Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular? | Hacker News Reader

Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?

resobscura.substack.com

52 pointsbenbreen119 comments

Y'all talking about the US drug war didn't read the article or if you did did not understand it. The era the article talks about (mostly) predates the existence of the US and all of it is before the war on drugs.

It wasn't always this easy to get psychedelics I'd say. Previously much of the LSD in America flowed from large labs (which were busted) and would get distributed throughout the country through scenes like jambands (eg: the Dead, Phish). Throw in a healthy amount of War on Drugs/D.A.R.E propaganda. Things dried up for a bit. These days however acquiring psychedelics can be as easy as a few clicks of a mouse and some crypto.

I also noticed the spike on the graph in 2019. That's when Pollan's "How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence" book came out and it seems to have got quite popular. In this time the push for psychedelic-assisted therapy began in earnest.

I'd say psychedelics are becoming more popular these days because the old stigma about them is waning, mainstream acceptance is increasing, and supply is readily available. It's trivial to grow mushrooms or extract DMT.

I fully expect to see psychedelic-assisted therapy become an accepted form of treatment in my lifetime. Few things in America these days bring the left and right (AOC, Crenshaw, Gaetz, etc) together, but psychedelics are one that does. Psychedelics ain't just for hippies to melt into the music anymore.

“You want to know what this [war on drugs] was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying?

We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.

Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

~ John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon

Even the popularization of the latin name Marijuana (Mary Jane) was to associate cannabis with latin American immigrants. In Spanish it's mostly called marihuana or mariguana.

Isn't Marijuana pronounced like "marihuana"?

In Spanish? Not at all. The J has a very strong sound.

There is considerable regional and subcultural variation, but, even when pronounced strongly its not /g/.

Where exactly do people say Mariguana? Not in Mexico. If you over-pronounce Spanish the J catches in your throat a bit, but it's still an H sound.

It's a sound that English often renders as “ch” from other languages.

I have been partaking in them for the majority of my adult life. Looking at this data I’m surprised the number is not higher - 8%.

My own impression is that it’s taking so long because even people familiar with them, like me, don’t actually reach for them all that often. They’re not habit forming. And talking about psychedelic experiences is a bit like talking about your dreams - it’s boring and personal.

The overall usage in the population is low because psychedelics are unpredictable. They can have long term effects on the human psyche and there is a correctly ingrained notion in society that they are dangerous to a stable mindset.

100% agree based on my experiences with psychadelic enthusiasts.

So you've formed a critical opinion of psychedelics without having tried them, based only on knowing enthusiasts? This would be like hating crossfit just because you know an annoying crossfitter, or vegan food just because you know an obnoxious vegan.

If the annoying crossfitter ignored that about a tenth of his gym mates attacked people on the street, yes, I would hate crossfit.

It's not clear why I shouldn't do that. If a significant chunk of people that do Crossfit or are Vegan are insufferable I'd avoid them lest I too became insufferable.

The only reason not to would be something like sampling bias where you identify the 1% that are insufferable but don't see the 99% that aren't.

> The only reason not to would be something like sampling bias where you identify the 1% that are insufferable but don't see the 99% that aren't.

bingo.

I pretty much agree. Even if we accept that psychedelics are medicinal, there's still the paradigm that you only take medication when you are sick, and it has to be the right medication too. I do think they can help some people, but it also feels like it's being pumped way too hard as curing basically everything with little discussion of the side effects.

What are generally recognized as side effects?

This is something that can be googled, but personally Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder (HPPD) is the one keeping me from ever trying them.

That's a new one to me, thanks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_percep...

In a 2010 study of psychedelic users, 23.9%[verification needed] reported constant HPPD-like effects, though only 4.2% considered seeking treatment due to the severity.[58] In a 2022 double-blind, placebo-controlled study, 142 subjects received LSD, psilocybin, or both, reported no cases of HPPD, and up to 9.2% of the subjects had flashbacks which were "transient, mostly experienced as benign and did not impair daily life".[

I had HPPD for around a week after my first LSD trip. Or maybe HPP, if it's not disordered? It was pleasant and positive. After a few more trips, it appears that now it comes back, even months later, but only if I don't sleep for too long. Makes it hard to sleep at that point because I won't want to go back to normal... hehe.

I learned my lesson when my digestive system noped out after being awake for 72 hours straight. First time in years I've ever nearly thrown up. Would not recommend.

Most "side effects" of psychedelics occur in the short-term, while under the influence of the substance. I will focus on LSD, as it's the substance I am most familiar with. The side effects are mostly what people call the "body load". Most notably there is vasoconstriction, increased body temperature, increased blood pressure and heart rate, and of course, the possibility of a bad trip or triggering latent schizophrenia/psychosis or bipolar disorder in those with a predisposition.

