4 ms·

Did he use LSD once, or many times? My understanding is that it's pretty rare for someone to develop those sorts of mental issues from psychedelic drug use alo

Did he use LSD once, or many times? My understanding is that it's pretty rare for someone to develop those sorts of mental issues from psychedelic drug use alone, though these drugs can provoke an episode. (There's a neverending debate over whether those events "would have happened anyway".) Frequent use of psychedelics, however, can be really dangerous. Acidheads aren't profound, shamanic people; they're often really boring and screwed up. Drugs have an utterly opposite marginal utility behavior to that of meditation. Drugs take off rapidly (too rapidly for some people) but the marginal utility drops off (and becomes negative) very quickly. Meditation starts more slowly, but the marginal utility increases as one progresses.

DaniFong 18y ago
I don't know the specifics, but my parents said he changed after just once.
- scott_s 18y ago
  Did they tell you this during your teens? Sounds like the sort of warning parents might give their kids to scare them from experimenting.
  - DaniFong 18y ago
    True, but historically they've been quite liberal and up front about other things.
    - icey 18y ago
      The problem with stories like this is that they never compare the rate of psychological distress amongst users of hallucinogens versus the general population. It's easy to point the finger and say it's the acid's fault, but what about all the schizophrenics who never took a drug in their life? Of course, there are people who also think that people who have a predilection to psychosis are also more likely to try drugs as a form of self-medication. I'm not pro or con drugs in general, with the exception of thinking that marijuana laws are somewhat baffling; but this seems like one of those cases where otherwise highly logical people get sucked in by convenient explanations, regardless of their basis (or lack thereof) in fact. ===== Editing to provide my own counterpoint: Since I honestly don't have any kind of deep knowledge on the matter, I spent some time with Google and found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_perception_disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_percept... as well as: http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/118/543/229 http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/118/543/229 Make your own judgments, I suppose.
      - time_management 18y ago
        There are indigenous tribes who use peyote in religious rituals, and users have no higher rate of mental illness than nonusers. However, drug use in our society doesn't occur under such safe circumstances, and I know people who have been burned by drug use. One is a schizophrenic who used obscene amounts of ecstasy, shrooms, salvia and DMT throughout his 20s and early 30s. When he was 24, he was popular, a great basketball player, and able to interact normally with other people. At 35, he's incapable of holding a job and has been in trouble with the law countless times. His psychological collapse might have happened anyway had he not been using psychedelic drugs, but I suspect it wouldn't have happened in the same way, and it might have been more manageable. I don't know anyone, though, who has burned out on a small amount of psychedelic drug use. I believe it can probably happen, but I've never seen it. Also, there are a lot of people out there who've used these drugs and had few or no ill effects, and their cases simply aren't reported.

DaniFong 18y ago

I don't know the specifics, but my parents said he changed after just once.

scott_s 18y ago
Did they tell you this during your teens? Sounds like the sort of warning parents might give their kids to scare them from experimenting.
- DaniFong 18y ago
  True, but historically they've been quite liberal and up front about other things.
  - icey 18y ago
    The problem with stories like this is that they never compare the rate of psychological distress amongst users of hallucinogens versus the general population. It's easy to point the finger and say it's the acid's fault, but what about all the schizophrenics who never took a drug in their life? Of course, there are people who also think that people who have a predilection to psychosis are also more likely to try drugs as a form of self-medication. I'm not pro or con drugs in general, with the exception of thinking that marijuana laws are somewhat baffling; but this seems like one of those cases where otherwise highly logical people get sucked in by convenient explanations, regardless of their basis (or lack thereof) in fact. ===== Editing to provide my own counterpoint: Since I honestly don't have any kind of deep knowledge on the matter, I spent some time with Google and found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_perception_disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_percept... as well as: http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/118/543/229 http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/118/543/229 Make your own judgments, I suppose.
    - time_management 18y ago
      There are indigenous tribes who use peyote in religious rituals, and users have no higher rate of mental illness than nonusers. However, drug use in our society doesn't occur under such safe circumstances, and I know people who have been burned by drug use. One is a schizophrenic who used obscene amounts of ecstasy, shrooms, salvia and DMT throughout his 20s and early 30s. When he was 24, he was popular, a great basketball player, and able to interact normally with other people. At 35, he's incapable of holding a job and has been in trouble with the law countless times. His psychological collapse might have happened anyway had he not been using psychedelic drugs, but I suspect it wouldn't have happened in the same way, and it might have been more manageable. I don't know anyone, though, who has burned out on a small amount of psychedelic drug use. I believe it can probably happen, but I've never seen it. Also, there are a lot of people out there who've used these drugs and had few or no ill effects, and their cases simply aren't reported.