com/search?q=define+ ... e&ie=UTF-8
habit-forming drug that is not addictive but its use may lead to the use of other addictive drugs;
Taking drugs, especially for the first time, is a lifestyle choice, especially when it's illegal, which makes the drug user more likely and comfortable in most cases with doing it again. Since you claim that LSD is not physically addictive in itself, and have just outlined how you had 'discovered' you were being fooled and how great that drugs are after you tried them, it's a perfect example of LSD opening the gates of your mind to 'experiment'.

It's this shift in perception that conveniently came after you took drugs and after so many other people take drugs like these that are the real danger in my opinion to drugs. Just about every heavy drug user and addict I talk to (and 95% of my friends are this way because it's the hallmark of my generation) is in love with or infatuated with drugs. Of course, it's a recreational activity and the drugs we're talking about are illegal, and just because there are no documented physical effects, doesn't mean that there aren't any, especially synergistic effects. Part of being a healthy individual is choosing not to flood your body with substances just for the taste or the feeling of it, but to get your pleasure from harmless activities. Again, it makes absolutely no sense to take hallucinogens, as all benefits can be had elsewhere (lucid dreams), without the potential harmful psychological effects and physical effects of maybe getting caught by the authorities.

By the way I agree with a lot of the LSD propagandists that things like tobacco and alcohol are even more dangerous than hallucinogens, but saying that 'well most of the world drinks alcohol all the time so taking LSD is no big deal' isn't a valid argument, it's just an excuse for an addict to indulge in their temptation. By the way, when you stop taking LSD or another hallucinogen your perception (usually) goes back to normal, which is an 'adverse effect' of not being on the drug. It's perfectly reasonable that people would be addicted to the 'escape of reality' or trip. Just because it's not physically addicting like nicotine doesn't mean it's not addicting. We have to remember that words describe concepts - the basics of addiction is wanting to do something solely for a trivial benefit rather than something that is actually in your best interest - like eating a MacDonald's happy meal instead of raw eggs, because the happy meal tastes better. Similarly, a recreational drug trip of any kind has risks, and the only possible benefit is pleasure not satisfying a need, just like every other social menace.

By the way, I don't care at all about 'what you are talking about' in terms of addiction. I care about something actually being addictive, whether it be through physical sensations or psychological ones makes no difference to me, and makes no differences in reality either.
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Re: hallucinogens

Post by panacea »

I agree that a radical change in perception might cause irrational and potentially dangerous behaviour. On the other hand, psychedelics does not typically lead to this type of actions. Other substances, like alcohol, does. Perhaps we would see more accidents with psychedelics if it was used at the same scale as alcohol, but that is speculation. The fact is that very few harm themselves or others while on psychedelics, even though one can argue that the risk for doing so is present.
Well there's some backwards thinking. Instead of arguing against taking alcohol off the publics hands, lets legalize psychedelics and wait and see what happens to peoples minds. It will be fun...

That's not a fact by the way, that's your biased opinion. Besides, harming themselves or others while on psychedelics isn't the only concern. How many times are you going to under-emphasize the dangers to try and push your beloved drugs on people?
fictor
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Re: hallucinogens

Post by fictor »

