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Drugs and the Meaning of Life (2011)
- makeset 13y agoI'd never mess with mind-altering drugs. You don't tweak a Ferrari. EDIT: Guys, relax. It was a joke. You think anyone goes and calls their own mind a Ferrari seriously? Jeez.
- beachstartup 13y agoworst analogy ever, especially for a post that so thinly veils your misguided feelings of superiority. ferraris were meant to be tweaked, what do you think the entire field of motorsport exists for? from F1 all the way down to the local DE event at the local track, cars are tweaked endlessly, with passion. you won't find any shortage of tweaked exotics at your local autocross, either. if nobody "twaeked" cars, you wouldn't have ANY of the improvements in performance, safety, and comfort you find in your modern automobile. and furthermore, a HUGE aftermarket exists for ferraris (and other cars, expensive or not) for the sole purpose of tweaking them and making them go faster, safer there is no philosophical difference between the manufacturer "tweaking" cars, a privateer racing team putting together a specialized hill climber, or an enthusiast "tweaking" his own car in a garage while drinking six packs. none whatsoever. it's people, working on cars. period. it's incredible there are people on HN like you. i'm a little shocked to be honest.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- dominotw 13y agoOuch. That was unnecessarly rude. Not a good analogy I agree.
- cristianpascu 13y agoDo we have like sectarian wars on HN now? Who's worthy of being on HN and who's not?
- icebraining 13y agoHaven't we always? When one gets a lot of downvotes, the software often responds with an (hell)ban. How is that not the community deciding that some people are not worthy of being on HN?
- indlebe 13y agoI agree with you aside from your last comment. That wasn't needed. It's great that we have diversity of opinions on here.
- mistercow 13y ago>It's great that we have diversity of opinions on here. I agree that the last comment was overly snooty (I think it was in response to the implied snootiness of the original comment, but snootiness does not justify more snootiness). That said, I think there's a bit of an indirection of the point when you go to celebrating "diversity of opinions". Yes, diversity of opinions is good, but there is a difference between "diversity" and "the space of all possibilities". Some opinions are just dumb, and having them doesn't improve the community. More importantly, it is not merely the opinion that is being rejected - it is the attitude accompanying the opinion. If the original comment had been something along the lines of "I'm wary of trying psychoactive drugs because it seems like the brain is a very sensitive organ, and messing with its state could have subtle unintended consequences", then it would be expressing a very similar opinion, but the attitude would be completely different. By the same token, if the original comment had said "You're wasting your life if you don't use psychoactives to broaden your horizons", then that would be a polar opposite opinion, expressed with a similarly unacceptable attitude. I'm happy to see either of those opinions expressed on HN. But I'd happily do without either attitude.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Dove 13y agoit's incredible there are people on HN like you. i'm a little shocked to be honest. Yes, I was also sure this site was populated exclusively with ferrari-tweaking experts. I'm a little shocked, too, but there it is. ;)
- beachstartup 13y agooh, yeah i guess i didn't include the porsche people like DHH and his le mans prototypes.
- JacksonGariety 13y agoThat was a fantastic response.
- makeset 13y agoYou don't have much of a sense of humor, do you.
- vehementi 13y agoIf nobody gets your joke, the failure in communication was yours - and probably your own sense of humour.
- xxchan 13y agoIrregardless of that, the reply to OP's comment is representative of the attitudes that are common of HN. Sometimes I feel people just disagree and take apart anything for no other reason than longing for plain acknowledgement.
- beachstartup 13y agoirregardless is not a word
- phaemon 13y agoI think it is: I just saw two people use it and they both knew what it meant. ;)
- baby 13y agoAre you sure he's not making a joke as well?
- forklift 13y agoPretty sure dude was joking, but you, sir, win at bitter sanctimony. Bravo.
- cecilpl 13y agoThe human brain is not a Ferrari, exquisitely hand-crafted and intelligently tuned. It's been cobbled together over hundreds of millions of years out of whatever spare parts were lying around. It does its job remarkably well considering, but there are obvious design flaws that could be improved.
- Nursie 13y agoWhat do you mean by mind altering drugs? Do you never touch beer? Coffee? What makes you so sure that the drugs you favour are safe for your mind and that others are not?
