3 ms·
" Their safety and efficacy exist only within highly structured specialized treatment settings. In addition, desired outcomes depend upon the production of a te
by scarecrowbob 8y ago
" Their safety and efficacy exist only within highly structured specialized treatment settings. In addition, desired outcomes depend upon the production of a temporary but profoundly regressed, disorganized and incapacitated state. Outside of that structure, psychedelics are no less abusable, acutely debilitating and liable to result in psychological damage—sometimes severe and unremitting—than they ever were."
This doesn't meet with my general experiences.
I've never understood how something like LSD can be "abused" in the way that alcohol can be abused... my experience (and the hundreds of folks I know who've used it) is that at some point, you have bad experiences with it and you stop. That's not a cyclical abuse pattern like with alcohol, where you become addicted and continue on despite the terrible toll on your health.
Similarly, of the people who have been heavily involved with psychedelics and the general outcomes aren't any worse than for the hundreds of functioning alcoholics I know.
While it is true that these kinds of drugs can put you in some really scary places and while it is true that they can possibly have longer-lasting negative effects, the article doesn't make a very compelling case to me to keep these chemicals scheduled so that only researchers have legal access to them.
Pieces like these are interesting... I can see a strand of "messianic utopianism" in some discussion of these drugs, but most of the folks I know who want these things legalized don't have an agenda beyond "I like it and have found it helpful in my life". It's a strange way to characterize the discourse... it'd be like characterizing pieces like these as having an agenda to keep these drugs out of peoples' had out some misguided sense that only clinicians know what kinds of things healthy people should do. That is clearly not what motivates most researchers I have met.
- armitron 8y agoExtremely powerful psychedelics are legal in many parts of the world, even the US under specific circumstances [peyote], some have been used for thousands of years. I can only see "abuse" as bullshit justification to keep them illegal. On the flip-side, there are extremely powerful interests that are working against legalization. "Neurons to nirvana" is a great documentary that makes a good case for that.
- King-Aaron 8y agoAnecdotally, I was at a doof (bush rave) a few years ago, where one of the punters decided to go for a stroll in the middle of the night - head full of acid - and got promptly lost. Police search and rescue were called out, big dollar costs to the state, and while the kid turned up fine in that instance, it's statistically more likely you won't turn up fine in the Australian bush. I certainly feel that there's no absolute way to control the safety of participants in psychedelic experiences, but we should be wary of an open market approach without also considering a massive escalation in the way we teach people about safety with drug use.
- dtech 8y agoThis is a problem with all drugs, especially alcohol. Alcohol has enormous societal costs. For alcohol with choose taxation and information campaigns. Why should other drugs be handled with (ineffective) criminalization and prosecution?
- Cthulhu_ 8y agoSomeone drunk could've done the same thing, wander out for a piss and get lost (or fall asleep / pass out).
- toomanybeersies 8y agoI don't want to sound like one of those anti-alcohol, pro-drug people, but to continue with the anecdotes: I've seen people get into far more dangerous situations and states from drinking than I have from use of any recreational drugs. Anytime you hear about somebody being king hit in town, I can guarantee you the perpetrator has had a skin full of piss.
- thinkingemote 8y agoYour username encourages me on the truthfulness of your anecdotes!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- 8y ago