Drugs and the Meaning of Life (2011)

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life

by rosser • 13 years ago

304 228 13 years ago

samharris.org

makeset2• 13 years ago

I'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.

beachstartup3• 13 years ago

worst 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.

dominotw• 13 years ago

Ouch. That was unnecessarly rude. Not a good analogy I agree.

cristianpascu8• 13 years ago

Do we have like sectarian wars on HN now? Who's worthy of being on HN and who's not?

indlebe• 13 years ago

I agree with you aside from your last comment. That wasn't needed. It's great that we have diversity of opinions on here.

Dove• 13 years ago

it'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. ;)

makeset2• 13 years ago

You don't have much of a sense of humor, do you.

cecilpl• 13 years ago

The 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.

Nursie20• 13 years ago

What 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• 13 years ago

Personally 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.

angersock• 13 years ago

Try 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."

Xcelerate9• 13 years ago

Upvoted 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• 13 years 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.

philthesong3• 13 years ago

This joke sucks!

ajackrabbit• 13 years ago

Every human generates DMT, every night.

mistercow6• 13 years ago

As far as I know, that's purely hypothetical.

pstuart• 13 years ago

Even 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).

mordae• 13 years ago

In any case, there is a big difference between the amount you get in the sleep and the 60mg trip... People would definitely notice the effects when being woken up in the middle of the night.

cristianpascu8• 13 years 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.

mistercow6• 13 years 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.

cristianpascu8• 13 years ago

To a substance, the soul, not a deity. And that, actually, is an answer.

TausAmmer2• 13 years ago

You make your own meaning, do you?

Don't you?

lolcraft• 13 years ago

Look, if you think rejecting dualism is "not taking the consciousness problem seriously", you should read more.

And well, one thing that Christianism seems to be still struggling to learn is that, beyond reproductible and well defined experiments, and falsifiable hypotheses, nothing can really be more than logical inference from some axioms. Maybe some dudes up in the Vatican implicitly defined some axioms about what's "really a mystical experience", probably marginalizing the Orthodox and Gnostics and Cathars while they were at it. I don't personally care.

simonster2• 13 years ago

If you Google "taking consciousness seriously," the first link is to an excerpt from David Chalmers' book. That book as a whole is essentially a long argument that understanding consciousness requires a dualist position (although not a substance or interactionist form). I don't agree with it, but it's compelling. If you believe the position that "rejecting dualism is 'not taking the consciousness problem seriously'" is an ignorant one, you should read it.

md2242• 13 years ago

However, without a conscious soul, meaning itself loses meaning. What's the ontological support for meaning to rise on?

I sort of understand what you mean here, but at the same time I don't. Are you specifically referring to intrinsic meaning, as opposed to socially-constructed meaning?

As an agnostic that rejects supernatural explanations, I don't feel a conflict between the ability of human beings to ascribe meaning to things and the possibility that the "soul" (in the sense of a magically indivisible entity of self) does not exist.

cristianpascu8• 13 years ago

My point is that there is no intrinsic meaning in the bits that make the computer I am using right now. It's all atoms. The causal connections that transform my typing on a keyboard to pixels on the screen, it's all physics.

The same way, the brain is a whole made of parts. They may be causally interconnected, but just that. You have different physical states over time, and in different parts of the brain. But understanding and awareness and phenomenological experiences are not there. Or, better said, it's puzzling to see how they are there when there's no clue of how they occur.

Udo3• 13 years ago

its fierce fight with illusions, hallucinations and misleading spiritual experiences

Only for competitive reasons. To get a stable foothold, Christianity had to either do away with the rampant spiritualism of the largely shamanistic religions it replaced, or in some cases had to embrace and extend them. This is and was a purely strategic consideration.

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.

One of his personal core issues is to "rescue" spiritual experiences and bring them over into a secular world. It is not necessarily a concern of atheism per se. For him, as for most atheists, there is not really a "consciousness problem" comparable to what a religious person might identify. As an atheist myself, there is nothing inherently problematic about consciousness, or intelligence, or feelings.

