14 ms·

An untold story of LSD psychotherapy in communist Czechoslovakia

133 points by anarbadalov 3y ago

morbicer 3y ago
There's a bizarre and partly funny short document about LSD test in Czechoslovak army. Sadly no English subs although I am considering running it through Whisper and translating it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HXMHdhQL_8&pp=ygURbHNkIGluIGN6ZWNoIGFybXk%3D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HXMHdhQL_8&pp=ygURbHNkIGluI... On a more serious note, it's a shame that the psychotherapy research was stopped. Another article from Maps https://maps.org/news-letters/v17n1/lsd_in_prague-long_term_followup_study.pdf https://maps.org/news-letters/v17n1/lsd_in_prague-long_term_...
palemoonale 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  Please don't do this here.
labrador 3y ago
I've successfully done self-therapy using nitrous oxide, psilocybin, 5-MeO-DMT and LSD, most recently to come to terms with my difficult father to forgive him. My problem with the current push for this type of therapy is the requirment that it be done by professionals charging hundreds or thousands of dollars. One must never mention "self-therapy" because that might scare legislatures into keeping these drugs illegal. I remain resistant to this insertion of the state into what should be my right to use my own mind the way I see fit.
- UberFly 3y ago
  Do you feel that including drugs in the therapy was a benefit over more common dialog-type therapy? If so how was it different?
  - radicaldreamer 3y ago
    I'm curious about this as well, a lot of studies have shown that psychedelic therapy is most effective when bracketed by talk therapy -- the brain plasticity (or anti-inflammatory effects, the jury is still out) induced by psychedelics open the mind to the suggestions of talk therapy and that without talk therapy (or some kind of self dialogue perhaps?) psychedelics are not as effective.
    - labrador 3y ago
      There's a ton of free lectures on psychedelics and therapy. Ram Dass aka Richard Alpert comes to mind. Stanislav Grof is another. I can't afford to see a therapist anymore, but maybe going right to the source for free is better. I do a lot of writing too. Actually at this point I'd be surprised if I got any benefit out of doing a trip with a psychedelic therapist.
    - beenBoutIT 3y ago
      The studies are designed this way to keep the shaman in the equation when the drugs become treatments. Informal polling over decades shows MDMA is pretty impressive on its own. We need a clinical study where a group of veterans with PTSD is given MDMA and an isolated quiet place to go for several hours. Each of them is told they're receiving a drug that cures PTSD. The placebo effect paired with the brain rewiring effect of MDMA will cure more people than any other method and demonstrate that the effect is self-contained.
      - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
        I'd take the bet that MDMA + talk therapy is more effective than MDMA alone, based on the theory of action that recollection is not a read-only operation in the brain, and traumatic memories remain as such in no small part due to the intense negative emotions experienced when recalling them. By forcing/encouraging recollection of traumatic memories, while subduing the negative emotions with MDMA, the connection between those strong negative emotions and the memories are weakened. Basically, the MDMA subdues the negative emotions, and the talk therapy forces recollection. Without the latter, you just have a pleasant trip, but I highly doubt real progress would be made against the trauma.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  > My problem with the current push for this type of therapy is the requirment that it be done by professionals charging hundreds or thousands of dollars. […] I remain resistant to this insertion of the state into what should be my right to use my own mind the way I see fit. It's kind of sad to see that the anti-state libertarian propaganda is working so well: the problem at stake here is not “too much state”, it's that you don't have universal healthcare to pay for these professional bills and keep the rate these guys charge at a decent level. Nobody should be forced to do their own research and risk their health just because therapists are unaffordable.
  - throwaway59609 3y ago
    I live in a state with universal healthcare through mandatory insurance that's 30% of my income. Guess what? The state doesn't recognize this kind of therapy, and the insurance pays out only for whatever the state recognizes (and there is no free market of healthcare insurance), so I have to pay everything out of my pocket. And it costs the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's alright, that's new experimental therapy and it will improve, you might say. Well, they don't even pay anything for my ADHD treatment because the state says adults can't have it, it's children's disease. That's what I get for 30% of my income - nothing. The antistate libertarian "propaganda" is working so well because it's not propaganda but the only way to get treatment. At least they let me pay for the drugs myself, I'd probably kill myself if I couldn't get them just because the state said so.
