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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
by anaisbetts 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. 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/
- netizen-936824 5y agoAll of those studies are either in rats or mice or are in vitro. A lot of the mice and rat studies can't be translated to humans because they have significantly different metabolisms and researchers use entirely different dosages than humans do in the wild >MDMA has been administered to approximately 1,700 human subjects with only one serious adverse reaction. https://maps.org/mdma/ https://maps.org/mdma/ There are currently human studies of MDMA. These would probably not be moving forward if they found "brain frying" although I appreciate your willingness to read abstracts
- eurasiantiger 5y agoOverdosing on MDMA can cause serotonin syndrome, which can cause neuronal death due to excitotoxicity.
- netizen-936824 5y agoOverdose on many substances is bad and can damage neurons if it crosses the BBB. That's not saying anything special about entactogens/empathogens/psychedelics
- eurasiantiger 5y agoI agree.
- Terry_Roll 5y agoAnd thats the come down after popping a pill or two at some rave in the middle of field in Essex. Fortunately the body doesnt stop making new brain cells provided one's diet is adequate. I was surprised to learn the US Military resurrected MDMA in the 50's and then in the 70's Prof Alex Shulgin got hold of it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3931692/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3931692/ Other country's handled it differently. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6435835/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6435835/ But it does lend credence to the conspiracy theory that the British security services started flooding the football terraces to reduce the football hooliganism that was blighting the British isles, as "documented" by later films like Football Factory starring Danny Dyer and many more. Still without it, would the world have what the US call EDM and what others call the Rave culture?
- dspearson 5y agoModern society does a pretty good job of that already. How many prescriptions for antidepressants do we issue in the western world? tl;dr, I consider them lower risk than horse riding, or working in a startup.
- grapeskin 5y agoMost 78 year old men who aren't dead don't really have the mental faculties to clearly lecture a university at 78. A soda a day rots far more brains than an occasional trip.
- esperent 5y agoOr even a lot of trips, judging by all the famous old psychonauts who were still lecturing in their 70s, 80s, 90s, and even 100s.
- spacemanmatt 5y agoAnd the less-famous old psychonauts now training your EMS/fire staff, running software departments, working as school principals, etc. Don't forget about the rank and file!
- dr_dshiv 5y ago100%. Here’s a book of interviews of elderly psychonauts. https://books.google.nl/books?id=wL5G8s3xpxwC&lpg=PR11&ots=wk6201bV39&dq=info%3Ajoy0aNvqqKUJ%3Ascholar.google.com%2F&lr&pg=PR11#v=onepage&q=2cb&f=false https://books.google.nl/books?id=wL5G8s3xpxwC&lpg=PR11&ots=w...
- ASalazarMX 5y agoLove how pretentious the term "psychonaut" sounds. Edit: I'm not a smoker, I'm a toxicnaut.
- spacemanmatt 5y agoWhen the DARE officer said stuff like this to us as 7th graders, we laughed. It's maybe less funny today but ridicule remains the appropriate response.
- dkarl 5y agoThe DARE officer said drugs would fry your brain, and the kids taking and selling drugs said it was a lie to stop people from having an easy harmless good time. Considering the drugs that kids were taking at my high school, I wouldn't say either side covered themselves in glory.
- spacemanmatt 5y ago> I wouldn't say either side covered themselves in glory. heh. that's mostly fair, though DARE waged a propaganda campaign entirely unmatched by teenage druggies, who are mostly just people trying to get by.
- 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.