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Geeky Stats About Magic Mushrooms
- guard-of-terra 15y agoI wonder why won't some starving poor tiny pacific island legalize [some] drugs. They could probably make good money from drug tourism.
- evandena 15y agoIMF and World Bank regulations maybe?
- guard-of-terra 15y agoThey have no money anyway short of begging and selling their country status. What could possibly go wrong?
- gamble 15y agoYou might want to ask a Panamanian that question.
- cies 15y agoyou mean they should copy the holland model :) (technically the netherlands only decriminalized marihuana; practically use and possession of user quantities go nearly always unpunished)
- guard-of-terra 15y agoYeah, except that they should allow psychoactive drugs too and allow selling (while disallowing taking those out of the country).
- kristofferR 15y agoMagic mushrooms were actually allowed and sold openly until just a couple of years ago. http://www.dutchamsterdam.nl/542-hallucinogenic-magic-mushrooms-netherlands-amsterdam http://www.dutchamsterdam.nl/542-hallucinogenic-magic-mushro...
- justincormack 15y agoThey were in most of Europe, certainly here in the UK not that long ago.
- mcdowall 15y agoThey have, I went to the Gili Islands 2 years ago, no cars and they advertise legal mushroom shakes, also amazing island for diving (not in conjunction however!) Example http://www.flickr.com/photos/sgoralnick/2625980738/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/sgoralnick/2625980738/
- kristofferR 15y agoThe "funny" thing is that the Gili Islands are Indonesian land, so drug smuggling carries a death sentence. However, it's not a problem since there are no police on the island.
- maqr 15y agoThat picture looked really appealing until I found some context: http://wikitravel.org/en/Gili_Islands#Stay_safe http://wikitravel.org/en/Gili_Islands#Stay_safe
- schmittz 15y agoThere is a not starving (though severely bankrupt) very small peninsula country on the atlantic that has not legalized, though "decriminalized" ALL drugs to measured success. That country is Portugal, which officially decriminalized all drugs nationwide in 2001. It is a very interesting data point in the argument over drug legalizations. Arguably it is the closest anyone has come to large scale legalization of drugs (interestingly, their case is not limited to just marijuana). More information can be found in this Scientific American article and the Wikipedia article on the drug policies of Portugal: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=portugal-drug-decriminalization http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=portugal-dr... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal
- guard-of-terra 15y agoVery interesting. Is there some kind of [psychoactive] drug tourism there? Why isn't it as well known as Holland?
- Deadsunrise 15y agoBecause it's only legal to posses small quantities for personal use (about 10 days). Possession of bigger quantities has remained prohibited by Portuguese law, and criminal penalties are still applied to drug growers, dealers and traffickers. You cannot go into a coffeeshop and buy some weed as you do in netherlands so it doesn't make much sense to go there as a "drug" tourist.
- guard-of-terra 15y agoIt's good for portuguese, but not enough for business. For business, you surely do want to make selling legal. And comfortable. You have to actively kick the thing out of the door in order to bootstrap a psych tourism business.
- quinndupont 15y agoSeems like there has been renewed interest in psychedelics in the geek community. I'd recommend that everyone read Markoff's "What the Dormouse Said" for the history of geeks and drugs.
- Alex3917 15y agoThe book is vaguely interesting, but truth in advertising is that it's pretty dry and only ten or twenty pages out of the entire book are about drugs.
- stef25 15y agoAbout the selection protocol - it sounds like at least some of the participants in the study were in to yoga before the experiment. Those kinds of people usually already have a spiritual streak or will at least be more open to it. It would be interesting to see this experiment repeated with more "mainstream" subjects or something like 30 Wall St bankers.
- pyrhho 15y agoApparently Herman Kahn spent his LSD trip finding the best way to bomb China. So there might be something to be said for the theory that it "intensifies" your existing personality/interests.
- themgt 15y agoIf psilocybin was unknown and a pharmaceutical company discovered it along with the "appropriate" dose and published this study, their stock would be worth approximately the entire western world's GDP tomorrow Except... it wouldn't because these people only required 4 doses, each a month apart, and then had better results 14 months later than every "take daily for life" psych drug on the market today
- guard-of-terra 15y agoIt still would. It's just that other pharma companies would be in the closet.
- cma 15y agoThey would presumably up the cost to compensate and you would do the equivalent of taking out a mortgage to partake.