    - littlestymaar 3y ago
      First of all, you're moving the goalpost since the conversation was about the cost of professionals, not the availability of treatment. > The antistate libertarian "propaganda" is working so well because it's not propaganda but the only way to get treatment. At least they let me pay for the drugs myself, I'd probably kill myself if I couldn't get them just because the state said so. It only works for the very small fraction that can pay “he equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars” worth of treatment, which means that for pretty much everyone it's literally as if state said that they cannot get them! In the richest country in the world, some people can't even afford drugs that are decades old, call that a way to get treatment.
- cyberax 3y ago
  > One must never mention "self-therapy" because that might scare legislatures into keeping these drugs illegal. That's because it's dangerous. Even good old weed can provoke psychosis, never mind LSD and mushrooms. Case in point: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/off-duty-pilot-accused-trying-disable-jetliner-faces-first-court-hearing-2023-10-24/ https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/off-duty-... LSD, ketamine, and other chemicals seem to be working for some people. But it doesn't mean that they're completely _safe_.
  - chimeracoder 3y ago
    > That's because it's dangerous. Even good old weed can provoke psychosis, never mind LSD and mushrooms. Case in point: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/off-duty- https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/off-duty-... > > LSD, ketamine, and other chemicals seem to be working for some people. But it doesn't mean that they're completely _safe_. Nobody should ever be getting behind the wheel of a car, let alone the cockpit of a plane, if they have not slept in 40+ hours. There are lots of things that went wrong in that story, at multiple points. Using it to conclude that drugs are categorically unsafe, and therefore should be criminalized, is the wrong takeaway.
    - cyberax 3y ago
      I'm not saying that psychedelics should be criminalized. I'm saying that they are not just some fun toys that should be allowed to be used without medical supervision. > Nobody should ever be getting behind the wheel of a car, let alone the cockpit of a plane, if they have not slept in 40+ hours. Yeah, just imagine if he actually had a doctor checking on him after he used psychedelics.
  - alright2565 3y ago
    The critical part of that article is that Emerson was suffering from depression for 6 months prior. And because any sign of depression or mental illness is career-ending from a pilot, the FAA and airlines' policy turned something that might have been treatable into something much worse. This situation reads to me like a last ditch effort to fix the depression before attempting suicide. The tragedy here is that this will only lead to stricter regulations, rather than the mental health reform this industry needs.
- ThinkBeat 3y ago
  This is something that would quite easily kill other people who ventured into it. Recommending it is not a safe and good idea. At the most elemental level How can a person obtain medical grade pure LSD? Further people have widely different reactions to the drugs mentioned, Making it into a cocktail is a recipe for disaster. Perhaps not for you, and perhaps not for a few others but the odds are against anyone who gives it a try. Our current level of technology cannot even predict how a single person will react to one of our many anti-depressants. Here try this for a while. " Dont like, doesn't work, lets try a different one. " (repeat until something works or you run out of drugs). I am not advocating anti-depressants over the drugs you mention above necessarily. I have some faith that progress can be made in the realm of chemistry and medicine there. I am saying dont do this on your own kids. There are some that clean you can have great insights, magical experiences and some orgasm if you choke yourself nearly to death. Not quite death, just before. Given the cocktail above, self-administered controlled strangulation might be safer.
  - radicaldreamer 3y ago
    I'm sorry strangulation is not safer than psychedelics... they have virtually no physical harm potential and have an extremely strong tolerance build up that is virtually instant which resists dependency.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - byt3blight 3y ago
