Comment by northband | Hacker News Reader

Comment by northband | Hacker News Reader

So this kind of article is excellent and I really am excited about how entheogen can potentially heal productivity to depression.

I have been very interested in this concept and approach as I know several people who could benefit from this - myself included.

Psychedelics are tools and are not to be taken lightly. As much as an advocate as I am for them I also agree that they're not for everyone.

Finally being able to have access to testing and experimentation we may discover even more capabilities.

However, what drives me crazy is how are we supposed to get the medicine? Especially in the case of LSD I am concerned of purity and risk of finding it.

It's a lot different now than it was in the 80's - at least here in the midwest. We no longer have the Grateful Dead and/or "family" providing clean sources. To make matters worse it's most likely the > 40 year olds crowd who would be interested in this but who is going to sell a 'mom or dad looking person' a hit of acid? Hanging out in the concert lot isn't what it used to be ;-).

Perhaps in places like Marin County there still is some availability. I hope so and I hope it once agains paints it's way across the country/world.

> However, what drives me crazy is how are we supposed to get the medicine?

It might be too soon to call this "medicine," a word with certain emotional associations. The article includes many interesting and intriguing anecdotes, but to date the described effects haven't been examined in a properly designed double-blind study (a study with two or more groups and no practical way for the subjects or experimenters to know which group is which[1]).

We must all remember that the placebo effect is particularly persuasive -- some would say confounding -- in the evaluation of mental states.

On the other hand, the so-called "war on drugs" has made it difficult to study these substances without legal entanglements, a factor that by itself may have held back legitimate research for decades.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinded_experiment#Double-blin...

"It might be too soon to call this "medicine," a word with certain emotional associations. The article includes many interesting and intriguing anecdotes, but to date the described effects haven't been examined in a properly designed double-blind study"

The history of medicine is full of examples of treatments being tested in the clinic long before any double-blind tests are made. Things like the first use of anesthetic spring to mind. If they had waited for double-blind studies that would have satisfied modern science, millions of people would have suffered for another hundred years without it.

The practice of testing treatments in the clinic continues to this day, with doctors prescribing medicines for off-label uses, and with even psychedelics being used in psychedelic therapy by psychologists brave enough to risk their careers and freedom to help people.

Ideally there would be double-blind studies on everything, but those studies cost an enormous amount of money, and in the case of psychedelics have to overcome enormous political hurdles. The cost rises astronomically when we're talking about large, statistically significant double-blind studies.

Furthermore, since a lot of psychedelics, like mushrooms and peyote, can be ingested directly from plants, and many others like LSD have long been out of patent protection, most pharmaceutical companies (which are usually the only ones with pockets deep enough to fund these kinds of studies) aren't interested, as they won't make a profit on something so easily available from other sources than themselves. That's not to mention the political hot potato of psychedelic research as a whole, which is still regarded with suspicion by much of the medical and political establishment.

All I'm saying is, without reliable double-blind studies, changing LSD's status from an illegal substance to a "medicine" won't fly politically.

Politics is a strange bird, and it's really hard to predict the future. Much of the drug policy in the US is not based on science or medicine, and the US government has repeatedly ignored the advice of prestigious scientific and medical bodies and panels to soften its anti-drug stance, reschedule drugs, and treat drug addiction as a medical issue rather than a legal one.

In the meantime, some states have gone ahead and legalized medical marijuana and even recreational marijuana. This was often done by referendum, where voters got to decide, and how voters decided is a complete mystery. Did they take science in to account? Did they care about double-blind trials? Who knows? But considering the massive ignorance of science by the general public, it probably wasn't science that tipped the balance.

I suspect that if wholesale legalization of some currently illegal drugs does come, it will have little to do with science, and more to do with public perception change, and the dying off of old, rabidly anti-drug legalization opponents from another generation.

All true, a high-quality comment. It's true about marijuana, and it may eventually be true about some other drugs that turn out to have beneficial uses -- in a process driven mostly by politics and public relations, very little science.

I doubt any classed manufactured drugs would become legal in US unless major (1st tier) drug companies figured out a way to actually make money with them, no matter their potential benefits to consumers. Profit potential has by far the most influence on what flies politically.

> Profit potential has by far the most influence on what flies politically.

Very true in nearly all cases. Marijuana yielded to political pressure without Big Pharma having any easy way to make money from it. That may be the exception proving the rule, which I agree is a strong indicator of expected future events.

