12 ms·
I remember meeting Sasha at a lecture he gave at UC San Diego. He was around 78 and looked like Santa Claus with the big white beard. He gave the most vibrant l
by dr_dshiv 5y ago
I remember meeting Sasha at a lecture he gave at UC San Diego. He was around 78 and looked like Santa Claus with the big white beard. He gave the most vibrant lecture on organic chemistry that I ever saw—and I remember thinking: “this guy speaks so clearly yet has literally taken more drugs than any person on the planet.”
Anne was there, too. I talked with her afterwards and she was so kind, sharing stories about their last weekend in Barcelona and the power of a mushroom trip combined with Gaudi’s architectural works and sculptures.
It all made me realize: I still want to be taking psychedelics in my old age. Why not?
- anaisbetts 5y agoWell I mean, at the end of Shulgin's life he had heart valve damage requiring surgery (psychs cause 5-HT2B agonism which can cause heart valvulopathy), advanced dementia, and liver cancer, all three of which are likely consequences of taking psychedelics frequently. It isn't to say that there aren't benefits to taking these drugs in moderation, but if you're looking for a "Why Not", that's definitely something to think about.
- dspearson 5y agoTrue enough, but his health declined in his late 80s. David Nichols is still going strong in his late 70s, Albert Hofmann died at 102, Ram Dass died at 88. I don't see psychedelics, and their use, as being particularly risky to physical health and longevity. Especially since many of us already consume red meat, tobacco, alcohol, etc.
- patrec 5y ago> I don't see psychedelics, and their use, as being particularly risky to physical health Maybe if you don't count frying your brain as a risk to your physical health.
- antihero 5y agoIs it really fried though? If I didn't want to "fry my brain" I would opt not to participate in this clusterfuck we call modern life.
- netizen-936824 5y agoCan you please explain the neuronal mechanisms involved in this frying? If you have citations I would love to read more.
- an-allen 5y agoSo yea you put the neurons in a hot cast iron skillet, with a nice mix of butter and onions and viola - fried neurons. You can use this to baste most white meats like chicken, pork, or fish. Just please be aware that some nervous system matter has been shown to transmit prion type diseases -> so you want to make quadruply sure you got your fried neurons from a reputable dealer who has strict health controls.
- patrec 5y agoHere's a citation for a drug Shulgin is famous for: > MDMA provides an immediate enjoyable feeling by stimulating the release of neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and serotonin in the brain. Unfortunately, abnormal regulation of the brain neurotransmitters, as well as the increased oxidative stress causes damage to the brain neurons after the MDMA exposure. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7878040/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7878040/
- an-allen 5y agoIsn’t his partner like 92 and still spreading the good word? Folks want to link his chem experimentation to negative health outcomes to justify their own “drugs are bad mkay” beliefs. In the end, he literally cataloged all the chems and lived to 88… if I were going to choose a single case to illustrate this hypothesis-> this psychonaut would not be it. In fact, I probably wouldn’t even want him in my sample if I were going to try and prove the hypothesis.
- ASalazarMX 5y ago> Folks want to link his chem experimentation to negative health outcomes to justify their own “drugs are bad mkay” Drugs, prescription or not, can be very bad when used in excess or ignorance. These people know what they're putting in their bodies, and have the knowledge and means to test or even make them, but the majority of drug users don't.
- svnt 5y agoWell, we have made most interesting exploratory drug use illegal for most people, so that historically most people who use drugs are those with nothing left to lose. The best way to advance may be to let more smart people try drugs without artificial consequences.
- dr_dshiv 5y agoLike, “a license to trip” kind of thing? Love it.
- SpodGaju 5y agoTerrance McKenna died at 53. Dose is probably important in all this but it’s hard to say with such a small, probably biased, sample size.
