9 ms·

I take illegal drugs for inspiration

160 points by ulvund 15y ago

CoryMathews 15y ago
"The drugs can take you up in a helicopter to see what's there, but you can't stay. In the end, you have to climb the mountain yourself - the hard way." Thats a really good way to put it.
- michaelochurch 15y ago
  The metaphor I've often preferred is that meditation is like biking into the woods. You know the path, and you only get so far as you are in shape to go, but you also know that you can get back out and that you're safe. Taking drugs is like hitch-hiking. You can go a lot farther with less effort, and you're probably OK, but you have no idea where the fuck you are or how to get back.
- jwuphysics 15y ago
  Having done many of the ones listed in the article, I would like to throw in my two cents: Drugs, like LSD or DMT, are not at all like seeing things from a helicopter. Sure, they are from a "new perspective", but unfortunately it's all in your head. My closest analogy is to dreaming--it seems to make perfect sense when you're dreaming, but when you wake up, you realize that all your thoughts were nonsense. I've had high ideas before. The feeling of revelation is unparalleled... even if it's all in my head. Once I sober up, though, I suddenly realize that they're a load of crap. Rather being a helicopter to check out what's up there, drugs more so resemble staring out the window and pretending to visualize things past the horizon. You don't come to your senses until you realize it's all in your head. I've quit them all now and honestly I only miss acid from time to time. But the fact that it's just eight hours of false epiphanies makes sure that I don't care to ever trip again.
  - Alex3917 15y ago
    "Once I sober up, though, I suddenly realize that they're a load of crap." That's your experience. A lot of other people have really good ideas when they are high, and those ideas are still really good while sober. Part of this is that normally when you have an insight while sober, there is a unique feeling of pleasure you get in your brain. This is because part of the way we identify when we've had an insight is when we get this feeling. However, when we're high we get this feeling much more easily, even if what we're thinking about isn't actually at all insightful. Thus you need to sort of reteach yourself how to think and evaluate the quality of your ideas in a way that isn't reliant on whether or not something 'feels' insightful. It's a big step once you can divorce the depth of insight from the intensity of the eureka feeling. They are not necessarily linked.
  - Psyonic 15y ago
    Francis Crick gives credit to LSD for helping him to unravel the double helix nature of DNA. Is that not real?
    - gnosis 15y ago
      Not to mention the probably billions of works of art, music, and literature which were inspired by various drugs, including LSD.
lell 15y ago
I read her text book 'introduction to consciousness' in a fourth year course in cognitive science. Probably the reason she was able to study parapsychology early in her career was that it was during the cold war when there were branches of the US government that took ESP seriously, and wanted to prove and exploit or disprove it before the soviets. But her rejection of parapsychology was pretty complete, and that text for example did not make reference to it.
- pkennedy 15y ago
  A recent edition I read a couple months ago mentioned it in a sidebar, as a personal anecdote. But it was mainly about her realization that the scientific methods of her colleagues were rather less sound than they at first appeared. edit: in light of this: http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/journalism/NS2000.html http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/journalism/NS2000.html I'd have to agree that the coverage of the matter in the book was rather insufficient.
ltemp 15y ago
Throwaway account. Taking LSD has been one of the most powerful experiences of my life - same level of power as one of my children dying. The first time I took it (rather late in life), it saved my marriage. After the intense trippy part died down, I was able to introspect from other people's viewpoints in a way I was never able to before. I could actually see I was the one being the ass, not the other way around. This understanding and feeling takes a while to wear off (say, 2 or 3 months?) - long enough for me to make some substantial changes. LSD for fun, is great. Try playing an RPG while on a low dosage. You're coherent enough to play and understand it, but the realism spikes a thousand times. (I tried Fallout 3, and really felt as if I was in a nuclear wasteland.) I've tried understanding technical documentation (on low dosages), and found it to be quite understandable and was able to retain everything. Immediately you start visualising and really "feeling" the underlying technology (even if it isn't actually that profound, it'll impact your mind in that way). I haven't done tests to see if this is more effective, but it looks like a promising possibility. (There was a thread on HN a few days back that talked about this.) As far as the dangers, it might very well be. Wikipedia provides the indication that it's relatively safe, with patients that experienced psychosis (a few out of a thousand) to recover within a few days. The rate of psychosis is higher for people with existing mental illness. FWIW, I've been DX'd as bipolar I, with psychosis. As "far out" as LSD has made me feel during the experience, when it's over, I feel much more grounded than ever. LSD is something everyone should seriously consider doing at least once in their life.
- araneae 15y ago
  >same level of power as one of my children dying. See, that's terrifying to me. I've never taken LSD but I don't think I would ever want to put myself in the sort of situation that trivializes the death of a child by making it equivalent to downing a pill. This talk of using MDMA for couples' therapy because it releases vasopressin scares me too. Vasopressin is the bonding hormone, and sure, you could probably make two people who were not in love fall in love artificially- but that's also scary. I'm not sure I would want to be married to someone I could only stand because I took drugs. I'm pretty libertarian, and I do think that drugs should be a choice- but these accounts scare me more than any crap about flashbacks and hallucinations.
