Comment by lighttower | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lighttower | Hacker News Reader

The author says > Quite a few psychedelic drugs are naturally-occurring, and have been used for hundreds of years (this doesn’t include synthetic ones like LSD, obviously).

LSD occurs naturally in the Ergot mushroom: > The ergot fungus contains a number of highly poisonous and psychoactive alkaloids, including lysergic acid (LSD), which was synthesized from the ergot fungus in 1938 by chemist, Albert Hoffmann [1]

What the author means is that it's synthetically made these days. Psilocybin can also be synthetically made these days.

psychedelics are the best hope humanity treating refractory mental illness. I know at least 5 people personally that have embarked on psychedelic voyages to treat their demons. Some of them are renowned psychiatrists.

[1] https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/ethnobotany/Mind_and_Spiri....

The US Forest Service is just wrong on this. Ergot does not contain LSD, although it contains very similar psychoactive alkaloids. Ergot cannot be called a mushroom, it is a fungus that grows on wheat, rye or other grains/grasses.

I think the confusion here is that LSD was initially synthesized from ergot fungus.

Ergot is not a mushroom and it does not contain LSD. But LSD is derived from the ergot alkaloids.

Parent used the term mushroom, but the article does not.

It's correct that the fungus does not contain LSD the chemical, but it does contain lysergic acid which is colloquially LSD the drug. For a short, layman-targeted article I'm inclined to give the US Forest Service a pass on this one.

>but it does contain lysergic acid which is colloquially LSD the drug

The chemical differences between "lysergic acid" and LSD areas significant as the differences between morphine and heroin, if not more so. Pure lysergic acid is closer to LSA, which is still categorically not the same thing as LSD - to the point that many people will refuse to take the former when a test kit reveals they got that as opposed to the latter. They are not colloquially equivalent.

LSA is naturally occurring in Hawaiian Baby Rose seed. LSD is not naturally occurring anywhere afaik.

LSA is also found in quite a few Morning Glory seeds "Heavenly blue" is one of the commonly mentioned varieties.

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