Effing up the ineffable
December 22, 2022 1:01 AM Subscribe
'Magic mushrooms' would be decriminalized in California under new bill [ungated] - "SB 58 would allow only plant-based hallucinogens, such as psilocybin, the active ingredient in 'magic mushrooms,' and dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, which is found in some plants used to brew ayahuasca. Other naturally occurring psychedelics that would be allowed under the bill include ibogaine, a psychoactive alkaloid found in the iboga shrub, and mescaline found in cacti other than peyote."
Meet the California State Senator Who Wants to Decriminalize Psychedelics [ungated] - "Can Scott Wiener convince the state that his bill will reduce the 'sheer misery' drug use is causing now?"
also btw...
Meet the California State Senator Who Wants to Decriminalize Psychedelics [ungated] - "Can Scott Wiener convince the state that his bill will reduce the 'sheer misery' drug use is causing now?"
also btw...
- Taking a 'heroic dose' at Johns Hopkins [transcript] - "Psychedelic research is enjoying a renaissance. Recent studies have shown that psychedelic drugs like LSD and psilocybin seem to be a safe and effective method for treating conditions like depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. And unlike common antidepressants, some people report long-lasting improvements in their mental health conditions after taking just one dose of psychedelics. What makes these substances so unique and powerful? That's one of the driving questions behind the research of Matthew W. Johnson, who has conducted numerous studies on the nature of addiction, psychedelics, and other psychoactive substances."
- Psychedelics: The scientific renaissance of mind-altering drugs [transcript] - "There is a lot we don't know about psychedelics, but what we do know makes them extremely important."
- AI maps psychedelic 'trip' experiences to regions of the brain – opening new route to psychiatric treatments - "The study shows that it's possible to map the wildly subjective psychedelic experiences to specific brain regions."
- Psychedelic drugs: how to tell good research from bad - "Which studies are actually worth the hype?"
- Metaphysics and mushrooms: Psychedelics can change how you think about the universe - "Research shows that psilocybin leads people away from materialism and toward transcendentalism. Apparently, mushrooms teach metaphysics."
Sounds like great news, more people tripping really can make the world a better place.
posted by Meatbomb at 2:02 AM on December 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Meatbomb at 2:02 AM on December 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
...even if it has, as seems to be the case, taken fifty years for enough of them to get enough seniority to influence the direction of psychological research in any serious way.
posted by flabdablet at 2:13 AM on December 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 2:13 AM on December 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
In approximately 2006, I went to a harm reduction workshop having never done any kind of drug (it's seriously possible I'd never had more than a sip of wine at that point, before someone mentions alcohol). It was a queer youth group thing. I learned that shrooms are incredibly safe, like so safe that I'd maybe be willing, which was true of nothing else, including marijuana, which is, of course, legal in California.
posted by hoyland at 2:44 AM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by hoyland at 2:44 AM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
I googled what’s available locally (Toronto) and the first result has same day delivery of two kinds of mushroom and also LSD. Feeling very old.
posted by brachiopod at 2:54 AM on December 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by brachiopod at 2:54 AM on December 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
I’m glad they’re protecting peyote.
posted by Bottlecap at 3:05 AM on December 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Bottlecap at 3:05 AM on December 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
There’s a lot of people out there who would be willing to try shrooms for depression if they were able to do so in a therapeutic setting with a qualified sitter. Still a long ways off but we may actually be seeing the first steps in a few states towards getting there. (Definitely been tempted myself, if I decide to and can spend a couple of days in a nearby state, I have a friend who is willing to help out.)
posted by azpenguin at 4:27 AM on December 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by azpenguin at 4:27 AM on December 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
Oh, you were looking for a description of this?
"This" is my pronoun.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:10 AM on December 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
"This" is my pronoun.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:10 AM on December 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
On the off chance you are unfamiliair with Michael Pollan's book and doco.
posted by BWA at 6:26 AM on December 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by BWA at 6:26 AM on December 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
Is the LA Times aware that mushrooms are not plants?
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 7:09 AM on December 22, 2022 [14 favorites]
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 7:09 AM on December 22, 2022 [14 favorites]
No such picture exists. Pictures, by their very nature, are incapable of capturing more than a relatively insignificant sliver of everything that's going on. This remains the case even after loading up the word "picture" with more metaphor than it's in any way capable of bearing.