melvinram 15y ago
<soapbox> I just don't buy it. IMHO, saying that using drugs to get to ideas/inspiration is like saying a wheelchair can help you get from one place to another even though your limbs are perfectly adequate. Maybe it'll help you get here but you could have gotten there without it. If you like to get high, don't make excuses for it. Just admit to yourself that you like to get high. People who like to go to strip clubs don't say they go there for the lighting and it helps with design. People who watch TV don't say they watch for the education. Why do people who like to get high make up excuses to make their behavior socially acceptable. If you like to do it, own it. </soapbox> It's definitely possible that I am completely wrong as I haven't done LSD, Coke, etc.
- guruz 15y ago
  You are wrong ;-)
- Alex3917 15y ago
  "If you like to get high, don't make excuses for it." The amount of weed you need to consume to get extra creativity is far below the amount weed you would consume for recreational purposes. For someone without a tolerance looking to get the benefits of creativity, the proper vaporized dose would be around .03 grams. Whereas to get 'high' the proper dose would be around .1 - .2 grams. It's the same as how the analgesic dose is below the recreational dose of every drug. Which is why you can take opiates for medical purposes without getting addicted as long as you don't abuse them. This also includes marijuana; people using marijuana for medical purposes use way less than those using the drug for recreational purposes, though different conditions warrant different doses. For example, those using marijuana to treat cachexia generally need a higher dose than those treating anxiety or insomnia.
  - jonmc12 15y ago
    Totally agreed, but dosage is just one dimension of marijuana that is generally misunderstood. The other 2 dimensions are consumption form and cannabis strain - combining these 3 dimensions results in very different mental states. However, the laymen looks at marijuana effects and thinks "high", "stoned", or some other mental state that is equivalent to their college experiences or perhaps a drug addict. Consuming marijuana through ingestion vs inhalation results in a completely different mental experience as a function of how these consumption methods throttle dosage over time. Ingestion will spread a dosage over 4-6 hours, whereas inhalation will expose your mind to this same dosage in in .5-1.5 hours. Also, inhalation has a THC absorption threshold that is much lower than ingestion. And, of course, cannabis strains themselves each offer completely different experiences. Small doses of sativa strains vs large doses of indica strains produce a light, highly energetic feeling vs a stoned feeling, respectively. http://www.leafly.com/explore# http://www.leafly.com/explore# Combing these 3 dimensions, dosage, consumption type and strain produces a broad range of mental states that can be anywhere from empowering, to euphoric, to self-destructive. Like anything else in life, the key is to be disciplined and adjust these 3 dimensions for your personal goals (of course, being disciplined about adjusting dosage to 0 as a bias). But consider work, play and deliberate practice (http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/3881908748/tldr-summary-the-role-of-deliberate-practice-in-the http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/3881908748/tldr-summary-the...). Marijuana affects the hippocampus, and our ability to form memories while under the influence of the drug - this can be a positive in some contexts and a negative in others. For instance, when doing repetitive work, low doses of ingested sativa can actually enhance productivity of results for mundane work - no learning is necessary, just execution. For play, low doses of inhaled sativa or indica can inspire creativity for hours - leveraging the cognitive cycles previously reserved to querying and storing memories for your mind to test new hypotheses about incoming information. For deliberate practice language learning is key, so most contexts of deliberate practice would likely be harmed by introducing marijuana. Of course, some individuals may benefit from low doses that offset the mundane repetition for a net benefit. Anyhow, I don't claim to be an expert in these matters, but simply to point out that judging Marijuana users as simply people that like to "get high" is utterly and completely ignorant of the reality. It is a judgement, a prejudice and a symptom of pervasive mis-education in our culture. Of course, these are "opinions that [I] would be reluctant to express in front of a group of peers" (http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html) - present company apparently excluded. Rationally, it makes sense to me that drugs exist that allow me to exercise discipline and tweak my mental state for the task at hand - from caffeine, to ritalin, to THC - and everything in between. However, due to the legal status of marijuana, and people's own experiences with using the drug to get stoned, avoiding judgement and prejudice in todays world (even amongst the highly educated and successful) is a taboo. I look forward to the day when I can have open, educated conversations about the effects, benefits and harms of marijuana. I also look forward to the day when I can have educated conversations about marijuana with intelligent people and not be judged as someone who simply "likes to get high".
oinksoft 15y ago
As somebody who has smoked pounds...this tripe gets tired quickly. Any effort towards legalization must focus not on broad social acceptance (by representing ganja as some holy, enlightening agent) but rather on analysis of the terrible damage prohibition does to society. Writing of this sort is very snooty towards casual smokers who honestly just want to get high, which should be as acceptable as any other use.
- redwood 15y ago
  Agreed but to bring about legalization we need to normalize, and to do that in all communities. The intellectual community is one to target, one of many.
