7 ms·

Don't come to Amsterdam and take drugs without knowing how to deal with it, please. This kind of stupidity is exactly what got psilocybin mushrooms banned here.

BossingAround 5y ago
The problem is that if a person wants to learn how to deal with it legally, they have no other possibility than to come to a place like Amsterdam. Wouldn't the solution rather be for Amsterdam to create a "newbie coffee shops" or something similar? 1. Create safe newbie-friendly places that provide an opportunity to safely experience a legal drug X. 2. Mandate that for a foreigner to buy a legal drug X, they must have an ID-like document that says they are experienced with X. 3. Once a tourist experiences X in a newbie-friendly place, they award him/her with an ID-like document that enables the tourist to buy X on their own. Surely that create more jobs and opportunities in Amsterdam than the "bug off!" rhetoric I've seen from the local Amsterdam government.
- mettamage 5y ago
  I've heard from friends that this exactly happens with DMT experiences. I'm not sure if DMT is legal here (they make it themselves, the ingredients are legal). Yet, they somehow advertize it publicly (?). He did it in the south of The Netherlands.
- spdionis 5y ago
  To be clear, the staff in coffee shops do ask you if it's your first time and give you guidelines for how to use them safely, and usually informative leaflets are attached. At least in tourist places.
  - realce 5y ago
    I was actually really impressed with the effort to educate people about truffles last time I went.
pmoriarty 5y ago
"This kind of stupidity is exactly what got psilocybin mushrooms banned here." Then why didn't alcohol, which causes way more problems than mushrooms, also get banned? Downvoters and skeptics: You do realize that alcohol is involved in countless suicides, homicides, and other violence (not to mention the ravages of alcoholism), don't you? It's the worst substance of the two, by far. Amsterdam is one of the drinking capitals of Europe. Way more touists come to Amsterdam to get drunk than ever have to eat mushrooms, and they've always caused way more problems. But alcohol will never be banned there. Why the double standard?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- 988747 5y ago
  Century ago United States tried to ban alcohol, and it simply didn't work - it is way too easy to produce it from innocent food products. Exotic mushrooms or artificial drugs are much easier to ban.
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    "Exotic mushrooms or artificial drugs are much easier to ban." You can ban them, but your ban won't be any more effective than the ban on alcohol. It's easy to get pretty much any drug you want.. especially in Amsterdam. All the ban does is moves the market underground, gets organized crime involved, makes it much harder for users to tell they're getting what they paid for (possibly leading to all sorts of adverse effects like overdoses), and ruins people's lives when they're thrown in jail. We know drug bans don't work and are counterproductive. It's sad to see the Netherlands buy in to anti-drug hysteria after being one of the leading lights in constructive drug policy and harm-reduction for so long.
    - justshowpost 5y ago
      Exactly this. What happens south of US border is absolutely the same as the effect of 1920s prohibition. Communism and prohibition both looks good and neither works.
mettamage 5y ago
