First LSD Test In 40 Years Reveal Drug Helps Terminal Patients Prepare For Death 221
EwanPalmer writes "The first controlled LSD study in more than 40 years reveals the drug could be used to help people with terminal illnesses deal better with death. The study, published in the Journal of nervous and Mental Disease, showed that 12 people who agreed to take the banned hallucinogenic drug during therapy sessions felt 'significant reductions in anxiety' about their lives ending."
No shit captian obvious (Score:3, Insightful)
This has been a long known fact, shortly after the study, or experiments were done this was being discussed among the medical community, and among the Public. I guess the newer generation will rediscover these studies but this isn't anything remotely "new" or ground breaking!
The fed killed drug research for decades. (Score:5, Interesting)
This has been a long known fact,
Some of this was known back in the '60s and '70s. But the federal government decided to suppress it. In particular: Any drug with side-effects that were pleasant was considered a threat to the status quo of governance - a way for productive people to achieve happiness without driving industrial profit and/or part of a Communist conspiracy to rot the "Free World"'s moral fiber.
There was a period where researchers would only get new grants if the conclusions of their studies stated that the drugs - psychedelics, marijhuana, etc. - were useless for medical purposes and/or dangerous. (The papers in Science, for instance, were often pathetically hilarious. The reduced data said one thing, while the conclusion said the opposite.)
Meanwhile the government (notably with such things as the FBI's COINTELPRO program) smeared those (formerly highly respected scientists) who had been proponents of finding uses for them (especially those who had tried to use them to augment intelligence and experimented on themselves - often with bizarre results). The most prominent of these was Timothy Leary, though there were a number of others.
Somewher in there the drugs were added to various "schedules" and banned from medical use.
After a couple years of this, with any actual benefits buried in the noise, the government declared that it was "settled science" that there were no useful treatments using these drugs and stopped issuing new permits for their use in new research projects. (It's very much like research into global warming: You can't convince people on either side because the research is suspect due to the government becoming involved and pushing its horse in the race.)
Then the government declared acts related to banned-drug trafficing, possession, and use to be "serious" crimes and imposed passed mandatory minimum sentences - recreating the scenario of alcohol prohibition, funding organized crime, filling up the prisons, and lining corrupt police personell's pockets with graft money. Then it passed RICO and created the same financial incentive structure that fueled the Spanish Inquisition - driving ever-increasing anti-drug activity and blocking attempts to repeal drug bans.
And that's where it stood for decades. Negligible work on uses for the chemicals - either by organized research or private self-medication (with drugs of uncertain content and quality).
So while Moore's Law drove the computes from giant cabnets filling floors of office buildings to chips in everything under the sun, work on a nimber of categories of drugs stagnated.
The canabinoids of Marijuana, alone, have a number of apparent (but not adequately researhed) benefits:
- They appear to be a specific treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (which, itself, seems to be a result of undermeidcation for pain - also driven by the "drug war").
- Canabinoids (including at least one which does not produce a substantial "high") also appear to be a successful treatment for a debilitating form of childhood epilepsy.
- Parkinson's disease eventually kills, not directly through loss of dopamine, but by the body's attempt to compensate for it by fouling up a system that uses the recently discovered endocanabinoids as neurotransmitters. (These are the chemicals that THC and its relatives mimic, much as opioids mimic endorphins.) This ends up with loss of memory and loss of appetite, and the victim starves herself to death. Canabinoids may help alleviate this and/or prolong life, (if only by reducing the tendency to self-starvation by inducing "the munchies").
- Canabinoids have been claimed to arrest the progress of several cancers, including a brain cancer.d
- Canabinoids have long been used for reducing the nausea of chemotherapy, easing self-starvation in cancer patients. (Similarly with side-effects of anti-AIDS drug coctails.)
I could go on.
But "more research is needed" to determine which (if any) of these effects are real, turn them into practical treatments, and deploy them. And it's not going to happen smoothly and rapidly with the government continuing to interfere.