    [dead]
  - temp0826 3y ago
    >> Given the cocktail above I really don't think he meant these combined in anyways. I don't think it'd be very ideal to mix any of them.
  - LoganDark 3y ago
    > Recommending it is not a safe and good idea. They didn't. They're merely sharing their own experience.
- matrix87 3y ago
  How was 5-MeO compared to the other two?
  - orthecreedence 3y ago
    When looking for drug experiences, Erowid is probably the best resource I've ever found: https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_5MeODMT.shtml https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_5MeODMT.shtml
  - temp0826 3y ago
    I've drank ayahuasca about 300 times (I work at a retreat center). 5-meo/bufo (especially at the "full release" dose) is probably the most profound experience I've had. To go "all the way", you really have to drop every attachment and accept that you are indeed dying in that moment (the freakouts happen when people are unable to and fight it). When you come back it's like being reborn. It is good for releasing a lot of stuff, but without many sessions things tend to come back pretty quick (it's good to be aware of those first things that come back- it's primo stuff to work on in therapy or ayahuasca/longer-lived psychs to really dig in to).
- FredPret 3y ago
  And if you screw this extremely delicate self-administered chemical mind alteration up, the rest of us have to foot the bill for the resulting care / homelessnes / crime. I’m a huge free marketeer, but a minimal amount of regulation really goes a very long way to improving outcomes. Plus, you don’t get a second chance fixing your own brain.
  - foxhill 3y ago
    yes, that’s what collective health care means, regardless of if it’s state-mandated, or fully private. you, or i, don’t get to decide what’s fair to treat, or who’s deserving of treatment.
  - electrondood 3y ago
    >> if you screw this extremely delicate self-administered chemical mind alteration up, the rest of us have to foot the bill for the resulting care / homelessnes / crime. What are you on about? Have you actually tried any of the substances mentioned in the parent comment?
    - skyyler 3y ago
      I have personally seen people become dependent on nitrous oxide. Take it away from them and they have no problem stopping, though. Money + no responsibilities + nitrous shipped to your door is a very very very very bad combo for some people. I've personally used all of those substances without having mental breakdowns and know many people that have as well. But I do know people that have went down dark paths with nitrous. More intense than the worst alcoholism, imo.
  - cf1241290841 3y ago
    >Plus, you don’t get a second chance fixing your own brain. Says who? I also believe your argument suffers from an attention fallacy. We allow (and encourage) people to do quite a lot of things that are outright more destructive and dangerous. Just walk past any gambling hall and have a look inside if you need an example. There are proper addicts there driven to extreme measures by desperation and tunnel views. edit: If you need an example, a class mate of a very good friend of mine got into the habit of spending his pay check playing slots. He is currently serving time for cocaine smuggling after he ran out of options and couldnt see any other way out. Once losses are mounting peoples sanity goes quickly. Cocaine smuggling is by far not the worst thing he could have gotten himself into. And its not like putting him in detox for a week would have cleared his mind up as long as the debt is still there.
- kranke155 3y ago
  Lots of places will eventually get you free LSD therapy, same as any other kind of free healthcare.
mrangle 3y ago
Perception of psychotherapeutic progress does not equal progress. Anyone can convince themselves of almost anything, for any number of reasons. Including convicning themselves of a therapeutic effect. Conversely, "therapeutic" processing of trauma often occurs subconsciously. Such as during sleep, and arguably more so as sleep quality improves. Instead of looking for benefit, at least for now, the concentration should be on an assessment of harm. Only in that context will a future study on possible benefit be informative.
- jakubmazanec 3y ago
  > Anyone can convince themselves of almost anything, for any number of reasons. Including convicning themselves of a therapeutic effect. This is a weird take. If a person is suicidal, and "convinces himself" (whatever that actually means in the context of the therapy) to not kill themself, this is therapeutic effect by definition.
  - zdragnar 3y ago
