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Comment by clusterfoo | Hacker News Reader

> If you mean Hallucinogens, they have been studied extensively and don't seem to be that medically useful.

LSD and Mushrooms can be an effective treatment for cluster headaches (a debilitating disease which is said to be "The most painful medical condition known to science").

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_headache

Interestingly, the effect lasts for weeks after the dose is taken (and the hallucinatory effects have worn off).

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This is of interest to me because my wife is disabled by chronic refractory migraine, a close relation to cluster headaches.

Stories like this

http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2011/06/lsd-allevi...

make me deeply regret the current political/conceptual barriers to research on psychotropic compounds. I think we're missing opportunities to help quite a lot of people.

Sorry to hear that. AFAIK it's legal in most places to buy spores and grow your own, and dosage is relatively easy to control. Maybe time for a mycoculture project?

It's legal in the US (in all but three states I believe), because the spores do not contain psylocin/psylocybin. Once you start to grow them though, you could be charged with possession of a controlled substance.

Don't let that stop you though GP! It's a fun project and very satisfying to see your mushrooms finally sprouting up after a month or two of work. The risk of getting caught is low, and even if you somehow did, it would probably still be worth the penalty if they have a positive effect on your wife's headaches!

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