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Comment by 2bitencryption | Hacker News Reader

not sure if science, lunacy, or both

going with "both"

its science without the morality threaded through it. Psychedelics were demonized because of racism and fear, nothing else. They have been used for millennia for therapeutic benefits - look at every native culture with shamen and you will find them.

I actually have to agree with the parent comment here. I think the message at both ends of the spectrum is bogus.

I've taken my fair share of psychedelics and while I've had good times on them, I've also had some of the most miserable moments in my life on them. The only instances I can think of in my life where I can say without a doubt that I would never want to repeat.

They're certainly not for everybody and there's nothing therapeutic about giving them to people in a fragile mental/emotional state.

Here be Dragons.

Some people find value in a bad trip. It is usually showing you something your conscience afraid to deal with, you might be better off after confronting reasons why you had those "most miserable moments", they might not be as bad in retrospective

All bad trips are good trips in hindsight, since you came out them alive and... sane. And hopefully learned something very deep about yourself.

> they're certainly not for everybody and there's nothing therapeutic about giving them to people in a fragile mental/emotional state.

you're right, they might not be for everybody. there are good reasons to believe that people with a genetic risk factor for bipolar disorder or schizophrenia shouldn't take them because it exacerbates that existing risk factor. besides that group though, it's less obvious who should or should not take them.

I actually think psychedelics have amazing potential specifically FOR people with a fragile mental/emotional state (example: PTSD patients) when used as part of a holistic regime of therapy and counseling as well as taking psychedelics under the appropriate circumstances.

The shamanic traditions of many indigenous cultures emphasize exactly this. They aren't using these things as party drugs. Strong medicine, used with spiritual guidance and community support. That is a working model.

> while I've had good times on them, I've also had some of the most miserable moments in my life

Funnily enough I have similar sentiments about my travels in the developing world. Best of times and worst of times. But I would still probably encourage anyone with the slightest curiosity to do that kind of travelling. I'm not sure how far I'd push this metaphor but the general point is that sometimes an experience is worth it even if it has some fairly unpleasant aspects.

The analogy ends with the highs and lows.

Bad experiences happen during traveling, you feel angry/cheated and move on. It's a tale you can retell in parties years later. You are out of that place.

Bad experiences during a trip, though, are frightful because, at the back of your mind, you know that what you experienced was all in your head. Like the parent commenter said, here be demons and here is nowhere else but your head. Hard to imagine getting away from that.

>demonized because of racism and fear, nothing else

They can also have adverse side effects like most drugs. I know a few people who have had problems.

depends on which drug you're talking about? Psilocybin and LSD are remarkably non-toxic. There is no known overdose level for either of those, as far as I know, and I've read quite a lot of the research. That's not to say that a huge dose would be psychologically safe or comfortable, just that I don't know of anyone suffering bodily harm as the primary action of taking either psilocybin or LSD.

I think they're alluding to people using such substances recreationally and triggering latent and often undiagnosed mental issues.

Can you elaborate?

I'm not one to suggest psychedelics are immoral, but an appeal to antiquity fallacy is hardly warranted. Especially one as fraught with pseudoscience and magical thinking as shamanism.

Behavior leads to outcomes. If you emulate a people, you'll end up with the outcomes of those people.

Looking at the outcomes of shamanistic native cultures (e.g. a total lack of influence, power, freedom, equality, or prosperity), I'll stick to sobriety and industry, thanks.

I'm gonna need a source on your claim that psychedelics attract foreign invaders with smallpox

Well, you obviously know the history. You can see as well as I that cultures with regular psychedelic use tend to be incapable of defending themselves from even very casual incursions by foreign powers.

This isn't limited to the Americas.

And cultures without regular psychedelic use tend to initiate casual incursions into foreign lands; practice enslavement, genocide, overpopulation and overuse of resources and industrial pollution; and maintain strict hierarchies that benefit the few at the expense of the many.

If such a dominator culture, indeed now the dominant culture, were to stop repressing the use of psychedelics, there seems to be little danger of it being taken over--it's already all but quashed the competition. It would with any luck help to curb the excesses that are the cause of so much trouble, and help to provide the will to use the fantastic tools we have made to better ends.

I can't for the life of me understand what your point is supposed to be. You're making an observation that the particular civilization that led a campaign of violent global colonization was one that had a hostile attitude towards psychedelics. Yes, that is a correct observation. What kind of generalization are you trying to make from that though?

I'm pretty sure that a nomadic lifestyle, massive technological disadvantage and vulnerability to pathogens played a bigger role in that than psychedelics, but feel free to prove me wrong if you have a credible source on what you are implying.

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