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Comment by got2surf | Hacker News Reader

While this is a really interesting article, there may be some issues around the "placebo effect" of taking a microdose vs physical effects of the microdose. (Granted, the impact of "having more creative moments" may be the same either way, which could be a win in itself)

https://www.gwern.net/LSD%20microdosing this article was posted on HN a few years back, and talks about an self-administered blind study of microdosing, which found limited benefits of microdosing, counter to most anecdotal examples.

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One thing that was surprising when I read that article was that a major academic source on LSD microdosing, Fadiman, is not aware of any blinded experiments on LSD microdosing.

On the negative comments about Gwern's experiment, which failed to demonstrate any positive results, Gwern writes:

> The comments on my LSD microdosing experiment bring this out in dramatic relief: everyone is eager to find some flaw, no matter how improbable, which will let them dismiss the results completely and not update in the slightest bit. Will any of them do a better experiment to improve the claimed fatal flaw? Hell no! I can’t even except Fadiman here. While he didn’t give me any of the bullshit a lot of people did, I asked him before I posted it whether he or anyone else had attempted to replicate my experiment. No one had. To emphasize that: Fadiman is a trained psychologist who appreciates the need for systematic data collection + randomization + blinding with easy access to LSD who is keenly interested in microdosing inasmuch as he has done microdosing for decades while publicly professing its value, who understands & admires my procedure and has had at least half a year to replicate my experiment himself - and has not done so!

You wouldn't think there could possibly be a placebo effect for lsd, but if you've ever bought fake acid, it can take a surprisingly long amount of time to realize that nothing is going to happen, and you can trick yourself into thinking things feel a little bit trippy. If you aren't expecting much of an effect to begin with, I can totally see it.

Even with real acid, I always feel like I'm coming up way before the actual effects start to hit. It doesn't help that I usually smoke pot and maybe drink during that time.

In terms of lsd microdosing, which gives increased focus and other benefits, placebo effect is totally possible.

Like someone said, "if you see rocks glow, it's no longer microdosing".

Obvious solution: group your coworkers into 2 groups.

One group gets decaf coffee with an LSD microdose

One group gets normal coffee.

Waltz in with coffee and donuts Dexter style each morning.

Monitor their output and mood for a month or so.

That's two variables — caffeination and the psychedelic.

How are you controlling for which compound has which effects?

EDIT: Leaving aside the whole, you know, "Dosing your unsuspecting coworkers with acid" thing. Not very cool. Or legal (beyond the drug, itself).

The variable is just the lsd. Caffeine is constant in both control and experimental groups. Plus the organisms would most likely exhibit caffeine seeking behavior anyhow.

> One group gets decaf coffee with an LSD microdose > One group gets normal coffee.

Well, first of all, you need to somehow administer the LSD dose. From a tactical perspective, the coffee makes sense.

Second of all LSD, has a bit of a stimulant "excitable" effect. So you might want to give them Decaf to compensate. You're right that it's a confounding variable though, and there's a good chance that people like me would be less productive because of the decaf, especially if the LSD dose was too small. https://erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_effects.shtml

Fun fact: The first time the Beatles did LSD, they were unknowingly dosed by their dentist.

Yep. In their coffee, in fact.

Fortunately (according to [0]) they were told about it before the dose kicked in.

0) https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/the-oral-history-of-the-b...

> Once Project MKUltra officially got underway in April 1953, experiments included administering LSD to mental patients, prisoners, drug addicts and prostitutes—"people who could not fight back," as one agency officer put it. In one case LSD was administered to a mental patient in Kentucky for 174 days. LSD was also administered to CIA employees, military personnel, doctors, other government agents, and members of the general public in order to study their reactions. LSD and other drugs were usually administered without the subject's knowledge or informed consent, a violation of the Nuremberg Code that the U.S. agreed to follow after World War II. The aim of this was to find drugs which would irresistibly bring out deep confessions or wipe a subject's mind clean and program him or her as "a robot agent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra#Drugs

I can't even imagine what it would be like to be administered a hallucinogen surreptitiously in a age where zero recreational use of said hallucinogens gave literally no one a chance to be prepared to explain what the hell was going on in their brains.

I'm reasonably certain that if someone slipped me something now, thanks to youthful experimentation I'd at least catch on to what was going on pretty quickly, but I can't imagine experiencing that with literally no frame of reference.

