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>> There are so many cases of serious mental problems including permanent insanity caused by psychadelics. And of course there are also the thousands of people that are not exactly insane but have their brains pretty much fried and are just not very good for anything useful anymore. I get to meet a lot of those in LA.

Do you have numbers and studies on this? Was it just LSD or have they been chronic multi-drug users for multiple years?

Because your statements directly conflict with the state of the art of current research.

>> There are a few writers that have tried drugs and are completely honest about them, but they are very few. It is very hard for a drug user to be honest about drugs. I would recommend Philip K Dick. If anyone wants to try hard drugs, please read "A scanner darkly", and then read a Philip K Dick biography to see that he knew what he was talking about.

PKD and his friends were indeed into all sorts of things, and got into all sorts of trouble.

His main complaint seems to have been that nobody told them what was safe and what was not, and that through innocent experimentation all sorts of bad things happened.

Hysterical disinformation, which is all we've had from government for around 30 years now, does nothing to help this. Nothing.

During an undergrad research project in a hospital, I had access to a medical library and found a few articles on persistent visual tracers following LSD use. I can't find them now, but I turned this up in the British Journal of Psychiatry

"A chronic impairment of colour vision in users of LSD." http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/140/5/518.short

A small number of users do experience HPPD, yes, but I'm not convinced there are thousands of shambling, brain-fried zombies from this and this alone.

> "There are so many cases of serious mental problems including permanent insanity caused by psychadelics."

> "And of course there are also the thousands of people that are not exactly insane but have their brains pretty much fried and are just not very good for anything useful anymore."

> "To mention one of the more recent fruits of psychedelics -- the guy that shot that US congresswoman in the head fried his brain on mushrooms."

Don't make outlandish claims if you're not going to bother to cite your sources. Also, even if what your claiming regarding the Arizona shooter is true, I have a mustache, does that mean I'm going to commit genocide?

"Pretending that LSD is harmless is utter utter bulshit."

You obviously didn't read the full essay if that is what you came away with. The book you cite is about amphetamines. Throwing Amphetamines and Psychedelics into the general "drugs" category really betrays your complete lack of any knowledge on this subject.

Finally I agree that pro-drug advocates will certainly be biased but you are on the other end of the spectrum. You seem to claim author's aren't truthful about their experiences with drugs unless it's negative?

Dick's experiences were mostly with amphetamines, not psychedelics. Most don't include LSD and psilocybin as "hard drugs," either, and all of the credible drug advocates I've seen have always clearly stated that one should carefully research and consider before taking any drug into one's body, and advise against those with predispositions to mental illness or who feel that they are not ready for such experiences or capable of properly preparing for them ("set and setting"). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rational_scale_to_assess_t...)

There have been very, very few documented ill-effects of LSD use. Like, an astronomically small number given the range of use. Those people you describe in LA are most likely suffering from the effects of other drugs, namely alcohol.

What you think you know about psychedelic drugs is not true. If you judge what drug proponents say against what you think that you know, of course you'll find what they say dishonest. What many of them say is on a far firmer scientific footing than what you're saying.

LSD does not cause people to be schizophrenic; schizophrenia shows itself during the most likely years for people to be experimenting with drugs.

edit: and to add to what kinghajj mentioned about Philip K. Dick; Dick was on amphetamines, and amphetamines have a very established history of actually making you long-term crazy.

> LSD does not cause people to be schizophrenic; schizophrenia shows itself during the most likely years for people to be experimenting with drugs.

This is very misleading at best. LSD use causes direct symptoms of psychosis, including symptoms of schizophrenia, schizoaffective, and schizophreniform disorders.

The effects of LSD resemble schizophrenia so closely, in fact, that it has led to studies on rats using LSD as a hypothetical model to represent schizophrenia. In other words, we give rats LSD and see what chemicals reduce the effects to find treatments for schizophrenia.

A very incomplete list of sources:

Aghajanian, G. K., & Marek, G. J. (2000). Serotonin model of schizophrenia: emerging role of glutamate mechanisms. Brain Research Reviews, 31(2), 302-312.

Crow, T. J. (1980). Molecular pathology of schizophrenia: more than one disease process?. British medical journal, 280(6207), 66.

Schneier, F. R., & Siris, S. G. (1987). A review of psychoactive substance use and abuse in schizophrenia: patterns of drug choice. The Journal of nervous and mental disease, 175(11), 641-652.

I think it's simply misleading to quote studies comparing the effects of acute LSD intoxication to the symptoms that can be seen in psychotic people as evidence that LSD in some way causes schizophrenia.

Drunken people share symptoms with schizophrenics too, as well as people who have gone without sleep.

This is not just a matter of resembling psychosis.

Haloperidol and olanzapine, two common prescriptions for schizophrenia, have been demonstrated to reduce the effects of LSD.

There is a connection between the psychoactive properties of LSD and the neurological etiology of schizophrenia, though the connection needs to be studied further.

