German Entrepreneur Wants To Develop Lab-Grown Psilocybin (scientificamerican.com) 118
nightcats writes: A German capitalist wants to promote everything from psychological research, applied clinical uses of psychedelics, and even peace in the Mideast, with the help of lab-grown magic mushrooms. "Today, with a net worth of roughly $400 million accrued through various enterprises, [Christian] Angermayer is one of the driving forces behind the movement to turn long-shunned psychoactive substances, like the psilocybin derived from so-called magic mushrooms, into approved medications for depression and other mental illnesses," reports Scientific American.
The strangest and most daring idea mentioned in the Scientific American piece by Meghana Keshavan relates to a bizarre project for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "Angermayer, interested in expanding his web of psychedelics holdings, recently asked [Rick Doblin, founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a nonprofit focused on research and education around the substances] if he might invest in his nonprofit, MAPS -- particularly its efforts to legalize therapeutic use of MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy," reports Scientific American. "Doblin demurred. MAPS is purely donation-based, and unlike Compass, intends to stay that way."
"But their talk shifted to one of the highest priority projects at the nonprofit: An exploration of psychedelics in conflict remediation. Along with researchers at Imperial College London, MAPS plans on bringing Israelis and Palestinians together to take ayahuasca and, working with negotiation experts, sift through their respective traumas. The idea is that finding common ground in their spiritual and mystical experiences might help coax political reconciliation between the warring factions."
The strangest and most daring idea mentioned in the Scientific American piece by Meghana Keshavan relates to a bizarre project for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "Angermayer, interested in expanding his web of psychedelics holdings, recently asked [Rick Doblin, founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a nonprofit focused on research and education around the substances] if he might invest in his nonprofit, MAPS -- particularly its efforts to legalize therapeutic use of MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy," reports Scientific American. "Doblin demurred. MAPS is purely donation-based, and unlike Compass, intends to stay that way."
"But their talk shifted to one of the highest priority projects at the nonprofit: An exploration of psychedelics in conflict remediation. Along with researchers at Imperial College London, MAPS plans on bringing Israelis and Palestinians together to take ayahuasca and, working with negotiation experts, sift through their respective traumas. The idea is that finding common ground in their spiritual and mystical experiences might help coax political reconciliation between the warring factions."
Israel = PsyTrance (Score:2)
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You don't know me, sorry "doctor faggot" save your prescriptions for the resurrection. I respond to bloviating prevaricators as I see fit, and I always see fit.
anycase, do you feel better now?
yeah, i guessed so.
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reference to use of psychedelics for the Israeli-Palestine conflict
i'm sure psychedelics are a great tool for conflict in general, amongst many other applications, but since what's meant by "israeli-palestine conflict" is actually israel's decade long landgrab and genocide in palestine, a lot of far more effective and straightforward solutions come to mind. like, dunno, just enforcing international law, for instance?
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he needs to host a futurological congress on this (Score:2)
Also, wouldn't it be more productive to engineer common gut bacteria to excrete psilocybin?
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Re:Makes perfect sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, since you asked for cynical replies...
I actually support the therapeutic uses of psychedelics and MDMA - there's a large and growing body of evidence for their effectiveness. However,
>The idea is that finding common ground in their spiritual and mystical experiences might help coax political reconciliation between the warring factions.
Seems extremely naive. Political conflict is almost always based on competition for power and wealth amongst politicians, not ideological differences or a lack of common ground. Ideological differences are just a tool used to keep the populations riled up so that they'll support the conflict - and if they don't already exist then those seeking greater power will happily manufacturer them.
We're all the same naked apes under the skin - we already all have far more in common than separates us. Good luck finding any schism - cultural, ideological, etc. that separates populations that *isn't* being actively fed by groups seeking to expand their own power. Religion, race, environmental responsibility... even large terrorist organizations are primarily interested in fundraising and extending the political clout of their leaders.