- mannicken 15y agoIt's not that easy :) The "take daily for life" pills work always; you can have the crappiest day of life and take a pill and you're happy. That's why they're addictive, even stuff like cigarettes or alcohol -- always work, always calm you down, bad trip impossible. Psychedelics require preparation, and active cooperation on the patients side. If you think you can be depressed and suicidal and eat a mushroom and have it all gone you are in for a world of bad trip, that will have consequences after the bad trip: insanity, panic attacks, anxiety, and symptoms of PTSD. Basically, psychedelics aren't an immediate fix, they require preparation before and taking actions after the trip. Psychonautics requires learning; experienced and knowledgeable people can guide their mind to benefit greatly from a bad trip, but most people are not be able to handle it, and delve even deeper into depression or whatever. Some killed themselves afterwards or during. Some have peed their pants while crying and shaking throughout the trip but came out better. Some had absolutely wonderful experiences with psychedelics. From personal experience, your set and setting will determine whether you discover the wonders of the universe or hallucinate a penis staring at your face, thinking you are being raped for 8 hours. I am not joking. People like immediate fixes, hence why psychedelic therapy doesn't get much attention.
- zyb09 15y agoHope not to sound like a extreme liberal, but a lot of the highly illegal hard drugs, aren't nearly as hazardous or addicting as they made out to be and can have positive effects - IF used right. That includes psilocybin, MDMA, THC, DMT, LSD and whatnot. Others are clearly toxic and very unhealthy, like crack or meth. It's all matter of being well informed about the effect and right use of the drug, as well as a having clean products. The one thing that makes them dangerous is the potential of miss use is very high.
- Wingman4l7 15y agoI might remove MDMA from that list -- the head researcher at Johns Hopkins for this study was interviewed about a similar 2006 study he did; it mentions that studies at John Hopkins have shown the potential for brain damage from MDMA ("certain nerve cells", anyway). http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2006/GriffithspsilocybinQ http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2006/Griffiths...
- kristofferR 15y agoHeh, it's a shame that that myth is still around. The study was actually retracted by the "scientist" himself after he discovered that his lab had administered methamphetamine instead of MDMA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retracted_article_on_toxicity_of_MDMA_on_dopamine_cells http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retracted_article_on_toxicity_o... However, MDMA should certainly not be taken more than a couple of times a year. It's not something you mess around with, we don't know enough about how it affects brain chemistry yet.
- hyperbovine 15y ago> However, MDMA should certainly not be taken more than a couple of times a year. It's not something you mess around with, we don't know enough about how it affects brain chemistry yet. There are those who find those two sentences a bit curious, and those who do not.
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- omarchowdhury 15y agoThe (positive) mushroom experience is like being in love with everything.
- hyperbovine 15y agoAgreed. I only tried them once, in Amsterdam, and the experience was so great that I have never done them a second time. It could never measure up.
- salemh 15y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_archetypes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_archetypes are a very common thread. Connectivity, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_processing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_processing in actual thoughts.
- briggsbio 15y agoThere's a saying in drug development, that resonates in the context of this article: "the only difference between a drug and a poison... is the dose." Psilocybin, marijuana, and LSD should be decriminalized and approved for medicinal use across the US. Control, quality, and safety would be much improved over the recreational and black market dealings we are left with today--thus, invalidating much of the "war on drugs" and taking a huge cost off the taxpayer and turning it into much needed revenue. Law enforcement would then be freed of significant resources to focus on the more insidious drugs (crack/heroin/meth).
- mparr4 15y agoThe LD50 (lethal dose for 50% of the population) for psilocybin cubensis being consumed by a 150lbs person is 3015g (over 6 lbs!). A "high" dose is anything over an eighth of an ounce (~3.5 grams). That's quite a large difference between drug and poision! Link: http://www.erowid.org/plants/mushrooms/mushrooms_chemistry.shtml http://www.erowid.org/plants/mushrooms/mushrooms_chemistry.s...
- powertower 15y agoYou can purchase mushroom spores (in syringes) legally, get some simple grow medium, pack it in glass cans, sterilize that in oven, inject the medium with spores, and grow those mushrooms in a converted fish tank (they needs humidity). Takes about 2 weeks. Spores do not contain psilocybin. Here is one seller: http://www.thehawkseye.com/ http://www.thehawkseye.com/ that I remember.
- woodall 15y agoHighly illegal once grown! Had a friend's pet dealer get life, but that was for a couple pounds; he sold them at festivals. [US] *by pet, I mean animals
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- lyudmil 15y agoThe sample seems a bit odd. Reading the comments it seems that a disproportionate percentage of the subjects were into meditation (a number of them report "increasing meditation"). I haven't read the study but it seems to me they'd have a hard time publishing their conclusions as they stand now. I'm particularly skeptical of medical research. An ex-girlfriend was a student at Harvard Medical School and worked in three different labs on drug development. Two of the three studies all the labs published in a year contained data that was either pruned or simply misreported to exaggerate the effect of the drug. I know that's anecdotal evidence, but there's a lot of grant money floating around in medical research and all the incentives are skewed towards positive results, which often leads to bad science. I fear this may be yet another example (speculating, admittedly).