Consider non-drug-related psychosis. It happens to people (young people) all the time, and they're in exactly the position you refer to: no way to describe it or to perform reality tests.

Finally, someone provides an explanation for what's going on at Uber.

Pretty sure that's meth.

Cocaine seems more likely to me. Meth is certainly gaining some popularity (particularly on the west coast), but cocaine is most definitely the goto asshole-bro drug

Yeah, my problem with these sorts of microdosing stories is that, like drinking, LSD can really screw with your perception of things.

So you could feel sharper, but really, you're probably doing much worse than when you're sober

The debate now, is if it even has a (non placebo) effect. I am sure if it is good or bad in the context of getting things done will be quite subjective.

Except in small dosages, alcohol has known positive effects. E.G: stress relieve, social acceptance and positive group dynamics.

There is no reason to think that LSD does not have some positive effects as well.

> Except in small dosages, alcohol has known positive effects. E.G: stress relieve

The dose has to be very small for any possible positive effect to not be outweighed by the harm.

How small is small?

Less than one UK unit per day, with some days per week alcohol free. One unit is 10 ml of pure alcohol. Alcohol in the UK is sold with the percentage of alcohol by volume (ABV) listed. To find the units you multiply the serving size in litres by the ABV.

In the UK that's seen as "very low". Other countries have different cultures around alcohol.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan...

There are problems with these numbers, because people tend to under-report how many drinks they've had, and how strong the drink was.

https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/research/data/consumption-uk/

> In 2015 in England, 55% of men said that they had drunk in the last year and that their average weekly alcohol consumption was no more than 14 units.

> 64% of women in England said that they had drunk in the last year and that their average weekly intake was no more than 14 units.

> In 2015, 11% of men and 7% of women in England said that their average weekly alcohol consumption was more than 14 units but no more than 21 units.

> In 2015 in England, 12% of men and 6% of women said that their average weekly alcohol consumption was more than 21 units but no more than 35 units.

> In 2015, 4% of men and 2% of women in England said that their average weekly alcohol consumption was more than 35 units but no more than 50 units.

This is important because there has been some publicity recently saying a drink a day is safe (mostly debunked now), or newspaper reports of the "benefits of red wine".

Here's one example of poor reporting: While we shouldn't increase the amount of pressure that pregnant women face (because they're already under considerable pressure) it's wrong to tell them that drinking wine daily is safe. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6078575#6079665

Anything that results in a blood alcohol percentage between .12 and .15, it's that easy!

Source: https://www.xkcd.com/323/

A lot of people are ok with health loss if they can get laid. The balance is in the eye of the person paying the price, as there is no objective way of measuring it.

The point of science is to prove things and refine them correctly; this hacker news comment is not conclusive proof that some small amount of alcohol is a net positive, let alone microdosing LSD. Contrary to your very clear positive statement, microdosing is totally unknown if it works at all.

These systems are incredibly complicated to prove anything in and we are so much more suggestible than we feel we are.

We can't even agree on what LSD should be increasing with microdosing, is it IQ, coding ability or concentration?

Right. This is why it needs more investigation, not rejection, isn't it ?

Hey, I don't have any real evidence to add, but I would often read articles about LSD microdosing and assumed it was bullshit.

After trying it on myself 5-10ug / day for 6+ months, I think it's been incredibly beneficial.

The crux of it is that if you drop a full tab and pay attention, you'll notice LSD is extremely stimulating - far more than psilocybin. It has a very high level of dopamine receptor activation, which is why even 10 hours into a trip I would notice how different the quality of my attention was - in essence, it was far easier to simply be aware of what was going on.

(Note I have adhd-pi so that's part of why I think microdosing works for me)

In short, a microdose gives the dopaminergic stimulatory benefits, without being overwhelmingly twitchy. It produces a less linear style of thinking than amphetamines (adderall/vyvanse/desoxyn), but still increases general energy, focus, quality of attention etc. Colors feel a tiny bit sharper, visual acuity feels slightly enhanced, physical body control is significantly enhanced (I have far better posture and general neuromuscular control).

Obviously this isn't rigorous evidence, but hopefully it gives a general idea of why one would microdose.

One final thing - 25ug or even 15ug is far too much. IMO 10ug is the upper limit of what would be considered a microdose. My preference is 4-8 ug (obviously dosed as liquid)

I believe that none of those effects are inherently part of alcohol, but the social context.