- tbirdz 13y agoPersonally I do avoid illegal drugs, and many legal ones such as alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, etc. so I don't think it is really fair to assume hypocrisy on makeset's part here. That being said, I did find their comment to come off a bit arrogant, and dismissive. If you do choose to live a lifestyle where you do not use these substances, like I and many others do, that is okay. But it's not okay to try and push this view on others. In turn, those who do use such substances shouldn't try and push their view on those that don't. Live and let live.
- Nursie 13y agoI'm not trying to push my views on anyone. But people who avoid all mind altering drugs (legal or otherwise) are very few and far between.
- TausAmmer 13y agoEvents took for the worse, by introducing alcohol as the new "norm", we accepted "norm" as something horrible. Then We put nam "drugs" as something way way worse than alcohol. You don't need to use any of these, but this is the perfectly engineered view. You can see this pattern in human behaviour, easily manipulative behaviour. Shopping culture, money spending, corporations, laws, this is like big fractal blooming same thing. Still, it is interesting, seeing it all expressed and experiencing it, ever changing. Have a nice day!
- angersock 13y agoTry it sometime, in a safe environment with good people. You might be surprised what you learn. Saying that is like saying "I'd never mess with Ruby-on-Rails; you can't do better than CGI and C."
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Xcelerate 13y agoUpvoted you because I find it humorous that so many go off the defensive deep end with regard to your little joke. My own opinion regarding the matter is that there are plenty of mind and body altering effects that we encounter every day. I'm a chemical engineer, and anyone who is involved with chemistry or biology can tell you that all but the simplest mechanisms are difficult to understand. There can be repercussions you would never predict from some compound. Heck, even ordinary food items (high fructose corn syrup, margarine) are constantly under debate because of the unknown long-term effects. With a system as complex as the human body, it's difficult to tell what subtle effects may exist. But you can't avoid it. As a whole, people are living longer and healthier than they were in the past (well, maybe that second point is debatable in some countries). I think the best philosophy is to weigh the risks and go with what you ultimately think will be the best route for yourself. Someone who has terminal cancer may be willing to try a new drug that isn't well understood at all, but that's because the possible benefits far outweigh any risk. So it comes down to an individual decision of what you find to be an acceptable risk. And I think it should be a right to make personal decisions like that. For me personally, I'm not going to try illegal drugs because I believe they have a higher probability of causing negative long term effects. Do they actually? Who knows; you could debate this ad nauseum. And science isn't anywhere near a stage to definitively confirm or refute it. But it's not a risk I'm interested in taking. In fact, I find it funny that out of all the unconventional things that Feynman tried in his life, the thing that embarrassed him was the time he tried LSD (he was worried about any unknown effects it might have on his brain).
- Luc 13y ago> My own opinion regarding the matter is that there are plenty of mind and body altering effects that we encounter every day. I'm a chemical engineer, and anyone who is involved with chemistry or biology can tell you that all but the simplest mechanisms are difficult to understand. Yeah, some people even have experiences without drugs that they interpret as revelations from God.
- philthesong 13y agoThis joke sucks!
- ajackrabbit 13y agoEvery human generates DMT, every night.
- mistercow 13y agoAs far as I know, that's purely hypothetical.
- pstuart 13y agoEven if it's true it really doesn't mean anything. DMT was the most intense psychedelic experience I've ever had, but came away with zero insights or spiritual change (unlike as from the usual suspects).
- andyhmltn 13y agoIt effects everybody differently.I highly suggest Rick Strassman's book 'DMT the spirit molecule'. It shows how different and similar they are
- MichaelGG 13y agoI'd highly recommend not reading such nonsense that has no scientific backing. That book is just the author making up explanations, with no evidence. It doesn't "show" anything, at least not more than any other user making up stuff about their favourite drug.
- andyhmltn 13y agoIt's obvious that you haven't actually read the book and have some kind of prejudice against the substance. Try actually reading it before acting so irrational. If you're going to present a debate then at least have the decency to know what you're arguing about. The entire thing is about an approved scientific study into DMT. Much of the book actually goes into the legal troubles they faced setting up such an experiment. The entire book is about various patients undergoing experiments in their reaction to the substance and the like. It's not just a bunch of kids in a basement with something they think is DMT. The actual DMT itself is provided with permission from the government and all the findings are thoroughly documented. One can only assume you've just seen the short film and palmed off the book as the same. It's not.
