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Comment by jgrahamc | Hacker News Reader

I wish that his article had delved more into the long term effects (benefits or otherwise) of taking psychedelic drugs rather than going off into a complaint about US drug policy.

Anyone got interesting, concrete data to share rather than anecdotes about Steve Jobs?

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"Anyone got interesting, concrete data to share rather than anecdotes about Steve Jobs?"

Here are all of the Johns Hopkins studies on psilocybin:

http://csp.org/psilocybin/

You might also be interested in going to Horizons if you're going to be in NYC this coming weekend:

http://www.horizonsnyc.org

It's all of the talks on the latest scientific research on psychedelics for therapeutic use. You can also watch many of their previous talks here:

http://vimeo.com/horizons

As well as many of the talks from the huge MAPS conference that took place last April:

http://www.maps.org/media/videos/

If you're looking to read any books on this, a couple I'd recommend would be:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1594774021/erowid-20

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1594772509/erowid-20

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0892819278/erowid-20

I have an entire page with many more links to this stuff, but it's on Squidoo so if I linked to it then my comment would be auto-deleted. Heh.

edit: Changed Amazon links to donate affiliate fees to Erowid

Those psilocybin studies are the same ones which led to the study OP cites about psychedelics increasing Openness to experience (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Openness_to_e...), incidentally.

All the studies I've seen either have to do with safety, perceived benefit (self-evaluated), or effect on attitude (openness) as measured by a survey. Do you know of any studies which identify an objectively measurable positive benefit to the subjets? For example: decreased risk of suicide, decreased risk of divorce, increased likelihood of solving a long-standing problem, increased success at work, etc.

"Do you know of any studies which identify an objectively measurable positive benefit to the subjets?"

Deciding whether something is objectively measurable or not has thousands of years worth of philosophical baggage, so I can't really say whether any of these will meet your definition, but for what it's worth:

- Using LSD to treat alcoholism

- Using ibogaine to treat opiate addiction: http://vimeo.com/20118700

- Using psilocybin to treat smoking: http://vimeo.com/15913255

- Self-evaluated life quality in psychedelic drug users vs. non-users: http://www.maps.org/videos/source4/video12.html

- Using MDMA for PTSD: http://www.oprah.com/health/PTSD-and-MDMA-Therapy-Medical-Us...

- Using LSD / Psilocybin for cluster headaches: http://vimeo.com/10918637

- Using LSD for solving long-standing problems. (James Fadiman discusses this in his book that I linked to, and I think also here: http://www.maps.org/videos/source4/video5.html.)

Thank you for the response. Philosophical discussion aside, I think most of us can agree that there is a huge difference in reliability between self-reported results, and the more objective examples I mentioned.

I appreciate the videos, but I'm really looking for controlled studies. (In principle, I'm very open to the idea of using drugs like LSD for the treatment of things like alcoholism or cluster headaches. And I think it's a shame that, given the relative degree of safety associated with these drugs, it's nearly impossible to legally runs such studies. But at the end of the day, there looks like a huge lack of evidence and I'm very skeptical.)

Thanks again.

"I appreciate the videos, but I'm really looking for controlled studies."

Here is the first of probably many controlled studies with 2-bromo-LSD for cluster headaches:

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/06/lsd-alleviates...

The MDMA research on PTSD also has placebo controls. There are several different studies on this, you can probably find them via maps.org.

And James Fadiman writes about actual research done on problem solving in his book, although it isn't really possible to control since each person's long-standing problem is different.

Awesome, thanks!

> Cluster headache attack cessation and remission extension of months or longer in six treatment-refractory patients administered only 3 doses of BOL-148

> Five male patients with treatment-refractory chronic cluster headache and one female patient with treatment-refractory mixed cluster/migrainous headache were administered 2-bromo-LSD (BOL-148) (20mcg/kg) at five-day intervals for a total of three treatments. Sixteen-week outcome data on the five male patients revealed a robust treatment response, with three of the five having no attacks for more than one month, thereby shifting their diagnosis back to the episodic form of cluster headache. Similarly, the female patient reported quiescence of cluster attacks for greater than one month and "significant" improvement in migraine in the following weeks from last dose of BOL-148. This poster presents longterm outcome data on all 6 patients who received BOL-148. In follow-up with these patients, BOL-148 provided significant headache relief that lasted for several months to more than one-year. Data suggests that BOL-148 may function as an important new treatment, though, at present, there is no explanation for such long-term prophylactic effects with no later drug re-administrations. There is some evidence that BOL-148 is affecting epigenetic mechanisms and may open the possibility for a near-cure-like treatment for patients afflicted with vascular headaches.

Incidentally, this is apparently a non-hallucinogenic analog of LSD.

As usual, Erowid[1] has plenty of interesting content; particularly, the References Database[2] has many papers about the subject.

[1]: http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd.shtml [2]: http://www.erowid.org/references/refs.php?A=SearchAll&An...

"I take illegal drugs for inspiration", paper by Dr. Sue Blackmore is a fascinating read:

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/journalism/telegraphdrugs.ht...

I see other posters have covered the benefits quite well, of which there are many.

One possible drawback is HPPD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_percept...

Here's a Google Tech Talk on "Mainstreaming Psychedelics," from the director of MAPS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwAGkGpv6Ss

> a complaint about US drug policy.

That would be indicative of an article about politics, which would be better off on some other site for the discussions of US politics and laws.

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