    I agree that it is a weird take, but your analogy is off. The actual therapeutic effect would be stopping suicidal ideation, not a single instance of suicidal behavior. A person may continue to suffer whatever ill effects that were pushing them to suicide but (temporarily) reconsider the action itself. On the one hand, nobody can "fix" you; you need to internalize different ways of thinking and build emotional resilience. Drugs may help this process, or help maintain it, but they're not a cure, and neither is talk therapy. It is, in a sense, a matter of convincing yourself. On the other hand, most people- even very introspective people- will struggle with self-therapy. It isn't as easy as "today I am happy".
    - jakubmazanec 3y ago
      > The actual therapeutic effect would be stopping suicidal ideation Well, yeah, that's what I meant and that what's the article is about (e.g. the story of Hana K.).
  - mrangle 3y ago
gustavus 3y ago
I've been noticing when I was growing up weed was in fact the cure to all problems people had depression, anxiety, anger issues? "Smoke a joint man it makes everything okay." People were out there claiming weed cured cancer, that the whole reason weed wasn't legal is because the evil pharmaceutical industrial complex didn't want people to do it because it would cure all their problems, that weed had absolutely no bad side effects and if everyone was just puffing all day all their problems would go away, etc. etc. Well weed became legal in most places and research started being done and it turns out weed didn't cure everyone's problems, weed does have side-effects and risks with using it, especially if you smoke or vape it, and it isn't the magical silver bullet to all mental health issues. I feel like I am seeing the same cycle happen again with psychedelics, especially shrooms and LSD.
- closetnerd 3y ago
  True... Though I think there is more to LSD. It's fair to be skeptical. If the pitch is it's going to fix everything for everyone, or the likes, then it's definitely a lie.
- orthecreedence 3y ago
  A lot of this, I've observed in myself at least, was caused by heavy-handed anti-drug propaganda I experienced as a kid. "Weed is addictive." "Weed kills all your motivation." "Weed leads to other much worse drugs." Etc etc. Once you take that first hit and realize none of that trash is true, or is true only in the worst cases, you start to really question everything you were told...not just about weed, but other substances as well. Meanwhile, so many of the people telling you how terrible drugs are drink themselves into a stupor every night. If you want one of the most damaging, addictive substances on the planet, one of the few drugs where withdrawl will kill you, look no further than alcohol. But that one is ok! Point being, the pendulum always swings. If weed is always terrible and always going to kill you, then when the pendulum swings, it's going to cure cancer and bring back your dead pet bunny. The truth is somewhere in the middle: it can lead to transformative experiences, but mostly just makes you slow, hungry, and often paranoid. LSD and psilocybin and the like will probably end up being the same. Microdosing works fine for some people, not so much for others. Psychadelic therapy will be great for some and really screw up others. You can have people who get bad reactions to psychadelics, and you can have terrible therapists, and you can have both at the same time. I definitely feel the need to allow this space to be explored, but with cautions in place, mainly via public education. These substances can open doors to different parts of our psyches and can open our eyes to patterns in the universe we hadn't seen before, and that should be celebrated. But they can also uncover horrors we were not meant to experience, and tear apart our sense of reality in ways that leave us much more damaged than we ever were before. Start small and start slow, and if it gets too much, stop.
willsoon 3y ago
Sorry to be so off topic or dumb. I read a user comment about a Freudian observation. The phantom. So I log on and try to reply... Is hn the one who deletes bad hombres? Or is it bad hombres who deletes his posts?
- kencausey 3y ago
  The post is not deleted, it is hidden. Go to your profile at https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=willsoon https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=willsoon and enable 'showdead'.
- jpsouth 3y ago
  The comment still exists but it’s been hidden. I believe as standard you can expand the comment (likely at the bottom) to view it but might need to change some settings to see these comments. Logging in probably refreshed the view and updated the comment to its new hidden status (or your user specific settings kicked in and stopped it displaying) Whether it’s HN or not, no idea, but it looks to be flagged by other users who can downvote to me though. edit: someone beat me to it! I should have logged in to refresh the view! :D
stefantalpalaru 3y ago
[dead]

