Study Finds Magic Mushrooms Are the Safest Recreational Drug (theguardian.com) 198
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Mushrooms are the safest of all the drugs people take recreationally, according to this year's Global Drug Survey. Of the more than 12,000 people who reported taking psilocybin hallucinogenic mushrooms in 2016, just 0.2% of them said they needed emergency medical treatment -- a rate at least five times lower than that for MDMA, LSD and cocaine. Global Drug Survey 2017, with almost 120,000 participants in 50 countries, is the world's biggest annual drug survey, with questions that cover the types of substances people take, patterns of use and whether they experienced any negative effects. Overall, 28,000 people said they had taken magic mushrooms at some point in their lives, with 81.7% seeking a "moderate psychedelic experience" and the "enhancement of environment and social interactions."
ALL? (Score:2)
nothing is "safe" (Score:2)
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Never post anything on youtube/facebook, don't hang out with people that do. But party even harder...you're only young once.
Nothing worth doing is 'safe'.
Misleading (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yeah its an odd claim. To be honest, last tim I tried mushrooms, back in my university days, I ended up having an absolutely nasty anxiety attack that only seemed to pass when some tripping genius threw ABBA on (is it even possible not to smile at daft 70s disco?) . Sure my health wasn't threatened, but it was far from a fun experience.
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I ended up having an absolutely nasty anxiety attack that only seemed to pass when some tripping genius threw ABBA on (is it even possible not to smile at daft 70s disco?) .
Yes. Some of us begin projectile vomiting immediately. ABBA is by far the worst example of that kind of music.
I've tried all of the above (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: I've tried all of the above (Score:3)
understand what you taking
Therein lies the rub: if they're black market, you're not likely to ever know for sure...
Safer than alcohol? (Score:2)
Safer than society's favourite OH group?
Read the article. (Score:5, Insightful)
I jumped at reading the article to validate my existing beliefs, but the article rates mushrooms as safe by the amount of people admitted to the hospital as a result. I don't think that's a great measure to use. Just because you aren't immediately and seriously injured or disruptive doesn't mean it's not bad for your mind or body.
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The article only considers the dangers of the drug's interaction with the body...
I'm sure there are a lot of drugs which are pretty safe, provided you're in a situation where you can't injure yourself.
The danger happens when you can do things like walk into a busy street, or up a flight of stairs, believe you can fly...
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Right. By this logic if you're camping out alone in the woods and manage to make it home safely afterward, every and any drug you take is equally safe.
Depends on your definition of safety (Score:2)
It's not physically possible for someone to injest a lethal dose of THC from marijuana. Marijuana has higher hospital admissions than mushrooms, partly due to the influx of people trying it for the first time (it's easier to both acquire and show up at a hospital if it's legal), or due to not understanding you need to wait 1-2 hours for an edible to kick in, or because someone spiked a unsuspecting person's food/drink with cannabis.
Re:Depends on your definition of safety (Score:5, Interesting)
LSD poisoning is also almost unheard of. While it is technically possible to take a lethal dose, it don't think it has ever happened. You need thousands of doses for this.
Those who seek emergency medical attention usually just went into a trip that is too much for them to handle. Same situation as with cannabis.
One reason shrooms have less problems is that inexperienced people tend to take it in small doses. With LSD and cannabis it is common for people to take way more than they can handle. With LSD, you are never sure about the dosage, and cannabis (a "soft" drug) tends not to be taken seriously.
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While I think the statistics here are pretty dubious, if we take them at face value I think another likely reason shrooms would have less hospitalizations is because you'll throw up if you take too many. Really, though, the difference between shrooms and acid is barely discernible and neurologically they do pretty much the same thing (serotonin/dopamine agonists).
Concerning pot, I knew someone who was allergic to it and it made his throat swell up the first and only time he smoked it. He had to go to the ER
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I think the distinction not being spoken of here is acute physical reactions vs. acute psychological reactions.
Most of your hallucinogens are pretty difficult to achieve acute physical reactions with, but I think hallucinogens can be the source of acute psychological reactions, especially among inexperienced people and at common recreational doses.
I would also say especially with LSD and mushrooms because they are pretty strong to begin with, and even cannabis in inexperienced users or at high potency level
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The biggest safety issue around mushrooms for fun are related to properly identifying the "edible" ones, not getting stomped by a pissed off bull or cow, and not getting shot by Farmer Brown.
