Comment by ActorNightly | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ActorNightly | Hacker News Reader

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Its been proven that repeated use of psilocybin quickly builds up a tolerance to it, along with cross tolerance to LSD. Your statement about festivals in Europe is just plain false, by the end of the week you have to consume significant amount of mushrooms to get the same effect. Festivals feature a wide variety of drug use and taking small dosages of mushrooms for recreation for recreation isn't abuse.

As far as addiction, there is chemical addiction, and psychological addition. The former isn't present for a lot of drugs. The latter is very hard to control for, because it really depends on the individual. People can definitely find comfort in escape from reality that psychedelics offer, which can lead to dependence.

However, given an addictive personality, psilocybin use is still safer than comparable drugs, including weed. First, the method of intake through digestive tract is generally better for health than smoking. Secondly, there are no negative withdrawal symptoms from stopping, even with micro-dosing (so in the case of your festival goers, the supposed straight week of use produces no negative withdrawal effects). Thirdly, the desire to get a stronger escape from reality will involve someone taking a higher dose, which isn't a euphoric experience like weed or MDMA can produce - its fairly exhausting even when you are having a good time.

So in the end, given the society view to alcohol and its comparable effects, psilocybin should absolutely be decriminalized and promoted as medicine for use, especially with therapy.

As I said in another comment, tolerance just means a higher dose each day. It would probably be hard to do with mushrooms for any serious dose, but with LSD it would work.

The point isn't that taking drugs on festivals is abuse, but rather that on festivals I've met people who've been taking psychedelic drugs on a weekly basis for years and their perception of reality is so twisted you have to wonder if they will ever "come back". They are willing participants in all of that, but I have to wonder if its healthy or morally sound to wave them off on their trip with no return.

>So in the end, given the society view to alcohol and its comparable effects, psilocybin should absolutely be decriminalized and promoted as medicine for use, especially with therapy.

Disagree, decriminalisation is not enough, all drugs should be legal.

But that is completely beside the point of our topic of danger.

>but rather that on festivals I've met people who've been taking psychedelic drugs on a weekly basis for years and their perception of reality is so twisted you have to wonder if they will ever "come back".

Research shows that there is a likelihood that if they stop, they will generally be fine.

Andrew Callaghan of the youtube series All Gas No Brakes used psilocybin heavily in his young teenage years, which is dangerous because it affects the brain development, and as a result he suffers from PPD, however he is able to carry on life and have a job, especially one that involves being self employed and producing content.

Like I said, there are personalities for which ordinary common things like video games are "dangerous", but we don't consider video games dangerous as a qualifier. Psilocybin should be viewed in the same way.

> Your statement about festivals in Europe is just plain false, by the end of the week you have to consume significant amount of mushrooms to get the same effect.

You think it's impossible that people at festivals are consuming significant amounts of mushrooms by the end of the week..?

That being said, the vast majority of even the heaviest users probably take a break after the festival.

This is kinda anecdotal, but if you have ever done shrooms/LSD, you would understand how extremely unlikely this is. I generally should never say "false" with absolutism, since it is plausible, but in this case, given the users previous statements, I would bet significant money that he has no evidence of festival goers doing this with mushrooms.

A good trip is usually around the 3.5 gram mark based on average experiences. If you do this, you are going to be fairly "fucked up" as people say. Its not gonna be a purely positive experience like MDMA, where once the effects wear off, you are going to want to do more to get back to your happy place. Most reality warping trips end up with person wanting it over because its so exhausting.

The next day, if you really want to have the experience again, you have to do something like 5 grams to get the effect. The next day its going to be like 8 grams. Over a week, you are going to be ingesting something like 30 grams - in many places where shrooms are illegal, bringing that much to the festival is likely going to get you involved with security as intent to sell/distribute.

LSD is way easier to do this with, as dosages last longer (12 hours on the average), and multiple tabs or it in liquid form is way easier to sneak in. However, again, the reality warping trips are not exactly pleasurable and quite exhausting, and you still have to do a boatload towards the end of the week, to get the same effect, which costs money and is a waste of a drug (and money).

The way people consume psychedelics at festivals is usually in smaller dosages, where they are certainly not disassociated even remotely Doing this for a week is arguably less harmless than drinking enough beers to get a buzz every day.

Weed/alcohol/mdma are much more common things that get used on a repetitive basis since the effects are pleasurable and you can redose to get back to euphoric state.

There are definitely people that abuse psychs in general, but this is more of a personality issue than a drug issue. People can abuse generally harmless things like video games, and ruin their lives.

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