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The canabinoids of Marijuana, alone, have a number of apparent (but not adequately researhed) benefits:
- They appear to be a specific treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (which, itself, seems to be a result of undermeidcation for pain - also driven by the "drug war").
- Canabinoids (including at least one which does not produce a substantial "high") also appear to be a successful treatment for a debilitating form of childhood epilepsy.
- Parkinson's disease eventually kills, not directly through loss of dopamine, but by the body's attempt to compensate for it by fouling up a system that uses the recently discovered endocanabinoids as neurotransmitters. (These are the chemicals that THC and its relatives mimic, much as opioids mimic endorphins.) This ends up with loss of memory and loss of appetite, and the victim starves herself to death. Canabinoids may help alleviate this and/or prolong life, (if only by reducing the tendency to self-starvation by inducing "the munchies").
- Canabinoids have been claimed to arrest the progress of several cancers, including a brain cancer.d
- Canabinoids have long been used for reducing the nausea of chemotherapy, easing self-starvation in cancer patients. (Similarly with side-effects of anti-AIDS drug coctails.)
I could go on.
If canabinoids are so useful, then why not produce them in a pill, instead of smoking the marijuana. Oh, wait, they did, and in clinical trials, they weren't proven very effective. Which begs the question as to whether the canabinoids are effective or the placebo effect is what is being observed. Even if there is some effectiveness, the question then should be is it more effective than current medications/treatments?
For instance 2-bromo-LSD, a derivative of LSD is very effective for alleviating migraines a
Comment removed (Score:4)
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Which begs the question as to whether the canabinoids are effective or the placebo effect is what is being observed.
It also brings up the question of why they didn't try an inhaled version rather than an oral version. Marijuana is known to have antiemetic benefits, for example, and delivering it via the lungs is both faster and avoids the problem of vomiting up the drug before it's absorbed. Pills are not the best way to deliver antiemetics; the leading anti-nausea drug (Ondansetron) is frequently delivered rectally or via IV. Delivery by inhalation has substantial advantages.
I really don't know why there aren't inhaled
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I think though that some of these ideas are changing... full employment is impossible and govmts need to find other ways to occupy their time than work.
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Sure, there are some benefits using marijuana, but if it's useful only for a few terminally ill people and dangerous for most normal people
Far less so than alcohol.
I understand why it's regulated.
Regulated? In most places, it's outright illegal.
But hey, isn't the US supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave? If so, then why are people so readily willing to trade freedom for security? We let the government molest us at airports (TSA), spy on our communications en masse (NSA), harass us by making sure we're innocent and not driving drunk (DUI checkpoints), violate our rights at the borders (unfettered border searches), send off protestors to free speech zon
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Sure, there are some benefits using marijuana, but if it's useful only for a few terminally ill people and dangerous for most normal people
Far less so than alcohol.
I'm not so sure. They are both bad. They are also not comparable.
For example, I'm sure that guns are more dangerous than alcohol, so I can always find something more harmful.
Regulated? In most places, it's outright illegal.
But hey, isn't the US supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave?
I'm not from US, but why do you use the "I want to be free" argument to allow anybody do everything what they want ?
I understand that you believe that your government goes against you (and I don't disagree with the fact that stupid laws waste lots of money), but you have to realize that not everybody is a balanced adult.
People tend to d
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Sure they are, in the fact that they are both psychoactive substances, like coffee or nicotine. Where they're not comparable is 1) current legal status and 2) to my knowledge, nobody has asserted that ethanol has beneficial effects on the body. I know that there are studies showing red wine seems to lower the risk of fatal heart disease, but IIRC it's the antioxidants in the wine that do the good, not the alcohol.
And you'll also have to defi
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Well, if you take it to a ridiculous extreme, yeah, all that stuff would be banned. How fortunate it is that it isn't all or nothing. Give your hyperbole a rest, it's been used a lot I think.