Edit: There are also interactions with certain medications that can result in things like seizures, and very rarely people report "flashbacks" or HPPD.

Overall, in my extensive experimentation both with traditional psychiatric medications and with LSD... I think the side effects of the substance are overstated. I have far worse reactions to psychiatric medication. (Edit: your mileage may vary of course, different people will react differently to substance, illicit or otherwise - I don't mean to downplay the negative experiences that DO occur with psychedelic usage)

Take shrooms for example

Now, I’ve never seen any issues with microdoses and would have no problem suggesting such to anybody. In fact I’m a big fan of broadly studying and implementing them as medicine. But what I’ve unfortunately noticed as you go up into high doses (determining actual psilocybin is difficult per mass, but this is a decent reference: https://healingmaps.com/shrooms-dosage-information-guide/) you eventually start seeing cases of… well I’m not sure exactly what you call it other than a psychotic break or injury.

Basically you know how some people seem to have various mental chains broken and are now able to live and enjoy life better because of their trip? The opposite can also happen.

One victim was a long time user that went from gradually from a medium to high dose. Then on the next move up in dose they got fucked. Basically described it as essentially having their connection to everything good in the world severed, feeling like a dead ghost trapped in a corpse, incapable of happiness or love or connection with reality. They could function and appear normal, but were in a constant sort of experiential agony. This wasn’t just a bad trip, this was their daily life for several months. After seeing doctors and trying various things to fix it, they committed suicide.

It doesn’t matter how long one has used lower doses, or how gradually one eases into it, a very small portion of the population seems to get severely injured. For the sake of example, even if such an occurrence is 1 in 10,000 or 100,000 that’d still be unacceptably high to broadly recommend a dose with that level of risk factor for the sake of having a trip or healing. But that’s also more than low enough for someone to truthfully believe and say “dude that’s not a thing no one I know has ever had an issue”

Edit: turns out it has a name: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_perc...

There are also many cases that occur where someone under the influence can become temporarily dangerous to themselves and others. Basically the idea of say attacking themselves or others or some other dangerous activity enters their head, but there’s no longer the voice that immediately say “nah”, and instead they just go with it. No malicious intent, it’s just impulse with no filter, like water flowing downhill. This is much more common in comparison to full on breaks, but usually isn’t a huge deal as the person is subdued by friends and no one really broadcasts such an event, but occasionally injury and even deaths do happen.

Once you get past low doses, you’re playing chemical roulette. There’s an extremely high chance of winning, but losing does happen.

The “psychonaut community” being what it is, is loathe to admit these types of problems exist, and will generally be dismissive or hostile and accusatory if it’s brought up.

There’s also the issue of their being no good way to get hard data on this either, and determine if there are other risk factors involved that would allow certain people to know they have a hidden life destroying landmine and to stay the hell away from experimenting.

There may possibly be more subtle medically negative effects that could show up with chronic use, but I can’t really speak to that.

This is probably going to sound ridiculous, but the risk of that happening is exactly why I'm interested in psychedelics. I'm autistic, and I was blessed with some really big pains in the ass, like being unable to lucid dream, having only dreams that mirror reality, and being unable to focus on my imagination even with my eyes closed (even the darkness is distracting). Mainly things relating to fantasy, and being unable to get enough of it to feel fulfilled. :/

As an example, I was wondering if taking psychedelics could teach my brain to be able to tell when something I'm seeing is not real, but after experiencing LSD I don't think that's really possible. Still completely stable and still know for a fact that reality is always real... which means I also "know for a fact" that a dream is "real" whenever I'm inside one. I can only tell dreams apart after they end, and can't even tell whether nested dreams were real or not after a false awakening... so I never really become lucid inside them.

> There may possibly be more subtle medically negative effects that could show up with chronic use, but I can’t really speak to that.

In my experience LSD causes significantly increased bloodflow to the head (for hopefully obvious reasons), chronic use could result in some more permanent cardiovascular changes related to this, but I don't even know how to start searching for a source on this.

(Oops. We just switched. I'm going to go ahead and post this comment that I assume Logan didn't get to submit... for more explanation see our HN profile bio. -Emily)

> , but it also feels like it's being pumped way too hard as curing basically everything with little discussion of the side effects

In every HN drug discussion someone always pops up with some claim like this "curing basically everything" and then when askeded to justify it, they go quiet. Informative discussion this isn't, it resembles an anti-drugs agenda being pushed (which in my mind is just as stupid as a pro-drugs agenda).

So, can you justify this? Perhaps you can point out 3 comments below which claims they cure everything.