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The idea is that finding common ground in their spiritual and mystical experiences might help coax political reconciliation between the warring factions.
Seems extremely naive. Political conflict is almost always based on competition for power and wealth amongst politicians, not ideological differences or a lack of common ground.
The main effectiveness, of the experience that one can have with psilocybin, is an almost complete lack of ego.
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Oh, I quite agree. And then you sober up.
Even if you could convince politicians to engage in finding common ground with chemical assistance, that won't actually help anything unless the experience convinces them to abandon their quest for personal power. They are after all almost by definition psychopaths willing to spend other people's lives with impunity in order to further their own goals - they have lots of common ground with each other. Generally speaking they're not fostering conflict because they
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Why should anyone abandon their quest for personal power? Have you done that yet? If so, why the hell did you do that?
No, the problem isn't in personal power - hell, the more the merrier. The problem is in taking power from others. If anything, psilocybin shows the user the experience of things as they are: already connected. The need for power is much less when you already feel connected to everything. But like so many other things meant to induce change, time plays a major role.
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I think it's safe to say that most people who foster hatred and conflict between groups in their quest for personal power, are looking to get it at the expense of others.
Also, unlike mechanical power, social power at tends to be a zero-sum game. The only way you can get more power/influence in the social sphere is to reduce the power of others. You cannot have a king without peasants to serve him.
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I think it's safe to say that most people who foster hatred and conflict between groups in their quest for personal power, are looking to get it at the expense of others.
You're certainly correct, but what I've always experienced is that when people feel others as their people, they no longer have such hatred and conflict. With psilocybin, one is almost forced into feeling a oneness with most everything.
Also, unlike mechanical power, social power at tends to be a zero-sum game. The only way you can get more power/influence in the social sphere is to reduce the power of others. You cannot have a king without peasants to serve him.
If this was true, there'd only ever be 1 main music star, one main movie star, etc...
Kings are the ones that are following themselves. Followers are the ones following someone else. So you're either following yourself, or you're following another.
There are no leade
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Tell me - what effect has the superstar phenomena had on the number of merely good performers able to make a good living from their art?
Just as there was never only one king. Kings vie for power with other kings, as well as with their nobility. And with the clergy of course, who also have their own internal power struggles, as well as vieing for influence with other competing religions. There's only so much control that it's possible to exert on a single follower's life, and the more influence one leader
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what effect has the superstar phenomena had...
More music trends. No music artists are losing their fame nor the money that fame generates.
If such a treatment were actually effective, I think there would be vanishingly few leaders who would go anywhere near it. Might make an excellent rite of passage before being allowed to rule, but I don't see many citizenries that would be capable of imposing that on their rulers.
Well said. And this truth is the truth that makes people like you look smart, and people like me look silly. But not to worry, once our societies get redirected to a more natural state, this problem of 'people getting the leaders that they deserve', won't be a bad thing anymore. Also, it's worth pointing out that once a society is able to exist in a balance with nature, there won't be a need for everyone to take
Considering the last time... (Score:1)
Considering the last time German "entrepreneurs" did something for the Jews, they came up with Zyklon B. Now they want to fry everyone in the Middle East's braincells with lab synthesized psychedelic mushrooms. What could ever go wrong?
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What evidence do you have that psilocybin "fry [sic]...braincells"?
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I think Psilocybin has a lot of potential... (Score:1)
I think Psilocybin has a lot of potential but capitalism's desire to turn every medicine into a single extract that can be commodified is dangerous.
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As we march to a Stoned All The Time future to keep everyone from a revolt.
Does it work? (Score:5, Interesting)
Has this been found to work on an individual level between groups with strong dislike? Can you put a Trump fan and an Antifa member in the same room and ecstasy makes them pals? Or does the feeling of connectedness wear off and you're back to the same feelings? Is this trivializing actual disputes as something to "get over" or is a change in mood all that is needed? Before we talk of healing cultures, how about a few hundred documented and "repeatable" conflict resolutions.