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Freedom is never going to be absolute; your freedom to kill me conflicts with my being free to live. However, if my freedoms are going to be limited, I want a reason why. I understand why I'm not legally able to drive a car on public roads without insurance and a license, while respecting a lot of restrictions. I don't see a good reason why I can't smoke marijuana if I like (tried it once
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The link to schizophrenia is completely unproven, I know plenty of conspiracy theorists who wouldn't touch coffee let alone drugs, and you'd think with the amount of people using marijuana, there would be a much higher incidence of suicide (unless you're pulling the old canard of this suicide case had used mj before his death, so obviously it caused it), and plenty of things cause diverted attention, lack of sleep being the single most dangerous one.
You are doing an OK job of parroting the current antidrug
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What a load, there is no such link, there is just a correlation between cannabis use and psychotic episodes, there is not one study which has provided anything close to proof of cannabis actually causing the underlying problem (Ie; no cannabis = no psychotic symptoms). The only thing they've demonstrated is that cannabis can cause an earlier onset in people already predisposed to psychotic episodes.
Have you noticed they've continued to move the goal posts on these studies, when I was a kid, cannabis could
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Personally, I believe that the benefits you list can be achieved with relaxation, which will not create an addiction.
You say that as though consumption of cannabis (calling it marijuana when the rest of your post isn't written in Spanish makes no sense) leads to addiction. It doesn't, as it is not possible to develop chemical dependency on cannabis.
Of course, if by "addiction" you didn't mean "chemical dependency", then indeed it's also possible to become "addicted" to relaxation (or any other pleasurable activity).
Also, your post is hilarious. Those "drawbacks" that you list are straight out of Reefer Madness. You
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there are some benefits using marijuana, but if it's useful only for a few terminally ill people and dangerous for most normal people
I believed this old saw for 48 years of my life. Then I tried cannabis. I've been a semi regular user for about 3 years now. Let me tell you about my life for the last 3 years:
I have far less stress, even though my job has become more stressful.
I sleep much better, helping relieve even more stress.
I seem to have more free time, so I am using my time more wisely.
I have fini
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Personally, I believe that the benefits you list can be achieved with relaxation
Are you fucking kidding me? Tell that to my friend who's currently undergoing chemotherapy to combat stage IV cancer, which is likely to kill her within the year. It's a little hard to just relax without outside help knowing that she's about to leave a family behind at the age of 30...
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Welp, that's the end of that (Score:2, Funny)
The bible thumpers who think we should all face death kicking and screaming and in maximum pain will put an end to this research forthwith.
Re: Welp, that's the end of that (Score:2, Interesting)
Wait! I thump bible and advocate LSD.
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Article not quite right (Score:5, Funny)
I'd say it was more like the first test in 24 years, I remember it being tested extensively in college.
I do remember there was often a sense of finding a higher meaning or truth, but come morning we could never remember what it was. It was maddening. So one time I borrowed a pocket dictation machine during our, uh, testing, and we thought we'd record this great insight we had.
Even though we finally went to bed with the idea that we had, at last, captured this great truth for posterity, when we listened to the tape the next day we were disappointed to find out that all we had recorded were the semi-coherent ramblings of some guys on LSD,
Re:Article not quite right (Score:5, Funny)
What's after the comma? Oh please, there's a comma. There has to be something after the comma. What's after the comma? For fucks sake, what's after the comma?
Re:Article not quite right (Score:4, Funny)
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If higher truths could be coherently expressed in language, religions would be out of business. Better philosophers than you have been trying for thousands of years, and yet pretty much every canonical text on the subject begins with some variation on the sentiment "The Tao which can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao". Read those writings and they too will seem like semi-coherent ramblings, unless and until you already know (*not* understand) the truths being discussed.
Heck - for that matter try to accu
Re:Article not quite right (Score:5, Interesting)
And then there was the experiment where a couple dozen professionals who had been stuck on various problems for months were given LSD to determine it's effects on creative problem solving. (You can read about the experiment here: http://www.themorningnews.org/... [themorningnews.org]) but here's a quote:
"But here’s the clincher. After their 5HT2A neural receptors simmered down, they remained firm: LSD absolutely had helped them solve their complex, seemingly intractable problems. And the establishment agreed. The 26 men unleashed a slew of widely embraced innovations shortly after their LSD experiences, including a mathematical theorem for NOR gate circuits, a conceptual model of a photon, a linear electron accelerator beam-steering device, a new design for the vibratory microtome, a technical improvement of the magnetic tape recorder, blueprints for a private residency and an arts-and-crafts shopping plaza, and a space probe experiment designed to measure solar properties."