panacea wrote:It wasn't my argument. My argument was that your argument is against public opinion AND has no evidence backing it up.
And I answered you that a)the fact that it is against public opinion is not an argument in itself and b)I have backed up everything I have written. Please show me an example of exactly what claims are that are not backed up. Here is my list of claims (again):
-People generally do not die or get serious injuries from psychedelics
-Most people who take psychedelics do not have any lasting negative effect
-Psychedelics are not addictive
-Psychedelics are not considered a "gateway drug"
panacea wrote:This is because the dangers of LSD are not directly physical, but psychological (which can lead to secondary physical harm, by injuring yourself for example during altered perception/mood). How utterly convenient of you to leave this out when it's in your own source.
I did not "skip the negative". I found a reference for my claim; that LSD (and psychedelics in general) are not very toxic and does not kill you by overdosing. My other claims, I found other references for.
panacea wrote: "LSD may temporarily impair the ability to make sensible judgments and understand common dangers, thus making the user more susceptible to accidents and personal injury.
Yes, it MAY. Yet very few people actually DO hurt themselves or others while on LSD. Who cares what theoreticly might happen if it never or extremely seldom does?
panacea wrote: Adverse drug interactions
There is some indication that LSD may trigger a dissociative fugue state in individuals who are taking certain classes of antidepressants such as lithium salts and tricyclics. In such a state, the user has an impulse to wander, and may not be aware of his or her actions, which can lead to physical injury. Anonymous anecdotal reports have attributed seizures and one death to the combination of LSD with lithium.[50] SSRIs noticeably reduce LSD's subjective effects.[51] MAOIs are also reported to reduce the effects of LSD.[50] .
How is this even remotely relevant? Most drugs, even the least harmful ones, can be lethal in combinations with certain other drugs, or even foods. Try eating a lot of banana while taking on a large dose of MAOIs, for example. This does not mean that either MAOIs or bananas are dangerous when used correctly (separately).
panacea wrote: Mental disorders
LSD may trigger panic attacks or feelings of extreme anxiety, colloquially referred to as a "bad trip". No real prolonged effects have been proven, however people with such conditions as schizophrenia and depression can worsen with LSD.[52]
Have I ever said LSD was safe to use for those severely mentally ill? I don’t think so.
panacea wrote: Psychosis
There are some cases of LSD inducing a psychosis in people who appeared to be healthy before taking LSD.[56] In most cases, the psychosis-like reaction is of short duration, but in other cases it may be chronic. It is difficult to determine whether LSD itself induces these reactions or if it triggers latent conditions that would have manifested themselves otherwise. The similarities of time course and outcomes between putatively LSD-precipitated and other psychoses suggest that the two types of syndromes are not different and that LSD may have been a nonspecific trigger.[citation needed]
Estimates of the prevalence of LSD-induced prolonged psychosis lasting over 48 hours have been made by surveying researchers and therapists who had administered LSD:
Cohen (1960) estimated 0.8 per 1,000 volunteers (the single case among approximately 1250 study volunteers was the identical twin of a schizophrenic and he recovered within 5 days) and 1.8 per 1,000 psychiatric patients (7 cases among approximately 3850 patients, of which 2 cases were "preschizophrenic" or had previous hallucinatory experience, 1 case had unknown outcome, 1 case had incomplete recovery, and 5 cases recovered within up to 6 months).[57]
Malleson (1971) reported no cases of psychosis among experimental subjects (170 volunteers who received a total of 450 LSD sessions) and estimated 9 per 1,000 among psychiatric patients (37 cases among 4300 patients, of which 8 details are unknown, 10 appeared chronic, and 19 recovered completely within up to 3 months).[27]
However, in neither survey study was it possible to compare the rate of lasting psychosis in these volunteers and patients receiving LSD with the rate of psychosis found in other groups of research volunteers or in other methods of psychiatric treatment (for example, those receiving placebo).
Have you even read this? It says that LSD might produce/trigger a psychosis-like state in very few of the people who take it and that most of these few people recover. How is that different from what I have been saying all the time? Of course there are risks, but they are far less serious than most people, including you, seems to believe.
panacea wrote: Cohen (1960) noted:[57]
"The hallucinogenic experience is so striking that many subsequent disturbances may be attributed to it without further justification. The highly suggestible or hysterical individual would tend to focus on his LSD experience to explain subsequent illness. Patients have complained to Abramson that their LSD exposure produced migraine headaches and attacks of influenza up to a year later. One Chinese girl became paraplegic and ascribed that catastrophe to LSD. It so happened that these people were all in the control group and had received nothing but tap water."
This speaks for itself :)
