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Comment by rubatuga | Hacker News Reader

Definitely agree with you about the possibility of an unexpected reaction: I had to experience my friend losing touch with reality, taking off his clothes, running around my dormitory almost naked, and finally pulling the fire alarm. He was last seen that day being handcuffed and put into an ambulance. In case you're wondering, he took about 200 ug of real LSD.

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200ug are a pretty high dose[1], 10 to 20 times the threshold and your friend's reaction is not really typical even for a bad trip: In most cases people just want to reduce the amount of auditory or visual input they have to process when it is too much - so nothing like starting a fire alarm. Are you sure it was LSD?

[1] https://erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_dose.shtml

200ug is not high...?

Starting a fire alarm etc. just means the guy was using the reduced inhibition to go ballastic. Just stupid really. Don't go blame the stuff for that.

>400 is high. up to 150/200 is low - can function normally. between 200/400 is hard to function normally. above 400 you really kinda can't, best just lie down and let the colors wash over.

High for what barrier?

200µg is certainly enough to perceive the world radically differently—so, very high to a sober person. However, it's very low on the scale of LSD you can safely ingest.

Either way, the dude had more going on than an acid trip that day.

I share your skepticism. Part of the problem with the War on Drugs is that forcing science underground basically puts us in a medieval situation, where we have to rely on word of mouth and personal experiences.

It doesn't sound like LSD to me either, but all I can say for sure is that I took a whole bunch of stuff which people told me was LSD, back in the day, and that it affected me differently.

edit: skepticism significantly increased, now that people are talking about LSD causing reduced inhibitions. seen and experienced extraordinary counterexamples. it's not alcohol, folks.

It was bought off of the dark web with a seller with a very high rating, and was taken by multiple other friends who had a true LSD experience. He was the only one who had a "crazy" reaction. I'm hundred percent sure it was LSD. Talking to him after the event, I remember him saying that he believed he could do anything. Mind you, watching him felt like seeing a toddler in a grown mans body. I'm not sure if LSD necessarily lowers inhibition, but it did seem to confirm that different brain chemistries exist.

Hmm. This suggest that 200ug is a relatively strong dose[1] (the dose used in this study is 100ug). It's worth noting that a lot of things - alcohol, marijuana, even Robitussin (DXM) - can have very unpleasant side effects when the dose is too large. Drugs like caffeine and alcohol also have a much greater toxicity than LSD, for what it's worth.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/LSD/comments/2hg6io/different_dosag...

I've never really understood these stories of people completely dissociating and doing crazy things. At high doses I can barely walk.

I've started avoiding any thread on Reddit where LSD comes up.

People talk about taking a milligram of it and walking around the city enjoying fractals while their friend repeats the phrase "I see Candyland" for 12 hours straight, and their other friend thought he was a chicken and started flapping his arms, "bok bok bok!" And everyone in the comments laughs and says "yeah, isn't acid crazy?"

With defenses like "drugs affect everyone differently!" or "acid is known to cause insanity, albeit rarely!" invoked whenever you roll your eyes.

Too cringeworthy for me. Starting to see it on HN now as well.

... I joined HN because Reddit was starting to piss me off ;) . But I really stand by what I said, it was real LSD, and his experience was a minority and extreme case. I'm just trying to say LSD does not affect everybody the same way.

That doesn't sound at all strange to me, the drug makes you lose touch with reality (sort of by definition) and taking of your clothes is a common LSD trope, pulling the fire alarm is unfortunate but not so serious. Describing this like it's some sad event and a huge deal is weird to me, I hope the guy didn't have to suffer too much prejudice afterwards.

I don't understand how this is possible. I find it almost legitimately impossible to ever act in this way.

This feels more like they got some bad stuff.

That sentiment is tempting, but unfortunately the "good stuff" does actually occasionally cause insane reactions in some people, even in people who have had perfectly nominal trips on exactly the same batch of substance.

Had an almost identical experience with a somewhat seasoned tripper. More blood though.

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