Yeah, LSD is a lot of fun to use recreationaly, and it's easy to mock "the semi-coherent ramblings of some guys on LSD," but LSD has a lot of potential to offer our society if only we'd take it seriously.
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I think there are those moments in normal life where you gain an understanding of something and you are struck by the profound nature of whatever truth it is you discover, sort of a breakthrough moment. These moments are fleeting and not usually common occurrences.
I think part of what LSD does is to stimulate the brain in a way that makes more ideas seem like they provide a profound understanding or meaning.
I think a lot of terminally ill people probably suffer from a lot of confusion and fear because they
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No, what it does is remove the "anttention filter" from your brain. It doesn't cause hallucinations; it's just that there are many possible ways of interpreting your sensory inputs at any given time, and LSD removes the filter that rejects all but the most likely, thus your attention moves between them constantly. But of course physical senses are not the only in
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Sorry folks, as someone who stopped counting at around 250 acid trips, I can tell you that discipline, hard work and NOT dulling/scrambling the senses is your best bet to transcend your current limitations.
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For you. For other people there are other routes that may be more appropriate. For one guy that I knew years ago it was the experience of falling through the ice on Lake Michigan that seemed to open him up to the other possibilities in what had previously been a very rigid and constrained life. For some it's a near-death experience, or even just an extremely lucid dream(s). YMMV
Similar Tests.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Were done with Psilocybin (Magic Mushrooms) on terminally ill cancer patients (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/unique-everybody-else/201210/psilocybin-anxiety-and-depression-in-cancer) and also PTSD sufferers (http://guardianlv.com/2013/08/psychedelics-show-promise-for-ptsd-treatment/). Psychedelics are beautiful substances which when used correctly can give the user a profound, new outlook on life and put personal matters into better perspective. There's no doubt these drugs are exceptional in acting as what I would describe as the psychological equivalent to a disk de-fragmentation on a computer; nothing is necessarily gained or lost, just arranged and sorted back into the order which is most conducive to the operation of the hardware (or human body, in this case).
Re:Similar Tests.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Fourteen months after participating in the study, 94% of those who received the drug said the experiment was one of the top five most meaningful experiences of their lives; 39% said it was the single most meaningful experience.
Critically, however, the participants themselves were not the only ones who saw the benefit from the insights they gained: their friends, family member and colleagues also reported that the psilocybin experience had made the participants calmer, happier and kinder.
You can read more about it here: http://healthland.time.com/201... [time.com]
ripping off Bill Mher (Score:2)
In pharmaceutical parlance, Psilocybin appears to be a potent Assholeimase inhibitor
Ok, and? (Score:2)
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The difference is that alcohol very rarely solves the problem, it only masks it. Sober up and all your anxiety is still there. Psychedelics on the other hand can profoundly and permanently alter your perspective on the world and yourself. LSD in particular is known to be a powerful promoter of neuro-restructuring, in some extreme cases permanently altering things even as seemingly fundamental as the way people's brain processes visual information, so that far more of the brain responds directly to visual
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Where did I say LSD was like marijuana?
Actually reading the post rarely has anything to do with trolling. It is more exciting to blurt out the first negative thing that comes to mind. Ignore the idiot, and feel better about life :)
Jerry Garcia, prophet (Score:2)
The Grateful Dead takes on a deeper meaning.
Am I the only one *not* worried/panicking... (Score:2)
about my death?
As long as I can remember (that includes Captain Kangaroo and the Watergate Hearings), I've known I'm going to die, and it's never worried me that much.
No, I don't want to die, but it's gonna happen whether I want it to or not, so no use getting my tits in a twist about something I can't prevent.