Usually this is hyperbole, I doubt that many people believe psychedelics are actually a cure-all. It's more like they just get hyped up a lot, because people who have been through the experience can tend to think very highly of it.

If I went through the threads I bet I could find a number of such claims of excessive goodness, not backed up by anything. It just feels dishonest, and worse, it unbalances a serious discussion we need to have.

Additionally, if those who have been through that experience and think so highly of it (as I have and do, not saying it is necessarily pleasant but it was very valuable), that would tend to be evidence that they might be a good thing. But do those same people to accept there might be a positive? :( Take a guess. We need to have the discussion, and people need to be able to change their minds. But it's just not happening.

> that would tend to be evidence that they might be a good thing

I had written a super long comment weighing the pros and cons of it but lost it because of a keyboard shortcut typo. In hindsight that's probably for the better...

I've used LSD about four times and don't regret anything, except for maybe making one of my friends feel really bad by having a breakdown in voice chat... the trip was still worth it in my opinion, but it still hurts a bit that I worried someone so much over it.

I hold the opinion that most people are right not to take psychedelics. I think there are still tons of people that could benefit from it, but only once they're actually ready to try it. I absolutely support legalizing them, and giving people the choice to try them. Maybe at a clinic, but importantly also at home.

My home is my safe space and my computer is where all my friends are, I wouldn't have wanted to do it in a clinical setting. And I definitely wouldn't have wanted to have to get a prescription for it.

I strongly incline towards legalisation but I want a proper discussion based on evidence with those who hold a different viewpoint that I can learn from and bounced my ideas off, not simply attempt to shut down the discussion as happens here by some people, by any means they can.

> I think there are still tons of people that could benefit from it

That may well be true but-

> I hold the opinion that most people are right not to take psychedelics

- you seem to have just opposed what you said, and it sounds as if you're willing to make other adults' decisions for them, which deeply bothers me. Perhaps you meant something more nuanced.

> it sounds as if you're willing to make other adults' decisions for them, which deeply bothers me

I'm not Logan, but I can't really see how you came to that conclusion - I'll try to explain.

We do think that people who choose not to take the risk of psychedelics are justified in their decision. Even for individuals where psychedelic use could be beneficial, we think it's better for them to wait until the risk is acceptable to them - which may or may not happen.

In other words, we think the Venn diagram of "people who are justified in their decision not to take psychedelics right now" and "people who could benefit from psychedelic use" has some overlap, we just don't know how much. We also think that a lot of the people who already use psychedelics or intend to use them can benefit, just like we also recognize that plenty of other users may not benefit for one reason or another.

I apologize on Logan's behalf if the original comment was unclear.

-Emily (see HN profile for details)

Our positions are subtly different it seems. I certainly know of some people who I'm sure psychedelics or other drugs would assist greatly, but to me the decision has to be that person's always. To say "I hold the opinion that most people are right not to take psychedelics" unnerves me because it implies (or I read into it) that your opinion matters in their domain of being able to choose, as adults. To me, even to think that way seems dangerous because the next step is trying to impose it.

I'm not saying that you are, it's just given my position that person's choices must be utterly their own[1], that's how it sounded to me. It would simply not cross my mind to think like that. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

[1] of course, bounded by the damage they can do to other people, that's a very different matter

> the decision has to be that person's always

I went to great lengths to try to clarify that we are specifically saying there is only overlap because we don't want people to try psychedelics before they are ready. "ready" means when they choose that they want to try it.

Keep in mind that I'm not the one who wrote the second-last comment of ours, that was Logan, but I highly doubt he would want to choose for anyone, either.

-Emily

Subtleties in people's positions can be difficult to interpret in text. I misunderstood yours, that's all! We seem to be in complete agreement.

It's like any other pharma - its only beneficial to a subgroup who have a condition it can treat. Here's an example. Millions of people benefit from taking insulin. Yet most people are right in not taking insulin.

I'm talking about psychedelics used recreationally, although I know from personal experience how valuable they can be in sorting out personal internal problems. Also, a psychedelics deficiency won't kill you unlike insulin.

Yet a psychedelics overdose can absolutely kill you, even if you ordered something safe* (like LSD) and it turned out to be something dangerous like NBOMe instead. Which happens because these drugs haven't been legalized yet, so you can't buy them from known, vetted sources - no sources on the dark web are known or vetted.

*there have currently been no known deaths from LSD overdoses, even for people who took tens of milligrams (which is tens of thousands of times higher than a normal recreational dose), but there are still plenty of deaths from irresponsible actions while on LSD, and plenty more cases of people surviving but still getting absolutely fucked mentally.

I said "a psychedelics deficiency won't kill you unlike insulin". Deficiency, I said. So why are you talking about overdose.