133 points by anarbadalov 3y ago

There's a bizarre and partly funny short document about LSD test in Czechoslovak army. Sadly no English subs although I am considering running it through Whisper and translating it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HXMHdhQL_8&pp=ygURbHNkIGluIGN6ZWNoIGFybXk%3D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HXMHdhQL_8&pp=ygURbHNkIGluI... On a more serious note, it's a shame that the psychotherapy research was stopped. Another article from Maps https://maps.org/news-letters/v17n1/lsd_in_prague-long_term_followup_study.pdf https://maps.org/news-letters/v17n1/lsd_in_prague-long_term_...

palemoonale 3y ago

[flagged]

dang 3y ago
Please don't do this here.

labrador 3y ago

I've successfully done self-therapy using nitrous oxide, psilocybin, 5-MeO-DMT and LSD, most recently to come to terms with my difficult father to forgive him. My problem with the current push for this type of therapy is the requirment that it be done by professionals charging hundreds or thousands of dollars. One must never mention "self-therapy" because that might scare legislatures into keeping these drugs illegal. I remain resistant to this insertion of the state into what should be my right to use my own mind the way I see fit.

UberFly 3y ago
Do you feel that including drugs in the therapy was a benefit over more common dialog-type therapy? If so how was it different?
- radicaldreamer 3y ago
  I'm curious about this as well, a lot of studies have shown that psychedelic therapy is most effective when bracketed by talk therapy -- the brain plasticity (or anti-inflammatory effects, the jury is still out) induced by psychedelics open the mind to the suggestions of talk therapy and that without talk therapy (or some kind of self dialogue perhaps?) psychedelics are not as effective.
  - labrador 3y ago
    There's a ton of free lectures on psychedelics and therapy. Ram Dass aka Richard Alpert comes to mind. Stanislav Grof is another. I can't afford to see a therapist anymore, but maybe going right to the source for free is better. I do a lot of writing too. Actually at this point I'd be surprised if I got any benefit out of doing a trip with a psychedelic therapist.
  - beenBoutIT 3y ago
    The studies are designed this way to keep the shaman in the equation when the drugs become treatments. Informal polling over decades shows MDMA is pretty impressive on its own. We need a clinical study where a group of veterans with PTSD is given MDMA and an isolated quiet place to go for several hours. Each of them is told they're receiving a drug that cures PTSD. The placebo effect paired with the brain rewiring effect of MDMA will cure more people than any other method and demonstrate that the effect is self-contained.
    - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
      I'd take the bet that MDMA + talk therapy is more effective than MDMA alone, based on the theory of action that recollection is not a read-only operation in the brain, and traumatic memories remain as such in no small part due to the intense negative emotions experienced when recalling them. By forcing/encouraging recollection of traumatic memories, while subduing the negative emotions with MDMA, the connection between those strong negative emotions and the memories are weakened. Basically, the MDMA subdues the negative emotions, and the talk therapy forces recollection. Without the latter, you just have a pleasant trip, but I highly doubt real progress would be made against the trauma.
littlestymaar 3y ago
> My problem with the current push for this type of therapy is the requirment that it be done by professionals charging hundreds or thousands of dollars. […] I remain resistant to this insertion of the state into what should be my right to use my own mind the way I see fit. It's kind of sad to see that the anti-state libertarian propaganda is working so well: the problem at stake here is not “too much state”, it's that you don't have universal healthcare to pay for these professional bills and keep the rate these guys charge at a decent level. Nobody should be forced to do their own research and risk their health just because therapists are unaffordable.
- throwaway59609 3y ago