panacea wrote: All of your claims are not even close to being backed in full by references. Rather you make wild, biased claims then listed references for DIFFERENT claims below them. For example you had references for there not being any documented deaths with LSD, and that it's not known for causing physical harm, this is a totally different argument than the fact that LSD can cause harm because under the influence of the drug your perception is altered and are therefore more likely to injure yourself.
I did not make conflicting claims. Let me repeat myself (again); psychedelics alter your perception, and one can therefore argue that using them can increase the likelihood of having an accident. Yet very few accidents like these occur. Also, they can easily be avoided by not partaking in dangerous activities while using LSD or any other psychedelic.
panacea wrote: Saying something is "safe" because it doesn't harm you using method A while it can and does harm you using method B is absolutely ridiculous and again, extremely biased and irresponsible.
I never said it was safe, I said it was less risky than most people seems to think. Also, method B is in this case hypothetical, and does not seem to actually happen a lot. Still, I would not go as far as call it safe, but definitely less dangerous than the public thinks.
panacea wrote:LOL. You just said all your claims are backed up by references, yet your own references say that normal use CAN CAUSE lasting psychological effects! What a biased and untrustworthy claim! It's outright lying what you are doing.
I never said LSD cannot cause lasting negative effect. I said it USUALLY DOES NOT (and backed it up with references). Read my posts before you accuse me of lying.
panacea wrote: Actually, it's the hidden dangers of these type of drugs that worry me the most. You seem to be fascinated with pointing out how great and safe these drugs are but I can see the bigger picture, because whether you like it or not the definition of a gateway drug was used properly in my previous post:
https://www.google.com/search?q=define+ ... e&ie=UTF-8
habit-forming drug that is not addictive but its use may lead to the use of other addictive drugs;
Taking drugs, especially for the first time, is a lifestyle choice, especially when it's illegal, which makes the drug user more likely and comfortable in most cases with doing it again. Since you claim that LSD is not physically addictive in itself, and have just outlined how you had 'discovered' you were being fooled and how great that drugs are after you tried them, it's a perfect example of LSD opening the gates of your mind to 'experiment'.
I never tried LSD (see, preassumptions), and found out that the dangers of drugs in general, and psychedelics especially, are not what the public believe them to be a long time before I tried any illegal drug (not that I have tried many). Fine, another source on the web states a looser definition of the term gateway drug, but my argument still stands; psychedelics are not usually considered gateway drugs. I fail to see the hidden dangers that you are so afraid of.
panacea wrote: (...)just because there are no documented physical effects, doesn't mean that there aren't any, especially synergistic effects.
You cannot drag potential hypothetical side effects into the discussion, without even trying to describe what these harmful effects would be and why they have not been discovered in all the years these substances have been researched and used recreationally. Remember that mescaline have been used for several thousand years by humans.
panacea wrote: Part of being a healthy individual is choosing not to flood your body with substances just for the taste or the feeling of it, but to get your pleasure from harmless activities.
That is your definition. Native Americans had a saying that "deer and corn was food for the body, and peyote (mescaline) was food for the soul". Besides, many activities that are usually thought of as harmless by the public are actually more risky than taking psychedelics. For example, it is more risky to ride a horse than to use ecstasy (a drug I personally think is much more harmful than psychedelics).
panacea wrote: By the way, when you stop taking LSD or another hallucinogen your perception (usually) goes back to normal, which is an 'adverse effect' of not being on the drug.
That is a crazy way to look at it. Getting back to normal is not an adverse effect. It is in the nature of the drug that the effects are temporary.
panacea wrote: It's perfectly reasonable that people would be addicted to the 'escape of reality' or trip. Just because it's not physically addicting like nicotine doesn't mean it's not addicting. We have to remember that words describe concepts - the basics of addiction is wanting to do something solely for a trivial benefit rather than something that is actually in your best interest - like eating a MacDonald's happy meal instead of raw eggs, because the happy meal tastes better. Similarly, a recreational drug trip of any kind has risks, and the only possible benefit is pleasure not satisfying a need, just like every other social menace.
I repeat myself: Personally, I love it (rollercoaster rides). I do it maybe once a year, or once every second or third year. Would you call it addiction? (...) The bottom line is that psychedelics can be enjoyable, fun and interesting, but it is not usual to do it very often (and it is somewhat impossible, due to tolerance buildup and cross tolerance).