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Another reason that mushrooms are less dangerous could be attributed to the fact that psilocybin is a prodrug, meaning specifically that it is not psychoactive until it is processed by the digestive system into psilocin. This creates a (variable) bottleneck to high levels of exposure based on how the drug is prepared, how it is consumed, and the digestive state of the individual who takes it.
Consuming raw caps and stems in large quantities will lead to a considerable amount of the drug leaving through the
no thanks, dont want fungus (Score:2, Interesting)
Hmmm pesticides (Score:2)
How do you love smoking Eagel 20/Nova, Avid, Shuttle, Pylon, Meltatox, Floramite and many other for ornamental only pesticides with long residual 1/2 life thats on your weed?
Very narrow definition of "safe" (Score:5, Insightful)
By safe they speak only about emergency medical treatment.
It doesn't include long term damage (non-emergencies) and severity.
You can get to the hospital just because you got into a situation you couldn't control, or because someone else panicked, but you were never in danger to begin with.
Tobacco is probably really safe by this metric. Cancer usually won't get you in an emergency room...
Still interesting, and the results make sense, just know it is not all there is to drug safety.
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Tobacco is probably really safe by this metric.
Probably, although ER visitors are twice as likely to be smokers as the general population [nih.gov]. Correlation v causation, sure, but it's still interesting.
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Not to mention that plenty of people overdose and DIE from all kinds of drugs. Guess what - they don't admit those people to the hospital.
And people who are on some drugs like LSD may do crazy things and end up getting arrested, hurt, or killed - technically not directly attributed to the drug but what they did because of the drug.
This story is kind of silly.
Should name the mushroom because ... (Score:2)
Those aren't the ones used for tripping though, more like the ones you read about in the news where yet another family cooked up some wild mushrooms they couldn't recognise and died.
Nope. (Score:2)
The safest drug is nitrous oxide. The only documented medical problem for the drug itself is reduced B12 levels but only on (for most people) unrealistic levels of use. The number of users seeking medical help associated with the drug use are extremely small.
There are associated problems like people getting frostbites due to incompetent handling of compressed gas and people suffocating due to inhaling too little oxygen but neither of those are a problem with the drug itself.
Nitrous have a very short lasting
I don't know about that (Score:2)
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TFA shows it is safer even than pot, based upon users self-reporting medical situations to authorities.
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Ah, self-reporting. So there could be a huge selection bias if (for example) half of the shroomers died or became so incapacitated that they couldn't self-report their medical situation.
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More like the potheads couldn't be bothered to report
Re:cool (Score:5, Funny)
Despite these quibbles with methodology, I'm personally miffed at the superstitious reference to "magic" mushrooms.
Can we agree, henceforward, to refer to these as "Science Mushrooms" ?
Signed,
A highly rational libertarian genius.
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Marketing is what it is:
Nobody wants to feel "scientific" when they take a recreational drug.
Feeling "magical," however, is another matter entirely.
Re:cool (Score:5, Insightful)
The last place you take someone having a bad reaction to psychedelics is the ER. About the only places worse would be jail or the loony bin. You take them someplace they feel safe...ask them.
So 'going to the ER' is the wrong criteria in the first place. % that needed 'babysitting' over freakout is the better question, could also apply to very drunk people.
How would you even categorize: 'Convincing your tripping friend that climbing a tower crane is a bad idea.'
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Another problem is that they ignore the quality of the experience. A sugar pill is safe but it would be silly to say it is the "best" drug since it doesn't do anything.
Re:cool (Score:5, Funny)
and the ones that mother gives you don't do anything at all...
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Another problem is that they ignore the quality of the experience. A sugar pill is safe but it would be silly to say it is the "best" drug since it doesn't do anything.
They didn't say Shrooms were the "Best" drug, they said the safest. Two very different things. "Best" would surely be subjective.
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They didn't say Shrooms were the "Best" drug, they said the safest. Two very different things. "Best" would surely be subjective.
Where can I score some of this "subjective", dude?
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Is it safer than ibuprofen? That's a drug and there's not a lot of recreational value there either.
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Is it safer than ibuprofen? That's a drug and there's not a lot of recreational value there either.
Have you tried smokin' some profen? Ibuprofen brownies anyone?
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Another problem is that they ignore the quality of the experience. A sugar pill is safe but it would be silly to say it is the "best" drug since it doesn't do anything.
Hold on there cowboy! If the sugar pill contains Fructose, it is a proven killer. Make certain your placebo pills are only of the safe and healthy sugar, Sucrose! Brought to you by the Sugar Cane Growers Association
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Basically, you're right - The wrong stat was being tracked.