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Psilocybin is not Extasy.
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You can read here [wikipedia.org] about it a little. One thing that may answer your question on that page is this little bit:
Around the years 1960-1977, psilocybin was first studied as a psychotherapeutic drug. Research on humans in this field was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but after a while it was ended and did not continue until the late 1990s, when research on the medical use of psilocybin was finally picked up again.
In 2011, a study conducted at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine showed that about 60% of the subjects that were given psilocybin under controlled conditions underwent significantly positive personality changes concerning traits like openness, imagination or feelings. On the basis of these findings, researchers have since been working on studies of psilocybin treatments in patients with cancer, who frequently experience depression, anxiety or ache
Other than that, one could always go out and find the mushrooms and have your own experience - this is what I suggest.
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True. Reddit doesn't allow anonymous posting.
woo woo! (Score:2)
Where's the New Earth Army when you need them?
ACs are for it that's all you need to know (Score:1)
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There was quite a bit of promising research into the efficacy of psychedelics in the 50s and 60s before they were irrationally banned. Even today, research is resuming in countries that have relaxed their rules.
You really should examine the difference between causation and correlation before making silly statements, OP.
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Like so many proponents of psychoactive drugs, this guy kills his own credibility by going too far. Study? Sure! Clinical use? After the study, yeah. Get all the leaders high and make peace in the Middle East? Um....
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Peace in the Middle East via psychedelics? Terrible idea.
One problem would be that psychedelic drugs like LSD, psilocybin, or mescaline are seen as intoxicants in Islam and are therefore forbidden for Muslims. And while some things, like khat, may be culturally acceptable in certain regions of the Middle East like Yemen, psychedelics may be pushing it a bit too far here.
Promoting psychological and clinical use of psychedelics, in that order, on the other hand
Re:Mental Illness (Score:4, Interesting)
In fairness many psychedelics have shown themselves to be *extremely* useful for curing depression and several other mental illnesses. Not managing, which is what the pharmaceutical and psychology industry likes to do (gotta love that steady income stream), but *curing*.
Generally speaking they offer two powerful effects - they greatly enhance neuroplasticity, so that it's much easier for you to "rewire" your brain's habitual thought patterns, and they offer a new perspective by temporarily wildly altering the way your brain functions so that your usual thought patterns are almost impossible to sustain.
Essentially temporarily dissolving "you" - the collection of preconceptions, assumptions, and gut reactions that shape everything you see and think, allowing you to look at the world you feel trapped in with fresh eyes, and see for yourself how many of the walls of your prison are of your own creation. While the greatly enhanced neuroplasticity allows you to break them down and build more productive patterns in their place, doing in hours of focused attention what would normally take months or years of constant struggle against the forces of habitual thinking.
Do we understand how they work? Not really. But you can say the same thing about most antidepressants, hormonal birth control, and a vast array of other medical chemistry. And unlike those, natural psychedelics have literal millenia of history of therapeutic use by shamans and mystics of many stripes all over the world, in order to help their fellows recover from psychological traumas.
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And in fact ECT is *still* regarded as an effective treatment for some things. It's risky, and pretty much guaranteed to have unintended side effects, but if the problem is severe enough it may well be worth the risks.
And of course, even a cure isn't miraculous - you may cure depression, diabetes, or any of a host of different conditions, but if the disease originated with (or was aggravated by) lifestyle choices, then you're going to have to change those as well or you'll likely eventually end up re-affli
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>do you think drug use was likely to be a reason someone avoided ending up in the clinic or the one of the most common reasons?
*Theraputic* drug use under the care of a professional? I'd venture a guess that very few such people needed your services for any reason related to the drug use. Quite possibly none at all. Recreational use (and abuse) is of course entirely irrelevant to a conversation about theraputic uses.