Also, you blatantly state that there is no "need" to take psychedelics, completely ignoring the fact that for many it is a highly spiritual experience.
panacea wrote: By the way, I don't care at all about 'what you are talking about' in terms of addiction. I care about something actually being addictive, whether it be through physical sensations or psychological ones makes no difference to me, and makes no differences in reality either.
It makes a huge difference, both in theoretical discussions and in reality. It is of course much harder to quit doing something if quitting makes you sick and potentially kills you. That should be obvious. Also, physically addictive substances must be taken every day, many of them several times each day, to avoid symptoms of withdrawal. Psychedelics can be used once a week, once a month or once a year, like I use the rollercoaster. Big difference, as a person being on psychedelics every day (or going to the amusement park every day, for that matter) is not going to get much else done. A person tripping say three times a year, can be a fully functioning individual and member of society, and usually is.
panacea wrote: Well there's some backwards thinking. Instead of arguing against taking alcohol off the publics hands, lets legalize psychedelics and wait and see what happens to peoples minds. It will be fun...
Prohibition of alcohol would not do much good. Did you not learn history in school, or watch Boardwalk Empire? I do not believe in prohibition or the war on drugs, and see legalization as a real alternative, yes.
panacea wrote: How many times are you going to under-emphasize the dangers to try and push your beloved drugs on people?
I never pushed anything on anyone. I have no hidden agenda or personal interest in anyone trying psychedelics. I simply do not like that people are ill informed, and the way I see it, you are. Try to read more carefully, or dont comment at all.
panacea
Posts: 989
Joined: Wed 23 Jun 2010 22:08