Its unclear FTA and the stat in question what that ratio was, since they were tracking those "seeking emergency intervention" as opposed to those actually Requi
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So then the ER wouldn't be the last place. At best it would be the antepenultimate place you'd take someone.
Bet you've been waiting for years to use antepenultimate in a sentence.
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Ah, self-reporting. So there could be a huge selection bias if (for example) half of the shroomers died or became so incapacitated that they couldn't self-report their medical situation.
Yeah, except that no one has ever died from psilocybin mushrooms. You cannot overdose on mushrooms. And the people in the study who did call for medical assistance had been using alcohol as well. RTFA. This is almost always the case, just as the vast majority of “heroin overdoses” involve the use of alcohol, or other CNS depressants such as benzodiazepines. It’s rarely heroin alone.
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a semi-common hallucination for pot heads to have is thinking they're dying
I think you mean 'cops'.
Re:cool (Score:5, Interesting)
No, the truth is more that a semi-common hallucination for pot heads to have is thinking they're dying. A non-zero amount of these idiots will actually call emergency services while freaking out. The weed isn't significantly more dangerous physically if you exclude possible long-term lung damage, it's just a lot more likely to freak you out to the point your dumb ass calls the cops on yourself.
Really? Do you have any documentation of that? I can't recall ever having had that particular hallucination, nor do I know anybody that has (at least, that they've communicated with me. Indeed, I can't recall anybody at all ever -- ever -- seeking emergency medical treatment because they got high smoking pot. Some complete neophyte, smoking for the first time, maybe could freak out, or somebody who was fed brownies and didn't know that they were getting a huge dose of weed along with them, sure, but both of those are special cases and not "pot heads" calling EMS because they think they are dying.
Pot is one of the safest "mind altering/illegal" substances on the planet. There is no lethal dose -- you'd be dying of smoke inhalation, not from the effects of the drug, if you tried to kill yourself with it. There are no long term effects -- if you quit, it clears out of your system end of story. There isn't even a particularly solid link between weed and e.g. lung cancer, although it wouldn't surprise anybody if smoke of any sort is a factor in inflammation, which in turn is a factor in cancer. As pointed out above, the metric of "chose to visit the ER" is just plain silly, and the levels they are reporting for this are pretty absurd -- one in 200.
Did none of those 200 have, say, something to drink as well? Alcohol as a confounding factor would all by itself explain the difference. Is all of the pot that they were smoking JUST pot, or was some of it laced with opium, or cheap weed mixed with cheaper spice to simulate "good" weed? There are zero controls, they are relying on self-reported statistics about stuff everybody lies about (in an ER, are you going to admit that you just used a felonious schedule 1 substance that you might still be holding out in your car or house, or are you going to claim that your meth-induced DTs are due to smoking weed?), and whether or not you go to the ER, tripping balls on serious hallucinogens is a hell of a lot more dangerous than getting high on pot and listening to music while gaming with friends. Your odds of self-inflicted or accidental injury are (IMO) orders of magnitude higher once you have completely disassociated your head from reality with a hefty dose of a real hallucinogen, where it is difficult to ingest enough pot to get a hallucinogenic experience in the most common ways of using it (although if you eat a pile of hash brownies or pot chile you can manage it, sure). If you try it via smoking it you'll just fall asleep before you actually hallucinate, or more likely, stop smoking because you are as relaxed and high as you care to be.
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There are no long term effects -- if you quit, it clears out of your system end of story. There isn't even a particularly solid link between weed and e.g. lung cancer, although it wouldn't surprise anybody if smoke of any sort is a factor in inflammation, which in turn is a factor in cancer.
I can't remember the exact statistics, but, I think I recall the volume of carcinogens in Marijuana smoke (many being the same as in cigarettes) is somewhere around the 1000% that of an average tobacco cigarette. (I could be off a few hundred % there in one direction or the other- point being, its multiple times worse)
Now, that number is pretty misleading. Yeah, an individual smoke me be 10 times as *um* high, but no-one chain smokes Marijuana. (at least I hope not).
Your average cigarette smoker probably
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I've heard this argument, but it is difficult to back with actual statistics. Here's an article from 2008 that looks comparatively clean:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
It suggests that smoking pot regularly and heavily is associated with around a 5% increased incidence in lung cancer, but N in the study is pretty small for me to be happy with this number. Its an epidemiological study and hence has the usual problems with confounding -- lots of people smoke pot AND tobacco, use pot AND drink alcohol -- p
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I've heard this argument, but it is difficult to back with actual statistics. Here's an article from 2008 that looks comparatively clean:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
It suggests that smoking pot regularly and heavily is associated with around a 5% increased incidence in lung cancer, but N in the study is pretty small for me to be happy with this number.