- cristianpascu 13y ago"Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness." I very much respect Sam Harris for taking the consciousness problem seriously. It poses a real problem to (his) atheism, and he, obviously, rejects the substance dualism, which would logically lead to a religious view on us. However, without a conscious soul, meaning itself loses meaning. What's the ontological support for meaning to rise on? One thing that is little known about Christianity (as an example) of the first millenium is its fierce fight with illusions, hallucinations and misleading spiritual experiences. Contrary to popular beliefs that religious spiritual experiences are quickly taken for granted for their emotional gratification, this was really not the case. Spiritual experiences were not looked after. They were not provoked. On the contrary. Great care was taken as to discern real experiences from illusory or, worse, misleading ones. The same goes with miracles. Discernment, the ability to discern over what's real or not, was the most important virtue. Something that modern Christianity, in many areas, has lost. And with it, its credibility.
- mistercow 13y ago>It poses a real problem to (his) atheism Theism hardly solves the problem of consciousness. It shuffles the question onto a deity without actually answering it.
- cristianpascu 13y agoTo a substance, the soul, not a deity. And that, actually, is an answer.
- lfuller 13y agoThe soul is an immaterial substance - the supernatural, unexplainable. It is, by its very nature, am unknowable question. How can that be an answer by any reasonable definition?
- cristianpascu 13y agoYou should make a distinction between what exists, and can be named, and what can be known and explained. These are two distinct categories. There are things the exist and can be explained, but nothing allows us the say that there aren't things that can't be explained. If what we known to exist and understand can't explain all observed data (our thoughts and inner experiences) than we are forced to infer the existence of something outside our understanding.
- tunesmith 13y agoThe same complaint he makes about "drugs" can also be applied to terms like "legalization" and "regulation" and "prohibition". People react to the terms without coming to a common understanding of what the terms mean, and the conversation doesn't evolve. For instance, one person can be anti-legalization, and another pro-legalization, and have an argument without realizing that they are both against prison sentences for non-violent crimes against the self. Also, for one person legalization might mean that every substance is openly available, whereas for another it might mean openly available in a highly regulated form, whereas for another it might mean that you have to have a license to ingest, or even an approach like Portugal's where you can still be apprehended(!) and made to appear before a panel even though it's without risk of a prison sentence. I also think there's a lack of respect for our own proven cognitive biases, and our interconnected societies. I know several medical social workers that have first-hand experience with the negative impact that drug users have on our communities even if the users are technically only ingesting products into their own bodies, aren't dealing, and aren't negatively impacting immediate family members. People might think they are making responsible independent choices when they put some of these substances into their bodies, but that doesn't mean they're always correct - and the burden of these choices can then be put on the shoulders of larger society.
- cle 13y agoI agree, there can be a lot of negative externalities from drug use. At the same time, there can be positive externalities. Everyone knows what these are. I would like to see more nuanced drug policy. Let's try to discourage the kind of drug use that leads to negative externalities, without discouraging the kind of drug use that can lead to positive ones. For example, treatment instead of imprisonment. If we take a lot of the resources that we spend on imprisoning drug users and spend it on treatment and honest drug use education, I think we'd see a lot more progress. Of course, it's hard to come up with campaign slogans or appeal to emotions by making cogent, nuanced arguments. So I have little faith anyone will actually do this anytime soon.
- lovemenot 13y ago>> Of course, it's hard to come up with campaign slogans or appeal to emotions by making cogent, nuanced arguments. Just say "it depends".
- JumpCrisscross 13y agoI recommend David Nutt's Drugs Without the Hot Air [1] on the subject. Nutt, a British psychiatrist and neuropsychopharmacologist, headed up the U.K.'s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (a British DEA/FDA hybrid). He was canned when he suggested that alcohol may be more damaging than many controlled substances. Amongst the goodies from the book are this chart [2], which plots dependence risk against toxicologists' ratings of physical harm for various psychoactive substances. Nutt memorably compared the "20 drugs considered in the ISCD’s 2010 report, ranked by overall harm" with their legal Class and "found a correlation of 0.04 – which means that there was effectively no relationship at all." Also: "Francis Crick, who discovered the double helix structure of DNA with James Watson, and Kary Mullis, who invented the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), had both taken [LSD], and attributed some of their understanding and insights to it." [1] http://www.amazon.com/Drugs-Without-Hot-David-Nutt/dp/1906860165/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372626843&sr=8-1&keywords=drugs+hot+air http://www.amazon.com/Drugs-Without-Hot-David-Nutt/dp/190686... Drugs Without the Hot Air: Minimising the Harms of Legal and Illegal Drugs by David Nutt [2] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Rational_scale_to_assess_the_harm_of_drugs_%28mean_physical_harm_and_mean_dependence%29.svg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Rational_...