After everyone else had gone home on my birthday I sat out on my porch at 2am, lightly buzzed. It'd been a rough year, so I asked the void, "is there a greater purpose to all of this?" And then got an answer back immediately in my own voice, barely missing a beat: "Would it make any difference if there were?"
posted by thecaddy at 7:39 AM on December 22, 2022 [9 favorites]
After everyone else had gone home on my birthday I sat out on my porch at 2am, lightly buzzed. It'd been a rough year, so I asked the void, "is there a greater purpose to all of this?" And then got an answer back immediately in my own voice, barely missing a beat: "Would it make any difference if there were?"
posted by thecaddy at 7:39 AM on December 22, 2022 [9 favorites]
Very good.
posted by Liquidwolf at 7:47 AM on December 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Liquidwolf at 7:47 AM on December 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
I googled what’s available locally (Toronto) and the first result has same day delivery of two kinds of mushroom and also LSD.
Just down the road in Hamilton, a mushrooms store opened on Monday the 12th. They were shut down by the police on Tuesday the 13th
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:15 AM on December 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
Just down the road in Hamilton, a mushrooms store opened on Monday the 12th. They were shut down by the police on Tuesday the 13th
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:15 AM on December 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
I support these changes and think there’s a lot of therapeutic promise with these drugs. But I think the “safety” of shrooms needs to come with a huge asterisk: It’s absolutely possible to have a bad trip that leads to physical harm. And as is the case with any edible, dosing is tricky for newbies due to the “nothing much happening yet, how about two more?” problem. Do not ask me how I know.
posted by sjswitzer at 8:22 AM on December 22, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by sjswitzer at 8:22 AM on December 22, 2022 [9 favorites]
I think you make a very good point, sjswitzer, but the one time I tried them, they tasted so terrible it was a significant act of will to eat the third one, and then they gave me a bad stomach ache.
On top that they didn’t do much compared to LSD, which also gave me stomach pain, but only one sharp pang like a needle stick.
But maybe LSD was the issue in more ways than one, because I think psychedelics can cause your brain to develop a resistance to psychedelics in general, just like taking opioids can diminish and almost abolish your body's response over time.
Including to your own endogenous opioids, which has all kinds of downsides.
And that's the source of my reservations about using mushrooms or any psychedelic.
We do produce at least one endogenous psychedelic: DMT.
What are the consequences if you develop develop resistance to your own endogenous psychedelics through involution of receptors, or you lose the ability to produce them because your immune system attacks the cells that make them?
Would you become duller and less imaginative? And risk getting locked into a spiral of taking more to temporarily get back what you were losing only to end up losing even more?
Fear of that is probably the biggest reason I stopped taking them.
posted by jamjam at 9:03 AM on December 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
On top that they didn’t do much compared to LSD, which also gave me stomach pain, but only one sharp pang like a needle stick.
But maybe LSD was the issue in more ways than one, because I think psychedelics can cause your brain to develop a resistance to psychedelics in general, just like taking opioids can diminish and almost abolish your body's response over time.
Including to your own endogenous opioids, which has all kinds of downsides.
And that's the source of my reservations about using mushrooms or any psychedelic.
We do produce at least one endogenous psychedelic: DMT.
What are the consequences if you develop develop resistance to your own endogenous psychedelics through involution of receptors, or you lose the ability to produce them because your immune system attacks the cells that make them?
Would you become duller and less imaginative? And risk getting locked into a spiral of taking more to temporarily get back what you were losing only to end up losing even more?
Fear of that is probably the biggest reason I stopped taking them.
posted by jamjam at 9:03 AM on December 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
But I think the “safety” of shrooms needs to come with a huge asterisk: It’s absolutely possible to have a bad trip that leads to physical harm.
I think this is absolutely a step in the right direction, but the idea that "plant based" or "natural" hallucinogens are somehow safer than ones created in a lab is just... not backed up by anything. That just smacks of BS hippie woo-woo thinking.
I mean, these substances aren't created by the plants/fungi in order to give you a good time. They're created to discourage consumption. So if anything, you'd think they'd be a much more mixed bag. And in fact they are!
Like, have you ever seen an ayahuasca ceremony? It's no goddamn party drug, unless your idea of a party involves a lot more puking than mine does. The indigenous people who incorporated ayahuasca into their religious practice apparently look on the bright side of things, viewing it as a purgative, but… I dunno. You really gotta be hard-up for other drugs to get excited about one that gets the trip started with a bunch of vomiting and dry-heaves. And it basically necessitates having a bunch of people to take care of everyone while you're doing it (who themselves have strong stomachs).
I learned that shrooms are incredibly safe, like so safe that I'd maybe be willing, which was true of nothing else, including marijuana, which is, of course, legal in California.
