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Comment by larodi | Hacker News Reader

Wonder how Adderall with its fourfold amphetamine recipe can fast-track to market, while psylocibin with all its ancestral approval had not yet been pilled AT ALL. How can a soldier designated pill make it to 60m prescriptions and amazing substantiated illegal use, while psylocibin is still rated as schedule-1 drug alongside heroine, which of course is major offense to possess.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adderall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin#History

This makes very little sense unless on purpose. I mean, like what, people been doing it for millenniums and still we got where we are now, and not because of downsides of its use, or what?

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Modern drug laws came about in the 1970s, at the height of hippies on psychedelics trying to overthrow the government.

People in power fear losing their power, and they saw these drugs as a threat.

The weirdest part of the whole thing to me is that they outlawed Cannabis, Psilocybin, and LSD, but kept cocaine legal with a prescription under schedule 2.

But those modern drug laws picked up where the older drug laws petered out, and in both cases they were intended to punish their users, not protect them.

To bang a fairly weathered drum, this is largely a matter of conservative policy. Psychedelics were far more common in leftist circles (some might argue that this is cause as opposed to effect - mind-expanding experiences tend to shift politics towards that end of the spectrum).

This means that if you wanted to use the law as a political cudgel without being accused of thought-policing, you could outlaw psychedelics and be confident that the blast zone would exclude the politically faithful while locking up loads of political undesirables; like hippies, panthers, etc.

Of course, these days you have right-wing podcasters discussing DMT with billionaire CEOs, so it's a little trickier. Thus the tentative steps toward legalization.

A family friend who was an ophthalmic surgeon once explained to me the cocaine was long the default anesthetic for eye surgery, and thus it had an accepted medical use (which was the criterion for Schedule 2). Sounds at least plausible to me.

You have to understand that drugs roughly break down into two categories IMO: the touchy-feely stuff that creates empathy and kindness and healing on the one hand. On the other hand you’ve got stuff that makes people “hard-charging” — going off and doing a thing without thinking it through, with a tinge of anger, fury, unstoppable raw power. Think: cocaine, booze, caffeine and any other stimulants. These reduce empathy and create problems for people.

These two camps are pretty wildly opposed! If I had to guess, I’d bet my money on the people in power liking and using the hard charging stuff while loathing the touchy feely stuff.

All this feels a bit trite, over-simplified, and maybe even a but concocted on my part. But after a lifetime of being around these drugs, it fits well with my experience.

I’d add, too, that the book “Chasing the Scream” gives a better perspective on drug laws & their origins, which really began much earlier than the 1970s.

It's oversimplified in terms of the drug landscape; fentanyl != meth != alcohol, and the reasons people use them are different. You could simplify it as escapism but you'd be incorrect. Or rather, where do people want to escape to? That has little to do with the racism of the 1970s when interracial marriage was literally illegal though which is when the original drug war and those laws date back to.

Definitely over-simplified for the drug landscape, but I still think that users roughly sort into these two categories.

I also think its incorrect to define this sort of escapism as escaping to something. IME people escape from something — the “to” doesn’t matter as long as the “from” ain’t there.

I’d further agree that it has nothing to do with interracial marriage — not sure where this point came from?

The “War on Drugs” as Nixon named it isn’t the beginning of the story.

it's not the beginning nor is it the end. To go back to the story, you said

> If I had to guess, I’d bet my money on the people in power liking and using the hard charging stuff while loathing the touchy feely stuff.

that some people liked the hard charging stuff and were white, and that some people liked the touchy feely stuff and who just so coincidentally some of them happened to be dark skinned, in an era that was racist to the point of having anti-miscegenation laws, isn't some minor coincidence.

> the “to” doesn’t matter as long as the “from” ain’t there.

The "to" matters because after you've gotten high you're there, but where's there? it's that the one where your kids are listening to you? where your wife never left, where your boyfriend wasn't beating you? In that "to", how is life?