I don't remember the article that I'm "reciting" from, it was one of the popular science type magazines (probably from around the same timeframe as that article, and maybe partially based upon it). The article was actually talking about the relative safety of marijuana, but stated the smoke was "x time worse" (x being something around the 10 mark). I think it mentioned something about lack of filters, etc.
It might have been poorly researched, I don't remember the details.
From your article 5% increase in r
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As they said:
Your average cigarette smoker probably smokes way more than 10 times more frequently than your average pot-head
And that alone gives your body time to recover. Having enough recovery time would mean a lower overall cancer risk - because it's not just accumulation of toxic substances, it's also inflammation. And inflammation that isn't continuous is much less dangerous to long-term health.
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Really? Do you have any documentation of that? I can't recall ever having had that particular hallucination, nor do I know anybody that has (at least, that they've communicated with me.
Cop Eats Pot Brownies Calls 911
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Yeah there was a recent case in Thailand where 2 tourist had magic mushrooms and one of them decided he feel like flying asking the friend to join him, then proceeding to jump to his death following that.
Don't think just smoking marijuana can make you do something like that....
Just try throwing a bag of Cheetos on the sidewalk and see what the potheads will do.
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But it can trigger psychosis that leads to death. Marijuana addicts* can have other social and/or economical problems or even (though less common than for heavy drug users) become criminals in order to get more drugs.
(* yes one can get addicted to marijuana)
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TFA shows it is safer even than pot, based upon users self-reporting medical situations to authorities.
Marijuana has a history going back thousands of years, with essentially zero fatalities related to its use. I don't believe for one second that anything else is safer for you when it comes to recreational or medical use.
Regardless of that fact, it doesn't matter. Government is fighting legalization hard, due to the revenue created from shit that harms the fuck out of you. Tobacco and alcohol not only create deaths that are needed, but also generate billions in revenue related to medical treatments. Weed
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Mushrooms go back just as far, or farther. Mushrooms are recreational even for deer and the like, no need for fire or anything.
Weed's legal on the whole west coast? Gov's not fighting that hard any more
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Marijuana has a history going back thousands of years, with essentially zero fatalities related to its use. I don't believe for one second that anything else is safer for you when it comes to recreational or medical use.
Depends on how you're consuming the marijuana. If you're eating or drinking it, I might believe you, but the negative health impact of inhaling burning hydrocarbons is well documented, even ignoring the drug content.
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negative health impact of inhaling burning hydrocarbons is well documented
If its so well document, perhaps you can provide a citation or two? What are the exact health effects of inhaling the smoke from 1/2 gram of burning hydrocarbons without any drug content?
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Few people seem to realize just how dangerous alcohol is. 10% mortality rate when alcoholics try to quit woke me up.
That's a bad statistic, since it has already selected the most severe sufferers from alcohol. You would find similarly bad outcomes (though not the medically dangerous withdrawal specifically) when you look at the severest sufferers of most any drug addiction.
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how many heavy pot users die trying to quit.
I'm unfamiliar with any Amy Winehouse type cases amongst pot users.
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I don't know anybody that would self-select as being in the worst category of pot smoker, so I don't know what they're like. Unless you can gather some data on what the lives of these people are like, my point stands. It's practically a tautology: the worst among them (self selected) will most likely have pretty rotten lives.
Let me rephrase the above comment to be not so abusive of statistics:
Approximately 0% mortality rate when drinkers try to quit
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I agree with you, but none of that negates the abuse of statistics. You just don't say " of X is bad" where X is already selected to be the worst fraction of a group. It tells you nothing, unless you're conducting an analysis of X rather than the group. However, we're considering alcohol drinkers, pot smokers, heroin users. We are not specifically considering alcoholics, potheads who are stoned all the time, and heroin junkies.
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Documentation? Seriously, just spouting bullshit doesn't prove anything at all. And bullshit articles with completely fake graphs culled from the internet are no better. If you want facts, you can try reading actual medical journal articles:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
From the abstract: The LD50 for dogs is 3 grams of PURE THC per kilogram of body weight. I have a body mass a bit over 100 kg, so the likely LD50 for me would be roughly 300 grams. The most potent varieties of pot on the market are
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Re:cool (Score:5, Informative)
TFA shows it is safer even than pot, based upon users self-reporting medical situations to authorities.
The thing you need to read is not the article, but rather the Global Drug Survey https://www.globaldrugsurvey.c... [globaldrugsurvey.com]
If you do read it, you'll see some problems.