However, without a conscious soul, meaning itself loses meaning. What's the ontological support for meaning to rise on?

I think most atheists, myself included, as well as many religious people would agree with you that the mind gives rise to meaning. However, I have no idea what you mean by ontological support? Are you asserting that without an overriding supernatural meaning-giver the mind cannot form a world view? Or that a mind capable of categorizing the world meaningfully cannot arise without supernatural influence?

cristianpascu8• 13 years ago

Notice that I said the first millenium, not the first century. By the 5th century, Christianity had a stable foothold.

By ontological support I mean a substance. The mind is still an undefined substance. Is it the brain or is the soul? If you state it is the brain, as I take it to be the default naturalistic/atheist option, than the problem is still not solved. So it's still a problem, something that needs explanation.

tunesmith2• 13 years ago

The 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• 13 years ago

I 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• 13 years 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".

Nursie20• 13 years ago

On the subject of biases - do you think perhaps that the selection of people that your medical social worker friends see might, maybe, represent the problem end of the spectrum of users? Rather than a representative cross section?

I don't have any doubt some substances are much worse than others for this, meth and crack spring to mind, but the personal experiences of social workers are IMHO useful to see what can happen when things go wrong, not useful to assess how likely that is.

tunesmith2• 13 years ago

Yeah, I'm making more a "there exists" argument rather than saying that they're representative of all drug users. However, it's common enough that the impact on society is non-negligible, IMO.

It of course invites the question of "how much of that negative impact means that some form of regulation is worthwhile?" I think that's an interesting discussion to have, the ones that admit the problem and try and quantify it. I'm not sure that many people are able to have the conversation outside of policy wonks, though.

JumpCrisscross4• 13 years ago

I 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/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_...

Alex39175• 13 years ago

which means that there was effectively no relationship at all.

This is in large part because Nutt's research is entirely fraudulent. C.f. my previous analysis here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4044431

Nursie20• 13 years ago

Fraud you say?

Perhaps you should inform Imperial College, one of the UK's most prestigious science and engineering institutes, where he currently holds a chair in neuropsychopharmacology.

JumpCrisscross4• 13 years ago

"The full methodology isn't actually published anywhere."

I believe it is: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-67.... Is a panel of experts providing views on an objective criteria the most satisfying solution? No. But they are open about the method, the scoring system, and data used to set assumptions. Plus, it beats "experts" legislating based on subjective, opaque critera.

"The rankings are creating by combining a lot of different factors that don't have anything to do with each other, e.g. by combining harm to the user with harm to society"

Nutt et all advocate considering the harm done to society by drugs, versus individuals, since it is at the society-wide level that we regulate. In any case, the data are provided to allow for one to pry apart the local and global harms. Here is a chart allowing you to, visually, do just that: http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_caus....

"The harms for drugs are measured as they are typically used, rather than correcting for things like differences in demographic and route of administration."

In his book, he spends a good deal of time addressing routes of administration, pointing out that "the health impacts of a drug can vary enormously depending on how it’s consumed". He is similarly expansive on the role of "setting" and culture in vulnerability and harm potential.

"The harms of the drugs caused by prohibition are not accounted for."

I thought he went quite extensively into the War on Drugs and how it wasn't "obviously the wrong thing to try in the 1970s, but today it is clearly doing more harm than good", that the "'drugs problem' needs radical rethinking as a public-health crisis rather than a moral crusade." He also uses the example of Portugal to show how legalisation can reduce indirect drug harms.

"They're not accounting for the benefits of drug use, only the harms."

Nutt is presently at the forefront of the British effort to de-regulate drugs. Further, harm reduction should first focus on clarifying risks.

bencollier49• 13 years ago

Whoah, libel alert! Worth looking into this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law

corr0• 13 years ago

"found a correlation of 0.04 – which means that there was effectively no relationship at all."