I guess "safe" is a pretty broad term. AFAICT, you can't overdose on shrooms in the sense of waking up dead, like you can with opiates. But that's also true with cannabis. And while I knew many people in college who attempted to discover exactly what would happen if you smoked too much weed, most people I know have only had "way too much" shrooms once. Twice, if they're a slow learner.
While not medically dangerous, you can get yourself into really weird situations with shrooms in a way that you can't (well, I can't) with weed. I would say it's on par with alcohol in the way that you can get totally blotto, yet still be up and walking around with some semblance of muscle control and doing shit, but have not much recollection afterwards. I'll spare everyone the details, but in one memorable experience with shrooms on a friend's birthday, I woke up the next morning with only vague, pleasant memories ("haha, did you forget how to work pants? What was up with that?") but then noticed a lot of odd bruises I hadn't noticed before, plus some contact dermatitis... and when I went outside, I discovered a suspiciously me-shaped divot in one of the pine shrubs outside on the lawn. According to the neighbors, I'd apparently gotten outside wearing not much clothing and gotten in something of a fight with a shrubbery. In the part of California where we were, at the time it happened, in the neighborhood and context... this was just more laughs. But in a different context I'd imagine it could have ended messily.
"Safe" is definitely qualitative.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:45 AM on December 22, 2022 [13 favorites]
I think this is absolutely a step in the right direction, but the idea that "plant based" or "natural" hallucinogens are somehow safer than ones created in a lab is just... not backed up by anything. That just smacks of BS hippie woo-woo thinking.
I mean, these substances aren't created by the plants/fungi in order to give you a good time. They're created to discourage consumption. So if anything, you'd think they'd be a much more mixed bag. And in fact they are!
Like, have you ever seen an ayahuasca ceremony? It's no goddamn party drug, unless your idea of a party involves a lot more puking than mine does. The indigenous people who incorporated ayahuasca into their religious practice apparently look on the bright side of things, viewing it as a purgative, but… I dunno. You really gotta be hard-up for other drugs to get excited about one that gets the trip started with a bunch of vomiting and dry-heaves. And it basically necessitates having a bunch of people to take care of everyone while you're doing it (who themselves have strong stomachs).
I learned that shrooms are incredibly safe, like so safe that I'd maybe be willing, which was true of nothing else, including marijuana, which is, of course, legal in California.
I guess "safe" is a pretty broad term. AFAICT, you can't overdose on shrooms in the sense of waking up dead, like you can with opiates. But that's also true with cannabis. And while I knew many people in college who attempted to discover exactly what would happen if you smoked too much weed, most people I know have only had "way too much" shrooms once. Twice, if they're a slow learner.
While not medically dangerous, you can get yourself into really weird situations with shrooms in a way that you can't (well, I can't) with weed. I would say it's on par with alcohol in the way that you can get totally blotto, yet still be up and walking around with some semblance of muscle control and doing shit, but have not much recollection afterwards. I'll spare everyone the details, but in one memorable experience with shrooms on a friend's birthday, I woke up the next morning with only vague, pleasant memories ("haha, did you forget how to work pants? What was up with that?") but then noticed a lot of odd bruises I hadn't noticed before, plus some contact dermatitis... and when I went outside, I discovered a suspiciously me-shaped divot in one of the pine shrubs outside on the lawn. According to the neighbors, I'd apparently gotten outside wearing not much clothing and gotten in something of a fight with a shrubbery. In the part of California where we were, at the time it happened, in the neighborhood and context... this was just more laughs. But in a different context I'd imagine it could have ended messily.
"Safe" is definitely qualitative.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:45 AM on December 22, 2022 [13 favorites]
I've always liked magic mushrooms because you can take them in the evening, thanks to their short duration. I think LSD must be taken before 4pm, or else your risk the failures of trying to sleep while tripping. In fact, LSD gives the best experiences the earlier in the day you trip, with 6am being the ideal time to maximize your LSD experience.
I've never done ayahuasca, but I also think treating LSD kinda like ayahuasca helps maximize your LSD experience. In particular, you'll enjoy LSD more if you avoid alcohol, other drugs, and maybe meat, cheese, etc. for several days before and after, in part because you recognize the LSD effects longer the clearer your head.