- hkhanna 13y agoThis man's writing is such a pleasure to read.
- _yosefk 13y ago"Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues." We study and work for the purpose of altering the bits representing our bank account balances. Is that equivalent to hacking the bank and altering the bits directly? We make friendships "to feel emotions like love". To what degree is it sane to misrepresent yourself and otherwise deceive people to make them your "friends"? There's a contest for the shortest program printing itself to the screen. Is opening the file with the source code and copying the code to the screen really as good an entry as any other? Any sane person and even most varieties of the insane person realize that the signal you're receiving is a means to infer that something is happening out there, not an end in itself. This is not to say that there should or should not be a War on Drugs (which, since I'm not an American citizen, is really none of my business.)
- md224 13y agoYou seem to be making the case that taking drugs is in some sense "cheating" your way to a psychological experience, and therefore somewhat immoral or superficial. That's a valid perspective, but consider this: do you consider drinking coffee to be cheating? Do you consider the ingestion of caffeine to reduce fatigue and aid in cognitive performance as a bad thing? There's certainly a difference between being more alert and having a psychedelic experience, but they're both a manipulation of the mind via psychoactive substances.
- wslh 13y agoIndeed the debate doesn't end there. Is doing meditation cheating? sports?
- ignostic 13y agoYour comparisons are all extremely unfair in the same way: they involve unjust disregard for the well-being of others. There are victims in each of your analogies. There are no victims if I safely use a mind-altering drug like LSD. Responsible drug use has more in common with using a neat programming trick to accomplish a personal goal than it does with hacking. Still, I come across this comparison often: like people think it's "cheating" to use drugs. Nonsense. If there's a tool I can use to safely accomplish a worthwhile goal, why not use it? It might be "unnatural" or "cheating" to use a sharp stick to fight off a predator, but I doubt you have qualms with such physical tools. Is it cheating to put a roof over your head to avoid the elements? You live in unnatural conditions surrounded by synthetic solutions to accomplish your goals. You're using some sort of electronic device now. I fail to see the distinction between synthetic physical tools and synthetic chemical tools, but I do see your argument is full of holes.
- josscrowcroft 13y agoReading other comments here: don't get hung up on his opening gambit: "Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness.". That's just an introductory point. I recommend reading the whole article, which is a beautiful balance of science and spirit, while being totally upfront and honest about the risks involved, even to the spiritually 'serious'. As for me - psychedelics changed everything, but I stayed the same (or maybe everything stayed the same, but sad parts of me continue to be stripped away). They continue to burn what is not real, as long as the heart is directed squarely at Truth and the mind is kept sharp and open. The trend is towards greater compassion, deeper love and surrender, coming more fully into the wholeness of being!
- casual_slacker 13y agoLSD makes very smart people get hung up on trying to pull logic out of strange old metaphors. I always felt it was a stimulant for the mechanism in our brain that makes new connections. Metaphors represent connections that are kept around because our culture gives value to vague non-conclusions.
- StandardFuture 13y agoI don't think people are fully reading this article looking at the top comment... >There is nothing that one can experience on a drug that is not, at some level, an expression of the brain’s potential. Hence, whatever one has experienced after ingesting a drug like LSD is likely to have been experienced, by someone, somewhere, without it. >I cannot account for why my adventures with psychedelics were uniformly pleasant until they weren’t—but when the doors to hell finally opened, they appear to have been left permanently ajar. It is quite obvious this guy is someone who has well experimented with psychedelics and is actually urging people to avoid them if their approach is based on falsifiable reasoning e.g. 'opening their eyes to true reality/life' or some unscientific bullshit like that. And WTF is all this commenting about how alcohol should be considered SO bad for a healthy society. Wine and beer in moderation is actually perfectly healthy. It is the lack of control for moderate consumption that creates a weakened human/society. However, this lack of self-control can appear in numerous other areas (food, internet, TV, work, etc.).
- Nursie 13y agoAlcohol has a greater potential for harm than a variety of other recreational substances, legal or otherwise. That's basically it AFAICT. It has significant addiction potential, people do abuse, and there are long term harms associated with that abuse.