This is scary:

Independence => 0 correlation

but

~(0 correlation => independence)

Please get your basic statistic straight.

simonster2• 13 years ago

"effectively no relationship" and "statistically independent" are not necessarily equivalent claims. Assuming Nutt used a rank correlation statistic (Pearson correlation is not well-suited to ordinal data) then zero correlation most likely implies no linear relationship between ranks. That's not equivalent to independence, but I think it's accurate to characterize it as "effectively no relationship" in the context of a discussion about drug laws. OTOH, a scatterplot would be more diagnostic than a statistic here.

hkhanna• 13 years ago

This man's writing is such a pleasure to read.

_yosefk2• 13 years 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.)

md2242• 13 years ago

You 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• 13 years ago

Indeed the debate doesn't end there. Is doing meditation cheating? sports?

ignostic3• 13 years ago

Your 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.

chrischen6• 13 years ago

His analogies are apt. His point is that in all those cases the signal itself is meaningless and inconsequential to the end.

The victim, in his examples, is the achievement of the end goal, which becomes a casualty of focusing only on the signal.

It probably applies to stimulant drugs more than it does to drugs like LSD. But like the original essay suggests, there's probably an evolutionary reason why we don't constantly experience life like we do on LSD, because we'd be excited and fascinated by everything.

If the goal of life is to increase our experiences... then the only way to maximize that in the long term is to survive. If you tweak the algorithm to give experience/pleasure without any work (drugs), then you'll no longer have an incentive to work to increase survivability. If you tweak it to give no increase in experience and happiness, and focus only on survivability, you'll have no incentive to survive (no reason to live, because we've defined the goal of life to increase experience and happiness). So the most optimal solution, as nature has converged at, is somewhere in the middle, where we get experience and pleasure but only when we work for it by prolonging survivability. Introducing drugs into this method will shifts the balance to the less optimal side of the reward-effort continuum.

The potential victim is yourself and your progeny, and you're actually shooting yourself in the foot in terms of maximizing experiences/happiness as a species by introducing drugs.

_yosefk2• 13 years ago

A self-printing program that opens its source code file is an example where there's no disregard for anyone's well-being, and where a programming trick is used; the trick, however, misses the point of writing a self-printing program - that point being the use of a different kind of trick.

My point was not to say that drug use is immoral because you cheat, just that our goals generally aren't to observe a signal but rather to achieve something of which the signal is a symptom. Perhaps printing out the wrong account balance on your home printer and happily staring at that, without hacking into the bank, would have been a better example.

lcedp• 13 years ago

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.

You don't actually know what is happening out there cause you can't experience out there directly, only through you senses which are always deceiving to some degree.

People love watching movies/reading books/having a drink just to receive a signal not to infer what is happening there. Otherwise they will watch just news, but no fiction would exist.

josscrowcroft• 13 years ago

Reading 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• 13 years ago

LSD 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.

StandardFuture2• 13 years ago

I 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.).

Nursie20• 13 years ago

Alcohol 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.

StandardFuture2• 13 years 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.

mmariani• 13 years ago

Not to mention the high correlation between violent crimes and alcohol.

[0] http://ncadd.org/index.php/learn-about-alcohol/alcohol-and-c...

jaxytee• 13 years ago

I have personally experienced both spectrums with my psychedelic experiences.

One positive experience involved me sitting on a hill near a road only to get lost in a the almost musical sound of cars whooshing by. Afterwards I returned to my apartment and experienced amazing closed eye visuals of some kind of fused technological/organic robots trees. The onset was seeing the walls of my apartment melt before my very eyes.

One negative experience involved me pacing back and forth furiously in my apartment for hours while crying hysterically. If felt as if the weight of everything (good or bad) humanity has done and would do in the future was crushing me. I think tripping alone may have added to this experience.

7Figures2Commas6• 13 years ago

Wine and beer in moderation is actually perfectly healthy.

The idea that moderate consumption of alcohol is "perfectly healthy" is actually quite debatable. Taking red wine as a an example because of the popular belief that it has notable health benefits when consumed in moderation, a few points:

1. Many of the studies on the supposed health benefits of red wine are inconclusive. For instance, we still can't explain the French Paradox.