There is a strong short-term tolerance to true psychedelics like LSD and mushrooms, jamjam, but it's mostly gone after a couple days, and imperceptible after a week or two. AAC would financially benefit from that fear, but says: "There remains to be no significant documented physical effects from long-term use of LSD. Even though individuals appear to develop some level of tolerance to LSD, there is no significant literature describing withdrawal symptoms; thus, there is no evidence that physical dependence on LSD occurs. There does not appear to be any significant literature associating LSD use with the development of a substance use disorder or addiction, although there are most certainly isolated cases of chronic LSD abuse." (and roughly similar for magic mushrooms too)
I've always experienced LSD trips as "semi-unpleasant but socially entertaining" so afterwards I do not want more psychedelics. I only become interested in doing psychedelics again like at least a month later, once those positive social experiences from the trip weigh more heavily than the annoyance of the trip itself. It's much like the "that was fun, god I'm glad that's over" feeling of going camping, going to Burning Man, etc.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:08 AM on December 22, 2022 [7 favorites]
I've never done ayahuasca, but I also think treating LSD kinda like ayahuasca helps maximize your LSD experience. In particular, you'll enjoy LSD more if you avoid alcohol, other drugs, and maybe meat, cheese, etc. for several days before and after, in part because you recognize the LSD effects longer the clearer your head.
There is a strong short-term tolerance to true psychedelics like LSD and mushrooms, jamjam, but it's mostly gone after a couple days, and imperceptible after a week or two. AAC would financially benefit from that fear, but says: "There remains to be no significant documented physical effects from long-term use of LSD. Even though individuals appear to develop some level of tolerance to LSD, there is no significant literature describing withdrawal symptoms; thus, there is no evidence that physical dependence on LSD occurs. There does not appear to be any significant literature associating LSD use with the development of a substance use disorder or addiction, although there are most certainly isolated cases of chronic LSD abuse." (and roughly similar for magic mushrooms too)
I've always experienced LSD trips as "semi-unpleasant but socially entertaining" so afterwards I do not want more psychedelics. I only become interested in doing psychedelics again like at least a month later, once those positive social experiences from the trip weigh more heavily than the annoyance of the trip itself. It's much like the "that was fun, god I'm glad that's over" feeling of going camping, going to Burning Man, etc.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:08 AM on December 22, 2022 [7 favorites]
At some point here Maria Franz claims Heilung sings about their tattoo artist's LSD trips. lol
posted by jeffburdges at 10:20 AM on December 22, 2022
posted by jeffburdges at 10:20 AM on December 22, 2022
Last last time I looked, jeffburdges, there were no medical tests for becoming duller and less imaginative over time, nor any tests for declines in DMT receptors, nor any assays for declines in populations of DMT producing cells.
So until someone starts looking for those, we're on our own as far as the long term effects of psychedelics are concerned, unless you’re willing to settle for a lot of desperately hopeful hand waving, as perhaps you are.
There are DMT producing cells in the pineal gland apparently, and the pineal gland tends to calcify over time, especially in white people, but that’s a whole nother nother.
In the absence of true research, we’re left with thought experiments and anecdotes, and for one anecdote, I suggest listening to some of Timothy Leary's last recorded interviews. Leary did all kinds of things beyond psychedelics, but I suspect you don’t want to end up where he did, and neither do I.
posted by jamjam at 11:01 AM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
So until someone starts looking for those, we're on our own as far as the long term effects of psychedelics are concerned, unless you’re willing to settle for a lot of desperately hopeful hand waving, as perhaps you are.
There are DMT producing cells in the pineal gland apparently, and the pineal gland tends to calcify over time, especially in white people, but that’s a whole nother nother.
In the absence of true research, we’re left with thought experiments and anecdotes, and for one anecdote, I suggest listening to some of Timothy Leary's last recorded interviews. Leary did all kinds of things beyond psychedelics, but I suspect you don’t want to end up where he did, and neither do I.
posted by jamjam at 11:01 AM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Interesting thanks. It's years since I've done LSD, just due to being busy elsewhere. I never tripped more than a few times per year. Alcohol sounds like my bigger long-term concern, even if only the small amounts in kombucha and occasional beer. It appears floride winds up being the big topic most discussed around the pineal gland, maybe why some people use pink salt. I found some bad news about my water though. lol
posted by jeffburdges at 11:44 AM on December 22, 2022
posted by jeffburdges at 11:44 AM on December 22, 2022
I would say it's on par with alcohol
Yep. So end the war on drugs/prohibition and legalize it.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:44 AM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Yep. So end the war on drugs/prohibition and legalize it.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:44 AM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Are you saying Jeffburdges's water is on par with alcohol?
posted by Oyéah at 12:07 PM on December 22, 2022
posted by Oyéah at 12:07 PM on December 22, 2022
I learned that shrooms are incredibly safe, like so safe that I'd maybe be willing, which was true of nothing else, including marijuana, which is, of course, legal in California.