Yes, research should not be taken as gospel, but it is foolish to think that there is no reason at all for alarm.

Another more recent source: Marona-Lewicka, D., Nichols, C. D., & Nichols, D. E. (2011). An animal model of schizophrenia based on chronic {LSD} administration: Old idea, new results. Neuropharmacology, 61(3), 503 – 512. doi:10.1016/j.neuropharm.2011.02.006

LSD is primarily a 5HT2 agonist which leads to a decrease in dopamine pathways. This decrease in dopamine leads to taking it mimicing the "negative" symptoms of schizophrenia. this effect has been used in animal models to support various dopamine theories for us to learn more about schizophrenia, such as one of the current theories advocating for an increase in dopamine in mesolimbic brain pathway and decrease of dopamine in mesocortical pathways.

So the drug is useful for inducing the symptoms, however once the drug is gone so are the symptoms. Schizophrenics have problems at some cellular level, be it receptor, transcription, translation, protein modification, etc that leads to their symptoms and the end effects that are similar to LSD. LSD causes the final step in the pathway, not the initial ones.

Likewise for your drugs, you named two dopamine blockers (one selective for D_2 and one not). these treat schizophrenia in the sense that they minimise symptoms since they are working at the final step in what is wrong with the patients. They are not "cures" because they don't address the initial issue, which we hopefully will discover.

> Haloperidol and olanzapine, two common prescriptions for schizophrenia, have been demonstrated to reduce the effects of LSD.

That is such a bullshit statement. A wide array of pharmaceuticals reduce the effects of LSD as well as other drugs for that matter.

Number 1 rule: If you're having a bad LSD trip head straight for the liquor; that'll kill your trip good and fast. What's your point?

Dont mean to be rude, but I'm calling out your schizophrenia association as wild-eyed bullshit, too.

I think you've misunderstood my comment. The angle bracket part was me quoting the parent comment. I'm telling him that it's bullshit to try and draw some sort of conclusion between LSD and schizophrenia simply because schizophrenia medication dampers the effects of LSD because all sorts of medications damper the effects of LSD. I probably should have used quotes, my bad. I'm just so used to using the angle bracket to signify a quotation.

Hah, no, I was agreeing with you! I hit reply under the wrong thread.

Try taking LSD and then tell me if some aspect of the experience could not be described as schizophrenic. Seriously comparing the state of being drunk with that of one tripping their (rational) mind off is liking comparing apples and moons.

IMO, the mood-swings and irrational, dangerous behavior that Alcohol tends to induce seem to me to be far more schizophrenic than the states brought on by LSD.

A non-schizophrenic describing their subjective experience on LSD as schizophrenic can be nothing but projection.

> The effects of LSD resemble schizophrenia so closely, in fact, that it has led to studies on rats using LSD as a hypothetical model to represent schizophrenia. In other words, we give rats LSD and see what chemicals reduce the effects to find treatments for schizophrenia.

And that was the research which led to the rejection of LSD as a model for schizophrenia, and there is still no evidence tying LSD to schizophrenia as all the correlations are heavily contaminated by polydrug use.

It's messy, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSD_and_schizophrenia is a better overview of the topic...

I don't think we know enough about schizophrenia or LSD to say they are the same thing.

Most of the lsd-eaters I've talked with have talked about a visual effect called "tracers", but the handful of schizophrenics I've talked to don't talk about tracers, but they do talk about hallucinatory voices, depression, paranoia and confusion.

That said, I think that your current brain chemistry definitely affects your drug experience. If you have mental health issues, stay away from hallucinogens.

Like I said in another post, I have used psilocybin. The effects I had were not typical of what most other people described. I had a whole other set of "special effects" I experienced, consistently. After talking with many people, I found that a few other people shared virtually the same hallucinatory effects, and they seemed to have ADHD or some kind of OCD or were very tech-geeky. (And, I haven't been diagnosed, but I bite my nails and have a mild hoarding problem. That's a sign of possible OCD.)

So, I don't seek out this type of drug anymore.

I think it's pretty inaccurate to say this article ignores the negative effects of drugs or pretends that LSD is harmless. Quoting verbatim:

This is not to say that everyone should take psychedelics. As I will make clear below, these drugs pose certain dangers. Undoubtedly, there are people who cannot afford to give the anchor of sanity even the slightest tug.

and

Even if drugs like LSD are biologically safe, the potential for extremely unpleasant and destabilizing experiences presents its own risks. I believe I was positively affected for weeks and months by my good trips, and negatively affected by the bad ones. Given these roulette-like odds, one can only recommend these experiences with caution.

and

But as the peaks are high, the valleys are deep. My “bad trips” were, without question, the most harrowing hours I have ever suffered—and they make the notion of hell, as a metaphor if not a destination, seem perfectly apt.

It's pretty even-handed, overall.

> So I bet this disgusting essay will cause a bunch of kids to try LSD and a percentage of them will be completely fucked because of it.