Another exception is peyote, which is legal to use by members of the Native American Church. Other religious exceptions may be made for other substances, like Ayahuasca. Studies in to the therapeutic potential of psilocibin may eventually lead to enough of a shift in perception of that substance to make it legal for certain limited types of therapy. Then, as was seen with medical marijuana, that may eventually lead to legal "recreational" (ie. non-medical) use.

There could still be a big backlash against all this. I'm holding my breath waiting to see what the Trump administration and their supporters do.

> I'm holding my breath waiting to see what the Trump administration and their supporters do.

As am I. The politically aware could simply point out how expensive the war on drugs is. In fact I have no idea why this isn't raised as an argument against it, and the incarceration at taxpayer expense of so many people for nonviolent offenses.

The answer to my quandary is probably that most conservatives aren't libertarians -- that being conservative doesn't necessarily mean a person wants to stay out of other people's lives and choices or reduce the cost of government.

Well the hippie lettuce situation is an interesting outlier. Just as much an exception, it's also not in the main workflow of pharma because of the heavy agri origin. But that also means big agri is also probably keeping a close eye on it along the lines of either the delivery method will remain primarily like that of tobacco, or pharma will take a huge chunk of the business selling a synthetic in pill form. Either way, if it turns into big business, I don't see a place for boutique operators. Big agri or pharma will squeeze the the small farmers out somehow. Larger pharmers with thousands of acres might do well with it. Third tier pharma will again be squeezed out unless some investment the magnitude of Berkshire takes an interest.

> Especially in the case of LSD I am concerned of purity and risk of finding it.

LSD is active doses < 100µg - there are almost no other substances active at these kinds of levels.

I don't doubt that it is unique for being active at such low levels. But the issue I was mentioning is ensuring that it is indeed real LSD and not some similar drug.

Currently there are variations of LSD that are becoming popular because of their legal stance. LSD is illegal but variations of it may not be - thus in some cases may be being passed off as LSD.

Even when there was lots of LSD around there was always the weird variations that just weren't very clean.

Often "family acid" was rated as the best. But the problem is every Tom, Dick, and Harry would swing their crappy acid as "family acid".

Most often you could determine good acid by the artwork on the print. Such as Alex Gray Jesus blotter, Alice and the Looking Glass, Flying Pyramids, etc.

So my point is - I just hope that what we're hearing as LSD is in fact good clean LSD.

You can't tell good acid by the artwork on the blotter. Anyone could put or copy any artwork they wanted to any garbage or even empty sheets.

The only way to tell with reasonable certainty of what you're getting is to have the product tested, ideally at multiple independent, high quality laboratories. Even then, if you're testing blotter or microdots, you're only going to know about the ones you tested, not about the rest of the batch. Properly shaken/stirred liquid should be better in that if one drop tested fine, the rest should be the same. But even then, if the substance easily separates out in the solution, you can't trust that either.

If anyone with a deeper knowledge of chemistry could speak about the effectiveness of testing, that would be welcome.

Can you even do that legally?

Here drug lab, I have an illegal drug. Can you test it for me and tell me if it is really the illegal drug I wanted?

I don't know about other countries but at least here in the Netherlands, yes you can.

EcstasyData[1], which does the testing for DanceSafe[2], apparently has a DEA license:

"EcstasyData tests ecstasy tablets, powders, research chemicals, new pschoactive substances, and other street drugs through our DEA-licensed laboratory."[3]

You can also buy testing kits[4] for some drugs, like ecstasy, and do the testing yourself.

Looks like there is a test kit for LSD even.[5]

"Ehrlich's Reagent is a solution of hydrochloric acid, ethanol and p–dimethylaminobenzaldehyde. It can be used to positively identify LSD, helping rule out 25i-NBOMe, a highly toxic and extremely dangerous drug that is often misrepresented as LSD. Ehrlich's can also be used to identify other indoles. Contains enough reagent for approximately 50 tests."

I'm not sure if ruling out 25i-NBOMe is enough, though. Could there be other toxic substances that aren't caught by this test?

Still, some testing is much better than no testing.

[1] - http://www.ecstasydata.org

[2] - https://dancesafe.org/about-us/

[3] - http://www.ecstasydata.org/about_data.php

[4] - https://dancesafe.org/shop/

[5] - https://dancesafe.org/product/ehrlichs-reagent-testing-kit/

Reagent tests tests for presence, not purity. They're just a way of ruling out if you for sure don't have the compound you're looking for. However, you will never get any data on purity, and with multiple substances on a tab you will be hard pressed to identify the substances.