Like Kadin2048, I would disagree. Neither is going to damage you physically from taking them unless you end up with toxic mushrooms rather than psychedelic ones.
A bad pot experience usually manifests either as a feeling of intense paranoia or a sensory overload to the point that you just want to sit still and wait for normalcy to return. The mental effects of a bad mushroom trip can be much worse or lead you into potentially dangerous situations. There's reasons why trip sitters are recommended with shrooms but not marijuana.
posted by Candleman at 1:24 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Like Kadin2048, I would disagree. Neither is going to damage you physically from taking them unless you end up with toxic mushrooms rather than psychedelic ones.
A bad pot experience usually manifests either as a feeling of intense paranoia or a sensory overload to the point that you just want to sit still and wait for normalcy to return. The mental effects of a bad mushroom trip can be much worse or lead you into potentially dangerous situations. There's reasons why trip sitters are recommended with shrooms but not marijuana.
posted by Candleman at 1:24 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Two anecdotes:
* the friend who took too many shroom chocolates because he thought they weren't doing anything, and then became convinced everyone around him was planning to kill him. I think the paranoia was triggered by the sun going behind the clouds (which caused it to get much colder... He didn't have good clothes nor a lot of body fat).
* the friend who took shrooms with their partner and then went on a month and a half hypomanic episode, before ending up inpatient for a month.
I know lots of folks who have benefited from shrooms, but having people around who are sober and can trip sit is always good practice.
posted by constraint at 5:09 PM on December 22, 2022
* the friend who took too many shroom chocolates because he thought they weren't doing anything, and then became convinced everyone around him was planning to kill him. I think the paranoia was triggered by the sun going behind the clouds (which caused it to get much colder... He didn't have good clothes nor a lot of body fat).
* the friend who took shrooms with their partner and then went on a month and a half hypomanic episode, before ending up inpatient for a month.
I know lots of folks who have benefited from shrooms, but having people around who are sober and can trip sit is always good practice.
posted by constraint at 5:09 PM on December 22, 2022
there were no medical tests (...) for declines in DMT receptorsHere's a nice summary. Psychedelics are generally thought to cause acute (rather than chronic, like opioids) tolerance, via internalization of serotonin receptors from the surface of the neuron. Studies show that surface receptor counts return to baseline after about a week, which is consistent with anecdotal reports of people needing to wait a week to have a full-strength trip again. DMT seems to be unusual in that it causes rapid tachyphylaxis (but not tolerance), meaning that to have a "breakthrough" trip you need to inhale a large dose within several seconds (because receptors are rapidly desensitized), but I hear that you can have breakthrough trips on consecutive days with no problem (because there is no internalization). I assume that this is related to the fact that DMT is endogenous in trace quantities, and enzymes (MAO) break it down faster than it can trigger internalization. I have never encountered any studies suggesting permanent reduction in serotonin receptors, but there is still much left to be researched in this field.
posted by The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal. at 5:32 PM on December 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
Neither is going to damage you physically from taking them unless you end up with toxic mushrooms rather than psychedelic ones.
(Or get a processed marijuana product with dodgy chemicals or smoke it, which is inherently bad for your lungs and other parts.)
posted by Candleman at 6:09 PM on December 22, 2022
(Or get a processed marijuana product with dodgy chemicals or smoke it, which is inherently bad for your lungs and other parts.)
posted by Candleman at 6:09 PM on December 22, 2022
I think this is absolutely a step in the right direction, but the idea that "plant based" or "natural" hallucinogens are somehow safer than ones created in a lab is just... not backed up by anything. That just smacks of BS hippie woo-woo thinking.
Yeah, I wish I had a nickel for every time I've heard someone wave away any possibility of any kind of negative experience with some substance or another with "It's a plant!" As if there weren't any number of plants that can harm or kill you.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:29 PM on December 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
Yeah, I wish I had a nickel for every time I've heard someone wave away any possibility of any kind of negative experience with some substance or another with "It's a plant!" As if there weren't any number of plants that can harm or kill you.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:29 PM on December 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
This is a terrible idea. It's not that I think that drugs should be illegal but just about everyone in downtown San Francisco is high or smoking marijuana openly in front of kids. This kind of freaks me out. Or selling vapes, which have Delta Eight which is a synthesis of THC without the Canabanoids that mellow the effects of the high. The result of legalizing marijuana has been a huge increase in drug use in the city and an increase in synthetic drugs that are potentially psychologically dangerous.