- StandardFuture 13y ago>greater potential for harm than ... other substances Uh ... this style of description would need more parameters for a proper classification of alcohol's 'abilities' in relation to other substances. >significant addiction potential This is PURELY on an individual basis i.e. that potential is relative per person. >long term harms associated with ... abuse Yep, very true. It's also true of almost ANY type of abuse. EDIT: Although, I do realize that this is just another: "Come on, marijuana is not any worse than alcohol" style argument. And for that singular case I would say: yeah sure your case holds up alright.
- Nursie 13y ago
- ignostic 13y ago>"Some are illegal; some are stigmatized; some are dangerous—though, perversely, these sets only partially intersect" I'd say stigmatization and legalization tend to correlate well, but sadly neither law nor cultural attitude have much to do with actual danger. http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_cause_most_harm http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_caus... LSD remains a Schedule 1 drug, even though it's about as dangerous as caffeine. >"...if I knew my daughter would eventually develop a fondness for methamphetamine or crack cocaine, I might never sleep again. But if she does not try a psychedelic like psilocybin or LSD at least once in her adult life, I will worry that she may have missed one of the most important rites of passage a human being can experience." I couldn't agree more; reading the statement above made me want to stand up and cheer.
- drugthrowaway 13y agoExactly. The only thing that bothers me about stigmatization and legalization is the 40+ year old crowd that feel marijuana should not be legal.
- miloshadzic 13y agoI wouldn't blame it all on middle-aged folks. In my experience, plenty of young people think that all hell would break loose if drugs were legalized or decriminalized.
- tptacek 13y agoEven the author of this article doesn't make the claim that LSD is "as dangerous as caffeine".
- Xcelerate 13y agoI find it odd that the author of the article assumes his daughter is going to try drugs one day. Personally, I never have, and never plan to (23 years old). In fact, there's plenty of people I know who don't even drink -- not because of any moral or legal reason, but simply because they aren't interested in it. To clarify, I don't care what things other people try (I encourage everyone to make their own decisions), but it strikes me as odd that he just assumes she's going to go ahead and try all sorts of things. I get the impression that people who have tried drugs before are incredulous that there exist people who are simply apathetic about the whole experience.
- JacksonGariety 13y agoYou should re-read the essay. You may think you've never used drugs but you have, you just don't understand the meaning of the word. I'd try and think of "drugs" less like substances and more like vices. If you've ever used a vice to help yourself emotionally or physically you've taken drugs.
- Xcelerate 13y agoNo, I clearly understood what he meant by "drug". In fact another comment I made on here elaborates on that usage. But he specifically mentioned alcohol and marijuana, to which I was referring.
- Nursie 13y agoIf you've had a beer, or a cup of coffee, you've tried mind altering drugs. That was part of the point of the article.
- sublimit 13y agoThis is such a dumb argument. People say "drug" isn't a meaningful classification because it mixes different categories of substances, and in the next sentence they're equating coffee with LSD, apparently to defend the use of the latter.
- andrewcooke 13y agoi would like to try lsd, but i don't know of a safe, reliable, legal way of doing so. it just occurred to me that perhaps someone here might?
- Nursie 13y agoLegal? AL-LAD Safe, reliable... no such thing.
- vehementi 13y agoShort answer: talk to hippie looking people in real life. Research on erowid too.
- cnp 13y agoLSD is a complicated thing to produce and very few people have the skills / knowledge to do so, hence its rarity. What I would recommend is Psilocybin Mushrooms; they grow in the wild, and the experience, imo, is whole orders of magnitude more strange, introspective and beautiful than LSD. Its also completely "natural" and leaves your system without a trace in just a few hours.
- pessimizer 13y agoLegal is going to be nearly impossible. In the interest of having a continuum of badness for every class of drugs, and also in the interest of condemning the 1960s, LSD has been classified as the Worst Psychedelic, usually punished with harsher penalties than heroin, for example. LSD was at least common and cheap until the 90s (when William Pickard[1] was busted), but now it's not even that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago>Legal is going to be nearly impossible. // There are probably several countries in which it's not illegal to produce or consume LSD? Or maybe on a boat in international waters? Perhaps that could be a new line for P&O.
- deleted 13y ago
- lettergram 13y agoPersonally, I feel more gratified after working hard and increasing my ability/achievements than doing drugs.. Perhaps I haven't done the right drugs (though I've done my fair share)? I've never had something happens where the world suddenly made sense, nor have I felt some spiritual connection with the cosmos or my soul. I feel that the one true way to understand myself and the world is to live in it unaltered.