sigil 15y ago
For both individuals and society, all drugs present a dilemma: are they worth the risks to health, wealth and sanity? For me, the pay-off is the scientific inspiration, the wealth of new ideas and the spur to inner exploration. The most prolific mathematician of all time, Paul Erdős, justified his amphetamine usage in similar terms [1]: "After 1971 he also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month. Erdős won the bet, but complained that during his abstinence mathematics had been set back by a month: 'Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper.' After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his amphetamine use." [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s
- nico 15y ago
  The article in Wikipedia says he was "one of the most prolific publishers of papers in mathematical history", that doesn't mean he was the most prolific mathematician of all time. What about Euler[1] for example? (I don't think he used drugs though) Anyway, I agree with your comment in the sense that intelligence, talent or success are not mutually exclusive with drugs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler
  - bkudria 15y ago
    But imagine if he had!
  - btilly 15y ago
    How do you measure? Erdos published more papers with more collaborators than Euler. Euler published more pages of material and founded more areas of research than Erdos. (Yes, Euler has the benefit of having had people think about his stuff longer, and attribute more to inspiration from him. But Erdos won't ever come close to catching up.) I think that Arthur Cayley is in third place on both measures.
    - joejohnson 15y ago
sigzero 15y ago
There are very few instances where I would condone illegal drug use but this would probably be one of those instances where it works.
ImprovedSilence 15y ago
Explaining a drug's effect to someone who's never done it is like describing red to a blind person. They're just not going to get it until they experience it for themselves.
hugh3 15y ago
What's with this rash of illegal drug articles? Am I the only one who still thinks it's morally wrong to do something that's illegal, except in certain very special circumstances set out below? Let me explain what I mean. There are just laws, and there are unjust laws. Just laws should be obeyed. Unjust laws should be changed. If you think a given law is unjust, you should be campaigning to change it, not breaking it willy-nilly. The cost of people taking illegal drugs is huge, from the drain on police and prison resources to the creation of the organized crime rings which support the drug industry, and if you're taking illegal drugs you're responsible for all of that. If you are correct and drug laws are unjust then... well shit, changing them is an important task for you, and you should get cracking on that. Right now there's no great consensus over whether drug laws are just or unjust, but the majority wants to keep drugs illegal, even in California which recently failed to pass (by a huge majority) a legalization of marijuana. If you choose to live in a democratic society, why not obey the democratically ordained laws? Yes, there are circumstances when it is acceptable to break a law which you regard as unjust. One such circumstance is civil disobedience, where you break an unjust law with the intention of getting caught and punished so that you can bring attention to how unjust that law is, but if you're not (courageously) trying to get caught and punished you're not a civil disobedient. Another such circumstance is if the law is so horrendously unjust that following it will directly harm others, but that certainly doesn't apply in this case. In conclusion, if you want to take drugs then campaign for drug legalization. But don't go round breaking the democratically-devised law in the meantime.
- rntz 15y ago
  > If you choose to live in a democratic society, why not obey the democratically ordained laws? As opposed to choosing not to live in a democratic society? Is there some psychedelic-utopian society out there that's just like a standard first-world social-democratic country (high standard of living, good education and job opportunities, I can speak the language, etc, etc) except that drugs are legal by fiat?
- kinship 15y ago
  As someone dying from cancer, medical marijuana is the only thing that allows me to eat. Get a clue and stop bothering people.
Tichy 15y ago
A friend of mine freaked out after taking LSD for a while. She is fine now (it happened twenty years ago), but she was really scared - especially as there can be flashbacks, so you can not just opt out of not experiencing trips anymore.
- civilian 15y ago
  Flashbacks are very rare, possibly even mythological. (A psyconaut friend of mine has reported only one 'flashback'-- it was a fraction of a second on the bus when she thought her hair had turned into a snake.) There are some effects (often visual effects) that persist. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_perception_disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_percept...
theprodigy 15y ago
People should try the sensory deprivation tank. It is a really great experience. You'll have to try the tank many times and just let your mind go before you start tripping. The tank is the best way to get your creative muscles going without actually using drugs.
edtechre 15y ago
Huh? How can LSD be "worth it" when it has been proven to cause brain damage and hallucinations? (Good bye karma)
- edtechre 15y ago
  Yeah, vote me down. But people have talked about having chronic "tracers" and random hallucinations years after doing LSD. SF drug propaganda FTW! Doing drugs for "enlightenment" is for the lazy and stupid. There are many other ways to achieve this. Just ask a devout Hindu or Buddhist monk. Typical Westerner attitude...
  - edtechre 15y ago
    And yet no one addressed my point. Vote me down, druggies.
satori99 15y ago
Dr Blackmore is a very interesting woman. Her early career was as a para pyschology researcher before she decided she was wasting her time and turned to real science. http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_13.html http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_13.html