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about my death?
As long as I can remember (that includes Captain Kangaroo and the Watergate Hearings), I've known I'm going to die, and it's never worried me that much.
No, I don't want to die, but it's gonna happen whether I want it to or not, so no use getting my tits in a twist about something I can't prevent.
I have never been worried about dying. Honestly, I thought most people were mostly scared to die because of religious reasons.
While I'm not suicidal, I am looking forward to seeing what happens after I die.
I'm guessing either nothing happens, and I don't exist anymore, that I wake up hooked up to some simulation, or reincarnation (which doesn't mean I'm not in a simulation, I could be in a simulation that starts you over in another life.)
Either way, I have no control over it and it's going to happen, so I'
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Yes. The rest of us just dread to face a world without you.
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Not panicking per se, but having it loom is something that comes with age. I always was a "living the moment" guy, enjoying it to the fullest. Now i am pushing 40 and death comes to my thoughts every now and then (for the last year or so). I don't know if it's "just the mid life crisis" or if those thoughts will stay/intensify, but it really can inhibit life a small, but measurable bit.
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Everyone knows that and handles it about the same way.
When you hear a honk and see a speeding truck about 3 feet from you, you'll wet your pants like everyone else.
According to more recent research (Score:2)
Enlightenment (Score:2)
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I suppose one could try to explain, but a tiny square of blotter paper is worth about a billion words.
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I can. It shuts down the part of your brain that rationalizes things. You can't make complex thoughts to justify your actions. You just do what you normally would do, like eat some cake... but instead of "I'm eating this because it's the weekend and I'm hungry" you think "Cake... taste good... me eat... I LIKE SUGAR!" As a result you usually end up finding out some truths about yourself you rather would not have admitted to. In the end it's almost always a good thing, and you end up being a better person be
Re: Enlightenment (Score:2)
I'm as far from being religious as you could possibly imagine. I strongly believe the scientific method is the single best tool humanity has to discern reality from misleading inferences our minds tend to make due to confirmation bias and other evolved approximations.
I'm an occasional user of both psychidellics and cannabis.
Far from making me believe bullshit, my experiences with these altered states of consciousness have been not only incredibly beautiful sensory experiences but profoundly fascinating from
me to (Score:2)
I can confirm that after the last time I took LSD I was DEFINITELY prepared for death. Hence why that was 20 years ago.
LSD.. (Score:2)
If the person can't physically think or feel, and their neurons function are disrupted, they don't and can't particularly feel anything in a controlled way. So of course they will stop worrying about death, and their entire brains will be immobolized and incapable of defense or anything else.
They used to slip this drug to unwitting victims to turn them into schizophrenics for gods sakes. The CIA also envisioned putting it in water supplies to make the entire populace of a region defenseless, walking around
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Really have no clue what you're talking about, do you?
LSD Study? WTF? (Score:2)
Ok, when did that become permitted again? last i heard it was still a 'scheduled drug' and even research was banned.
Re:Is this even news? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is really ancient knowledge. Did science just get hep?
Great.
Re:Is this even news? (Score:5, Informative)
This is really ancient knowledge. Did science just get hep? Great.
It's more about science getting approval. LSD is one of those compounds that is next to impossible for researchers to get access to and test in humans. For reasons I don't care enough about keeping kids off drugs or something to fully understand, some drugs are so wicked and dangerous and illegal that it is necessary to prevent any research (even about how dangerous they are; but definitely nothing suggesting that they aren't as dangerous as previously believed), even under hardass conditions, on terminal patients, and so forth. As quoth noted toxicologist and psycho-pharmacologist Jacqui Smith: "You cannot compare the harms of an illegal activity with a legal one." Why? Because one is illegal, of course!
I wouldn't really call this 'ancient knowledge' (if the first synthesis was in 1938, it probably isn't shamanic lore); but it was certainly an active area of scientific interest pre-ban. That somebody would want another crack at it isn't even remotely news. That they managed to fill out the paperwork, on the other hand...
