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Comment by wnolens | Hacker News Reader

Every time I talk about my negative LSD experience with someone in-person (even one who is very pro-psychedelic and enjoys positive or growth experiences from it), I receive great empathy and we discuss it, they are genuinely curious and perhaps even recalibrate their own compass.

However, bringing it up online (reddit, HN) I either get others chiming in with their negative experiences or I get blamed as if I have never done drugs before (i have, lots) or am inexperienced with LSD (I've tripped a half dozen times with good results), or didn't read this book or that online guide (I have)..

Anyway.. when I recommend LSD to new friends, it's to stay in the fun domain (50-150micrograms, go have fun at a music festival) and consider the myriad of other forms of therapy first.

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I go to a lot of psychedelic festival, and I see those kind of recommandations quite frequently around me and my friends. I've grown to find those irresponsible.

I don't think we should prevent people from having those experiences of they really want to. But I've frequently noticed the people providing those recommandationa don't have any idea of the care that is required or the risks that are associated with that kind of experience.

Those risks are extremely frequently dismissed but sadly, they're real. The author of that article is one example, but they're many others and the consequences are very long lasting

People online are basically parrots, they're just repeating what they've read regardless of who stated it.

Big subreddits are the worst for this. People will repeat poor quality comments they've seen upvoted in other posts because they know it will be upvoted by others who recognise it. Even though the original may have only been noticed because they got in early and confidently.

> Anyway.. when I recommend LSD to new friends, it's to stay in the fun domain (50-150micrograms, go have fun at a music festival) and consider the myriad of other forms of therapy first.

This is what I do as well. People are gonna take drugs, I’m not trying to talk anyone out of that, so I recommend staying safe and sticking with low doses. But curiosity often comes calling anyway and people naturally want to delve deeper, and I worry a lot of people justify massive doses without proper preparation because they see so many people saying “oh, there’s no such thing as a bad trip!”.

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