160 points by ulvund 15y ago

"The drugs can take you up in a helicopter to see what's there, but you can't stay. In the end, you have to climb the mountain yourself - the hard way." Thats a really good way to put it.

michaelochurch 15y ago
The metaphor I've often preferred is that meditation is like biking into the woods. You know the path, and you only get so far as you are in shape to go, but you also know that you can get back out and that you're safe. Taking drugs is like hitch-hiking. You can go a lot farther with less effort, and you're probably OK, but you have no idea where the fuck you are or how to get back.
jwuphysics 15y ago
Having done many of the ones listed in the article, I would like to throw in my two cents: Drugs, like LSD or DMT, are not at all like seeing things from a helicopter. Sure, they are from a "new perspective", but unfortunately it's all in your head. My closest analogy is to dreaming--it seems to make perfect sense when you're dreaming, but when you wake up, you realize that all your thoughts were nonsense. I've had high ideas before. The feeling of revelation is unparalleled... even if it's all in my head. Once I sober up, though, I suddenly realize that they're a load of crap. Rather being a helicopter to check out what's up there, drugs more so resemble staring out the window and pretending to visualize things past the horizon. You don't come to your senses until you realize it's all in your head. I've quit them all now and honestly I only miss acid from time to time. But the fact that it's just eight hours of false epiphanies makes sure that I don't care to ever trip again.
- Alex3917 15y ago
  "Once I sober up, though, I suddenly realize that they're a load of crap." That's your experience. A lot of other people have really good ideas when they are high, and those ideas are still really good while sober. Part of this is that normally when you have an insight while sober, there is a unique feeling of pleasure you get in your brain. This is because part of the way we identify when we've had an insight is when we get this feeling. However, when we're high we get this feeling much more easily, even if what we're thinking about isn't actually at all insightful. Thus you need to sort of reteach yourself how to think and evaluate the quality of your ideas in a way that isn't reliant on whether or not something 'feels' insightful. It's a big step once you can divorce the depth of insight from the intensity of the eureka feeling. They are not necessarily linked.
- Psyonic 15y ago
  Francis Crick gives credit to LSD for helping him to unravel the double helix nature of DNA. Is that not real?
  - gnosis 15y ago
    Not to mention the probably billions of works of art, music, and literature which were inspired by various drugs, including LSD.