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natural compounds like psilocybin, DMT, and mescaline have identical effects and have been used for thousands of years.
Re:Is this even news? (Score:5, Informative)
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They seem to have similar effects, but these things are notoriously hard to study objectively, so anecdotal evidence is not enough to establish that they have identical effects (and it would be really weird if they did. How should such different molecules get identical pharmacokinetics and pharmarkodynamics?).
Because the "such different molecules" actually have very similar shapes and active sites and thus very similar/identical mechanisms of action - just as with all the other drug classes (peptidoglycan synthesis inhibiting antibiotics, COX inhibiting anti-inflammatories, etc.).
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have identical effects
Hard to tell, you can get "identical effects" (vivid visual and auditory hallucinations) simply by forcing yourself to stay awake for more than ~60hrs.
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I take it you haven't done any of these, since the effects of LSD is **NOT** identical to the effects of psilocybin mushrooms or mescaline-containing cacti. I have done all three, and all three are dramatically different from each other. For that matter, a trip from San Pedro cacti is different than a peyote trip, and a chemically-generated LSD trip is different than a morning glory seed generated LSD trip.
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Depends on the context. Where I am, what I am doing, where my head is. Mushrooms for walking in the Pacific Northwest rain forest, morning glory seeds hiking in the Andean altiplano or playing in our garden, LSD when staying indoors, San Pedro at Lake Titicaca or visiting pre-Colombian ruins, etc.
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LSD, no. Morning glory seeds used to be coated with a little strychnine to prevent the plants from self-fertilizing and producing viable seeds, but that's not done any more. To be just a little paranoid you could buy organic morning glory seeds and avoid the issue altogether. Grind them up and mix them with something like peach juice, or let the powder sit in water (or wine) overnight and drink the water. Psilocybin mushrooms grow wild all over the place if you know how to recognize mushrooms. San Pedr
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same as booze being illegal in saudi arabia (Score:2)
Oh get over it. LSD is no different in being illegal but in paper only.
Just as liquor is illegal in Saudi Arabia, yes they are nut jobs for making it so, but no different to the
west making LSD illegal too.
Live a little try it.
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Never heard of anyone doing anything violent under the influence of alcohol, you must be right...
or dumb.
Re:same as booze being illegal in saudi arabia (Score:4, Interesting)
Have you considered that she only saw the extreme edge cases? The vast majority of people who take LSD never end up in an emergency room because of it. The vast majority never end up hospitalised. She, by definition of her job, only saw the worst.
> Things going horribly wrong while on hallucinogens isn't exactly rare, and as such should really only
> be used while under supervision. They are in fact so common, that they have an official slang term,
> "bad trip".
Depends what you mean by "horribly wrong" or "bad trip". "Bad Trip" is used to describe any situation where a person has an emotional experience that they are having trouble handling. Yes, this happens. I have seen it happen. It can be loud, it can be scary, but it really turning into anything significant IS indeed rare.
In fact, if it wasn't rare, it wouldn't make the news.
Yes, its true, psychedelics can provide people with very intense emptional experiences, which are not always fun; anyone using them should be aware of and prepared for that. Anything beyond that is just unwarranted fear.
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"Bad Trip" is used to describe any situation where a person has an emotional experience that they are having trouble handling.
There's another definition- any situation where a person has such reduced cognitive ability that their actions preclude survival. The stereotype is the guy who thinks he is superman and tries to stop the locomotive, but other similar situations exist.
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True, but several incidents a night at one emergency room suggests that these cases are fairly common. Thing is, LSD is not regulated, and it's hard to know exactly what you're getting. It's quite possible that, if LSD were legal and non-prescription, it would
Re:same as booze being illegal in saudi arabia (Score:4, Informative)
From what I know of LSD (not having tried it) most of the bad effects are due to impure product, substituted product (i.e. it wasn't LSD) or wildly improper dosage.