A little knowledge goes a long way, however. Tabs can only fit hundreds of micrograms to around a milligram (maybe a few mg's) on a standard sized blotter tab. This narrows down the # of potential active compounds massively. Also, LSD is active when swallowed immediately but nbomes aren't. So for a knowledgeable user it's not hard to avoid nbomes, but you will never be able to find out how much LSD is actually on your tab.

"LSD is active when swallowed immediately but nbomes aren't. So for a knowledgeable user it's not hard to avoid nbomes"

LSD might be pharmacologically active immediately, but not perceptually. It might take a while for the user to be sure they haven't eaten plain paper. Anyway, what is the "knowledgeable user" supposed to do when the substance they've taken isn't active immediately? Spit it out? By then it's too late. I really don't understand how this knowledge is supposed to help you avoid nbomes.

"you will never be able to find out how much LSD is actually on your tab"

Knowing what you're getting is great, but of secondary importance to making sure you're not getting poisoned.

The government should really step in, legalize it, and inspect the manufacturers and require testing, much like what is done in the legal medical industry now, with legal pharmaceuticals.

That process is itself currently far from perfect, and occasionally there are safety scandals even with legal pharmaceuticals, but it's still far better than the situation with illegal drugs now, when users have to seriously worry that their next dose will kill them because of potential toxic impurities that would all likelihood not be there if the drug was legal.

It's really upsetting that the government can stand by and just watch people suffer and die when they could be doing something to prevent it.

You mis-parsed that first sentence, I think. Immediately refers to the act of swallowing, not the activity of LSD.

Ok, I see that I misread it, but I still don't understand. "active when swallowed immediately"? Immediately after what? I don't get it. Could someone explain that full sentence for me?

Swallow LSD = you get high. Swallow nbomes = you don't get high.

If you swallow nbomes and you die, I'm not sure how that's supposed to help you avoid them. It still doesn't make any sense.

Give them to your friend first and see if he dies?

LSD should never separate in solution. It should always stay evenly distributed, and liquid is an ideal long term storage form anyway.

For testing, the only effective technique is GC/MS. But there is only one lab [REDACTED] knows of, which is the Spanish lab Energy Control. Unfortunately they are not always competent and often make routine errors in analysis.

"LSD should never separate in solution. It should always stay evenly distributed..."

LSD might not, but some toxins or impurities might, and those are the ones you most want to pick up in your test. So if you test just an unmixed portion, you might miss the impurities that are nonetheless there.

There are newer synthetic drugs like bromo-dragonfly[1] that approach the potency of LSD, and have caused fatalities.[2][3]

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromo_Dragonfly

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromo_Dragonfly#Toxicity

[3] - https://erowid.org/chemicals/bromo_dragonfly/bromo_dragonfly...

The dose for Bromo-DragonFLY is still fortunately too large to fit on a 1/4 x 1/4 inch piece of blotter paper (EDIT: Actually, after looking into this a bit more, I'm not so sure about this statement. I'll defer to someone with more knowledge, but until then take what I've said with a grain of salt.). It sounds like a primitive methodology, but in the absence of a testing kit, this small-sized blotter paper is a pretty sure sign that you have real LSD.

If you are offered larger blotter paper, it is very likely to be one of the NBOMe drugs, which are also not so safe in comparison to LSD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/25I-NBOMe

I've had highly dosed NBOMe (not by accident) which came on tiny blotters. Size is never a good gauge

I think you understand a lot less about this than you believe you do - this is pretty dangerous (tho not as bad as a comment above basing trustworthiness off label artwork)

Yep, I should have deleted this comment. This was something that I saw repeated often on the early Silk Road forums and I naively trusted it. Sorry.

NBOMe's are! They also have psychadelic effects but are a lot riskier and tend to last longer.

It's a good thing they have a bitter taste, and if your LSD has a bitter/metallic taste: spit! It shouldn't taste like anything and you don't want HPPD.

Nbomes requiee a higher dosage than LSD.

[REDACTED] has never tasted anything but paper on tabs, but some claim a metallic taste when there is none. The best protocol is to swallow the tab, in which case nbomes will not have an effect (they must be sublingually absorbed). There is little reason to take LSD sublingually although it is quite common among recreational users - which is again silly because if you swallow you can guarantee that nbomes won't affect you

That's interesting, can you provide a reference for NBOMEs having to be taken sublingually to have an effect?

this used to be true, but with the number of psychoactive research chemicals there is no way to be sure what's on the paper without testing it.

The dark web solves most of those issues, but comes with a few new ones of its own. That said, I genuinely think it's a viable source if you're in the market.

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