5 ms·

Psilocybin is one of those things we don't even know the full effects of because the government had a hysterical fit and completely banned it because people who

Psilocybin is one of those things we don't even know the full effects of because the government had a hysterical fit and completely banned it because people who took it were more likely to oppose the Vietnam War.

Aurornis 4mo ago
Psilocybin is harder to get research approvals for than many things, but it’s not “completely banned”. There are studies every year being completed with psilocybin, many of which get posted here on HN. There is a growing tension between the extraordinary pop culture claims of psilocybin curing everything (now extending to Alzheimer’s due to this 1 low-quality report from Brazil) and the actual studied effects, though. A lot of the published outcomes are surprisingly low quality, like this case report or all of the studies that neglect to include a control group. Mental health studies without a control group are basically useless because even a control group that doesn’t receive a placebo (that is, people you simply monitor and interact with) will get better. Just look at this comment section: People raising suspicions about the obvious problems in the study are being downvoted. The top voted comments are citing a Joe Rogan podcast with a guy hyping his startup. People really, really want to believe this is a magic cure and the usual guardrails of suspicion for extraordinary claims are seemingly suspended for this one topic.
- rerx 4mo ago
  In defense of the comment you replied to: Research into treatments with Psilocybin or LSD was in quite a hiatus for decades after the substances were banned in the 1960s or 70s.
  - Aurornis 4mo ago
    I understand that, but a lot has changed since then and psilocybin is not the only substance that has been studied which interacts with those receptors. Our ability to synthesize new compounds has also exploded since then. Drug companies are looking for the next blockbuster drug. They don’t need to use psilocybin. We can now use powerful computers to come up with countless variations of drugs that activate the receptors involve and study them rapidly. There are hundreds of ligands that interact with the same receptors.
    - tim-star 4mo ago
      certainly you should understand the context of the comment then- the commenter was saying we had a 40 year moratorium on research because of the governments decisions at the time. There is a lot of research again now, but research takes time.
    - ux266478 4mo ago
      > There are hundreds of ligands that interact with the same receptors. Except the ligands matter, binding site is massively important to drug design. As is the behavior of the molecule beyond that. A 5HT2A agonist that's also an irreversible and potent dopamine agonist is obviously a non-starter. Minor modifications of a molecule produce wildly different and very unpredictable effects. Pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics are the bottleneck of drug research, and they take quite a lot of work to understand. > We can now use powerful computers to come up with countless variations of drugs that activate the receptors involve and study them rapidly. "Research chemical" is common parlance, and it's synonymous with "dangerous gutter drug" because you end up with nasty little molecules like what's found in the 25-NB or FLY families, or something like MDMB-CHMNACA. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Our algorithmic and predictive power in pharmacology is one of the absolute worst out of all the sciences. The absolute state of this naive futurist mindset that we can move fast in drug research is absolutely horrifying to even suggest. That's not where the state of the art is, and I'd put big money on us not getting there for another 100k years or so.
    - new-treatment 4mo ago
      Very notably Definium Therapeutics (Formerly MindMed) has synthesized an orally disintegrating LSD pill. Given almost zero historical toxicity, I think it is mostly stuck in some societal acceptance limbo for this class of meds. Strange if one sees how openly accepted THC/etc are
      - ifwinterco 4mo ago
        Acid is always orally active and tabs are tiny, it being hard to administer was never the issue
- wouldbecouldbe 4mo ago
  When you take it, you understand, that if taken with the right approach it can lead to profound insights in changing your life and the effects described: helping with depression, addiction and accepting death are not far fetched at all. Yet it can also, if not guided or done on someone with anxiety have the opposite effect. The more biological effects I agreed are not conclusion that can be drawn from that.
  - ozgrakkurt 4mo ago
    > When you take it, you understand To be fair, this is not how medical research is done.
    - LoganDark 4mo ago
      It's also not the best idea to tell whatever board is reviewing your proposals, "just take psilocybin yourself and you'll understand"
    - wouldbecouldbe 4mo ago
      You fortunately don't need medical research in learning how to live your life and experience meaning. It's great if we have therapies that help people and get a proper scientific stamp. Yet we can also discover the benefits for ourselves before that stamp is given.
      - lostmsu 4mo ago
        > You fortunately don't need medical research in learning how to live your life and experience meaning. Here I'd disagree with you. I do need to know if you become happier because you become dumber due to brain damage or for some other magical reason. So far I haven't seen any evidence contrary to the dumber explanation.