Unsurprisingly, this is what happens when ANYthing is illegal and therefore all usage is uncontrolled. Look at alcohol during prohibition. It was frequently tainted with methanol, ethelyne glycol and god knows what else. Many people went crazy, committed horrible, violent, harmful acts or died suddenly because they drank tainted product. The major harm from illegal drugs stems from the very fact that they are illegal.
If drug purity and content were controlled and dosage information were freely available, the reduction in harm from these drugs would drop significantly. People who are going to do drugs are going to do them if they are legal or illegal. But if they were legal and controlled, people would know what they were getting, they would know how much they could do and they would be more likely to seek help if they had problems without fear of jail time. And far fewer people would commit crimes to get their next fix.
Yes, there would still be abusers and harm done, just like we still have chronic alcoholics, but the harm to the general public would be much less.
So no matter what your grandma said about LSD abusers there are far more reasons to legalize and have some control over drugs than to leave them in the murky shadows of the underworld.
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Re:Is this even news? (Score:4, Insightful)
Psychedelics are dangerous. They are very effective at treating addictions, and modern society is entirely build around all the consumers running on hamster wheels for their next hit. They grant self-awareness, and that just might make the marionette see the strings they dance from. But even more dangerously they might make the puppetmasters realize those same strings also tie the hand that holds them.
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First *concentration* was 1938.
Morning glories did not evolve overnight in 1938, nor apricot seeds, nor any of the other plants this drug can be concentrated from.
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It's just a ploy from the anti-drug people.
After the trial, they can say: We tried LSD on 40 people and they all died.
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Exactly what I was thinking. I've known too many suicides in my life on bad trips, from the "I can fly off a 20 story building" to the "I'm superman and I can stop a train" to not know that LSD affects the instinct for survival.
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it can also puts your mind on a train of thought such that you can not break out of it unless someone is monitoring you, picks up on that and says, "dude, snap out of it." Somehow death and and LSD are a bad idea.
Being that, perhaps, the reason the thing works with terminal patients.
I had read that traumas can be overcome by carefully reviving it - slowly and shortly at first, and then slowly increasing the exposure until the anxiety drops to a manageable level, when then the patient can face the trauma and put it behind.
Perhaps that exact "train of thought" manages to do something like that.
Re:bad trip to the power of infinity? (Score:4, Interesting)
According to the article, the trial was for "LSD-assisted psychotherapy", so it was a combination between an acid trip and a session with a therapist. There was someone monitoring them, and they probably did have to get patients to "snap out of it" once in a while.
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Any source for this?
I don't know about LSD, but it's definitely true for MDMA and PTSD. Google it.
Re:bad trip to the power of infinity? (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't image a worse trip than knowing your going do die and experiencing those thoughts while under the influence of LSD. For those that have never taken this drug, beyond the entertaining light, sounds and altered twisted reality and all, it can also puts your mind on a train of thought such that you can not break out of it unless someone is monitoring you, picks up on that and says, "dude, snap out of it." Somehow death and and LSD are a bad idea.
I was thinking the same thing. It's been several decades since I've dropped acid. But this could go one of two ways. I've had very few bad "trips" but I can't imagine how bad it could be if you know you are dying. And i hope they give them some valium when they come down. There's nothing worse than that strung out feeling afterwards. It's best if you can sleep through that. On the other hand, most things are pretty funny when you're tripping.
I remember when I was a teenager doing LSD and I saw the grim reaper appear. After I got over my initial shock I pointed at him and laughed. Eventually he went away but took my walls and ceiling with him. My only thought at the time was that my dad was going to be really pissed when he sees this.
Re:bad trip to the power of infinity? (Score:5, Funny)
Eventually he went away but took my walls and ceiling with him.
You mean he stole your tent?
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I've had very few bad "trips" but I can't imagine how bad it could be if you know you are dying.
Knowing you're dying can be a bad trip, no drugs required. Someone who's looped their fear until their soul is crushed isn't in much danger - they've already hit bottom.
Knowing you're going to die is a terrible burden, but it presents you the opportunity to choose the last memories your friends and family will have of you. They can remember you living your last weeks in fear and dying terrified, or you spending some time recalling the good times, and perhaps forgiving some of the bad ones. That's all the
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altered twisted reality
You mean, actual *literal* reality.
it can also puts your mind on a train of thought such that you can not break out of it unless someone is monitoring you[...]