2. Last year, it came to light that a researcher who was behind some of the studies on the benefits of resveratrol falsified data. A decent amount of the hype around red wine in recent years was centered on resveratrol and it's important to note that even if there are benefits, the actual relationship between compounds like this and human health are in most cases not yet clearly established.

3. Red wine contains known carcinogens.

4. Even moderate consumption can add significant calories to one's diet. For example, if you're a male and drink two glasses (which is considered a moderate, "healthy" amount) three days a week, you're adding nearly 3,000 calories to your monthly caloric intake. Depending on when and how you drink your wine, you might also consume more food because of wine's impact on hormones associated with appetite. By the way, this is even worse in most cases for beer, where with some major brands, a single can or bottle a day can easily add 4,000+ calories over the course of a month.

5. Many of the potentially beneficial compounds in wine are available through other food sources that come with fewer drawbacks. In other words, you don't need to drink a glass or two of red wine every day to get your antioxidants.

The bottom line: if you're going to enjoy a glass or two of wine (or beer) with a meal, you shouldn't justify it on the belief that it's "perfectly healthy".

tptacek4• 13 years ago

3. Red wine contains known carcinogens.

So do potatoes.

I picked this one point out to rebut with a potato, but I think my potato wields equally devastating attacks against the rest of your points, too. Olive oil, oily fish, grapes, you name it: lots of things that currently do seem very healthy in moderation have a downside if abused.

One thing my potato is very unlikely to do: cause a psychically shattering experience that severs the last link between a troubled mind and the reality it inhabits. Not so much with the warning label requirements, with our trusty potato.

conroe643• 13 years ago

Regarding point 4, most of the calories that come from red wine is alcohol. Alcohol isn't metabolized the same way as other foods, so comparing calories from alcohol to other foods is misleading.

http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/AlcoholCaloriesAndWeight.ht...

The rest of what you write doesn't really validate your conclusion. Actually, there has been a study indicating the reverse. People who drink live longer.

http://www.mnn.com/food/beverages/stories/study-abstaining-f...

ignostic3• 13 years 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_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.

drugthrowaway2• 13 years ago

Exactly.

The only thing that bothers me about stigmatization and legalization is the 40+ year old crowd that feel marijuana should not be legal.

miloshadzic• 13 years ago

I 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.

tptacek4• 13 years ago

Even the author of this article doesn't make the claim that LSD is "as dangerous as caffeine".

Xcelerate9• 13 years ago

I 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.

JacksonGariety2• 13 years ago

You 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.

Xcelerate9• 13 years ago

No, 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.

Nursie20• 13 years ago

If 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• 13 years ago

This 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.

Xcelerate9• 13 years ago

That was part of the point of the article.

Yes, it was. But that wasn't the point of the paragraph I was referring to. Shall I cite it?

virtualwhys3• 13 years ago

While true, it's quite a stretch to equate powerful hallucinogens with coffee (alcohol is another matter).

I mean, man, LSD is no joke, that will take you places that an ocean of coffee won't help you reach. Of course, ideally we don't reach for anything.

shin_lao• 13 years ago

You're argument is like saying "you'll go over the speed limit some day, therefore you will be a criminal".

A book can alter your mind more than any drugs. So what's your point?

dwc2• 13 years ago

So you have never had a cup of coffee or tea? I'm not aware of any adult I personally know who hasn't partaken of some substance that alters perception in some way. Though no doubt such individuals exist, such a state of absolute abstinence is not something I'd think of imposing on my children.

Take into account the actual effects and remove social stigma and legal ramifications, and the substances I'd be ok with for my children would be different than current norms.

Also, I've known quite a few people who have never had a drink, smoked pot, etc., and I respect their desires. Bit even they drank coffee or tea, or used other substances that alter mood or perception.

Xcelerate9• 13 years ago

So you have never had a cup of coffee or tea?

No, actually. Both smell gross to me; I don't plan on trying either.

... but I do like Monsters.