Obviously an overdose of anything will kill you, including water, so what was your point.

> Deficiency, I said. So why are you talking about overdose.

...I was trying to add to your point because you were basically saying something along the lines of "there is no condition that requires someone to take psychedelics" and I wanted to add "plus taking psychedelics can be risky because it's easy to overdose" (which it absolutely is if you don't get the product you ordered, which is unfortunately quite common).

I'm so dumbfounded by this argument I can't even explain what I find wrong with it, sorry.

> you were basically saying something along the lines of "there is no condition that requires someone to take psychedelics"

Not that I was saying that but ok, is there one?

Edit: I'm sorry, this conversation has just gone in a very odd way and I don't know how or why. Pretty sure we got wires crossed again. Anyways, no offence.

> Not that I was saying that but ok, is there one?

no, I was trying to agree with you.

I'm not sure how you can read my entire comment and think it resembles anti-drug talk (in the colloquial sense). I would most closely classify it as a warning about pharma in general - both the fads that pop up and the overmarketing that companies like to do (which also affects how people talk about it).

I'm not talking about the discussion on HN specifically. I'm also talking about all the startups trying to market psychedelics for a bunch of different reasons. When the article is about how psychedelics are "popular" now, but only about 8% of the population has ever used them, then it feels similar - unsupported/biased optimism or positivity on psychedelics.

Rereading it I agree, I misunderstood it. I guess this bit got me though "Even if we accept that psychedelics are medicinal, there's still the paradigm that you only take medication when you are sick, and it has to be the right medication too". Taken recreationally, why should you need to take them for any other reason then you enjoy them? With care and moderation of course.

By the way I love this bit (commenting on the article, not what you said).

"Why wasn’t there a global vogue for eating San Pedro cacti or tripping on morning glory seeds in the same era when global consumers embraced so many other novel drugs?"

Try it and find out, just keep a bucket nearby.

Only 8% of people have used them in the last year. The portion of the population that have ever used psychedelics is necessarily greater than that, and given the fact that psychedelics aren't nearly as habit forming as other drugs, that number could be substantially higher.

I can't find up-to-date lifetime use rate information for psychedelics, but as of 2013 ~10% of the population had used psychedelics in their lifetime, and that was when the last-year usage was less than 4%.

No, the overall usage is low because they are tabooed socially. Alcohol and nicotine are more dangerous and yet if you replace the taboo with widespread societal normalization or even nudge far enough that not doing alcohol is taboo then you see widespread rampant usage - and in some countries medical systems become strained.

I call bullshit on anyone saying societies are rational enough to identify which substances are dangerous to a stable mindset or not and that is why some substances are not used much. We aren't nearly that thoughtful with what we ingest. It is always "what will so and so think of me if I do or do not do this" as an overriding directive. Mind you, what others think of you and how that affects your social status has very strong causal mental health effects, so it is worth taking seriously. But obviously then this means the bad health effects are sometimes divorced from what the substance actually does to you independently of how worried you are others will see you.

In Vancouver Canada psychedelics have been decriminalized. You can buy shrooms for instance in stores that sell them publicaly and openly and legally with neon-capitalism ads telling you what strain will give you what kind of trip (are you looking for a hint of more socialization or more introspective?).

Accordingly bumping into random people at parties or public parks where people are high and happy to share they are high is orders of magnitude more common now. Said people are no longer as afraid that their behaviour will associate them with someone who is unlawful or a high risk taker or a leftist hippy or insert-negative-association-here. Less stigma = more usage.

You have to really abuse alcohol for it to mess with your psyche. Nicotine is damaging physically but does nothing significant to the mind. Contrast that with one terrible trip that could very well happen on your first time trying psychedelics.

Different people can have pretty different experiences with different drugs.

Just because you have an alcohol tolerance (assuming you do) doesn't mean others do. Just thinking of myself, I'm always surprised how little it takes for alcohol to alter my psche to the point that I can't find my wallet and am speaking in tongues because I'm a huge lightweight. For some it even represents an existential risk due to overwhelming dependence. Also, if forming an difficult-to-break addiction to alcohol (super common) isn't something messing with your psyche long-term you and I have drastically different views of what constitutes "messing with your psyche."

Also I call MASSIVE BS on nicotine not doing anything significantly to the mind. Good lord, have you ever Googles "What Nicotine does to your mind" and tried reading some papers? Cognitive decline, dependence (classified as highly addictive which is a direct long-term change to your brain. How can anyone argue this isn't a significant change to your mind?), dementia, brain volume decrease, memory+attention impairment... I could go on.