- sleight42 15y agoI noticed the same high correlation of "new-agey" practices among the participants. However, it's worth considering the sort of people who would be open to participating in such a study in the first place. The ideal study, I believe, would consistent of a statistical cross-section of a particular culture/society. It's highly unlikely that the more socially conservative elements in said culture would participate in such a study. This may, in part, explain the somewhat shared nature of the remarks by the participants.
- Alex3917 15y ago"Reading the comments it seems that a disproportionate percentage of the subjects were into meditation (a number of them report 'increasing meditation')." I haven't read this study yet, but I know that Johns Hopkins is doing another study where one of the groups actually takes meditation lessons for six months before taking the drug. These studies are mostly meant to validate the methodology and to demonstrate that they can be used safely in a well chosen population when done under professional supervision. It's not really meant to accurately measure what percentage of the population at large would be able to safely achieve ego death and/or have a primary religious experience. Also, I agree with you that medical studies are generally sketchy, but these aren't medical studies. These studies might eventually be used by a drug company in convincing the FDA to grant a new drug investigation permit, but probably not for at least another 5 - 10 years.
- hopkins007 15y agoI was actually a participant in a follow up study that I read about on Hacker News about a year and a half ago. Thanks to whoever posted it I haven't been able to find the HN post since then. Just to confirm what Alex3917 said, they did ask us to follow a meditation program before the first of either 2 or 3 sessions(I ended up with 3). I don't know all of their selection criteria, but for the study I was in they were looking for people with existing "spiritual practices" and little or no previous psychedelic experiences.
- mparr4 15y agoIs anyone else not eager to see these legalized? I'm very interested in psychedelics--and an occasional user--but I've seen what can happen when someone who shouldn't be taking them has a bad trip. Sometimes, it's not even a matter of preparation. A friend and I decided that we wanted to experience a psychedelic. We spent the year prior to our experience reading trip reports and literature, listening to lectures, etc. and had seemingly done everything within reason to prepare. Yet when the moment came, my friend fought it with every ounce of his being and is still recovering from the anxiety this experience caused nearly two years ago. The fact is, psychedelics are NOT for everybody. To get the positive effects this study reports requires a good deal of preparation, a proper set and setting, and a trusted sitter who can help right the ship if anxiety starts to creep in. Even then, there are those among us--like my friend--who are unable to let go of control and surrender themselves to the experience. Certainly one can make the argument that legalization/regulation could provide greater controls over who swallows the pill and who doesn't, but I'm not sure that is true. On the other hand, it is unfortunate that something that can be so beneficial to an individual can at the same time be so destructive (referring to the legal consequences this time). But, the way it stands now, someone who is serious about pursuing this experience can grow the mushrooms themselves for relatively little cost and at relatively little risk (provided they don't sell to others). The current situation (with perhaps some softer penalties against possession) of limited medical research and legally available spores seems to me satisfactory. Is it ideal? No, certainly not. But is it optimal, given the reality of politics, law, and our attitude towards "drugs"? Perhaps.
- VMG 15y ago> Sometimes, it's not even a matter of preparation. A friend and I decided that we wanted to experience a psychedelic. We spent the year prior to our experience reading trip reports and literature, listening to lectures, etc. and had seemingly done everything within reason to prepare. I'd say you overdid it. > The fact is, psychedelics are NOT for everybody. Neither is alcohol. But if you are over 18, this should not be for the government to decide.
- mparr4 15y ago>I'd say you overdid it. That is certainly possible. I've often thought that was true for my friend (who would read worst case scenario trip reports so he could know what he was "dealing with"). The year of preparation wasn't intentional actually, we were just unable to get our hands on any and weren't in a position (living on campus) to be growing ourselves. >if you are over 18, this should not be for the government to decide. In an ideal world, I would agree with this. But I think the reality of the situation is that, unless it accompanied some broader systemic change, if psychedelics alone (or just mushrooms) were legalized and nothing else changed, they would be immediately abused and the media would cover sensational stories of people hurting themselves, driving under the influence, freaking out, etc. Take salvia as an example. Again, I agree with you in principle. I just think pragmatically it's not that simple. Perhaps legalization would be better, perhaps not.
- trucious 15y agoA couple of links containing stuff every psychonaut should know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_and_setting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_and_setting http://deoxy.org/poru.htm http://deoxy.org/poru.htm http://deoxy.org/pdfa/kidz.htm http://deoxy.org/pdfa/kidz.htm