What would the affects of legalizing IBOGAINE of all things be? From what I understand it's a more powerful halucinogen than Ayahuasca. Are they going to start selling Ibogaine vapes with synthetic chemical substitutes on the street to anyone who can put together 10 bucks? That sounds like a stupidly dangerous idea.
We need to bring back the idea of a shaman as professional class. We have bar tenders that have rules about when and where alcohol can be served in public, why not shaman that would be required to be licensed by the state to host day trips? Or at the very least require that this stuff be done outside the city limits or in your own home.
I trust myself around these chemicals (for the most part) and this just does not sound like a good idea.
posted by peterweyand at 6:51 PM on December 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
What would the affects of legalizing IBOGAINE of all things be? From what I understand it's a more powerful halucinogen than Ayahuasca. Are they going to start selling Ibogaine vapes with synthetic chemical substitutes on the street to anyone who can put together 10 bucks? That sounds like a stupidly dangerous idea.
We need to bring back the idea of a shaman as professional class. We have bar tenders that have rules about when and where alcohol can be served in public, why not shaman that would be required to be licensed by the state to host day trips? Or at the very least require that this stuff be done outside the city limits or in your own home.
I trust myself around these chemicals (for the most part) and this just does not sound like a good idea.
posted by peterweyand at 6:51 PM on December 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
> just about everyone in downtown San Francisco is high or smoking marijuana openly in front of kids. Citation needed.
> The result of legalizing marijuana has been a huge increase in drug use in the city
This is just blatantly untrue.
posted by gingerbeer at 8:32 PM on December 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
> The result of legalizing marijuana has been a huge increase in drug use in the city
This is just blatantly untrue.
posted by gingerbeer at 8:32 PM on December 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
peterweyand:
(I don't mean to pick on you, peterweyand, but drug policy is a "wicked mess", and common sense and intuition have been steering us wrong for decades, so we really need to be more rigorous and nip misinformation in the bud.)
posted by The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal. at 8:40 PM on December 22, 2022 [14 favorites]
just about everyone in downtown San Francisco is high or smoking marijuana openly in front of kidsHow is that different from "just about everyone in downtown San Francisco is drunk or drinking alcohol openly in front of kids"?
Or selling vapes, which have Delta Eight which is a synthesis of THC without the Canabanoids that mellow the effects of the high.Δ8-THC would have never been anything more than an academic curiosity without prohibition.
The result of legalizing marijuana has been a huge increase in drug use in the cityA. We should be caring about drug harm, not drug use. B. We are increasingly understanding that harmful or problematic drug use is merely a symptom of deeper problems, like childhood trauma.
increase in synthetic drugs that are potentially psychologically dangerousAs others have already pointed out in this thread, there is no relationship between being natural/synthetic and safety/danger.
What would the affects of legalizing IBOGAINE of all things be?I think that it would be great option for people who want to treat their opioid dependence. We could even pre-screen people at risk from prolonged QT, which is hard to do when it's underground. Most people wouldn't touch it because it isn't a pleasant or "recreational" experience.
From what I understand it's a more powerful halucinogen than Ayahuasca.I'm having trouble understanding what you mean by "more powerful". Ibogaine and ayahuasca are two different drugs with two different sets of effects and two different risk profiles. Every drug has a dose-response curve where an increased dose elicits more powerful effects. There is theoretically a ceiling effect where all of the receptors in your brain are literally saturated and adding more drug can't increase effects, but for both substances, I suspect that a loss of conventional patterns of thought at the ceiling would make a direct comparison of both drugs impossible.
We need to bring back the idea of a shaman as professional class.This is the last thing we need. People with a messiah-complex putting people in vulnerable, suggestible state is recipe for abuse. As far as what successful legalization might look like, I am looking forward to Transform's How to Regulate Psychedelics guide, because their guides to stimulants and cannabis have been very rational and realistic, and have even informed the implementation of cannabis legalization in several countries.
(I don't mean to pick on you, peterweyand, but drug policy is a "wicked mess", and common sense and intuition have been steering us wrong for decades, so we really need to be more rigorous and nip misinformation in the bud.)
posted by The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal. at 8:40 PM on December 22, 2022 [14 favorites]
Credit for the "wicked mess" framing to Richard Saunders in a post that I wish I could favorite a million times.
posted by The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal. at 8:53 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal. at 8:53 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
I think the idea of a 'shaman' profession sounds promising. Obviously, there are big risks. But that's why it should be a regulated profession!