What Nicotone doesn't do is cause a significant change in people's behaviour that is immediately apparent that makes them want to act in ways that are socially stigmatized - like get all cuddly... Or hug a tree... or act like a slug and laugh hysterically.... all which psychedelics tend to induce.

Again, social stigma attached to certain behaviour is the primary culprit. These are usually harmless behaviours, even if annoying.

None of which matters because as the scientific literature will attest and what I as someone who used to be strongly anti-drug will also say is:

"Despite the contrary perception of much of the public, psychedelic drugs are not addictive and are physiologically safe.[20][21][10] As of 2016, there have been no known deaths due to overdose of LSD, psilocybin, or mescaline."

If the things called Nicotine and alcohol that might fucking kill me and destroy my brain to the point I need state funds to get me rehabilitated if I'm not careful are fully legal for recreation, why in the name of all that is evidence-based do we make the thing with ZERO documented deaths illegal?

Because it is socially, culturally and politically stigmatized completely independently of its relatively low negative health impacts. Ergo, it either stays illegal or we don't use it.

I'll even end with a fresh example: in a recent lecture my friend's neuroscience prof went through the negative proven health outcomes of various drugs and concluded there really is no health-related reason for psychedelics to be illegal. At all.

You know what happened next? Some undergrads argued with the professor. Not with peer-reviewed counter-evidence or asking clarifying questions no. They responded with vehement confidence that the professor "must be wrong" and even got angry with him with complaints apparently filed. I couldn't believe it. I still struggle to.

All he did was dare to publicly break the taboo of even implicitly suggesting psychedelics should be legal recreationally because it isn't a big deal.

You’re not getting it, either genuinely or in a more dissembling way to justify your point. Sure alcohol will make you “lose your wallet” but it’s not fundamentally changing your perspectives/outlook on life significantly unless you abuse it for very long. Nicotine by itself is pretty much entirely harmless beside second tier effects from having a very strong addictive component.

A person is rarely “broken” by moderate alcohol use. That’s explicitly not true of psychedelics.

Can I get a source on that last claim?

The only real long term dangers of psychedelics would be impaired driving while under the influence (obviously) and increased likelyhood of psychosis if you were already predisposed to schizophrenia or bipolar. "Dangerous to a stable mindset" what does that even mean? Is that supposed to sound scientific?

Is it not? Psychedelics are being tested for treating PTSD. What is chronic PTSD other than a stable mindset? The point of psychedelic treatment being to destabilize an unwanted mindset.

I don't think I'd put it that way. They make you more receptive to/show you different perspectives that you would not experience sober. You're supposed to return to sobriety with the same stable mindset plus a new perspective to consider. Hopefully that combo leads to new and better behaviors in the future.

PTSD is anything but stable. It's highly volatile and extremely unpredictable day-to-day, hour-to-hour.

It's not only "unstable" matching the classic example of a small force on an inverted pendulum will topple it over in dramatic fashion, but it's also "chaotic" -- "exhibits sensitive dependence on initial conditions, which can often lead to seemingly random or unpredictable behavior over time, despite a system's deterministic nature."

Thanks. I see my comment was lacking. I intended to say something closer to returning a chaotic state. An inverted pendulum will become stable but someone with ptsd will continue to be chaotic. Saying psychedelics are dangerous for a stable mind doesn’t mean much if the mind is experiencing chaos and the danger has a chance to reduce the chaos.

I took this as a tongue-in-cheek remark akin to "dead patients are stable" - the implication being of course that "stable" doesn't mean "good" or "healthy".

Not tongue in cheek but you basically have my meaning. Reaperman was closer with his statement that they’re chaotic. I mean to say they are stuck in a chaotic state which they wish to escape but cannot.

Dangerous to the stable mindset? I thought the current understanding was that psychedelic use risks exacerbating underlying conditions, not causing new ones.

Also you don’t know how the other person will react. They might erroneously equate psilocybin with PCP or other unrelated drug classes and look at you negatively

A couple times a year my wife and I take LSD together and have hours of absolutely mind-altering sex and conversation. 10/10 would advise everybody to try them in a long marriage.

Ha! I will seriously keep this one in mind

So you mention that its "like talking about dreams - it's boring and personal", why do you describe it like that? Are you not interested in others inner lives? Do you think people aren't interested in your own inner life? I have always had the opposite experience that peoples journeys from dreams, trips, spiritual experiences are the most profoundly interesting experiences someone can share with me. I have seen your opinion mirrored by others and am always taken back by that attitude that what is personal is not interesting.

Oh no I didn’t mean it like that. Inner life and personal stuff is absolutely wonderful to talk about. It’s just something that diminishes in value the further I go past the closest people in my life.