That's why you're supposed to *always* have enough weed on you to calm down when tripping. Especially if you're alone.
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A sample size of 12 is ridiculously small.
With controversial topics, you have to start somewhere, and that place is always small.
Then you maybe go on to the bigger studies.
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In some ways a small sample size is advantageous in disproving the null hypothesis. It's cheaper and more practical to run a small study, especially in a case like this with a controversial substance that is perceived as risky and is hard to obtain.
The disadvantage of a small sample size is that you might not achieve a statistically significant result at the standard 5% confidence level in situation you'd achieve a significant result with a larger sample size. But if you *do* achieve a statistically signif
Re:You want to reduce my anxiety? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're going to die no matter what, there's absolutely nothing anyone can do to change that, all medical science can hope to do is delay it a bit. Coming to accept that knowledge rather than letting it eat away at your peace of mind is an important part of the dying process - the sooner you do it the freer the rest of you life will be, whether that be day or decades. It's an incredibly liberating, humbling, and inspiring thing to truly accept that everything you think of as yourself will come to an end, and the only trace left in this world will be the ripples you leave in other people's lives.
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You're going to die no matter what
Actually, it is the opposite.
Because the Universe can't tell the difference between you and another person, you are both.
Because you are both, by transitivity, you are everybody.
Hence, you will never die.
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>Because the Universe can't tell the difference between you and another person, you are both.
But it can. At least if you presume it has an awareness and is capable of distinguishing between you and a rock. You occupy a different space-time locus, and your quantum state is completely different.
You can reach a similar conclusion from the perspective of Eastern philosophy in a manner that isn't complete nonsense, but it involves surrendering any concept of "you" that most people would recognize.
Corpsicles-R-Us (Score:2)
News flash - being frozen will kill you one *hell* of a lot more thoroughly than pretty much anything short of being fed through a meat grinder. In fact on a cellular level the damage will be far greater than that, even if you superficially appear undamaged. Cryogenics technology is still a long way from being able to reliably glassify something much thicker than millimeter-scale, and that's a challenge. Even if they *could* do such a thing, keeping you perpetually cold enough to remain glassified rather
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Plenty of people have made peace with their own mortality without contributing their life to a cause.
And I would argue that living like you'll die tomorrow, as heard by most people, can be the exact opposite of making peace with mortality. It is very often born of overcoming the denial of the inevitability of their own death, but without having accepted the aesthetic necessity of that outcome. Thus bestowing a frantic energy born of suppressed terror as the person rushes to "make the most" of whatever ti
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no, they're not high, they're on drugs. huge difference.
hallucinogens (Score:2, Insightful)
Aside from the fact that "get high" can refer to drugs besides marijuana, marijuana itself is technically classified as a mild hallucinogen. I've never understood this classification because :
(a) marijuana makes you lethargic while most hallucinogens make you more energetic,
(b) marijuana can cause visual effects but only after you've taken so much it becomes unpleasant.
(c) marijuana has a predictable effect while serious hallucinogens are much more susceptible to "set & setting".
Anyways, mescaline, the
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Marijuana unpleasant due to excess?
I think you need to try again, sir.
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No it isn't.
Maybe your dad got shit weed, but full land race sativas are not less potent, they're just nearly impossible to grow indoors, and have exceeding long growing times. Their potency is untouchable though,
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Shit weed? Just the discarded leaf from today's weed is stronger than the Acapulco Gold bud we used to pay premium prices for back in the '70s. The average no-name bud sold in Seattle now is stronger than the Thai Stick or Maui Wowie used to be.
alcahol has no effect when on lsd/shrooms (Score:2)
You can drink when high, but you will not feel it, or the lsd effect nullifies it, but when the lsd wears off, then you feel drunk.
Also because of this, drinking is dangerous to your body, and system in high amounts, yet LSD is safer at the cellular level.
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