I'm Dutch and I live there (born and raised, I've seen way too many examples how drugs can screw people over because of being raised in Amsterdam). Nevertheless, it doesn't matter whether I live there or not. Experimenting with psilocybin is not easy, even when you're experienced with weed and alcohol. Here was my thought process: First time: I did half, that went amazingly well Second time: I did a full dose, and I had the suicidal bad trip experience Third time: full dose, got into a bad trip state again (just bad trip). I recognized the experience and knew what would happen, how to deal with it. It was completely fine. It was a wonderful experience. Fourth time: potential explosive dangerous situation with the other person who used it (also did it 4 times, 4th time together with me as well). Crisis averted, having a tripsitter in this case (like in the second case) was an absolute must. These experiences has happened in a span of 3 years, spread out quite evenly. I took it because of the research on psilocybin. Truffles has been my first psychedelic. Ultimately, for me it has had positive effects. It is what it is. Be careful, have a tripsitter. Not having a tripsitter was the biggest mistake I've made.
- anaisbetts 5y ago
  For other folx reading this, if you're keen on trying this, try to get ahold of 4-HO-DMT instead - it is an identical experience to psilocybin (psilocybin converts to 4-HO-DMT in your body, which causes its effects), but can be dosed exactly to the milligram, greatly reducing your chances of accidentally taking too much.
  - realce 5y ago
    Also prevents the stomach pains of digesting lots of dry fibrous mushrooms. For the same reason, the experience with 4-HO-DMT can be shorter/quicker than with mushrooms but not by much.
- specialist 5y ago
  > Not having a tripsitter was the biggest mistake I've made. Agreed.
- willio58 5y ago
  I’ve found the following to be key in a good experience: 1. Do not take too much. This cannot be overstated. You don’t need to take 4 tabs of LSD, you don’t need to take a 1/4 oz of shrooms. Take the right, safe amount. Usually 1 tab or a 1/16th oz will do for me. Double that if I’m feeling up to it. I’m a larger person too. 2. Set/setting. Are you emotionally and physically prepared to go on a trip that could get _very_ complicated? Lots of people think they are when they're not. Trip sitters can be helpful, but they do not guarantee a good trip by any means. Sometimes a person being around you that isn’t on the same plane of existence can make a situation needlessly uncomfortable. I’ve had a moment where we had to ask a trip sitter to leave mid-trip when things went sour. Once he left, we felt we could deal with things more naturally. If it’s one of your first few times, a trip sitter could be great. Make sure it’s someone everyone in the group deeply trusts and likes. I’ve found I have better experiences without them personally.
Broken_Hippo 5y ago
How, exactly, is the average person supposed to do them, then? It isn't like most countries let you walk into a shop and buy them. Realistically, it is the only way many people will ever get to do them legally. And realistically, if you are wanting to do psychedelics, you might not even find the same sort (I've generally found more opportunities to do LSD than truffles or mushrooms, for example). Your words are kind of like telling young folks not to go and buy alcohol without knowing how to deal with it. The only way to learn is to take them.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "It isn't like most countries let you walk into a shop and buy them." No. But you can walk in to the forest and pick them. You really do need to identify them properly, though, and not just pick random mushrooms. For help in doing that I can highly recommend Alan Rockefeller's excellent videos on psilocybin mushroom identification: [1] [2] Another option is getting mushroom spores (which are legal in most states in the US) and growing them yourself.[3][4] There are also various other legal psychedelics, like morning glory seeds[5], hawaiian baby woodrose seeds, and salvia divinorum[6]. Some sorts of breathwork (like holotropic breathing) is actually effective at inducing altered states of consciousness comparable for some people to psychedelics. It's not clear how safe such breathwork is long-term, as not enough serious studies of it has been done, but at least breathing is perfectly legal everywhere.. last I checked. