Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new category for them

What risks are they exposing themselves to? I'd hate to have a friend hurt themselves.

(LSD, mescaline, psilocybin) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5756147/

(DMT) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9768567/

Ketamine and MDMA in contrast act through different pathways, the former being a dissociative anaesthetic acting via the NMDA receptor, and MDMA acting as much via dopamine receptors (though unlike other amphetamines, it also increases serotonin levels significantly). In popular use, these are so-called party drugs, and users often have no idea what they're taking (amphetamines and ketamine have been commonly sold as MDMA). I don't know why they've been lumped in with true psychedelics so frequently, but they're much more likely to be used recreationally as a replacement for alcohol, cocaine, etc.

Secondly, I think naive users should be aware that the true psychedelics are indeed dangerous if not treated with caution and respect, in the same sense that a motorcycle is. Drive a motorcycle too fast, bad things happen. Ingesting a large amount of psychedelics is similar. There are at least two particular dangers: immediately, a psychedelic overdose leaves the user ambulatory, so they can end up falling off cliffs, walking into traffic, and otherwise oblivious to dangerous situations. Secondly, some people have traumatic responses to very large doses of psychedelics that can take months to recover from (dissociation from reality, paranoia, etc.).

Still, I think these drugs can be immensely beneficial and people should be able to access them, much as people should be able to drive motorcycles. Perhaps one solution is that they should only be supplied in low dosage packaging (aka microdose amounts), such that people don't accidentally take large doses with the common unfortunate consequences. It's generally not a good idea to think of them as 'recreational' either, although many people are going to use them that way.

Do you know anything in the way of a connection between psychedelics and the Eleusinian Mysteries? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries

I had a similar experience with dancing though. Thought I hated it, and I always had to force myself to do it, until I started (modestly) drinking alcohol. My body would dance for me and I would enjoy it. The effect more or less stuck around and I even genuinely have days of more confidence after a night with alcohol.

All of this is mildly depressing though. It feels as though we are just our brains (maybe obviously), but just that we're the strange effects of the functions of a non-magical/soul-less organ in our heads primarily just meant to steer our bodies. Those thoughts make drugs both existentially liberating but at the same time also "imprisoning" for me

> We’ve got a crisis of unhappiness in this country and psychedelic therapies are absolutely a powerful tool we could use to help people find themselves.

But our blues haven't appeared from nowhere. We have significant cultural institutions that function primarily by dividing the populace against itself. Getting healthy likely means waking up to the fact that we're under attack and doing something other than "self care" about it.

So I disagree with:

> the structures of power are so solidified I’m not sure there’s really much actual risk to them from drug legalization.

They seem pretty shaky to me. Which is for the best. Being powerful should come with a fear of the people you have power over. If you're one weird trip away from a revolution then it's probably time to start treating your people better.

Anti-drug fear mongering is a byproduct of few factors: ignorance (people confuse crack, LSD and say MDMA, labeling everything as drug), valid fears (LSD was legal while being underresearched and that lead to few terrible events), self-propelled drugwar cycle (drugs caused wave of fear, became a good target for politicians, that caused even more fear mongering and the cycle is closed), and valid historical concerns (many drugs are very bad and caused pretty terrible historical precedents like opium abuse in China).

People are getting more educated on drugs these days, and more questions arise in the society regarding if certain kinds of drugs like LSD should be more available. Though it would be a long road.

While I agree with everything else you said, this bit concerns me. I'm certainly in favor of using these tools to help anyone who needs help. But maybe we should start with a mirror, and collectively ask, "Why are so many so unhappy?"

These psychedelics can help resolve the symptoms, but what are we going to collectively take to address the root problem(s)? And when?

Anyway, since you were dancing, I assume you used MDMA which is much "less psychedelic" than acid or DMT (and much more of a stimulant). There's also more potential for misuse and addiction. Ketamine, too, turns out to be quite addictive by the way.

It seems clear that psychedelics are going mainstream and, unlike the 60s and 70s, they will be legal in some places. I'm not convinced that ths will be a net good, partly because it's not clear that it was a net good in the 60s and 70s, but we'll see.

Interestingly enough though that first experience with psychedelics was the only one I actually found transformative. I did mushrooms maybe half a dozen more times afterwards and experimented with a few other drugs including LSD and MDMA and I never really felt like any of those trips gave me any deeper insights or changed the way I viewed things.