Even assuming that's true - which it probably is even just based on the fact that some people already have fragile mental states - a certain percentage of people who go motorcycling get creamed by bad drivers. Life is risk. What the percentage is matters.

Without number it's just hand-waving - and the longer the hand-waving goes on the less dangerous it seems because scary correlates are being given adequate time to show up.

Those who are affected by LSD in that way will probably also be more susceptible to drug induced HPPD or Schizophernia from other controlled and non-controlled substances. It has to do with the structure of the brain. http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/178/4/337.full Basically they are born with less ability to distinguish reality from fiction. A good indication for this would be the well known ink spot test.

Responsible self-admission of controlled substances would always advocate starting at the dose that might cause an adverse allergic reaction of some sort, and move up from there.

I've seen a Scanner Darkly, and I've tried hard drugs. In my experience and knowledge of stimulating drugs like amphetamines and esp. cocaine. The chance of psychosis from these line of drugs and the potential of abuse are of an order of magnitude worse, while we blindly prescribe our ADD and ADHD suffering kids to methylphenidate (Ritalin) and amphetamine salts (Adderall). I would advice you to look them up.

The abuse potential for these kind of drugs are huge with ADD/ADHD patients since their disorder pretty much means they require more dopamine stimulation to be able to complete tasks, and these drugs are very much addictive in nature because of their actions on the dopamine system. Stimulating this area in the brain is way more "rewarding" than for example serotonergic drugs like LSD.

I understand that a lot of street drugs are adulterated or chemically inferior to the medical grade stuff, but it is still hypocritical and dangerous to make a Black/White area of what is supposedly not bad for you (i.e. prescriptions, OTC or legal substances ) and bad for you (controlled substances).

I understand that these drugs are prescribed under doctors supervision, but the reality learns that this is usually not a game stopper for abusers. Also they are being given to patients for a number of disorders without adequate research backing their perceived safety profile. Long-term effects on kids and teenagers who have been on these medications are not known at all.

opponents & proponents are almost by definitions biased or dishonest.

Have you ever heard an anti-drug campaigner make the argument that LSD can have a valuable impact on creativity and perspective but overall the risks outweigh those benefits?

Oh and from this article:

"This is not to say that everyone should take psychedelics. As I will make clear below, these drugs pose certain dangers. Undoubtedly, there are people who cannot afford to give the anchor of sanity even the slightest tug. It has been many years since I have taken psychedelics, in fact, and my abstinence is born of a healthy respect for the risks involved"

You are literally spouting bullshit out of your ass. Insanity? Are you fucking kidding me?

Blow it out your ass pops, you're making shit up.

This kind of flatout lying is even worse than people who pretend drugs have no risks. Making risks up to scare people into agreeing with you is no better.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_caus...

LSD is indeed harmful but not as harmful as you might think.

I'll second that. Having done my share of psychedelics, rest assured, you will meet the devil, and he will laugh while he plays you like the puppet that you are. Just ask Adam and Eve.

Your post, while I'm sure it has many literary merits, does not bring much to the conversation. Factual accounts of your experiences might though.

What for? So some guy sitting at computer in his underwear can pass judgement with his mouse? No thanks.

Reply A:

What you describe will happen no matter what, so it would likely be more interesting for everyone involved if your posts were not just talking for talk's sake :)

Reply B:

Why are you posting at all then?

Ok then, here's one.

One time after dropping some acid, I was lying on the couch and above my head was a rather large asparagus fern hanging over my head. While staring at this plant and pondering the deeper meaning of life, it suddenly began to twitch. The branches were bouncing up and down an inch or two.

From that point on, and for many years later, whenever I looked at that plant from anywhere in the room, the branches would begin dancing around.

I would make visitors look at the plant while I stood across the room looking out the window, and while they watched, I would turn and look at the fern. It did it everytime without failing once. I have at least 100 witnesses.

Now that's one of the nicer stories. But what I would say to anyone considering experimentation, you'll be sorry if you do. Philip K. Dick speaks of spending a 1000 years at the Mountain of Shame. I can so relate.

I can totally relate to this as well. I've been places with dimethyltryptamine that I can't even begin to describe. Hellish eternities that seemed to last thousands of years, domains lorded over by beings which, with great fun, make you suddenly appear to loose limbs, cast you out into space, control your thoughts, alien abduction, etc.

Its pretty unspeakable and frightening, but at the same time fascinating and mysterious. The weights on the scales are nigh.

>It is really annoying that drugs proponents ignore the obvious negative effects of drugs.

No they don't. Even if there are negative effects, which by the way are nowhere near as bad as the negative effects of overeating shit and sitting on your fatass ass all day which 90% of the Western generation does on a daily basis, who gives a fuck? They're fun and the benefits (especially the benefits of psychedelics and empathogen) outweigh the risks if you do them safely and in moderation.

Now anti-drug people cannot see this no matter what evidence you present them because they've been indoctrinated by a system that imprisons people for smoking weed.