  - D-Machine 4mo ago
    Right, when you take it, it becomes clear it just injects salience / profundity / meaning into whatever you happen to be focused on or have on your mind (EDIT: mostly this is the main effect, but there can be novel perspectives / insights, and other audio-visual changes, but IMO it is the felt meaning that primarily drives the more credulous claims). Without adequate preparation, this is likely to be worthless in most cases, harmful in other cases, and helpful in some again. However, not all causes of depression or addiction are about accepting death, or a salience / meaning problem, and even when that kind of issue is involved, a momentary experience of profound meaning is NOT actually necessarily transformative either (i.e. you can and in fact must still choose how to interpret that experience, once out of it). So it would actually be very surprising if it was just a clear net positive overall
- NoMoreNicksLeft 4mo ago
  >There is a growing tension between the extraordinary pop culture claims of psilocybin curing everything (now extending to That's the playbook that got marijuana (more or less) legalized. So of course they're going to use the same exact strategy with each drug in turn.
- hn_throwaway_99 4mo ago
  > A lot of the published outcomes are surprisingly low quality, like this case report or all of the studies that neglect to include a control group. Mental health studies without a control group are basically useless because even a control group that doesn’t receive a placebo (that is, people you simply monitor and interact with) will get better. Honest question, does a control group really matter that much when it's not possible to do a blinded study? Unless it's some incredibly small microdose, I would assume most study participants are able to tell if they're tripping or not.
andai 4mo ago
Was that causation though? I have to imagine the kind of people who are open to psychedelics also generally oppose war. On the other hand I heard a single dose does permanently increase your trait openness by a standard deviation, which is nuts. So maybe there is causation there too.
- maxbond 4mo ago
  It definitely wasn't causation, the causation flows the other way (criminalizing a proxy for a political belief as an end run around the first amendment).
bilsbie 4mo ago
What’s exciting though is that this administration recently signed an executive order directing the agency to speed up the development and approval process for psychedelics.
- Pxtl 4mo ago
  Yup. Not sure which particular stopped-clock struck right within the generally anti-science MAHA movement but I think everybody is happy to take the win.
  - asveikau 4mo ago
    Ironically enough, the psychedelic field sort of defies some scientific analysis, so could be construed as "anti-science". I've seen some commentary that it's difficult to test. As an example, you can't really do a double blind study with a placebo because it's obvious to everybody who got the drug.
    - connicpu 4mo ago
      The same could be said for a lot of drugs that have strong side effects, just one difference here is the main "side effects" are something some people consider fun. Though you could still do double-blind for comparing the effectiveness of different psychedelics, e.g comparing LSD to Psilocybin.
    - dnautics 4mo ago
      just because it's not double blind doesn't mean it's not science though. like idk, how do you do double blind studies of astronomical phenomena?
      - ambicapter 4mo ago
        > just because it's not double blind doesn't mean it's not science though. Shhh, non-scientists don't know that.
      - asveikau 4mo ago
new-treatment 4mo ago
>>the government had a hysterical fit and completely banned it because people who took it were more likely to oppose the Vietnam War. If you are to believe the Brave New World (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World) worldview of Huxley (who topically was on loads of LSD himself), you'd think the government would want to flood the public with psychedelics -- low to zero toxicity, allows people to zone out, not addictive, allows people to focus inwards rather than focus on civic mismanagement. Any ideas on why the US government is so opposed Psychedelics? Clearly the government is for Bread and circus. In fact, the establishment left and right want desperately for us to believe everything is indeed fine regardless of the facts our eyes see (e.g. Annie Lowrey on https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/05/americans-depressed-economy/687278/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/05/americans-depresse...)
- kortex 4mo ago
  Psychededics are unpredictable. We know the government looked into their use as thought- and behavior-manipulating tools (MKUltra) but the results proved too chaotic. You might get a manchurian candidate...or the unabomber. But most likely just a renewed outlook on life. Psyches basically raise the "temperature" (in machine learning parlance) of the brain, increasing crosstalk. This can jostle folks out of a mental rut. But it can also create positive feedback loops of upheaval. Soma would only work as it did in BNW if society controlled essentially all sources of information - which is essentially the whole premise.
- make3 4mo ago
  hallucinogens where taken by hippies, it was probably a way to put a few extra commies and lefties in prison
  - elzbardico 4mo ago
    Yes, I think half of the politicians nowadays run on cocaine, no busts on TV.
    - make3 4mo ago
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]