  I live in a state with universal healthcare through mandatory insurance that's 30% of my income. Guess what? The state doesn't recognize this kind of therapy, and the insurance pays out only for whatever the state recognizes (and there is no free market of healthcare insurance), so I have to pay everything out of my pocket. And it costs the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's alright, that's new experimental therapy and it will improve, you might say. Well, they don't even pay anything for my ADHD treatment because the state says adults can't have it, it's children's disease. That's what I get for 30% of my income - nothing. The antistate libertarian "propaganda" is working so well because it's not propaganda but the only way to get treatment. At least they let me pay for the drugs myself, I'd probably kill myself if I couldn't get them just because the state said so.
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    First of all, you're moving the goalpost since the conversation was about the cost of professionals, not the availability of treatment. > The antistate libertarian "propaganda" is working so well because it's not propaganda but the only way to get treatment. At least they let me pay for the drugs myself, I'd probably kill myself if I couldn't get them just because the state said so. It only works for the very small fraction that can pay “he equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars” worth of treatment, which means that for pretty much everyone it's literally as if state said that they cannot get them! In the richest country in the world, some people can't even afford drugs that are decades old, call that a way to get treatment.
cyberax 3y ago
> One must never mention "self-therapy" because that might scare legislatures into keeping these drugs illegal. That's because it's dangerous. Even good old weed can provoke psychosis, never mind LSD and mushrooms. Case in point: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/off-duty-pilot-accused-trying-disable-jetliner-faces-first-court-hearing-2023-10-24/ https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/off-duty-... LSD, ketamine, and other chemicals seem to be working for some people. But it doesn't mean that they're completely _safe_.
- chimeracoder 3y ago
  > That's because it's dangerous. Even good old weed can provoke psychosis, never mind LSD and mushrooms. Case in point: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/off-duty- https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/off-duty-... > > LSD, ketamine, and other chemicals seem to be working for some people. But it doesn't mean that they're completely _safe_. Nobody should ever be getting behind the wheel of a car, let alone the cockpit of a plane, if they have not slept in 40+ hours. There are lots of things that went wrong in that story, at multiple points. Using it to conclude that drugs are categorically unsafe, and therefore should be criminalized, is the wrong takeaway.
  - cyberax 3y ago
    I'm not saying that psychedelics should be criminalized. I'm saying that they are not just some fun toys that should be allowed to be used without medical supervision. > Nobody should ever be getting behind the wheel of a car, let alone the cockpit of a plane, if they have not slept in 40+ hours. Yeah, just imagine if he actually had a doctor checking on him after he used psychedelics.
- alright2565 3y ago
  The critical part of that article is that Emerson was suffering from depression for 6 months prior. And because any sign of depression or mental illness is career-ending from a pilot, the FAA and airlines' policy turned something that might have been treatable into something much worse. This situation reads to me like a last ditch effort to fix the depression before attempting suicide. The tragedy here is that this will only lead to stricter regulations, rather than the mental health reform this industry needs.
ThinkBeat 3y ago
This is something that would quite easily kill other people who ventured into it. Recommending it is not a safe and good idea. At the most elemental level How can a person obtain medical grade pure LSD? Further people have widely different reactions to the drugs mentioned, Making it into a cocktail is a recipe for disaster. Perhaps not for you, and perhaps not for a few others but the odds are against anyone who gives it a try. Our current level of technology cannot even predict how a single person will react to one of our many anti-depressants. Here try this for a while. " Dont like, doesn't work, lets try a different one. " (repeat until something works or you run out of drugs). I am not advocating anti-depressants over the drugs you mention above necessarily. I have some faith that progress can be made in the realm of chemistry and medicine there. I am saying dont do this on your own kids. There are some that clean you can have great insights, magical experiences and some orgasm if you choke yourself nearly to death. Not quite death, just before. Given the cocktail above, self-administered controlled strangulation might be safer.