I mean if that works, sure. But what happens in the future if you latch onto some other insecurity? Will you just take a psychedelic again? Is that going to actually fix the problem?

Risk versus reward!

… but you don’t have to risk much, for your first time. Yes, tripping with your friends at a festival is great - but you can also do a little, on your own terms, to try it out, and get a feel for whether it’s the sort of thing you’re interested in.

Possible benefits of micro dosing notwithstanding, you won’t get the dramatic effects everyone tells stories about without taking a significant dose… but that’s okay, it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing arrangement. You can try a little, you can increase or decrease your dosage next time, you can take notice of the conditions surrounding your hood and your bad trips, and - I mean what I’m really describing here is how to learn to use a drug responsibly. It’s like any other powerful experience, you need to be smart about how you approach it.

I think people get suckered in by unnuanced anecdotes on either side - “it was amazing, it cured my depression!” and “it was awful, it escalated my schizophrenia” are on opposite ends of a spectrum. I always think everyone owes it to themselves to experience wherever along that spectrum they are comfortable going - not necessarily a psychedelic evangelist per se, just very much in favour of careful deliberate experimentation with your own brain and body chemistry.

Glad you had a good trip! Ones where you come away learning something about yourself are the best.

This is gradually changing as we see new studies emerging with the relaxation of regulation. However, the picture the data paint is still quite limited compared to the wealth of personal experiences that have been recorded over the decades.

Ideally, reading new research should be part and parcel to everybody's professional career, but a ton of the advice that you'll receive from your doctor will be informed more by experience (compounding anecdote) than anything else.

Doctors are like engineers. There is a body of science and research for their field. They were once trained on part of it. But day to day each individual doctor is a practitioners. What they say is often just their own anecdotes. Research on a topic may exist but it's up to personal interest and work style whether they read it.

Getting off SSRIs, changing my work situation and enjoying some LSD made a much bigger positive difference than endless sweaty nights on Prozac ever did.

As for the spiritual bit, I don't understand how you could begin to argue this point. A spiritual experience is subjective and dependent on the person - if people can find meditation, walks in nature, staring up at the stars, listening to music, reading a book, etc., to be spiritual experiences, why in the world couldn't a trip on LSD do the same?

"I didn't have the experience some people talk about so I will ridicule and discount all those perspectives"

Cool. Great contribution, thanks. It's too bad you didn't have those experiences people talk about because maybe it would have helped check your ego.

For example, if you're feeling really stuck at a certain point in life and you take the time to get drunk by yourself and listen to some enjoyable music, you can end up being really honest with yourself and become aware of what you need to do to get unstuck. But you can also get drunk at a party and make a number of bad decisions that you'll regret later. It be like that when it comes to psychedelics as well.

Imho, the main benefits of psychedelics are two-fold.

One has to do with subjective experience - psychedelics can simply provide you with a different experience, a different point of view. This can help you see that there are other possibilities for the narratives you tell yourself and this can be beneficial. Depression is a good example here - it's super easy to forget what it's like to not be depressed and psychedelics can provide a temporary clarity about it that can later help get out of the depressive state.

The temporary difference in point of view can also cultivate more skepticism in general. This is especially true for certain "truths" we hold about ourselves (like insecurities, inadequacies, fears). Psychedelics can open us up to consider different causes for our behaviours and this can be therapeutic as well. But I gotta say, they can also make you lose yourself within a new false narrative, so skepticism is a powerful ally here.

The other benefit simply has to do with neuroplasticity. Most psychedelics open up a dose-dependent learning period that lasts from days to weeks. That's why something like a shroom trip doesn't really end until a few weeks after the shroom is ingested, when that learning period eventually closes. Even if you didn't experience anything spiritually or psychologically significant in the acute phase of the trip, you can still benefit greatly from the learning window that opens up afterwards.

It's a good time to try a new activity, do some self-reflection, change a habit, have a therapy session or two, connect with people on a deeper level. You might be surprised by your learning abilities after a shroom trip. But I gotta say, all this also opens you up to learning "bad things" too, so again, skepticism helps here.

Yeah, you can do all that without psychedelics as well, but there are a couple of problems here - you might be unaware that there's something you can actually do, and even if you are, you might not know what to look at or how to change your point of view about it. Psychedelics can provide a strong emotional and psychological example that can guide you in that process.