Research into psychedelics, shut down for decades, is yielding results (2015)

I can sort of understand that, given that how many research findings are invalidated later on (or cannot be reproduced). Also, I don't need my GP to be aware of the latest cancer research when all I got is the common cold.

>I've never taken a flying lesson but I know who the Wright brothers are, that their first successful flight was in 1903, the basic control mechanisms of all aeroplanes, and a bunch of other rudimentary aeronautical knowledge.

Most people don't know any of those things, including many of the people that frequently fly on the planes (based on conversation I have with people sitting next to me when I fly)[1]. Similarly, I wouldn't expect many people that frequently get high on something other than psychedelics to know anything at all about LSD.

1. PSA: Something that frequently comes up that is relevant to being a passenger is the importance of putting on your own air mask as fast as possible. At a 40,000 ft elevation atmospheric pressure, hypoxia will cause you to lose consciousness in <20 seconds. Remember to put on your own mask before helping others ;)

>But even so, I thought it would be the sort of thing someone would know about just through a general awareness of current events. I've never taken a flying lesson but I know who the Wright brothers are, that their first successful flight was in 1903, the basic control mechanisms of all aeroplanes, and a bunch of other rudimentary aeronautical knowledge. I thought most people had a vague idea of who timothy Leary was and that a drug named LSD was quite popular in the 1960s and so on - it's not exactly obscure.

You're living in a bubble. You're the exception.

The general public are actually by and large incredibly ignorant. Do some research into literacy rates if you want to be terrified.

Ask the average man on the street to name five Enlightenment philosophers and he'll just stare at you blankly.

It's because it allowed free thought man, and the man doesn't want people to think freely...

It was you who generalized about ALL drugs. I responded to that in the same general way. Then, despite my temperate and reasonable response (open to discussion about psychedelics, not psychoactives), you proceeded to create a strawman and burn it down. This, despite the fact that, under certain circumstances, I agree about some of the benefits of legalization - as I very clearly stated.

You can go on talking to yourself and the imaginary puppet you created but I'll follow up with this:

Like the other responses I've received that seem to come from children with NO real world experience. I ask you too: have you any experience with addicts? Have you ever asked a recovering addict if he/she would ever start using (psychoactive) drugs again if they were legal?

Of course not. The safe place where you're writing from is painful to interact with. Your response is practically a copy/paste from some hot trending topic from the pages of a marijuana user.

Don't presume to know where I formed my opinion. Some of us aren't children jumping on the latest hot topic with the fervor of an ignorant SJW. Some of us have lived through decades of this. fucking. shit.

Do NOT clump all drugs together in some ignorant Shangri–la dance. Unless you've experienced the effects of drugs in your own personal life, don't diminish their effects on people you probably never interact with. I doubt you care through your pseudo-cognitive dissonance.

You state that "sale to adults" would somehow, magically make addiction a non-issue with some legislation. For the love of Spock! People can't control the food they eat but they can somehow manage addictive drugs? That has NEVER happened. The naivete you engage in is far more dangerous than laughable.

You think for a second that even the least harmful drug isn't going to get taxed through the roof - creating yet another black market. The government can't control itself. You have to have seen it with cigarettes and now sugary drinks being taxed out of reach. Are you even living in the same world as everyone else?

Discuss a solution that makes sense. Talk real research. Separate the drug types. Some can be legalized, some should never see the light of day. And for God's sake - use some critical thinking: it's one hell of a drug.

You're comparing water to heroine, cocaine, amphetamines, crack, inhalants and others? This is a joke, right?

Have you any experience with addicts at all or is all of this coming from an Ivory Tower, safe from the real world?

> it's unfair to attribute the destructive negative effects you're describing to the drugs themselves.

I can't believe some of the responses. I have to ask you too, have you any real-world experience with addicts? Have you ever lived in a community with a drug epidemic? Neighbors, mothers, friends, family on heroine or crack?

Are you suggesting that making drugs like heroine, cocaine, amphetamines, crack, inhalants and others available to adults (let's say, 21 years and older) is a solution? People can't even control their fast food intake or alcohol consumption but somehow heroine wouldn't be a problem.

I've seen the damage this has caused, first hand, more times than I can recall - in the real world, in the inner-cities. I did not pick up my opinion in a trending topic.

I've talk to ex-drug users. Not a single one would ever do drugs again. I've seen families destroyed and not a single one effected would want (psychoactive) drugs to be a part of their lives.

Now if we're talking about marijuana or well-researched psychedelics (not psychoactive), that's a different topic.

Which ones do you recommend? Heroine, cocaine? What type of amphetamines? Maybe crack? How about inhalants?