- radicaldreamer 3y ago
  I'm sorry strangulation is not safer than psychedelics... they have virtually no physical harm potential and have an extremely strong tolerance build up that is virtually instant which resists dependency.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- byt3blight 3y ago
  [dead]
- temp0826 3y ago
  >> Given the cocktail above I really don't think he meant these combined in anyways. I don't think it'd be very ideal to mix any of them.
- LoganDark 3y ago
  > Recommending it is not a safe and good idea. They didn't. They're merely sharing their own experience.
matrix87 3y ago
How was 5-MeO compared to the other two?
- orthecreedence 3y ago
  When looking for drug experiences, Erowid is probably the best resource I've ever found: https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_5MeODMT.shtml https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_5MeODMT.shtml
- temp0826 3y ago
  I've drank ayahuasca about 300 times (I work at a retreat center). 5-meo/bufo (especially at the "full release" dose) is probably the most profound experience I've had. To go "all the way", you really have to drop every attachment and accept that you are indeed dying in that moment (the freakouts happen when people are unable to and fight it). When you come back it's like being reborn. It is good for releasing a lot of stuff, but without many sessions things tend to come back pretty quick (it's good to be aware of those first things that come back- it's primo stuff to work on in therapy or ayahuasca/longer-lived psychs to really dig in to).
FredPret 3y ago
And if you screw this extremely delicate self-administered chemical mind alteration up, the rest of us have to foot the bill for the resulting care / homelessnes / crime. I’m a huge free marketeer, but a minimal amount of regulation really goes a very long way to improving outcomes. Plus, you don’t get a second chance fixing your own brain.
- foxhill 3y ago
  yes, that’s what collective health care means, regardless of if it’s state-mandated, or fully private. you, or i, don’t get to decide what’s fair to treat, or who’s deserving of treatment.
- electrondood 3y ago
  >> if you screw this extremely delicate self-administered chemical mind alteration up, the rest of us have to foot the bill for the resulting care / homelessnes / crime. What are you on about? Have you actually tried any of the substances mentioned in the parent comment?
  - skyyler 3y ago
    I have personally seen people become dependent on nitrous oxide. Take it away from them and they have no problem stopping, though. Money + no responsibilities + nitrous shipped to your door is a very very very very bad combo for some people. I've personally used all of those substances without having mental breakdowns and know many people that have as well. But I do know people that have went down dark paths with nitrous. More intense than the worst alcoholism, imo.
- cf1241290841 3y ago
  >Plus, you don’t get a second chance fixing your own brain. Says who? I also believe your argument suffers from an attention fallacy. We allow (and encourage) people to do quite a lot of things that are outright more destructive and dangerous. Just walk past any gambling hall and have a look inside if you need an example. There are proper addicts there driven to extreme measures by desperation and tunnel views. edit: If you need an example, a class mate of a very good friend of mine got into the habit of spending his pay check playing slots. He is currently serving time for cocaine smuggling after he ran out of options and couldnt see any other way out. Once losses are mounting peoples sanity goes quickly. Cocaine smuggling is by far not the worst thing he could have gotten himself into. And its not like putting him in detox for a week would have cleared his mind up as long as the debt is still there.
kranke155 3y ago
Lots of places will eventually get you free LSD therapy, same as any other kind of free healthcare.