- hristov 13y agoIt is really annoying that drugs proponents ignore the obvious negative effects of drugs. Pretending that LSD is harmless is utter utter bulshit. There are so many cases of serious mental problems including permanent insanity caused by psychadelics. And of course there are also the thousands of people that are not exactly insane but have their brains pretty much fried and are just not very good for anything useful anymore. I get to meet a lot of those in LA. To mention one of the more recent fruits of psychedelics -- the guy that shot that US congresswoman in the head fried his brain on mushrooms. Yeah the drug war is horrible but people that promote dangerous drugs and lie about their safety are almost as bad. A convenient lie is a very dangerous thing. Because if people want to believe something they are much more likely to believe it. So I bet this disgusting essay will cause a bunch of kids to try LSD and a percentage of them will be completely fucked because of it. There are a few writers that have tried drugs and are completely honest about them, but they are very few. It is very hard for a drug user to be honest about drugs. I would recommend Philip K Dick. If anyone wants to try hard drugs, please read "A scanner darkly", and then read a Philip K Dick biography to see that he knew what he was talking about.
- cnp 13y agoThere have been very, very few documented ill-effects of LSD use. Like, an astronomically small number given the range of use. Those people you describe in LA are most likely suffering from the effects of other drugs, namely alcohol.
- Nursie 13y ago>> There are so many cases of serious mental problems including permanent insanity caused by psychadelics. And of course there are also the thousands of people that are not exactly insane but have their brains pretty much fried and are just not very good for anything useful anymore. I get to meet a lot of those in LA. Do you have numbers and studies on this? Was it just LSD or have they been chronic multi-drug users for multiple years? Because your statements directly conflict with the state of the art of current research. >> There are a few writers that have tried drugs and are completely honest about them, but they are very few. It is very hard for a drug user to be honest about drugs. I would recommend Philip K Dick. If anyone wants to try hard drugs, please read "A scanner darkly", and then read a Philip K Dick biography to see that he knew what he was talking about. PKD and his friends were indeed into all sorts of things, and got into all sorts of trouble. His main complaint seems to have been that nobody told them what was safe and what was not, and that through innocent experimentation all sorts of bad things happened. Hysterical disinformation, which is all we've had from government for around 30 years now, does nothing to help this. Nothing.
- philthesong 13y agoI don't find that taking a drug is any different than eating food or drinking water. You get hungry, so you eat and gain energy and feel fullness on your stomach, which leads you to drowsiness. Of course, conventionally, taking drugs(like smoking weed or taking MDMA) is done for different reasons than just survival.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- CamperBob2 13y agoWow. From the article: On my first trip to Nepal, I took a rowboat out on Phewa Lake in Pokhara, which offers a stunning view of the Annapurna range. It was early morning, and I was alone. As the sun rose over the water, I ingested 400 micrograms of LSD I can't imagine what it must be like to be someone who would do something like that. I just... can't. Is that a sign of good judgment, or of cowardice?
- gboudrias 13y agoWhy would that be cowardice?
- CamperBob2 13y agoI've never taken LSD, but as I understand it: 1) It may impair your ability to operate a boat 2) It may impair your ability to swim 3) In many/most Asian countries, getting caught with drugs is taken about as seriously as gunning down a convent full of nuns and five-year-old orphans would be treated here in the US 4) It may impair your ability to talk your way out of situation (3) above after the authorities rescue you from situations (1) and/or (2) Clearly Harris wasn't afraid of any of these consequences, so that makes him either much braver than I am, or much dumber. He doesn't seem dumber.
- Nursie 13y agoBit of both. People that do LSD in places like this tend to have a bit of a bulletproof mindset, or are young enough and foolish enough that they still feel immortal and untouchable. You don't do it if you're worried or insecure about ... well anything much, IMHO.