- esperent 5y agoHe died of glioblastoma and there's absolutely zero evidence that it was related to drug use. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glioblastoma https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glioblastoma
- SpodGaju 5y agoI know that. There’s also zero evidence that any of the drugs that these people have taken have extended their lives. They’re absolutely zero studies that show that these compounds are either safe or dangerous. Anyone saying that they’re either has a bias. And there is no evidence that McKenna’s drug use did not cause his brain cancer. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The best we can say is that we do not know.
- pmoriarty 5y ago"They’re absolutely zero studies that show that these compounds are either safe or dangerous." There are lots of studies on the safety of psychedelics.
- zasdffaa 5y ago> They’re absolutely zero studies that show that these compounds are either safe or dangerous. Anyone saying that they’re either has a bias. Your ignorance does not indicate lack of research in the real world. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt> In 2007 Nutt published a controversial study on the harms of drug use in The Lancet.[17] Eventually, this led to his dismissal from his position in the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD); see government positions below. Subsequently, Nutt and a number of his colleagues who had subsequently resigned from the ACMD founded the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, which was later re-named Drug Science.[18] (read: the uk government didn't like what he had to say, that drugs weren't totally appalling meritless things, so they sacked him) from that wiki page <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HarmCausedByDrugsTable.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HarmCausedByDrugsTable.sv...> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Development_of_a_rational_scale_to_assess_the_harm_of_drugs_of_potential_misuse_(physical_harm_and_dependence,_NA_free_means).svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Development_of_a_rational...> But the next time drugs comes up you'll doubtless post the same thing.
- BTCOG 5y agoI'm fairly certain that sitting at a computer working 8-10 hour days of physical inactivity is far worse on the human body than moderate use of psychedelics.
- dr_dshiv 5y agoHe died at 88. Didn’t have heart trouble till 82. Didn’t have dementia till 86. And he took more (types of) drugs than any human ever. So, he was just a little bit more healthy than average, no? Edit: Thanks for sending me down the 5-HT2b rabbit hole. This was the cause of the Phen-Fen appetite suppressant heart issues. All psychedelics do seem to affect 5-HT2b receptors. I assume this is a dose dependent effect—where a daily high dose of Phen-Fen would be much more dangerous than occasional low weight psychedelic doses. But I appreciate the grounded caution and more research is clearly needed, ideally before I’m 70+.
- anaisbetts 5y agoIndeed, I would not really worry about this given how most people use psychs, but since you mentioned "in your old age", I thought I'd mention some effects that might be more problematic at that age vs. the average person today
- caslon 5y agoThe average American male dies at 74.2 as of 2020: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db427.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db427.htm
- danielvaughn 5y agoYeah, at that age it doesn't really matter what kills you - a life that long is something to be celebrated.
- subpixel 5y agoAll SSRIs are 5-HT2b agonists, apparently. Do people taking antidepressants have a higher instance of heart disease?
- SpodGaju 5y agoProzac is an antagonist (not agonist) of the 5HT2C receptor at higher doses. At lower doeses the increased serotonin from SERT inhibition will stimulate 5HT2C. https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.94.5.2036 https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.94.5.2036
- sph 5y ago> all three of which are likely consequences of taking psychedelics frequently You can't know that. Those are pretty common diseases of advanced age. It might've been the drugs, it might not.
- pmoriarty 5y ago"Well I mean, at the end of Shulgin's life he had heart valve damage requiring surgery (psychs cause 5-HT2B agonism which can cause heart valvulopathy), advanced dementia, and liver cancer, all three of which are likely consequences of taking psychedelics frequently." His wife took as many psychedelics as he did, right along with him, and she's fine.
- tigen 5y agoPeople have played Russian roulette and survived. Clearly then, Russian roulette is harmless.
- pmoriarty 5y agoI'm not claiming that doing what Shulgin did was harmless. I was replying to an anecdote of one with a comparable anecdote of one. With this kind of super-heavy use of novel psychoactive substances, there really can never be anything but anecdotes. We'll never see double-blind studies of large groups of people taking all the substances that the Shulgins took over their lifetimes, so anecdotes are all we have.