mrangle 3y ago

Perception of psychotherapeutic progress does not equal progress. Anyone can convince themselves of almost anything, for any number of reasons. Including convicning themselves of a therapeutic effect. Conversely, "therapeutic" processing of trauma often occurs subconsciously. Such as during sleep, and arguably more so as sleep quality improves. Instead of looking for benefit, at least for now, the concentration should be on an assessment of harm. Only in that context will a future study on possible benefit be informative.

jakubmazanec 3y ago
> Anyone can convince themselves of almost anything, for any number of reasons. Including convicning themselves of a therapeutic effect. This is a weird take. If a person is suicidal, and "convinces himself" (whatever that actually means in the context of the therapy) to not kill themself, this is therapeutic effect by definition.
- zdragnar 3y ago
  I agree that it is a weird take, but your analogy is off. The actual therapeutic effect would be stopping suicidal ideation, not a single instance of suicidal behavior. A person may continue to suffer whatever ill effects that were pushing them to suicide but (temporarily) reconsider the action itself. On the one hand, nobody can "fix" you; you need to internalize different ways of thinking and build emotional resilience. Drugs may help this process, or help maintain it, but they're not a cure, and neither is talk therapy. It is, in a sense, a matter of convincing yourself. On the other hand, most people- even very introspective people- will struggle with self-therapy. It isn't as easy as "today I am happy".
  - jakubmazanec 3y ago
    > The actual therapeutic effect would be stopping suicidal ideation Well, yeah, that's what I meant and that what's the article is about (e.g. the story of Hana K.).
- mrangle 3y ago

gustavus 3y ago

I've been noticing when I was growing up weed was in fact the cure to all problems people had depression, anxiety, anger issues? "Smoke a joint man it makes everything okay." People were out there claiming weed cured cancer, that the whole reason weed wasn't legal is because the evil pharmaceutical industrial complex didn't want people to do it because it would cure all their problems, that weed had absolutely no bad side effects and if everyone was just puffing all day all their problems would go away, etc. etc. Well weed became legal in most places and research started being done and it turns out weed didn't cure everyone's problems, weed does have side-effects and risks with using it, especially if you smoke or vape it, and it isn't the magical silver bullet to all mental health issues. I feel like I am seeing the same cycle happen again with psychedelics, especially shrooms and LSD.

closetnerd 3y ago
True... Though I think there is more to LSD. It's fair to be skeptical. If the pitch is it's going to fix everything for everyone, or the likes, then it's definitely a lie.
orthecreedence 3y ago
A lot of this, I've observed in myself at least, was caused by heavy-handed anti-drug propaganda I experienced as a kid. "Weed is addictive." "Weed kills all your motivation." "Weed leads to other much worse drugs." Etc etc. Once you take that first hit and realize none of that trash is true, or is true only in the worst cases, you start to really question everything you were told...not just about weed, but other substances as well. Meanwhile, so many of the people telling you how terrible drugs are drink themselves into a stupor every night. If you want one of the most damaging, addictive substances on the planet, one of the few drugs where withdrawl will kill you, look no further than alcohol. But that one is ok! Point being, the pendulum always swings. If weed is always terrible and always going to kill you, then when the pendulum swings, it's going to cure cancer and bring back your dead pet bunny. The truth is somewhere in the middle: it can lead to transformative experiences, but mostly just makes you slow, hungry, and often paranoid. LSD and psilocybin and the like will probably end up being the same. Microdosing works fine for some people, not so much for others. Psychadelic therapy will be great for some and really screw up others. You can have people who get bad reactions to psychadelics, and you can have terrible therapists, and you can have both at the same time. I definitely feel the need to allow this space to be explored, but with cautions in place, mainly via public education. These substances can open doors to different parts of our psyches and can open our eyes to patterns in the universe we hadn't seen before, and that should be celebrated. But they can also uncover horrors we were not meant to experience, and tear apart our sense of reality in ways that leave us much more damaged than we ever were before. Start small and start slow, and if it gets too much, stop.

willsoon 3y ago

Sorry to be so off topic or dumb. I read a user comment about a Freudian observation. The phantom. So I log on and try to reply... Is hn the one who deletes bad hombres? Or is it bad hombres who deletes his posts?

kencausey 3y ago
The post is not deleted, it is hidden. Go to your profile at https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=willsoon https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=willsoon and enable 'showdead'.
jpsouth 3y ago
The comment still exists but it’s been hidden. I believe as standard you can expand the comment (likely at the bottom) to view it but might need to change some settings to see these comments. Logging in probably refreshed the view and updated the comment to its new hidden status (or your user specific settings kicked in and stopped it displaying) Whether it’s HN or not, no idea, but it looks to be flagged by other users who can downvote to me though. edit: someone beat me to it! I should have logged in to refresh the view! :D

stefantalpalaru 3y ago

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