It would be interesting if there were a study where bartenders were in some way blinded, perhaps needing to use specific bottles of mix for specific subjects. Some subjects in a group would be actors, intentionally /playing/ drunk, while others in the group would be real participants. In all cases subjects in the groups would be instructed to act as if the drinks were really alcohol, irrespective of if they were or not.

It's been done. People not drinking do act a bit like people drinking. But any person that had a lot of sex will tell you that alcohol makes the one night stand easier. Just like you know an ben & jerry only diet will make you fat. You don't really need a deep scientific study for things that are very, very obvious.

This would be like drinking the trivial amount of alcohol found in ginger ale, for example.

There's no alcohol in eg Canada Dry. It's ginger sugar syrup mixed with soda water, like any other soda.

true, but there's definitely a resurgence of local ginger ale/beer that contains alcohol: http://smalltownbrewery.com/our-beers/ginger-ale/ for example

Though these are at beer level.

Kombucha often contains a low (< 1%) amount of alcohol.

> Kombucha often contains a low (< 1%) amount of alcohol.

A coworker of mine was recently carded when purchasing kombucha :P

Just imagine how much some poor highschooler would have to chug. Yuk.

My thoughts exactly - in this case given the location I'd imagine they were being defensive about NYU students' underage "drinking", but good lord the quantities required to get drunk (or hell, even a tiny bit buzzed) on kombucha boggle the mind.

True Ginger Beer, which is fermented using a SCOBY (similar to kombucha), contains a little bit of alcohol. But mass produced things like Ginger Ale don't...

I think there are alternative versions where you add champaign yeast to get a higher alcohol content.

Yup, true ginger beer can only be made with a symbiotic yeast/bacteria combo. Apperently needs to be harvested from the roots of certain trees. Quite interesting stuff

If it tastes like kombucha too you can miss me with that nasty stuff. I'll stick with the liquid candy!

The syrup may have trace amounts of alcohol in it due to the manufacturing process. I'm not sure about Canada Dry specifically, but Coke and Pepsi syrup do:

http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/2012/06/28/coke-pepsi-co... or original article (French) here: http://www.60millions-mag.com/2012/06/27/coca-pepsi-et-autre...

Do you have a citation for "probably"? If not, then it's just "might".

One of the LSD effects is an increase of production of dopamine in the brain. From this perspective alone, the microdosing might be on par with Ritalin, Nicotine, or Caffeine.

I was trying microdosing before I had diagnosis of adhd, and I feel that LSD works way nicer than Ritalin, and kind of comparable to Modafinil, in my case. Long term acid microdosing effects aren't well tested, so I wouldn't do it regularily, but still - it seems to work.

I'd love to see proper blind studies on this.

unfortunately for me, I'm such a cynic that I sort of have an inverted placebo effect. I think it's been coined as "nocebo"

One of the most dramatically psychoactive chemicals known to mankind, so naturally the top comment on HN is the placebo one. Which is always the top comment about things that are thought to have real effects.

Isn't skepticism a wholly appropriate response?

This is about microdosing. I don't think anyone here would claim that LSD has no effect - that'd be crazy. But that does not mean we can say whether or not microdosing achieves anything. Especially not in the face of experiments like Gwerns.

Micro-dosing with substances seems very related to homeopathy.

Placebo effect has real effects. Micro-dosing: Unverified.

Well, not exactly, in the sense that many homeopathic preparations don't even contain any molecules of the substances they supposedly 'remember'[1] while the studies being discussed in the article are using doses of LSD about 1/10th what a typical full-strength dose might be.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy#Dilutions

Well, yes and no. Its true once you get beyond about 12C potency on the centesimal or "C scale", there may not be a molecule of the original substance left.

However lower potencies, specially in the decimal scale definitely have enough of the original remedy in them as to qualify as a microdose. If you start with a gram, then a 6x potentization will result in about a 1 micro-gram dose, which is about the same as being discussed in this article. And a lot of homeopathic remedies are administered at the 3x or 6x potency as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathic_dilutions

Parent commenter here - I don't doubt that LSD has real effects. I think it's plausible that microdosing has real effects. But I also think that said effects are difficult to measure, because studies typically use subjective mood assessments, which are going to be pretty heavily impacted by the placebo effect.

But even if most of microdosing is just a placebo effect, I think that's still amazing in itself. Even if you're not "physically tripping", you've willed yourself into a "more open" mental state, creating your own positive side effects.

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