You can say that allowing people to, say, talk to their children for hours every day is dangerous, but teachers are a force for good. Similarly the idea of cutting into people and modifying their body sounds horrific, but surgeons are a respected class in our society.
We don't (or try not to) let people who intend harm into either profession. I don't know what regulations and oversight would be required, but I am hopeful that a working system could be developed.
posted by Acari at 8:12 AM on December 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
You can say that allowing people to, say, talk to their children for hours every day is dangerous, but teachers are a force for good. Similarly the idea of cutting into people and modifying their body sounds horrific, but surgeons are a respected class in our society.
We don't (or try not to) let people who intend harm into either profession. I don't know what regulations and oversight would be required, but I am hopeful that a working system could be developed.
posted by Acari at 8:12 AM on December 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
I think the idea of a 'shaman' profession sounds promising. Obviously, there are big risks. But that's why it should be a regulated profession
It was a regulated profession: psychiatry. There were a number of really successful studies in the 1950s and 60s where psychedelics were showing a lot of promise for treating a number of disorders. There were other studies where people were using psychedelics to have creative breakthroughs in clinical settings. Then the war on drugs started and all the research and treatments ground to a halt.
posted by ryoshu at 3:19 PM on December 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
It was a regulated profession: psychiatry. There were a number of really successful studies in the 1950s and 60s where psychedelics were showing a lot of promise for treating a number of disorders. There were other studies where people were using psychedelics to have creative breakthroughs in clinical settings. Then the war on drugs started and all the research and treatments ground to a halt.
It has been undergoing a slow, quiet renaissance this century. I'm reading Michael Pollan's book How to Change Your Mind, which discusses research into using psychedelics in a therapeutic context over the past 20 years.
Thus far, the FDA has given its approval to numerous studies, and in fact has encouraged researchers to broaden their target populations. E.g., they started out looking at how psychedelics can help addicts and terminally ill cancer patients, but in the last several years, the regulators have apparently said, "Why not see if these medicines can help depressed and anxious people more generally, given that our current treatments are only producing so-so results?"
It seems probable that psychedelic therapy is going to become a mainstream thing in the next decade or so.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 1:10 PM on December 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
It has been undergoing a slow, quiet renaissance this century. I'm reading Michael Pollan's book How to Change Your Mind, which discusses research into using psychedelics in a therapeutic context over the past 20 years.
Thus far, the FDA has given its approval to numerous studies, and in fact has encouraged researchers to broaden their target populations. E.g., they started out looking at how psychedelics can help addicts and terminally ill cancer patients, but in the last several years, the regulators have apparently said, "Why not see if these medicines can help depressed and anxious people more generally, given that our current treatments are only producing so-so results?"
It seems probable that psychedelic therapy is going to become a mainstream thing in the next decade or so.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 1:10 PM on December 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
Probably the most famous user of LSD under the care of a psychiatrist was Cary Grant.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:59 AM on December 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:59 AM on December 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
Sounds like great news, more people tripping really can make the world a better place.
While I agree that psychedelics may have benefits in mental health under the supervision of qualified personell, I disagree that simply more people taking them will lead to any advances to society. While you are doing them, they seem like they can change the world if everyone could see what you are seeing, but any spiritual growth that comes from them is temporary at best and illusory at worst.
Take for example the Hippies. They popularized LSD and other psychtropics in the 60s, but now they are justifiably known by the derogatory epithet of "Boomers". It's almost like they learned nothing, and all the talk of peace and love was just window dressing.
In my own case, my friends and I thought we could change the world back in the day when we were young partiers, but now almost all of those people turned into MAGA/Qanon wackos. Once again, it's almost like they learned nothing.
If a transformative psychedelic experience has changed your life, I think it would be best to use what you have learned to work for tangible goals. Merely suggesting a chemical solution to societies problems is a way to fool yourself that you are helping. Just my opinion.
posted by ambulocetus at 6:46 AM on December 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
While I agree that psychedelics may have benefits in mental health under the supervision of qualified personell, I disagree that simply more people taking them will lead to any advances to society. While you are doing them, they seem like they can change the world if everyone could see what you are seeing, but any spiritual growth that comes from them is temporary at best and illusory at worst.
Take for example the Hippies. They popularized LSD and other psychtropics in the 60s, but now they are justifiably known by the derogatory epithet of "Boomers". It's almost like they learned nothing, and all the talk of peace and love was just window dressing.
In my own case, my friends and I thought we could change the world back in the day when we were young partiers, but now almost all of those people turned into MAGA/Qanon wackos. Once again, it's almost like they learned nothing.