Let me know how this works out for you.

Thanks for a well thought out response that adds value to the discussion. Some of the other responses irked me because of how little thought was given to these harsh realities and I responded in kind. Don't be put off if you read those responses.

I just watched the video. I would love to agree but I can't. Mind you, I'm speaking as someone who grew up in the inner-city. This doesn't mean that people there were unhappy, disconnected - something the video seems to think is the root cause. In fact, it was usually the opposite. Parties, strong family bonds, lots of strong personal connections, outgoing - and still... drug-addicts. Fact is, I was one of the few that was introverted and disconnected (geek).

The Vietnam sample given in the video doesn't speak to how often the users were taking drugs, how often they went cold turkey, how difficult it was to attain drugs. They played a section of a lonely and scared soldier but did not discuss situations where a group of soldiers, in a welcoming environment, shared the experience.

What a person needs to do to get drugs (not having the resources) and how it changes them over time isn't dealt with in the video at all. They slowly become accustomed to the new changes (theft, prostitution, assault) and work from there.

The very same people I have known in life who have been drug-addicts have only changed their lives when they hit rock-bottom as a result of tough love or jail time. Some never manage it despite all the effort in the world.

Nothing else changed in their lives - not their personal connections, not their work situation, nothing. This is at odds with the message of the video. In fact, love and compassion along with strong friendly bonds led to enabling in every case that I witnessed.

I don't want to sound like some kind of expert. The topic, which I never should have engaged in, brings back many bad memories. Mothers leaving & destroying their families, two cases where a baby was thrown out a window (once during a party), a son killing their mother, a heterosexual male teen engaged in homosexual sex for money, overdose ending in death, young suburban girls living on the streets, the wife of a friend leaving her husband for weeks at a time to prostitute for money. Sigh... And more...

I am a firm believer that even the nicest person will willingly engage in the worst kinds of crimes under the right conditions. We can all be broken. We should always be on guard to protect ourselves from situations that can break us. Drugs are one of these devices.

> I don't believe we should mandate what people can and cannot do with their bodies

I agree with this 100%. Suicide, daredevil acts, tats, all-night gaming sessions... whatever. So long as it doesn't hurt anyone else: My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.

This has never been the case with drug addicts, in my experience. Every drug addict effects those around them in negative and often dangerous ways.

Your comment is proof that it's next to impossible to reduce the nature of the human condition down to ironclad mathematical concepts.

It will make sense to you some day - hopefully :-)

Logic is just one of the ways humans think. And often enough not the most powerful, because it is based on abstractions that are arbitrary artefacts of our minds.

That "enlightened state" is, to me, an extraordinary claim, and if that exists, surely there is no reason to be defensive about it? I'm sure your studies are good, but allow me meet that person that has love, clarity, the ability to tap into some other place for creativity etc., yet at the same time has their shit together.

Have you not met monks, people who have used various drugs, or subscribe to various philosophies/religions? Many have a lot going for them but are also lacking in other areas. Hope you get what I mean.

You have to get a "psychosis event" in the first place. Conditional probability, only a small subset of people taking "substances" ever have that problem. You leave out some vital information, without it the percentages and risks you mention are meaningless. As a (university researcher inner medicine) doctor I know used to say: There have been cases of severe side-effects from placebos... meaning just mentioning something can have bad effects is meaningless without more information.

  > let the downvotes start.

Should you get them it isn't about what you think it is about. It isn't even clear to me what your point is, if there is one. It's a carefully selected piece of information that just by itself doesn't say anything useful in the context of this discussion.

I think you raise a valid concern. Inducement or exacerbation of schizophrenia symptoms is probably the most troubling and widely reported problem with these drugs. The famous case of Syd Barrett comes to mind. There are many such anecdotes, and I myself saw something similar first hand (the individual in question eventually got better, but it took a few months). However, considering the potential upside, to me this makes it even more important to do extensive research on all of it.

Oh, and a quick note-- the only 'psychedelic' drug mentioned in the study you cited is cannabis, which from everything I've read doesn't even begin to compare to the more powerful psychoactives. Funny enough, it is the one we have the strongest link to psychosis for, but this could only be because it's been so much more widely used and studied. It seems obvious that more study is needed, insofar as it can be done ethically.

(for the unfamiliar, a recreational dose is typically between 70 and 200ug. 200-400 is a heavy dose, and 400+ will leave you incoherent for many hours.)

To put that in perspective, the "typical" dosis according to wikipedia is ~200ug.

For comparison, if you drink 10L of water, 200 espresso shots, or 600ml of 40% alcohol in one setting, you are likely to die.