Re: hallucinogens

Post by panacea »

-People generally do not die or get serious injuries from psychedelics
Again, this is misleading since you are leaving out that just because taking psychedelics may not cause serious injuries internally, the behavioral toxicity of psychedelics can and does cause harm! How many times do I have to keep telling you that everything you are saying about these drugs is extremely misleading and dishonest, you're not informing anybody you're persuading them to your biased point of view! Give them the full story!
-Most people who take psychedelics do not have any lasting negative effect
And yet there are people whose minds are permanently altered in a negative way, either through flashbacks of bad trips, their life being thrown into the drug scene, being caught up with the authorities for doing something illegal. The picture here I'm trying to paint for people who are not drug users yet is that it's DANGEROUS in many aspects and not a good idea for any person not looking for trouble. You're trying to make these drugs look as innocent as table sugar, and it's not going to be that easy.
-Psychedelics are not addictive
Again, extremely misleading. Psychedelics can be psychologically addicting just as any drug can be. People can be dependent on TylenolPM to fall asleep even if it has no basis on their physiology and it's just in their mind that they need their 'sleep fix'. Virtually all drugs have the potential for this trap, and as I've said many times now there is no need to put yourself in this position!
-Psychedelics are not considered a "gateway drug"
And the reality is that people who use psychedelics are more likely to try harder drugs or do them again than people who don't use psychedelics. All terminology aside, the result is the same. You're trying to play word games and be deceiving, yet again. I don't think you're a bad person or that you want to put people in harms way, you're simply deluded in thinking that an immensely personal opinion about drugs is going to fly in public without resistance. People on this forum are here to make their lives healthier and better, and your recommendations that pumping your brain with drugs has spiritual benefits and very little risk isn't going to hold up in a DIET forum. Try a drug forum.
Yes, it MAY. Yet very few people actually DO hurt themselves or others while on LSD. Who cares what theoreticly might happen if it never or extremely seldom does?
Wow. Now you've completely deluded yourself into thinking that because something is theoretical, it's a freak accident? Newsflash, psychedelics are ILLEGAL, of course reports are going to be seldom. Do you think someone is going to rush to file a lawsuit against the drug dealer because their LSD caused them to injure themselves?
Have I ever said LSD was safe to use for those severely mentally ill? I don’t think so.
Many people don't know they have mental illness tendencies underneath the surface. I don't think a perfectly happy and healthy human being is the usual LSD experimenter. Why would they need to resort to using LSD if they're healthy and happy already? It's only common sense, and the lack of the motive to mislead people, that leads you to the conclusion that depressed or slightly mentally unstable individuals are an abnormally high percentage of the group of people actively seeking for some psychedelics or other drugs to try, in comparison with the rest of the population.
Have you even read this? It says that LSD might produce/trigger a psychosis-like state in very few of the people who take it and that most of these few people recover. How is that different from what I have been saying all the time? Of course there are risks, but they are far less serious than most people, including you, seems to believe.
I agree there is some hysteria surrounding LSD about the dangers, but it's not just because people recover from a psychosis-like state! This is again misleading because you are forgetting about the host of other dangers, like being caught by the authorities, or being thrown into the drug lifestyle, or doing something reckless. It seems to be that you put on a set of narrow minded glasses to look at each argument and totally forget about the big picture if it doesn't suit your argument!
I never said LSD cannot cause lasting negative effect. I said it USUALLY DOES NOT (and backed it up with references). Read my posts before you accuse me of lying.
Actually you said that anything besides massive overdoses cause no lasting negative effects. You can read your own words again to find out, it's there clear as day. This is contradictory because of course this is what you believe, but not the truth. You did however admit that when taking massive overdoses, lasting negative effects can happen. This is not the same as saying LSD usually doesn't cause lasting negative effects. You either need to work on the way you say things (aka stop being misleading) or work on your critical thinking skills if you can't grasp how those are three different claims.
I never tried LSD (see, preassumptions), and found out that the dangers of drugs in general, and psychedelics especially, are not what the public believe them to be a long time before I tried any illegal drug (not that I have tried many).
How misleading is this? You say you found out that psychedelics are not as dangerous as the public believes them to be, yet the debate here is that these drugs, even if not as dangerous as believed by the public, are still very dangerous! So what is the point in saying that 'oh everybody is wrong, it's actually not lethal or bad, it's a great idea!' when people who read the same stuff you do react to the same exact information as being 'it's actually not lethal, but still dangerous.'
That is your definition. Native Americans had a saying that "deer and corn was food for the body, and peyote (mescaline) was food for the soul". Besides, many activities that are usually thought of as harmless by the public are actually more risky than taking psychedelics. For example, it is more risky to ride a horse than to use ecstasy (a drug I personally think is much more harmful than psychedelics).
All this soul and spiritual mumbo jumbo doesn't belong here. The soul isn't proven to even exist so why would you bring it up when talking about dangers or benefits of an illegal drug? I could argue that there is great spiritual benefit in having yellow colored walls and that it nourishes and feeds the soul of all who enter thy yellow colored room, but it doesn't belong in an intelligent debate. Only people who buy into your personal beliefs would be interested in that, and someone who is using the tools of reason and science to determine if something is safe or worth taking shouldn't be clouding their mind with such dangerous propaganda as spiritual, religious, or supernatural benefits. Did you know that people have done all kinds of insanely stupid things throughout history, like chopping the heads off of people on top of large pyramid-like structures to make sacrifices to the sun god, in the name of supernatural opinions? What's to protect people from doing anything else that's harmful to them or others if there are spiritual benefits attached to each insanely stupid act that can always outweigh reality, because everyone knows that our souls are more important than our health? *cough*
That is a crazy way to look at it. Getting back to normal is not an adverse effect. It is in the nature of the drug that the effects are temporary.
Actually it is an adverse effect, just like how having low blood sugar makes you crave foods to get your blood sugar back to that different state is an adverse effect and sign of addiction to modern food. If you have some sort of reason why it isn't an adverse effect other than it being crazy in your opinion, I'd love to hear it.
I repeat myself: Personally, I love it (rollercoaster rides). I do it maybe once a year, or once every second or third year. Would you call it addiction? (...) The bottom line is that psychedelics can be enjoyable, fun and interesting, but it is not usual to do it very often (and it is somewhat impossible, due to tolerance buildup and cross tolerance).
Yeah, it's still addiction. Even if you can't keep getting the same effect from that drug, you can still crave that feeling or drug effects in general, and go to other ones, meanwhile forgetting or undermining the necessities in your life which will matter later when reality gets back in your face.. All kinds of addicts feel dull and a sense of apathy when they're starved of their addiction, just because you can't re-indulge instantaneously with psychedelics doesn't mean you're not behaviorally addicted. The point is that it can interfere with your life and cause a negative trend on your life, and all for what? A roller coaster ride..
Also, you blatantly state that there is no "need" to take psychedelics, completely ignoring the fact that for many it is a highly spiritual experience.
Again, if something being deemed highly spiritual from people who are under the influence of mind altering substances (can you FEEL the irony here) pardons it from all scrutiny, then we might as well just consider the human race doomed right here and now.
Big difference, as a person being on psychedelics every day (or going to the amusement park every day, for that matter) is not going to get much else done. A person tripping say three times a year, can be a fully functioning individual and member of society, and usually is.
Again, that is not the danger of addiction whether it be physical or behavioral. Just because one person or 90% of people aren't addicted, doesn't mean that it's a good idea to push the drug onto someone else. People who get addicted don't have the luxury of saying "oh, well I'm one of the unlucky ones that is addicted to this lifestyle, I guess I'll just take one for the team so everybody else can go for a ride three times a year."
Prohibition of alcohol would not do much good. Did you not learn history in school, or watch Boardwalk Empire? I do not believe in prohibition or the war on drugs, and see legalization as a real alternative, yes.
Lol, I learned that people are so addicted to alcohol that they would revolt if it was taken away, I'm surprised that your solution to this is to cave in and say well, the human race needs their addictions thats the end of the story. I realize that taking it away wouldn't help right now, it doesn't change my beliefs that it needs to be done in the future if we are to create a more healthy and peaceful existence. Your personal beliefs are your right, but if you're going to start shoving them on everybody else when it comes to painting a pretty target on illegal and dangerous substances, you're going to get a lot of resistance.
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