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Comment by jnk345u8dfg9hjk | Hacker News Reader

How do you know she wouldn't have killed herself without having tried Ayahuasca?

It’s funny, this is the sort of harshness and absolute certainty Jen would have come out with. Nothing is certain but my opinion given the outcome is that it definitely did not help.

Psychedelics are extremely strong experience, ayahuasca is supposed to be the strongest. If you have anything broken in your personality, it will come up. Thats why at least initially it should be screened and if OK handled by professionals who can lead, guide or stop the experience if needed.

I've seen lifelong schizophrenia triggered by nothing more than a bit of binge drinking. For some people it takes trauma to trigger bad things, some drugs, some have luck and manage to go through life with such a thing without ever experiencing it. Powerful tool, nothing more, nothing less.

If you shake up a box of poorly packed stemware, you’re going to get some breakage.

It's an objective comment on your subjective opinion of an N=1 result. You are free to share your opinion (and I may even be inclined to agree with you) but it holds no scientific value.

Sorry for your loss.

N=1 is perfectly relevant to an individual occurrence when the N and the event in question are one and the same. If I kill myself with a hammer n=1 hammers were fatal to use in my case. I don’t see anyone asserting that this means that broadly ayahuasca is dangerous or claiming scientific relevancy.

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