lell 15y ago

I read her text book 'introduction to consciousness' in a fourth year course in cognitive science. Probably the reason she was able to study parapsychology early in her career was that it was during the cold war when there were branches of the US government that took ESP seriously, and wanted to prove and exploit or disprove it before the soviets. But her rejection of parapsychology was pretty complete, and that text for example did not make reference to it.

pkennedy 15y ago
A recent edition I read a couple months ago mentioned it in a sidebar, as a personal anecdote. But it was mainly about her realization that the scientific methods of her colleagues were rather less sound than they at first appeared. edit: in light of this: http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/journalism/NS2000.html http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/journalism/NS2000.html I'd have to agree that the coverage of the matter in the book was rather insufficient.

ltemp 15y ago

Throwaway account. Taking LSD has been one of the most powerful experiences of my life - same level of power as one of my children dying. The first time I took it (rather late in life), it saved my marriage. After the intense trippy part died down, I was able to introspect from other people's viewpoints in a way I was never able to before. I could actually see I was the one being the ass, not the other way around. This understanding and feeling takes a while to wear off (say, 2 or 3 months?) - long enough for me to make some substantial changes. LSD for fun, is great. Try playing an RPG while on a low dosage. You're coherent enough to play and understand it, but the realism spikes a thousand times. (I tried Fallout 3, and really felt as if I was in a nuclear wasteland.) I've tried understanding technical documentation (on low dosages), and found it to be quite understandable and was able to retain everything. Immediately you start visualising and really "feeling" the underlying technology (even if it isn't actually that profound, it'll impact your mind in that way). I haven't done tests to see if this is more effective, but it looks like a promising possibility. (There was a thread on HN a few days back that talked about this.) As far as the dangers, it might very well be. Wikipedia provides the indication that it's relatively safe, with patients that experienced psychosis (a few out of a thousand) to recover within a few days. The rate of psychosis is higher for people with existing mental illness. FWIW, I've been DX'd as bipolar I, with psychosis. As "far out" as LSD has made me feel during the experience, when it's over, I feel much more grounded than ever. LSD is something everyone should seriously consider doing at least once in their life.

araneae 15y ago
>same level of power as one of my children dying. See, that's terrifying to me. I've never taken LSD but I don't think I would ever want to put myself in the sort of situation that trivializes the death of a child by making it equivalent to downing a pill. This talk of using MDMA for couples' therapy because it releases vasopressin scares me too. Vasopressin is the bonding hormone, and sure, you could probably make two people who were not in love fall in love artificially- but that's also scary. I'm not sure I would want to be married to someone I could only stand because I took drugs. I'm pretty libertarian, and I do think that drugs should be a choice- but these accounts scare me more than any crap about flashbacks and hallucinations.

melvinram 15y ago

<soapbox> I just don't buy it. IMHO, saying that using drugs to get to ideas/inspiration is like saying a wheelchair can help you get from one place to another even though your limbs are perfectly adequate. Maybe it'll help you get here but you could have gotten there without it. If you like to get high, don't make excuses for it. Just admit to yourself that you like to get high. People who like to go to strip clubs don't say they go there for the lighting and it helps with design. People who watch TV don't say they watch for the education. Why do people who like to get high make up excuses to make their behavior socially acceptable. If you like to do it, own it. </soapbox> It's definitely possible that I am completely wrong as I haven't done LSD, Coke, etc.