Yeah it's a sad history that can't be separated from racism, unfortunately. I think "to" matters most to the sober folks, no? Perhaps I'm simply not getting it. When you're high the pain stops whatever it is. And you're there. In the euphoria. And nothing else matters.

But you eventually come down, and when you're sober again, it all matters! Particularly when you live in a society that criminalizes your escape. I've always thought it excessively cruel to criminalize substance abuse.

Truly, what kind of creatures are we? smfh

When you're high, where you are depends on the drug. They don't all cause the same incapacitating euphoria that fentanyl zombies experience. Alcoholics famously have a problem with driving while intoxicated, which is to say there's a state between sober and being blacked out. Some alcoholics just like a pleasant buzz and don't get to a point of euphoria and nothing else. Of course, cocaine addicts hash together elaborate business schemes while high to (to your point of stimulants being a gogogo drug), but then they're not in blissed out euphoria either, but actively thinking and planning and doing.

As an aside, I enjoyed this conversation; thanks!!

One of Nixon's advisors:

> “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,” Ehrlichman said. “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.”

The initial war on drugs had nothing to do with the drugs themselves. But then successive governments had to keep running with it because letting the foot off the gas would let the opposition portray them as weak on drug abuse and crime. And then commercial interests got mixed into it too.

Research has proven that mushrooms and LSD are societally and personally the least damaging drug you can take. The top spots go to usual suspects like heroin and crack, and the subtop is alcohol and tobacco.

the ssri industry would have collapsed, only reason

Proof?

This is an incredible take. The first SSRI was introduced in 1982 by a Swedish pharmaceutical company. The US congress passed the Controlled Substances Act in 1970. Not even Big SSRI has lobbyists who are time travelers.

sure, fair point but what is the reason mushrooms, which are factually and scientifically proven less harmful than say, ethanol on all measurable indices still scheduled? its all just money in the end. they need to get theirs in scam tax structures like say, colorado etc

I mean, the scheduling alone put research behind by decades, helping to stifle competition for more recent and less effective (in some cases ofc) pharmaceuticals

Particularly considering this story about the cocaine extracted from coca for the coca cola products and where it supposedly goes to…

Besides, I’m not sure Timothy Leary and friends were more real about political party than Elon is today.

This absurd stigma of psychedelic substances need to stop now. This very moment.

It's politics and optics. But as someone taking a schedule 3 medication that is really a schedule 1 in disguise (sodium oxybate) I wonder why they couldn't use the same tap dance for psylocibin or MDMA. Slight chemical modification to adjust absorption rate but same active ingredient. I think we only get away with this because it's prescribed so rarely and out of public consciousness. It's incredibly effective at treating a pernicious condition.

I think the Analogue Act covers stuff like that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Analogue_Act

You'd think, yet I get it sent to me legally anyway. It is under a very restrictive REMS program, but it you're formally diagnosed with the very short list of applicable conditions, it's not that difficult to get.

Not enough money in it. It's not something that is taken regularly for long term like ADHD meds, or something that pretty much everyone uses at some point like antibiotics. If psilocybin came in a pill, it'd be targeted to a relatively small group of people for occasional use.

> Not enough money in it

Source?

The simple answer seems sufficiently explanatory. Psilocybin is burended by its history as a recreational drug. That creates pockets of motivated advocates against it in a way that doesn't materialise for most drug candidates.

Adderall is just speed, which also has a long history of recreational usage. It was a widely used recreational drug decades before it began being used for ADHD.

Is actually super high quality medical speed. Like - if u want the proper stuff, u get it from the licensed distributor. End of story.

it's also very easy to produce (grow) at home, further decreasing $$$ potential for big pharma.

There is so much anecdotal evidence that micro-dosing psylocibine actually relieves ADHD symptoms.

Note: my iPhone autocomplete does not even recognise psylocibine as a proper word.

Psychedelics sometimes makes people wake up to the abuses of government, so they are pretty scary to governments.