Aurornis 4mo ago

Psilocybin is harder to get research approvals for than many things, but it’s not “completely banned”. There are studies every year being completed with psilocybin, many of which get posted here on HN. There is a growing tension between the extraordinary pop culture claims of psilocybin curing everything (now extending to Alzheimer’s due to this 1 low-quality report from Brazil) and the actual studied effects, though. A lot of the published outcomes are surprisingly low quality, like this case report or all of the studies that neglect to include a control group. Mental health studies without a control group are basically useless because even a control group that doesn’t receive a placebo (that is, people you simply monitor and interact with) will get better. Just look at this comment section: People raising suspicions about the obvious problems in the study are being downvoted. The top voted comments are citing a Joe Rogan podcast with a guy hyping his startup. People really, really want to believe this is a magic cure and the usual guardrails of suspicion for extraordinary claims are seemingly suspended for this one topic.

rerx 4mo ago
In defense of the comment you replied to: Research into treatments with Psilocybin or LSD was in quite a hiatus for decades after the substances were banned in the 1960s or 70s.
- Aurornis 4mo ago
  I understand that, but a lot has changed since then and psilocybin is not the only substance that has been studied which interacts with those receptors. Our ability to synthesize new compounds has also exploded since then. Drug companies are looking for the next blockbuster drug. They don’t need to use psilocybin. We can now use powerful computers to come up with countless variations of drugs that activate the receptors involve and study them rapidly. There are hundreds of ligands that interact with the same receptors.
  - tim-star 4mo ago
    certainly you should understand the context of the comment then- the commenter was saying we had a 40 year moratorium on research because of the governments decisions at the time. There is a lot of research again now, but research takes time.
  - ux266478 4mo ago
    > There are hundreds of ligands that interact with the same receptors. Except the ligands matter, binding site is massively important to drug design. As is the behavior of the molecule beyond that. A 5HT2A agonist that's also an irreversible and potent dopamine agonist is obviously a non-starter. Minor modifications of a molecule produce wildly different and very unpredictable effects. Pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics are the bottleneck of drug research, and they take quite a lot of work to understand. > We can now use powerful computers to come up with countless variations of drugs that activate the receptors involve and study them rapidly. "Research chemical" is common parlance, and it's synonymous with "dangerous gutter drug" because you end up with nasty little molecules like what's found in the 25-NB or FLY families, or something like MDMB-CHMNACA. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Our algorithmic and predictive power in pharmacology is one of the absolute worst out of all the sciences. The absolute state of this naive futurist mindset that we can move fast in drug research is absolutely horrifying to even suggest. That's not where the state of the art is, and I'd put big money on us not getting there for another 100k years or so.
  - new-treatment 4mo ago
    Very notably Definium Therapeutics (Formerly MindMed) has synthesized an orally disintegrating LSD pill. Given almost zero historical toxicity, I think it is mostly stuck in some societal acceptance limbo for this class of meds. Strange if one sees how openly accepted THC/etc are
    - ifwinterco 4mo ago
      Acid is always orally active and tabs are tiny, it being hard to administer was never the issue
wouldbecouldbe 4mo ago
When you take it, you understand, that if taken with the right approach it can lead to profound insights in changing your life and the effects described: helping with depression, addiction and accepting death are not far fetched at all. Yet it can also, if not guided or done on someone with anxiety have the opposite effect. The more biological effects I agreed are not conclusion that can be drawn from that.
- ozgrakkurt 4mo ago
  > When you take it, you understand To be fair, this is not how medical research is done.
  - LoganDark 4mo ago
    It's also not the best idea to tell whatever board is reviewing your proposals, "just take psilocybin yourself and you'll understand"
  - wouldbecouldbe 4mo ago
    You fortunately don't need medical research in learning how to live your life and experience meaning. It's great if we have therapies that help people and get a proper scientific stamp. Yet we can also discover the benefits for ourselves before that stamp is given.
    - lostmsu 4mo ago
      > You fortunately don't need medical research in learning how to live your life and experience meaning. Here I'd disagree with you. I do need to know if you become happier because you become dumber due to brain damage or for some other magical reason. So far I haven't seen any evidence contrary to the dumber explanation.
- D-Machine 4mo ago
  Right, when you take it, it becomes clear it just injects salience / profundity / meaning into whatever you happen to be focused on or have on your mind (EDIT: mostly this is the main effect, but there can be novel perspectives / insights, and other audio-visual changes, but IMO it is the felt meaning that primarily drives the more credulous claims). Without adequate preparation, this is likely to be worthless in most cases, harmful in other cases, and helpful in some again. However, not all causes of depression or addiction are about accepting death, or a salience / meaning problem, and even when that kind of issue is involved, a momentary experience of profound meaning is NOT actually necessarily transformative either (i.e. you can and in fact must still choose how to interpret that experience, once out of it). So it would actually be very surprising if it was just a clear net positive overall
NoMoreNicksLeft 4mo ago
>There is a growing tension between the extraordinary pop culture claims of psilocybin curing everything (now extending to That's the playbook that got marijuana (more or less) legalized. So of course they're going to use the same exact strategy with each drug in turn.
hn_throwaway_99 4mo ago
> A lot of the published outcomes are surprisingly low quality, like this case report or all of the studies that neglect to include a control group. Mental health studies without a control group are basically useless because even a control group that doesn’t receive a placebo (that is, people you simply monitor and interact with) will get better. Honest question, does a control group really matter that much when it's not possible to do a blinded study? Unless it's some incredibly small microdose, I would assume most study participants are able to tell if they're tripping or not.