So yeah, actually, I don’t think most people are truly interested or stand to benefit from knowing about my stuff. Unless I’m particularly interested in their stuff and the feeling is mutual.

The "in the past year" part may be doing a lot of heavy lifting there. A lot of people I know have done psychedelics, but outside of college students, most of them partake very rarely.

Dismissing possible negative effects of psychedelics with a comparison to caffeine and nicotine feels off. Psychedelics are much more intense than either - on a different scale, to the point they are emotionally draining. Otherwise, I can dig it. There are a variety of factors.

Operating vehicles on psychedelics seems like a far worse idea than the other two as well. But comparing them to alcohol would probably have alcohol coming up far more dangerous in every category.

I don't want to try it because of risk to my mental health. The 40+ year old psychedelic enthusiasts I know are just not all there. Plus it can trigger schizophrenia, etc.

Same - and this isn't discussed enough in Tech circles. I know a girl who's done acid 100 times, and she's pretty "off." Kind of like a record left in the sun for a bit. She's not dumb or anything, just a little sideways. Not in a good way either - in a "can't hold a job or relationship together" way.

People with ADHD are VERY overrepresented in substance use, and "Can't hold a job or relationship together" is an ADHD trait as well, maybe like me she enjoys being a bit whacked in the head by something to deal with the incredibly boring, mundane, slow-moving, uncreative reality most of us live in.

Or acid fried her brain, but I'm sceptical.

Did you know her before she did acid, and if so, what exactly changed about her?

I think about what drug caused the burned out hippie vibe and between weed and psychedelics I think it’s the psychedelics. I think that because any drug that helps one draw new connections eventually starts drawing potential connections that aren’t there resulting in needing excess consideration.

I’m pro psychedelic legalization and think they should be available behind the counter. I just also think they should be feared and thought of as medicine.

After 1st psychedelic experience “damn, everyone should try this”. After further experience, no longer a huge proponent. A new user has to make a mental commitment that they will be changed and they themselves take responsibility for that and own the positives and negatives and can’t externalize that blame, otherwise they’re going to have a bad reality going forwards.

My first experience was late 30s, I don’t know what it would have been like having that experience 17 or 18. I don’t know if I’d want my kids to have that experience at such a young age.

Psychedelics are profoundly strange. My before-the-experience expectations about what it would be like (having read an absolute shitload of literature and trip reports) and what it’s actually like were orthogonal.

A bad trip does equip you with a lot of confidence and resilience in yourself and your mental strength to almost get through anything. Once you’ve been through that (like seriously believing your reality is broken) a lot of other things in life seem easier.

> A bad trip does equip you with a lot of confidence and resilience in yourself and your mental strength to almost get through anything

Just out of curiosity, do you mean the person's self-confidence may dramatically improve with use? The only reason is because I had a recent co-worker who was laid off after taking psychedelics for a decent period of time. He effectively stopped contributing to the team and started making concerted efforts to get the CEO to establish a new, special position for him so that "real work" could get done and the "company would function 100x better."

Seeing the before and after was fairly dramatic. I tried to encourage them to stop using, but that "self-confidence" was so over the top that they ignored all of us and eventually lost their job.

Anecdotally, I found using psychedelics regularly kind of left me estranged from sober reality. Better to do it semi annually at most, imo. If you need them more frequently then that you are probably missing the point.

That seems like dude was consistently disconnected from reality due to being constantly high on drugs.

I think GP was referring to the long-term mental resilience and mindset shifts that can be byproducts of trips, not the effects of being under the influence.

Different kinds of "confidence" both of which can occur.

What you describe is a more manic "the world is centered on me" kind of egotistical confidence.

The one the OP describes is more of a "I survived everest so I can surmount this challenge" kind of confidence.

I'd argue the latter is more common in healthy use. The former arises from abuse. Either abuse of frequency, or not really taking care of yourself properly before/after a trip (like pulling an all-nighter or similar silliness). It sounds like your coworker was taking it with some regularity, potentially to perpetuate that sorta manic state.

I would hesitate to downplay the long-term effects of heavy caffeine use.

What are they?

Dependency is the only one I've heard about within reasonable consumption.

Think "ooof my headache I need a coffee" people.

"nervousness; insomnia; dehydration; stomach irritation; fatigue." It's not just headaches. Fatigue in particular can be severe. If I don't drink coffee, I can barely stay awake at all.

Someone I knew developed psychosis and eventually committed suicide. I'm not close enough to know the full diagnosis but my understanding was that they the psychosis was brought on by drug abuse, possibly "2cb" but who knows what you're really consuming in random pills...

A friend once pointed out that much discussion around drugs is completely polarised. Either drugs are evil and we must root it from the face of this earth or cannabis and psilocybin are wonder cures that fix everything from back pain and anxiety to IBS and writers block.