guruz 15y ago
You are wrong ;-)
Alex3917 15y ago
"If you like to get high, don't make excuses for it." The amount of weed you need to consume to get extra creativity is far below the amount weed you would consume for recreational purposes. For someone without a tolerance looking to get the benefits of creativity, the proper vaporized dose would be around .03 grams. Whereas to get 'high' the proper dose would be around .1 - .2 grams. It's the same as how the analgesic dose is below the recreational dose of every drug. Which is why you can take opiates for medical purposes without getting addicted as long as you don't abuse them. This also includes marijuana; people using marijuana for medical purposes use way less than those using the drug for recreational purposes, though different conditions warrant different doses. For example, those using marijuana to treat cachexia generally need a higher dose than those treating anxiety or insomnia.
- jonmc12 15y ago
  Totally agreed, but dosage is just one dimension of marijuana that is generally misunderstood. The other 2 dimensions are consumption form and cannabis strain - combining these 3 dimensions results in very different mental states. However, the laymen looks at marijuana effects and thinks "high", "stoned", or some other mental state that is equivalent to their college experiences or perhaps a drug addict. Consuming marijuana through ingestion vs inhalation results in a completely different mental experience as a function of how these consumption methods throttle dosage over time. Ingestion will spread a dosage over 4-6 hours, whereas inhalation will expose your mind to this same dosage in in .5-1.5 hours. Also, inhalation has a THC absorption threshold that is much lower than ingestion. And, of course, cannabis strains themselves each offer completely different experiences. Small doses of sativa strains vs large doses of indica strains produce a light, highly energetic feeling vs a stoned feeling, respectively. http://www.leafly.com/explore# http://www.leafly.com/explore# Combing these 3 dimensions, dosage, consumption type and strain produces a broad range of mental states that can be anywhere from empowering, to euphoric, to self-destructive. Like anything else in life, the key is to be disciplined and adjust these 3 dimensions for your personal goals (of course, being disciplined about adjusting dosage to 0 as a bias). But consider work, play and deliberate practice (http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/3881908748/tldr-summary-the-role-of-deliberate-practice-in-the http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/3881908748/tldr-summary-the...). Marijuana affects the hippocampus, and our ability to form memories while under the influence of the drug - this can be a positive in some contexts and a negative in others. For instance, when doing repetitive work, low doses of ingested sativa can actually enhance productivity of results for mundane work - no learning is necessary, just execution. For play, low doses of inhaled sativa or indica can inspire creativity for hours - leveraging the cognitive cycles previously reserved to querying and storing memories for your mind to test new hypotheses about incoming information. For deliberate practice language learning is key, so most contexts of deliberate practice would likely be harmed by introducing marijuana. Of course, some individuals may benefit from low doses that offset the mundane repetition for a net benefit. Anyhow, I don't claim to be an expert in these matters, but simply to point out that judging Marijuana users as simply people that like to "get high" is utterly and completely ignorant of the reality. It is a judgement, a prejudice and a symptom of pervasive mis-education in our culture. Of course, these are "opinions that [I] would be reluctant to express in front of a group of peers" (http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html) - present company apparently excluded. Rationally, it makes sense to me that drugs exist that allow me to exercise discipline and tweak my mental state for the task at hand - from caffeine, to ritalin, to THC - and everything in between. However, due to the legal status of marijuana, and people's own experiences with using the drug to get stoned, avoiding judgement and prejudice in todays world (even amongst the highly educated and successful) is a taboo. I look forward to the day when I can have open, educated conversations about the effects, benefits and harms of marijuana. I also look forward to the day when I can have educated conversations about marijuana with intelligent people and not be judged as someone who simply "likes to get high".

oinksoft 15y ago

As somebody who has smoked pounds...this tripe gets tired quickly. Any effort towards legalization must focus not on broad social acceptance (by representing ganja as some holy, enlightening agent) but rather on analysis of the terrible damage prohibition does to society. Writing of this sort is very snooty towards casual smokers who honestly just want to get high, which should be as acceptable as any other use.

redwood 15y ago
Agreed but to bring about legalization we need to normalize, and to do that in all communities. The intellectual community is one to target, one of many.