But there's also the issue that not everyone should take psychedelics. They can have lasting negative effects on certain people that may already be experiencing issues with mental stability, or they may trigger such effects in people that don't necessarily know about their own mental wellbeing or how the psychedelic will affect them. These, like every drug, should be used with caution.

Like alcohol mixed with benzodiazepines never does the same, is this what you imply?

>had not yet been pilled AT ALL

Simple - there is no real lasting money in psylocibin as most people really only need 2 or 3 good sessions.

Whereas adderall is not technically addictive, but if you can function on it, you do become dependent on it.

You also really don't need it to become a prescription, shrooms just need to get legalized. The risks that come from overuse are far and few in between to the point where normal over the counter meds carry much more danger in abuse than shrooms do.

The parsimonious explanation is that amphetamine was basically grandfathered in over a historical period where shrooms/acid were cultural and political pariahs and they still have to overcome the residue of that a half century later.

Has nothing to do with being a one shot solution vs subscription.

Even economically the conspiracy theory against one shot cures makes no sense. As your shitty subscription solutions all go generic, I enter the market with my low risk one shot cure and eat all of your lunch.

I agree with you, but ..

Through direct experience, I do not think 2 or 3 good sessions and you're done is really true. Maybe with experience even that goes - you learned what you needed to learn and there's nothing more to it.

But IMHO psilocin is a strong anti-inflammatory which may in and of itself be some (not all) of the mechanism for alleviating depression (the link between inflammation and depression is strong). That will almost never be lasting.

So we may be in the case where the real breakthroughs are, as you say, in the first two or three sessions. I think most people who took mushrooms out of desperation would agree with that - by the end of the third session many of the things they needed to accept are, in fact, front of mind for awhile. But ongoing maintenance is probably useful.

> Whereas adderall is not technically addictive

I don't think I've ever heard someone claim that Adderall isn't addictive.

> use of amphetamines and stimulants such as Adderall can result in tolerance and physiological dependence and can lead to the development of a substance use disorder. Misuse of prescription stimulants such as Adderall for any reason (e.g., to improve academic performance, reduce the effects of other drugs, etc.) is associated with both substance use disorders and use of other substances.

https://americanaddictioncenters.org/stimulants/amphetamine/...

That the guy that was on Adderall was able to pay attention to endless meetings and fill out forms and stick with it, while the guy on mushrooms was not, is surprising to you?

This is super unsubstantiated, even small children know amphet impairs creativity while shrooms do the opposite.

I can surely see great benefit in someone thinking out of the box at meetings. While I also see the benefit of zombies blindly following commands, which is where Adderall gets u.

Small children believe in a magic being that lives at the North Pole and brings them presents through the chimney every year o. Christmas, I'm not sure I'd base anything on their beliefs about "amphet" when they can't even describe its MoA. Thinking Adderall turns you into a zombie is fallacious thinking. No one's forcing you to take it, but unbridled creativity is great for getting nothing done. Pushing rope, as it were.

It’s a joke brother. But then not-anecdotally, children aged as young as 12 have taken all kinds of speed on the streets across most of the western world. Happily some of them grow to become reasonable moms and dads, I know few. But tell me it’s not true, and I tell you should maybe get a walk out.

So it was an allegory, but still true. Sad or not. Reality bites.

In one word- predictability. Psychotropics are not predictable and heavily situational.

The traditional HN way is to make up some "It's Just That They Hate Us"[0] teenage conspiracy. The reality is this: amphetamine was widely used medically for decades by the time the Controlled Substances Act was passed. When these acts are passed, governments are usually under pressure to not remove access to things that people commonly use. Therefore, it was scheduled in a category that recognized medical use. This allowed the subsequent development of associated clinical trials and so on. It is much harder to work with Schedule I drugs than Schedule II drugs. So an accident of historical timing is what caused the difference.

0: This game is really tiresome. It's "capitalism". "They just don't want to lose power". "There's no money in it". Thought-terminating cliches. LLM-grade.

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