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As a counterpoint, psilocybin forced me to make uncomfortable changes in my life in just two sessions and absolutely zero effects, also very cheap. But then it took a couple months preparing myself to do it properly and with someone. It saved my life.

I’m sorry about your friend. I don’t know anything about her so what I’ll say is in no way related to her (also ayahuasca is a different beast). One of the big warnings is that you should never take them if you took psychiatric medication last year or your family has a history of serious psychiatric problems. Another one is that you definitely have to have a proper set and setting so you have someone who supports you in case you see something that’s way too scary so you can rationalize it.

I highly recommend “How to change your mind” from Michael Pollan to understand how these things are helping a lot of people but also to understand the inherent risks. For many people it was the only thing that saved them from suicide.

>One of the big warnings is that you should never take them if you took psychiatric medication last year

What business do the stable have taking psychadelics? The person in the prior story developed schizophrenia AFTER taking psychadelics.

I took SSRIs in the preceding year (not for a few months) and took psychadelics when already suicidal from personal distress. Is it not a logical progression to go from evidence based treatments to experimental ones? Do the math from the perspective of such a person taking some. You're either no longer in distress or no longer in distress. It may not even result in any net gain in suicidality in the long term, just a gain in decisiveness, an exit from limbo. The equivalent of doing a dangerous operation but on your mind.

What is completely irrational to me is people who have no such feelings risking developing a mental disorder from the strength of psychadelics. You already started out with a happy life and yet are willing to risk ruining all that and becoming suicidal. To me that seems far more reckless. I would compare it to a perfectly healthy person doing a dangerous surgery but seeing themselves as taking less risk due to lower absolute mortality. Yet the risk is actually much higher since they weren't facing death to begin with and thus had no potential to lower ones chance of mortality.

Is there even a shred of evidence that populations without a psychiatric history have better outcomes from psychadelics? I can't help but feel patronized by amateurs in psychiatric drug use.

> One of the big warnings is that you should never take them if you took psychiatric medication last year or your family has a history of serious psychiatric problems.

By legalizing the drug, don’t we expect the user to make these sort of judgements themselves? Who deals with the consequences of the many poor judgments that will be made (besides the poor user themselves)?

I think decriminalization, not legalization + capitalism as has happened with Marijuana, is the right choice here.

It's illegal right now but I can still get you some by tomorrow. I'm not exactly much of a drug user either.

It being illegal doesn't stop the majority of people who want it from getting it. It just makes it riskier. You don't know how strong any particular batch is going to be, you don't know if it's got anything on it that it shouldn't, and you don't feel safe going to the hospital if something goes wrong.

Add in the growing evidence of the efficacy of mushrooms for psychiatric use in controlled settings and not only are we talking about increased risk by keeping it illegal, we also can't do the research to see if and at what dosage it is potentially a lifesaving medication.

Drug prohibition is about changing addiction from being an easy choice backed by marketing (I'll take a pack of Marlboros, please) to a challenging choice that does not present itself in ordinary life. It may not stop the majority of people from getting it, if they want it - but it does reduce the number of people to whom it occurs to want it.

I understand where you're coming from with that. I'd argue that it's not terribly effective and that it does more harm in preventing research on these drugs than it helps by keeping people from using it.

I also wanted to add that psychedelics to my understanding are generally not addictive.

Legalizing doesn’t prohibit regulation.

You can legalize with requirements such as prescriptions or require sellers to ask questions and not sell to people with certain conditions.

Alcohol is legal yet regulated such that it can only be sold to people of a certain age and trust people who have a history of alcoholism or are pregnant to self regulate.

Is there evidence to suggest other drugs should be treated differently?

I’m sad about your friend.

You seem to be making some assumptions about causation though. I can imagine other correlations there.

To make the claim that “you wouldn’t legalize them”, you’d need to make the case that prohibition and the use of state violence to police what people do with their bodies is preferred to people potentially having bad experiences.

Is pretty common for people to assume that passing a law will just make things go away. As you point out, the real world doesn't work that way.

I may would have ended my life few months later if I hadn't done ayahuasca at a familiar person

I do think there is definitly inherent risk to taking psychedelics, but in my experience of offering help/harm reduction advice for 4 years to drug users it Seems to be easier tolerable than lsd /mushroom experiences, my guess it's cause it's way more sedating for most people and more difficult to wander off in personal ways to Bad places during the experience.

I wouldn't legalize them either. , I would license them to anyone above 25 Years with a 3 +month education and exam instead.

Note, ayahuasca may be lethal for people on medicine or drugs, ayahuasca has/is a powerful maoi which should not be combined with a lot of kinds medicine (takes 4+weeks to do it safely after many of. The ssri /antipsychotics, there many more kinds which are dangerous, or can cause a overdose of that drug easily )

I agree that people should definitely be careful with drugs.

You know how the ABS of your car gives you more control? If you lock the brakes, you run the risk of sliding out of control. Much better to let up on the brakes a bit and try to keep the wheels turning.

Same for laws on things like drugs. Better to have things legal but controlled, rather than illegal and untrackable/uncontrollable.

Yeah, the old trope about doing LSD and then spending a day trying not to jump out a window doesn't come from nowhere.

I still support legalization though. Adults can choose what to do with their bodies.

>the old trope about doing LSD and then spending a day trying not to jump out a window doesn't come from nowhere.

It seems that "old trope" actually came from the CIA's MKULTRA project where they were secretly dosing unwitting people with LSD:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Olson

Olson probably didn't jump out of that window by his own hand and the joke predates public awareness of MKULTRA by at least a decade. Ask some old hippies. They all have a story of that time or two they had to prevent a friend from self harm. Not saying it's the majority experience but it's a common enough minority that users should be aware of the possibility.

The funny thing is, those old hippies may well have been doing LSD that could be traced back to the CIA's efforts to flood the 60s counterculture with it. I don't think they did that -- or, more recently, that Peter Thiel is working on companies offering psychedelic therapeutics -- because they thought it would genuinely enlighten people.

Yeah but we arent going to throw people in jail for having or using them now.

A separate bill will regulate retail sales and it doesnt exist yet.