sigil 15y ago

For both individuals and society, all drugs present a dilemma: are they worth the risks to health, wealth and sanity? For me, the pay-off is the scientific inspiration, the wealth of new ideas and the spur to inner exploration. The most prolific mathematician of all time, Paul Erdős, justified his amphetamine usage in similar terms [1]: "After 1971 he also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month. Erdős won the bet, but complained that during his abstinence mathematics had been set back by a month: 'Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper.' After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his amphetamine use." [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s

nico 15y ago
The article in Wikipedia says he was "one of the most prolific publishers of papers in mathematical history", that doesn't mean he was the most prolific mathematician of all time. What about Euler[1] for example? (I don't think he used drugs though) Anyway, I agree with your comment in the sense that intelligence, talent or success are not mutually exclusive with drugs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler
- bkudria 15y ago
  But imagine if he had!
- btilly 15y ago
  How do you measure? Erdos published more papers with more collaborators than Euler. Euler published more pages of material and founded more areas of research than Erdos. (Yes, Euler has the benefit of having had people think about his stuff longer, and attribute more to inspiration from him. But Erdos won't ever come close to catching up.) I think that Arthur Cayley is in third place on both measures.
  - joejohnson 15y ago

sigzero 15y ago

There are very few instances where I would condone illegal drug use but this would probably be one of those instances where it works.

ImprovedSilence 15y ago

Explaining a drug's effect to someone who's never done it is like describing red to a blind person. They're just not going to get it until they experience it for themselves.

hugh3 15y ago

What's with this rash of illegal drug articles? Am I the only one who still thinks it's morally wrong to do something that's illegal, except in certain very special circumstances set out below? Let me explain what I mean. There are just laws, and there are unjust laws. Just laws should be obeyed. Unjust laws should be changed. If you think a given law is unjust, you should be campaigning to change it, not breaking it willy-nilly. The cost of people taking illegal drugs is huge, from the drain on police and prison resources to the creation of the organized crime rings which support the drug industry, and if you're taking illegal drugs you're responsible for all of that. If you are correct and drug laws are unjust then... well shit, changing them is an important task for you, and you should get cracking on that. Right now there's no great consensus over whether drug laws are just or unjust, but the majority wants to keep drugs illegal, even in California which recently failed to pass (by a huge majority) a legalization of marijuana. If you choose to live in a democratic society, why not obey the democratically ordained laws? Yes, there are circumstances when it is acceptable to break a law which you regard as unjust. One such circumstance is civil disobedience, where you break an unjust law with the intention of getting caught and punished so that you can bring attention to how unjust that law is, but if you're not (courageously) trying to get caught and punished you're not a civil disobedient. Another such circumstance is if the law is so horrendously unjust that following it will directly harm others, but that certainly doesn't apply in this case. In conclusion, if you want to take drugs then campaign for drug legalization. But don't go round breaking the democratically-devised law in the meantime.

rntz 15y ago
> If you choose to live in a democratic society, why not obey the democratically ordained laws? As opposed to choosing not to live in a democratic society? Is there some psychedelic-utopian society out there that's just like a standard first-world social-democratic country (high standard of living, good education and job opportunities, I can speak the language, etc, etc) except that drugs are legal by fiat?
kinship 15y ago
As someone dying from cancer, medical marijuana is the only thing that allows me to eat. Get a clue and stop bothering people.

Tichy 15y ago

A friend of mine freaked out after taking LSD for a while. She is fine now (it happened twenty years ago), but she was really scared - especially as there can be flashbacks, so you can not just opt out of not experiencing trips anymore.

civilian 15y ago
Flashbacks are very rare, possibly even mythological. (A psyconaut friend of mine has reported only one 'flashback'-- it was a fraction of a second on the bus when she thought her hair had turned into a snake.) There are some effects (often visual effects) that persist. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_perception_disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_percept...

theprodigy 15y ago

People should try the sensory deprivation tank. It is a really great experience. You'll have to try the tank many times and just let your mind go before you start tripping. The tank is the best way to get your creative muscles going without actually using drugs.

edtechre 15y ago

Huh? How can LSD be "worth it" when it has been proven to cause brain damage and hallucinations? (Good bye karma)

edtechre 15y ago
Yeah, vote me down. But people have talked about having chronic "tracers" and random hallucinations years after doing LSD. SF drug propaganda FTW! Doing drugs for "enlightenment" is for the lazy and stupid. There are many other ways to achieve this. Just ask a devout Hindu or Buddhist monk. Typical Westerner attitude...
- edtechre 15y ago
  And yet no one addressed my point. Vote me down, druggies.

satori99 15y ago

Dr Blackmore is a very interesting woman. Her early career was as a para pyschology researcher before she decided she was wasting her time and turned to real science. http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_13.html http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_13.html