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pInqVRRva7M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pInqVRRva7M [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcL-7u80kjs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcL-7u80kjs [3] - https://old.reddit.com/r/unclebens/ https://old.reddit.com/r/unclebens/ [4] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0gJTeTT-pE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0gJTeTT-pE [5] - https://erowid.org/plants/morning_glory/morning_glory.shtml https://erowid.org/plants/morning_glory/morning_glory.shtml [6] - https://erowid.org/plants/salvia/salvia.shtml https://erowid.org/plants/salvia/salvia.shtml
  - Broken_Hippo 5y ago
    "No. But you can walk in to the forest and pick them." If you live by such forests. I happen to now (and do), but I haven't always had such a luxury. And again, lots of folks don't have the luxury of growing. Just because there are other "legal" options doesn't mean much: These are going to act differently than what you get in Amsterdam. I have no doubt that breathwork can make altered states, but I very highly doubt it is comparable to drugs. And again, this isn't really going to prepare you for, say, truffles in Amsterdam. If you don't like breathwork, you can just stop and do something else. If you don't like where you are at on drugs, you just have to wait.
jmkni 5y ago
So I’ve been this idiot. Drugs aren’t really my thing, I’m more of a beer guy, but the first time I was in Amsterdam I experimented with edibles. The first couple of times was just kind of nice, chilled me out, had a good vibe etc. Then I got some from a different shop, and it was a nightmare! Headaches, heart racing, hallucinations, and it hurt to open my eyes. I thought my heart was going to explode. To make matters worse I was sharing a tiny Air BnB (one room basically) with two other friends and there was nowhere to go, so I was just curled up in a ball tripping out while they drank and played cards, for hours! Just horrendous lol, agree with the other commenters that there needs to be a safe way to try stuff like this out with people who know how to deal with somebody having a bad trip (as opposed to pointing and laughing, as my friends did).
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "Then I got some from a different shop, and it was a nightmare! Headaches, heart racing, hallucinations, and it hurt to open my eyes. I thought my heart was going to explode." You overdosed. Fortunately, the effect of overdosing on cannabis is purely psychological. You may feel miserable and be super paranoid, but there aren't any actual adverse physical effects. Under such circumstances, if one is 100% sure only cannabis has been ingested and nothing else, and when there really are no adverse physical effects one could reassure the tripper that everything is going to be ok. Hugs might be welcome, as might other physical contact like holding hands. Try changing the environment to somewhere more pleasant and more peaceful. Going out from a crowded party to peaceful nature might be a good idea. Changing music or putting on more pleasant music might help, as can looking at books of beautiful art or other fascinating images. Something else that can be really good is having the tripper play a simple physical, acoustic instrument like a drum or a guitar, or to dance, chant or sing. This is an under-utilized and underappreciated technique that can dramatically change the mood as the tripper expresses themselves on a more primal level than speech. Finally, in difficult trips (whether on cannabis or any other psychedelic) sometimes the best thing to do is not to try to run away but to go towards the difficulty and face it and try to learn from it. What exactly is it that you really fear? Why? Can you embrace it and surrender? Very often doing so will lead to a complete transformation of the experience from one of existential dread to bliss as one "dies" and is reborn.