Here's the one that bothers me the most, and it basically means the study and related articles are nonsense.
The report isn't based on the number of doses, it's based on the number of people who ever used the drug in the last year.
So you're probably comparing ten million of doses of natural cannabis products with a few ten thousand mushroom doses, if that many.
The report says the average cannabis users used it 134 days over the last year, but fails to mention how many days/doses for mushrooms.
I kind of doubt there are many people who take mushrooms 3-4 times a week, but the Average cannabis user (responding) does just that.
The numbers are similar for users of LSD, except there are more self-reported ER visits for LSD (1%). .6% ER visits.
Cocaine is reported at 1% have ER visits, amphetamines at 1.1% and cannabis at
Pretty close percentages No one thinks cocaine, amphetamines, LSD, and cannabis are that similar in danger, but this study does.
That's because they're looking at the wrong number.
Here's my favorite quote from the GDS study.
People who use psychedelics are generally very sensible and show some of the best preparation and adoption of harm reduction practices of any drug
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Also, marijuana is more accepted and people are more willing to report it.
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Where does it mention marijuana anywhere? Synthetic cannabis != marijuana.
It's in the Global Drug Survey that is linked to in the Slashdot summary. SLASHDOT SUMMARY IS NOT THE ARTICLE!
BLASPHEMY!
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Also: Beer puts more than 0.2% of users in the hospital? (per use or per year?)
I bet beer and pot together are safer than shrooms. Beer, pot, rifles, 4x4s, woods and a few shrooms...now we're talking. I digress.
Re: cool (Score:2)
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You are invited.
Re:cool (Score:4, Insightful)
I bet beer and pot together are safer than shrooms.
That’d be a bad bet. Alcohol can kill you, psilocybin can’t. Alcohol causes liver, (and other organic), damage, psilocybin doesn’t. I would say pot and ‘shrooms are equally safe. No one has ever been known to overdose on either. Alcohol, not so much. But any recreational drug, including alcohol, if used in moderation is not going to cause you any harm. Few recreational drugs are as dangerous as, say, Tylenol, (acetaminophen), which is a liver toxin.
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Nobody does any hunting during the 'Second week of deer camp.'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Beer is food.
Re: cool (Score:2)
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I wouldn't be surprised if shrooms are safer for your body than pot by some small margin, but I'm sure it's not safer for your mind. Taking shrooms too many times can turn you into a Gary Busey-style space cadet and you'll just think you're "enlightened." You have to smoke weed every day for years to even risk such mental effects from pot.
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Did you bang her? You'd think her believing you were the dark lord would give you a leg up?
I'd have thought Satan would have a lower ID (or post as AC).
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That's an octal IP datagram, correct??
Re: F that (Score:2)
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Re: HIGHLY ILLEGAL (Score:5, Funny)
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That's a false analogy. More like safest rollercoaster. Because you're not guaranteed to be injured riding a rollercoaster, it's unlikely to result in an injury even if you ride it hundreds of times.
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Amanita muscaria is a more obscure hallucinogen, but it's cousin amanita phalloides is known as the death cap and one of the world's most lethal.
Indeed, but you would be hard pressed to mistake them for each other, I think. The first one is bright red, normally with white 'dots' all over, very recognisable - you don't need to eat it to see something psychedelic - whereas the second one is a dull, brownish-green colour and looks a bit like something you might find in the supermarket.
Re: Skewed Statistics? (Score:2)
Re: Skewed Statistics? (Score:2)
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If you only know 'where to look' you are playing Russian roulette of sorts.
Re: Skewed Statistics? (Score:4, Interesting)
Definitely. Where to look, and a lot of experience identifying the species. There are only a few really lethal mushrooms, though. The Death Cap (amanita phalloides [bayareamushrooms.org]) is one of the clean nicer looking white mushrooms out there.
You don't start dying from it for awhile after you've eaten it, until it's deep within your system. And its a horrible death.
Re: Skewed Statistics? (Score:2)
and a lot of experience identifying the species.
You need knowledge rather than experience, as evidenced by the fact that nearly all experienced mushroom hunters forego the much-needed spore print...
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Unless you go to Australia where nearly every single variety of wild fungi that doesn't look weird is lethally poisonous if eaten.
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Five times lower than 0.2% would mean 0.04%. Or as an expression 0.002/5 = 0.0004.
Math truly is a wonderful thing.
Re: I'm going with Alcohol (Score:2)
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Re: You just keep swallowing that MADD juice (Score:2)