>Which takes us straight back to my first post. Everything comes from choices.
Sure.
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It's not like you're dissolving your brain in acid - your normal self returns as the drug wears off. But you bring back with you new firsthand experienced perspectives on the world and your problems from the one person who you'll actually listen to and knows exactly what you're going through - yourself. And one of the biggest single lessons, for me at least, was that even with everything I thought of as "me" diffused, I was still there, still recognizable as myself to myself, even when I wasn't quite sure
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Scientology much?
Rick and Morty did it first (Score:2)
Check your bias at the door (Score:2)
"Bizarre"? The writer's bias shines though.
Don't use your own supply (Score:2)
MAPS plans on bringing Israelis and Palestinians together to take ayahuasca and, working with negotiation experts, sift through their respective traumas. The idea is that finding common ground in their spiritual and mystical experiences might help coax political reconciliation between the warring factions."
This guy needs to lay off the shrooms. Drugs aren't going to be some magical panacea to solving the Israeli/Palestine conflict. It's going to be a lot more complicated than that. The hardliners are too entrenched on both sides (Hamas for Palestine, Likud/settlers for Israel) for any meaningful resolution. Even worse, it's a feedback loop. As settlements expand and hardline policies such as house razings as retribution for attacks, reducing access to al-Aqsa mosque, and blockades continue they feeds int
Job Opening: Conflict Remediation Specialist (Score:1)
Do you enjoy high-stakes negotiation between two opposing Islamic extremists? Do you also enjoy psychedelic drugs? If so, this job may be the one for you!
Amazing compensation, flexible hours, and a $5k relocation package to the most dangerous place in the Middle East!
Psychedelic therapy is not what you think it is (Score:2)
I'd prefer it too (Score:2)
...if Palestinians, Israeli and Hezbollah would lie in tents stoned 'til their eyeballs instead of doing what they are doing now.
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We can certainly wish.
You should be able to buy shrooms at the grocery (Score:2)
My 40 year old brother died suddenly last year, and sent me into a spiral of depression. Grief just overwhelmed me, and literally nothing made me happy.
In desperation, I tried microdosing shrooms, and they made such an amazing difference literally within hours. 1.5 years later and I'm functional and mostly normal now.
Psilocybin is literally a life-changing compound. Adults should be allowed to purchase it legally in this country, both because of established scientific evidence about it's safety, curso
Utterly senseless (Score:3)
It's not senseless because he imagines using hallucinogens to make the world a better place, it's that he thinks that making synthetic versions will do so, when they will have the exact opposite effect. These compounds are made efficiently by plants or fungus. There is no need whatsoever to synthesize them when the plants do such a good job.
Look at CBD for inspiration. We wanted CBD alone without THC, so did we synthesize it? No, we bred cannabis without significant THC, which produces mostly CBD. Then you can use innocuous extraction methods to get it. Meanwhile, synthetic THC (Marinol) is dramatically less effective and also more expensive than the real thing, and it's hard to get a prescription for it even though it doesn't get you high like smoking marijuana. The only thing it's ever accomplished was to make big pharma some cash, besides being used as an argument against legalization of cannabis (though not a very good one.)
Synthesizing something that can simply be grown is stupid, evil, or both.
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Synthesizing something that can simply be grown is stupid, evil, or both.
Synthesizing something that can simply be grown is sometimes necessary, when larger quantities of something is needed before more can be grown. Synthesized drugs can also usually be dosed more exactly than natural compounds. In addition, synthetic's costs can often be cheaper than obtaining the land needed to grow a natural product.
I've just listed three good reasons one might want to synthesize rather than grow that occur in practice
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I should have written "Easily" grown, in deference to persons like yourself who have a problem with their knee. Sorry. You may go now.
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Another example is frankincense which is derived from certain trees. It's expensive so the trees are slowly being made extinct.
Ijon Tichy's experience... (Score:2)
Soccer hooligans (Score:2)