Because they were made illegal in the 1960s?

It's because the people who took them back then are now old, CEO age and powerful and making decisions.

They are not popular in the normal use of the word. But "officially accepted" is more accurate. Psychotherapy is popular.

(We should expect things which are unpopular now but that the kids are into to be accepted in 40 years time.)

Popular? I can count on one hand the number of people IRL who have admitted to taking psychedelics. They don't seem popular, Taylor Swift is popular.

I have a similar gripe. I know a few more people who have done psychedelics, but still it's tiny compared to the number of people I know who have talked about using marijuana.

That's funny. I have met exactly one person who I know is a Taylor Swift fan. That is much less than the number of people who I know have taken psychedelics.

I think this might be highly dependent on your social circles. As an extroverted 35 year old single man living in Europe, who doesn't drink alcohol, it seems like approximately 80% of my social circles have done psychedelics.

As a late 30’s trans woman working in tech and living in Oakland all of my friends do psychedelics.

They're not as easy to confidently and safely get as weed or coke. The first time you do acid you get a little tab that could be anything.

This is probably also the reason (I guess) shrooms are more popular than acid - you can grow them and you can see that they are literal mushrooms, rather than some mysterious chemical substance made by your friend's boyfriend's cousin's roommate.

Isn't LSD easy to make if you have a high school level of understanding of chemistry? Not as easy as growing shrooms, but still it shouldn't be as hard as cooking meth.

The opposite is true. Methamphetamine can be made with high school level chemistry, while LSD is a comparatively difficult synthesis. LSD precursor chemicals are also much harder to acquire.

Oh, I guess I got them backwards.

Waaay harder than meth.

FUD. Just because you can't see the acid doesn't mean it's more likely to be "contaminated" or "something else".

Coke on the other hand is essentially always mixed with something, and sometimes the dealer might squeeze in a bit of whatever to hook you on his product.

LSD is one of the most faked drugs by far. There are communities whose sole purpose is to find the real amongst the fake. It’s so bad that you’re more likely to get fake LSD than real… Cocaine is always somewhat contaminated but it’s comparatively very easy to get what people consider a quality product.

Is most LSD sold on dark web markets fake?

It is not, he's listening to the hippies that want the "real LSD". "real LSD" means weaker tabs, they weren't as strong back in the days, 200+ug gets you too high.

Oh there's plenty of dubious shit being sold as LSD. One of the most common has been 25I-NBOMe, which has the unfortunate ability to be lethal at a dose of a couple blotters(a fairly common dose for LSD).

If you're purchasing through a reputable marketplace from a seller with good reviews this won't happen, if you go on the streets maybe.

Although picking the mushrooms yourself, there's plenty of toxic mushrooms which could be mistaken for whichever species is common in your area.

And depressingly, while there are communities where you could go to get mushrooms checked by experts, they all dispose psilocybe as "toxic".

Identifying mushrooms is pretty tricky, I've just decided I can't make heads or tail of it and have given up trying, both for food and other purposes.

You can at least buy the spores though, from somewhere more reputable than most sources of LSD.

Coke has a reputation of being commonly cut with other substances, including fentanyl which is obviously very dangerous. This varies majorly by location, places where coke is cheaper and more available, it's less likely to be cut.

Weed is mostly safe, but in some places there's been synthetic cannabinoids sprayed on buds and sold as K2, Spice, etc. and that has some dangerous and unpredictable side effects. Again this varies by location. Weed is also getting much stronger than it used to be.

LSD can a bit unpredictable, dosage is really important, and in some cases NBOMe are sold as LSD. NBOMEe's are relatively new, it is a group of synthetic stimulant and hallucinogen substances and can be particularly dangerous when it's not expected.

Mushrooms are probably the safest of the lot if taken with some preparation, dosage is important and so is set and setting.

I think if these substances were decriminalized and regulated, and a harm-reduction approach to education were taken for those most at risk (e.g. Festival goers, teenagers and young adults, clubbers, etc.), a lot of the dangers around their use could be minimised, and public funds could/should be appropriated towards health and education.

Interestingly when people actually get their drugs tested, if it's not what they expected it to be, a good number of people will throw them out. There's some really interesting results from canTEST, a fixed-site drug testing service being trialed in Canberra, Australia.

Dig the real results man: https://monitoringthefuture.org/results/press-releases/

Yeah, if the article posted had been accurate the headline would have been: "Why did it take psychedelics, other than LSD, so long to become popular?"

Here's the outline of the study* from UoM: https://news.umich.edu/hallucinogen-use-other-than-lsd-on-th...