andai 4mo ago

Was that causation though? I have to imagine the kind of people who are open to psychedelics also generally oppose war. On the other hand I heard a single dose does permanently increase your trait openness by a standard deviation, which is nuts. So maybe there is causation there too.

maxbond 4mo ago
It definitely wasn't causation, the causation flows the other way (criminalizing a proxy for a political belief as an end run around the first amendment).

bilsbie 4mo ago

What’s exciting though is that this administration recently signed an executive order directing the agency to speed up the development and approval process for psychedelics.

Pxtl 4mo ago
Yup. Not sure which particular stopped-clock struck right within the generally anti-science MAHA movement but I think everybody is happy to take the win.
- asveikau 4mo ago
  Ironically enough, the psychedelic field sort of defies some scientific analysis, so could be construed as "anti-science". I've seen some commentary that it's difficult to test. As an example, you can't really do a double blind study with a placebo because it's obvious to everybody who got the drug.
  - connicpu 4mo ago
    The same could be said for a lot of drugs that have strong side effects, just one difference here is the main "side effects" are something some people consider fun. Though you could still do double-blind for comparing the effectiveness of different psychedelics, e.g comparing LSD to Psilocybin.
  - dnautics 4mo ago
    just because it's not double blind doesn't mean it's not science though. like idk, how do you do double blind studies of astronomical phenomena?
    - ambicapter 4mo ago
      > just because it's not double blind doesn't mean it's not science though. Shhh, non-scientists don't know that.
    - asveikau 4mo ago

new-treatment 4mo ago

>>the government had a hysterical fit and completely banned it because people who took it were more likely to oppose the Vietnam War. If you are to believe the Brave New World (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World) worldview of Huxley (who topically was on loads of LSD himself), you'd think the government would want to flood the public with psychedelics -- low to zero toxicity, allows people to zone out, not addictive, allows people to focus inwards rather than focus on civic mismanagement. Any ideas on why the US government is so opposed Psychedelics? Clearly the government is for Bread and circus. In fact, the establishment left and right want desperately for us to believe everything is indeed fine regardless of the facts our eyes see (e.g. Annie Lowrey on https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/05/americans-depressed-economy/687278/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/05/americans-depresse...)

kortex 4mo ago
Psychededics are unpredictable. We know the government looked into their use as thought- and behavior-manipulating tools (MKUltra) but the results proved too chaotic. You might get a manchurian candidate...or the unabomber. But most likely just a renewed outlook on life. Psyches basically raise the "temperature" (in machine learning parlance) of the brain, increasing crosstalk. This can jostle folks out of a mental rut. But it can also create positive feedback loops of upheaval. Soma would only work as it did in BNW if society controlled essentially all sources of information - which is essentially the whole premise.
make3 4mo ago
hallucinogens where taken by hippies, it was probably a way to put a few extra commies and lefties in prison
- elzbardico 4mo ago
  Yes, I think half of the politicians nowadays run on cocaine, no busts on TV.
  - make3 4mo ago

deleted 4mo ago

[deleted]