- aestetix 13y agoI'm kind of amazed nobody has mentioned MAPS yet (http://www.maps.org http://www.maps.org). Psychedelics are a tool like any other. There is no such thing as "safe" use, which is why organizations like MAPS, DanceSafe, Erowid, etc all encourage the phrase "drug harm reduction." I have personally witnessed LSD destroy someone's life, and yet I have witnessed the same with alcohol (and am happy we have AA) and tobacco (cancer). The key, as with anything, is moderation and education. That said, there has been a long trend of disinformation in the US, that has permeated all over the world. As a starting point, if people want to learn more about the crusade against cannabis (marijuana), check out Hank Anslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Anslinger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Anslinger). For a more recent example, take a look at Rep Jared Polis questioning DEA Administrator Leonhart about why some drugs are illegal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFgrB2Wmh5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFgrB2Wmh5s. With regards to scientific inquiry into measuring the effects of these drugs, thanks to the efforts of Roland Griffith at Johns Hopkins (and others), we're beginning to overturn 40 years of prohibition with studies into the effects of psilocybin (shrooms) and MDMA (ecstacy) for end of life experience and PTSD therapy. Some links to that research: http://www.maps.org/research/mdma/ http://www.maps.org/research/mdma/ http://www.maps.org/research/psilo-lsd/ http://www.maps.org/research/psilo-lsd/ If this interests you and you ask "why hasn't this been done before?", I recommend searching for interviews with Rick Doblin, PhD (founder of MAPS) where he explains his long battle with the DEA, and how they eventually turned to the FDA, which focuses more on the science than the politics. So yes, it is fair to say that there hasn't been much scientific research done into this, but to no fault of the scientists. I look forward to the next few years as the results of these studies come out and the US hopefully begins to permit these substances to be used in therapy.
- easy_rider 13y agoI think the problem with drugs in society today can definitely be largely attributed to governments setting the bar to "dangerous, addictive and illegal" and smart people have to move down from there and educate themselves. Alexander Shulgin who synthesized and researched around 150 phenethylamines and tryptamines said it pretty well: "had been brought about by a fraction of a gram of a white solid, but that in no way whatsoever could it be argued that these memories had been contained within the white solid ... I understood that our entire universe is contained in the mind and the spirit. We may choose not to find access to it, we may even deny its existence, but it is indeed there inside us, and there are chemicals that can catalyze its availability." He is also responsible for introducing MDMA and later 2CB to psychiatrists. Even recreational drug users are now using "Shulgin trials" and overall I feel a lot of my peers try to educate themselves, but unfortunately are often misinformed. You can actually only a good idea on how to use certain drugs responsible if you are aware of at least the most important biochemical functions such as P450 liver enzyme, MAOis and especially the monoamine transport system. You need to be aware of for example drug interactions with SSRI's and serotonin releasing agents. For example: grapefruit juice is a weak MAOI inhibitor and can potentate the effect of certain drugs. Stronger MAOIs could pose lethal danger. St Johns Wort also has a lot of interactions as it works as a SSRI, and sold over the counter as a supplement here. It is found in trials to be as effective as benzo's in cases of anxiety. Mostly, psychedelics are looked down upon by society, while we feed our kids methylphenidate, dextroamphetamine, l-amphetamine, lithium, a whole scala of benzodiazepene's, tryptans, and antipsychotics. Hey people, they work on exactly the same neurons... dummies. Maybe we should start banning essential and non essential amino acids, and antioxidants. OR maybe we should start educating about proper their benefit of preventing drug induced neurotoxicity as a neuroprotective agent and as replenishment of used up GABA, serotonin, dopamine etc. I'm 26, live in the Netherlands, using mushrooms a dozen times from my 15th-18th, never touching anything else except for smoking weed and alcohol, I found it mind-opening, I really felt reborn after I experienced an ego-death and my mind melted into nothingness. It was like this feeling of bliss and comfort and letting-go, there is nothing that ever compared to it. I would say the occasional binge drinking we did at parties en masse would be considered a lot more harmful by doctors, but guess which one got the ban? I would consider my drug using peers often cautious, seemingly educated but often ill-informed, which I perceive to be due to the 'evil' bias that is often noted. They now know about the good and bad effects of certain drugs, but not HOW they work. If they would have this information more readily educated they could be made aware of responsible use and harm reduction, and then make their own choices. Parents could also be able to make their own choices of putting their kids on synthetic cocaine or amphetamines. Hey weed worked for me, and it is frowned down upon. Also L-Theanine+caffeïne (i.e. tea, but it doesn't contain a lot of theanine per cup) is proven to be really effective in focus, and relaxation. It lowers blood pressure, ups dopamine, and therefor it works great in treating anxiety. St Johns Wort is also proven to be as effective as benzo's in treating depression. L-Tyrosine is a precursor to dopa as well, and replenishes the neurons. 5-HTP is a precursor to serotonin/melatonin. I'm often upset with people taking melatonin and ruining their chemical balance. Let your brain synthesize it for you please.. or it will stop doing it altogether!