- verbify 5y agoI really enjoyed Sasha's books. That said, I'm not so sure it's easy to replicate his experience: 1) Sasha generally took low/threshold doses. Drugs are all about the dosage. It might not be so easy for you to replicate that. 2) He was an extraordinarily talented chemist and would make the drugs himself. You would need to either use shrooms/peyote (harder to take low doses( or buy from the darknets (with questionable safety and dosage) 3) He is an anecdote/small sample size, we don't have a large scale study here 4) There is an element of survivorship bias - you've never heard of the chemist who made LSD in their 30s and had a mental breakdown because, well, they didn't write a book
- esperent 5y ago> low/threshold doses... It might not be so easy for you to replicate that. Why? If you can take a full dose, you can take a threshold dose. Just divide the full dose up - e.g. dissolve a blotter in a 10ml dropper bottle of vodka. Then 1ml = 10% of a dose (or probably a bit less). Maybe a bit harder for weird research chems, but if you're getting into those then hopefully you'll do the research to know how to dose correctly. > use shrooms/peyote (harder to take low doses Again, why? It's particularly easy to take low doses of shrooms, all you need is a scale that measures down to 0.1g, such as a coffee scale. > you've never heard of the chemist who made LSD However, they also didn't die. Because then we would have heard about it.
- Workaccount2 5y agoOn the safety/purity part If you have the means ($100? $200) there are labs (or lab) that will test the chemical for you before you take it.
- pmoriarty 5y agoIn the US, I believe these labs are prohibited by law from telling you how pure the compound is. They can only tell you what it is, not its purity. This is allegedly because the government doesn't want to help illegal drug manufacturers to refine their products. Which, if true, is horrible because it doesn't lead to improved safety but to more dangerous illegal drugs.
- sjmm1989 5y agoI was once told by one of those lucid types of stoners this little quote: "Drugs don't make you stupid. You already were." I don't know how much I want to put any faith into that being correct; but the anecdotal evidence definitely seems to agree. From my angle at least.
- pmoriarty 5y agoThat might have been true in the good old days, before designer drugs with little to no history of human use flooded the market, but now I wouldn't be so sure. When taking mystery drugs mixed with other drugs, you really have no idea what that's doing to your brain.
- BTCOG 5y agoWhich is hilarious that you say this when we're talking about Sasha Shulgin.
- pmoriarty 5y agoThe way Shulgin tried new drugs was way safer than probably 99.9% of the people who try mystery drugs do it. First, he knew exactly what each compound was, as he made them himself. He wasn't trying mystery drugs he was completely clueless about. Second, he tried the smallest dose he suspected might be safe and active, based on his world-class chemical and pharmacological knowledge. Third, he didn't (to my knowledge) mix novel compounds, but only tried pure ones. Fourth, if he got even a hint that they might be toxic, he stopped doing them, and only if there were no hints of toxicity did he slowly, very slowly up the dosage and let his wife/friends try it to see if his experiences were unique due to maybe his own body chemistry or other factors. This nothing like the majority of people, who often don't have the capacity, desire, patience, or knowledge to test their drugs themselves or go to the effort and expense of having someone else do it for them. Even if the compounds are tested by, say, groups like DanceSafe at festivals, they can only tell you what in the compound they're testing matches their reference sample.. if it also contains some other novel compound that they don't have a reference sample for then they can't tell you what it is. It's a completely different situation from Shulgin, as he knew exactly what was in the compounds he made himself. What Shulgin did was still risky... especially in the long-term.. and I personally wouldn't do it myself, just as I wouldn't climb Mt Everest, fly in a wingsuit, go extreme skiing, or risk my life/brain in a million other ways, but I'm grateful to him for doing so in the way he did and publishing the results. Again, that's completely different from the reckless way most people do mystery drugs.