*the actual study link is in the UoM outline

The only psychedelic I've found valuable/insightful was mdma, and I've done many psychedelics. LSD, mushrooms, etc are kind of entertaining, but I've never really had a 'mind expanding' experience with them. I found them too emotionally exhausting to really find them worth continuing.

When we typically speak of "drug (ab)use", we have in mind drug use that frustrates the exercise of reason or some other faculties and their use in accordance with reason in one way or another. Alcohol, for instance, taken in small amounts is fine because in small amounts, it have a relaxing effect that causes no harm and does not frustrate the exercise of reason. Indeed, if you're experiencing distress and anxiety, a small amount of alcohol can help restore the use of reason by calming the anxiety that may be in fact impeding the exercise of reason. But in large amounts, our use of reason, among other faculties, is very much frustrated, putting to one side the other harms this causes. And because reason is that by which we know the truth and discern good from evil and reason morally and make decisions, it is evil to frustrate that faculty. And in doing so, open yourself up to evil and making bad decisions. So taking such a drug, and in immoderate amounts, is itself an immoral decision. We have a moral obligation to be rational, and intentionally harming or acting against our own rationality is evil.

The same can be said of any drug. The small amounts of cocaine in Vin Mariani were not the amounts taken by drug fiends snorting it into their noses and rubbing it on their gums. I'm sure Leo XIII and Pius X were experiencing a bit more energy in a manner analogous to what coffee drinkers experience.

Some drugs, however, may simply be bad in any effective dose. Some speak of microdosing psychedelics. I have no knowledge of the effects of doing so, but it sounds a bit SV gimmicky and some studies seem to suggest that is the case. In any event, the doses typically taken, those that cause hallucinations and a warped sense of reality, do frustrate the exercise and use of reason, with the added risk of traumatic experiences that can cause lifelong problems. This is gravely immoral for just the reasons I've given, so the intuition that psychedelics are something to be avoided is correct. Intentionally causing delusional thinking is gravely immoral.

That people are feeding a morbid curiosity in psychedelics seems to track closely the spiritually barren and nihilistic age we live in. New Age and drug culture is a piss-poor substitute for the splendor of truth. They're not rooted in reason, but cheap emotion, and what we call the "spiritual" is ultimately a rational matter (though, of course, you may experience emotional states as a consequence). It is better to address the actual problem instead of escaping into a degrading, mediocre ersatz.

Your logic doesn't follow. Even if we entertain your (wildly baseless) assertions that substance use impairs your rational abilities to the point of muddying your ability to differentiate between right and wrong, it does not follow that that makes them wrong: plenty of people are perfectly happy to do evil unimpaired, just look at the billionaire class, or the right wing. If someone had a predilection towards evil acts, then a muddying of their perception of right and wrong would be a good thing, as they could just as easily be swayed to inadvertent good as a person predisposed to good could be swayed to unintended evil.

Your argument also relies on a curious, self-contradictory framing of ethics. Are acts evil in of themselves, or are they evil because of their consequences? Arguing that the frustration of one's rational faculties is evil because it increases their likelihood of committing other evil acts asserts a consequentialist framing, but you then proceed to vilify the act in of itself, in isolation from any further actions. If it's evil because it could lead to evil acts, then it shouldn't be evil if the effects are weathered in isolation from potential victims. If it's evil in of itself, then it can't be argued to be such due to its potential consequences.

Pretty sure they've been used since prehistoric times. Hell even animals partake

Official propaganda ... teenagers trying to fly off balconies and war on drugs and so

I'm afraid that if I use psychedelics I'll become a crunchy old white man that never shuts the fuck up about them.

Draconian drug laws. Most psychedelics are classified as Schedule 1 drugs, the most legally restrictive and punishable classification.

That graphic looks a lot like a COVID peak...

This is not a difficult question to answer: The War on Drugs (which includes a massive propaganda campaign.)

War on Drugs, Charles Manson, Nancy Reagan.

And, they were the drug of choice of hippies, which were targeted by conservatives in government.

Can't have any mind expanding going on in the population.

Also. Kind of like how cocaine was a 'white' drug and criminal sentences were less than for 'crack' that was a 'black' drug and had stiffer penalties.

The groups using a particular drug were attacked through the laws against specific drugs.

How do you write this much about this question without ever once mentioning that the US government hates psychedelics and ranks them Schedule 1 as soon as one gets enough traction to be noticed?

right? this is the only reason. they became demonized and now we have huge populations of people who think that mushrooms will make you rip your own skin off and eat your family alive.

the risks are insignificant versus the benefit that they possess, particularly in the macro context. if the water supply was microdosed with psilocybin the world would be a better place.

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