If a transformative psychedelic experience has changed your life, I think it would be best to use what you have learned to work for tangible goals. Merely suggesting a chemical solution to societies problems is a way to fool yourself that you are helping. Just my opinion.
posted by ambulocetus at 6:46 AM on December 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
any spiritual growth that comes from them is temporary at best and illusory at worst
There are massive quantities of No True Scotsman lurking under the surface of the word "spiritual" in this claim. But then, some words are just like that. The counter-claim that spiritual growth of any kind is always and everywhere both temporary and illusory is every bit as supportable using exactly the same kinds of reasoning, because it is simply not possible to arrive at a universally acceptable referent for "spiritual".
The conflation of hippies and boomers is also careless. The set of hippies overlaps the set of boomers but is not even close to identical with it unless both words are idiosyncratically defined to make it so, which strikes me as the kind of rhetorical move that undermines rather than promotes anything vaguely resembling enlightenment.
On the actual issue of whether or not more people using psychedelics would improve society: it seems likely to me that it would, mainly because it would act as a further incentive to dismantle the USA-led and now global War On Drugs that everybody who has actually looked dispassionately at all the relevant evidence would have to agree has caused and continues to cause far more harm than good.
posted by flabdablet at 7:59 PM on January 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
There are massive quantities of No True Scotsman lurking under the surface of the word "spiritual" in this claim. But then, some words are just like that. The counter-claim that spiritual growth of any kind is always and everywhere both temporary and illusory is every bit as supportable using exactly the same kinds of reasoning, because it is simply not possible to arrive at a universally acceptable referent for "spiritual".
The conflation of hippies and boomers is also careless. The set of hippies overlaps the set of boomers but is not even close to identical with it unless both words are idiosyncratically defined to make it so, which strikes me as the kind of rhetorical move that undermines rather than promotes anything vaguely resembling enlightenment.
On the actual issue of whether or not more people using psychedelics would improve society: it seems likely to me that it would, mainly because it would act as a further incentive to dismantle the USA-led and now global War On Drugs that everybody who has actually looked dispassionately at all the relevant evidence would have to agree has caused and continues to cause far more harm than good.
posted by flabdablet at 7:59 PM on January 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
Take for example the Hippies. They popularized LSD and other psychtropics in the 60s, but now they are justifiably known by the derogatory epithet of "Boomers".
I'm curious to understand what younger people think the etymology of "boomer" is. Why do you think it's inherently derogatory?
I understand many people, esp. in Gen Y and Gen Z, use it that way, but what did you think its origin was?
It actually originated as simply a reference to the large generation born between 1945 and 1965, during the post-WW2 surge of births known as the "baby boom". This generation was known as "baby boomers" long before a subset of them came to be known as "hippies".
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 3:54 PM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm curious to understand what younger people think the etymology of "boomer" is. Why do you think it's inherently derogatory?
I understand many people, esp. in Gen Y and Gen Z, use it that way, but what did you think its origin was?
It actually originated as simply a reference to the large generation born between 1945 and 1965, during the post-WW2 surge of births known as the "baby boom". This generation was known as "baby boomers" long before a subset of them came to be known as "hippies".
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 3:54 PM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Psychadelic therapy has gone from something my doctors think would help but would never be legal to something my doctors think would help but I'll never be able to afford or get insurance to cover. Which is hopeful, because those are the same things they said about Botox for migraine, twenty and fifteen years ago,
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:55 AM on January 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:55 AM on January 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
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This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
What is the meaning of life?
The idea that a system as complex as life could conceivably have any attribute worthy of the label "the meaning" is ludicrous on its face. A far more interesting question is "what is the meaning of meaning, and what do I want that for?"
Does God exist?
Answer depends very sensitively on what referent one chooses to attach to the word "God", and on the attributes that distinguish that referent from the things that it is not (if any), and on any additional attributes that one chooses to ascribe to it. Many, many, many such referents have been used, both explicit and implicit, and the chances of having a worthwhile conversation on this topic before all participants have agreed on which of those to use are slim to none.
What's the big picture of everything that's going on?
No such picture exists. Pictures, by their very nature, are incapable of capturing more than a relatively insignificant sliver of everything that's going on. This remains the case even after loading up the word "picture" with more metaphor than it's in any way capable of bearing.
What am I?
I am this.
Oh, you were looking for a description of this? Would have wasted far less time for both of us if you'd said so to begin with.
If you find any of the above to be fundamentally unsatisfactory, I recommend eating more shrooms.
posted by flabdablet at 1:52 AM on December 22, 2022 [19 favorites]