BossingAround 5y ago

The problem is that if a person wants to learn how to deal with it legally, they have no other possibility than to come to a place like Amsterdam. Wouldn't the solution rather be for Amsterdam to create a "newbie coffee shops" or something similar? 1. Create safe newbie-friendly places that provide an opportunity to safely experience a legal drug X. 2. Mandate that for a foreigner to buy a legal drug X, they must have an ID-like document that says they are experienced with X. 3. Once a tourist experiences X in a newbie-friendly place, they award him/her with an ID-like document that enables the tourist to buy X on their own. Surely that create more jobs and opportunities in Amsterdam than the "bug off!" rhetoric I've seen from the local Amsterdam government.

mettamage 5y ago
I've heard from friends that this exactly happens with DMT experiences. I'm not sure if DMT is legal here (they make it themselves, the ingredients are legal). Yet, they somehow advertize it publicly (?). He did it in the south of The Netherlands.
spdionis 5y ago
To be clear, the staff in coffee shops do ask you if it's your first time and give you guidelines for how to use them safely, and usually informative leaflets are attached. At least in tourist places.
- realce 5y ago
  I was actually really impressed with the effort to educate people about truffles last time I went.

pmoriarty 5y ago

"This kind of stupidity is exactly what got psilocybin mushrooms banned here." Then why didn't alcohol, which causes way more problems than mushrooms, also get banned? Downvoters and skeptics: You do realize that alcohol is involved in countless suicides, homicides, and other violence (not to mention the ravages of alcoholism), don't you? It's the worst substance of the two, by far. Amsterdam is one of the drinking capitals of Europe. Way more touists come to Amsterdam to get drunk than ever have to eat mushrooms, and they've always caused way more problems. But alcohol will never be banned there. Why the double standard?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
988747 5y ago
Century ago United States tried to ban alcohol, and it simply didn't work - it is way too easy to produce it from innocent food products. Exotic mushrooms or artificial drugs are much easier to ban.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "Exotic mushrooms or artificial drugs are much easier to ban." You can ban them, but your ban won't be any more effective than the ban on alcohol. It's easy to get pretty much any drug you want.. especially in Amsterdam. All the ban does is moves the market underground, gets organized crime involved, makes it much harder for users to tell they're getting what they paid for (possibly leading to all sorts of adverse effects like overdoses), and ruins people's lives when they're thrown in jail. We know drug bans don't work and are counterproductive. It's sad to see the Netherlands buy in to anti-drug hysteria after being one of the leading lights in constructive drug policy and harm-reduction for so long.
  - justshowpost 5y ago
    Exactly this. What happens south of US border is absolutely the same as the effect of 1920s prohibition. Communism and prohibition both looks good and neither works.

mettamage 5y ago

I'm Dutch and I live there (born and raised, I've seen way too many examples how drugs can screw people over because of being raised in Amsterdam). Nevertheless, it doesn't matter whether I live there or not. Experimenting with psilocybin is not easy, even when you're experienced with weed and alcohol. Here was my thought process: First time: I did half, that went amazingly well Second time: I did a full dose, and I had the suicidal bad trip experience Third time: full dose, got into a bad trip state again (just bad trip). I recognized the experience and knew what would happen, how to deal with it. It was completely fine. It was a wonderful experience. Fourth time: potential explosive dangerous situation with the other person who used it (also did it 4 times, 4th time together with me as well). Crisis averted, having a tripsitter in this case (like in the second case) was an absolute must. These experiences has happened in a span of 3 years, spread out quite evenly. I took it because of the research on psilocybin. Truffles has been my first psychedelic. Ultimately, for me it has had positive effects. It is what it is. Be careful, have a tripsitter. Not having a tripsitter was the biggest mistake I've made.

anaisbetts 5y ago
For other folx reading this, if you're keen on trying this, try to get ahold of 4-HO-DMT instead - it is an identical experience to psilocybin (psilocybin converts to 4-HO-DMT in your body, which causes its effects), but can be dosed exactly to the milligram, greatly reducing your chances of accidentally taking too much.
- realce 5y ago
  Also prevents the stomach pains of digesting lots of dry fibrous mushrooms. For the same reason, the experience with 4-HO-DMT can be shorter/quicker than with mushrooms but not by much.
specialist 5y ago
> Not having a tripsitter was the biggest mistake I've made. Agreed.
willio58 5y ago
I’ve found the following to be key in a good experience: 1. Do not take too much. This cannot be overstated. You don’t need to take 4 tabs of LSD, you don’t need to take a 1/4 oz of shrooms. Take the right, safe amount. Usually 1 tab or a 1/16th oz will do for me. Double that if I’m feeling up to it. I’m a larger person too. 2. Set/setting. Are you emotionally and physically prepared to go on a trip that could get _very_ complicated? Lots of people think they are when they're not. Trip sitters can be helpful, but they do not guarantee a good trip by any means. Sometimes a person being around you that isn’t on the same plane of existence can make a situation needlessly uncomfortable. I’ve had a moment where we had to ask a trip sitter to leave mid-trip when things went sour. Once he left, we felt we could deal with things more naturally. If it’s one of your first few times, a trip sitter could be great. Make sure it’s someone everyone in the group deeply trusts and likes. I’ve found I have better experiences without them personally.

Broken_Hippo 5y ago

How, exactly, is the average person supposed to do them, then? It isn't like most countries let you walk into a shop and buy them. Realistically, it is the only way many people will ever get to do them legally. And realistically, if you are wanting to do psychedelics, you might not even find the same sort (I've generally found more opportunities to do LSD than truffles or mushrooms, for example). Your words are kind of like telling young folks not to go and buy alcohol without knowing how to deal with it. The only way to learn is to take them.

pmoriarty 5y ago
"It isn't like most countries let you walk into a shop and buy them." No. But you can walk in to the forest and pick them. You really do need to identify them properly, though, and not just pick random mushrooms. For help in doing that I can highly recommend Alan Rockefeller's excellent videos on psilocybin mushroom identification: [1] [2] Another option is getting mushroom spores (which are legal in most states in the US) and growing them yourself.[3][4] There are also various other legal psychedelics, like morning glory seeds[5], hawaiian baby woodrose seeds, and salvia divinorum[6]. Some sorts of breathwork (like holotropic breathing) is actually effective at inducing altered states of consciousness comparable for some people to psychedelics. It's not clear how safe such breathwork is long-term, as not enough serious studies of it has been done, but at least breathing is perfectly legal everywhere.. last I checked. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pInqVRRva7M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pInqVRRva7M [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcL-7u80kjs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcL-7u80kjs [3] - https://old.reddit.com/r/unclebens/ https://old.reddit.com/r/unclebens/ [4] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0gJTeTT-pE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0gJTeTT-pE [5] - https://erowid.org/plants/morning_glory/morning_glory.shtml https://erowid.org/plants/morning_glory/morning_glory.shtml [6] - https://erowid.org/plants/salvia/salvia.shtml https://erowid.org/plants/salvia/salvia.shtml
- Broken_Hippo 5y ago
  "No. But you can walk in to the forest and pick them." If you live by such forests. I happen to now (and do), but I haven't always had such a luxury. And again, lots of folks don't have the luxury of growing. Just because there are other "legal" options doesn't mean much: These are going to act differently than what you get in Amsterdam. I have no doubt that breathwork can make altered states, but I very highly doubt it is comparable to drugs. And again, this isn't really going to prepare you for, say, truffles in Amsterdam. If you don't like breathwork, you can just stop and do something else. If you don't like where you are at on drugs, you just have to wait.

jmkni 5y ago

So I’ve been this idiot. Drugs aren’t really my thing, I’m more of a beer guy, but the first time I was in Amsterdam I experimented with edibles. The first couple of times was just kind of nice, chilled me out, had a good vibe etc. Then I got some from a different shop, and it was a nightmare! Headaches, heart racing, hallucinations, and it hurt to open my eyes. I thought my heart was going to explode. To make matters worse I was sharing a tiny Air BnB (one room basically) with two other friends and there was nowhere to go, so I was just curled up in a ball tripping out while they drank and played cards, for hours! Just horrendous lol, agree with the other commenters that there needs to be a safe way to try stuff like this out with people who know how to deal with somebody having a bad trip (as opposed to pointing and laughing, as my friends did).

pmoriarty 5y ago
"Then I got some from a different shop, and it was a nightmare! Headaches, heart racing, hallucinations, and it hurt to open my eyes. I thought my heart was going to explode." You overdosed. Fortunately, the effect of overdosing on cannabis is purely psychological. You may feel miserable and be super paranoid, but there aren't any actual adverse physical effects. Under such circumstances, if one is 100% sure only cannabis has been ingested and nothing else, and when there really are no adverse physical effects one could reassure the tripper that everything is going to be ok. Hugs might be welcome, as might other physical contact like holding hands. Try changing the environment to somewhere more pleasant and more peaceful. Going out from a crowded party to peaceful nature might be a good idea. Changing music or putting on more pleasant music might help, as can looking at books of beautiful art or other fascinating images. Something else that can be really good is having the tripper play a simple physical, acoustic instrument like a drum or a guitar, or to dance, chant or sing. This is an under-utilized and underappreciated technique that can dramatically change the mood as the tripper expresses themselves on a more primal level than speech. Finally, in difficult trips (whether on cannabis or any other psychedelic) sometimes the best thing to do is not to try to run away but to go towards the difficulty and face it and try to learn from it. What exactly is it that you really fear? Why? Can you embrace it and surrender? Very often doing so will lead to a complete transformation of the experience from one of existential dread to bliss as one "dies" and is reborn.