I see what your point is, but the paragraph I am referring to in the article specifically mentions marijuana. He uses the more conventional use of the word "drug" in that paragraph, and so I am simply continuing that usage than the more general form he was using in the rest of the article. Surely so many HN readers aren't getting caught up on these semantic distinctions throughout the article?

arg01• 13 years ago

I don't find it odd. I'd assume it's the same attitude plenty of parents have towards sex/parties. Assuming their child will be doing that even though it's not a given doesn't seem outrageous to me and seems like a fair analogy.

alwaysinshade• 13 years ago

it strikes me as odd that he just assumes she's going to go ahead and try all sorts of things.

Given how pragmatic Sam is about drug-taking, it would be fair to assume that his daughter will grow up with similar views and consider experimenting. My dad's experiences with/thoughts on psychedelic drugs were what paved the way for me to experiment. And because of my family's attitude towards mind-altering substances, I was able to experiment safely which was an encouraging factor.

philthesong3• 13 years ago

You may say you've never done any 'drugs'. But you've certainly gone through changes of consciousness. That's the author's point.

freshhawk3• 13 years ago

I might be one of those people who strikes you as "incredulous" and, to be fair, I'm sure there are people who are actually "apathetic about the whole experience".

I personally have met a fair number of people who claim to have the same or similar beliefs about this as you. But every single one who I've had a friendly conversation with about it has turned out to not be apathetic or even close. It has always been some combination of fear of loss of control, some desire to stay "pure" or an ideological commitment to the fact that these things are "bad" because they got told so as children.

I ask whenever I can, and I ask in the most friendly, non-judgmental way possible because in my experience the average reaction to someone saying what you said is much more aggressive and confrontational than merely "incredulous". But I ask because I'm honestly very curious about this. It seems so odd to categorically state that there are some perfectly safe experiences you are positive that you will never try. Are there other experiences you feel the same way about? ("I never have, and never plan to try eating Greek food, it's because of apathy" for example)

If in the future you are in an accident or require chemotherapy or something that involves you being exposed to drugs that have an effect that you enjoy and find fulfilling/useful/pleasurable and you could experience that again, with negligible risk of any adverse effects would you do so?

lmm3• 13 years ago

It's odd. I pride myself on being open to new experiences, and making my own judgements rather than relying on the law. But I seem to have an instinctive aversion to drug-taking (and it's not as simple as legality - I visited Amsterdam recently but to my own surprise found I didn't want to try the cannabis).

Part of it is, I think, that I know I have addictive tendencies and don't want to give them any chances. I drink alcohol strictly on social occasions only - but when I do, I drink more than I should. Sometimes I catch myself going to parties less because I'll enjoy the company than as an excuse to drink. Heck, it's hard enough keeping my coffee intake under control.

Part of it is simple snobbery. The most surprising thing about Amsterdam's "coffee shops", to me, was how divey they all looked; boarded-up windows, overflowing rubbish bins, alongside tanning parlours and tattoo/piercing shops. Nowhere seemed sophisticated, intellectual. (Oddly enough, this was in complete contrast to the brothels). My mental image of drug users (with the possible exception of cocaine, and there are other reasons to avoid that) is of a class and culture that I don't want to associate myself with - and the few users I know personally align closely with this stereotype.

But I don't think either of those fully captures my rationale, and I'd be interested to hear more thoughts on the subject. I do though think the point needs to be made that many people don't feel the need to try drugs, and while their reasons against may be incoherent or poorly thought out, it's not that they have particularly strong feelings against drugs so much as that trying them just doesn't seem that important.

pnathan• 13 years ago

I've had multiple opportunities to get high (MJ + others) and chose not to. I don't care to alter my mental state that far. I don't drink much alcohol (& don't usually care for what it does for my mind). When I had laughing gas at the dentist, it turned my head into mush for a bit under a day afterwards. I just moved to WA, one of the "approximately legal MJ" states and I had a hard think about this. I don't really want to toke up.

Too much coffee doesn't do good stuff either.

I'm told there's a medically used drug? electrical tool? that is used in certain high-pain situations where it literally wipes your memory of high-spike pain (It erases the last few seconds or something). I don't want that either. I'd rather take the pain...

Generally, these things do things to my mind that I really don't like. I can only presume (based upon a decent amount of reading on the matter) LSD & other 'hardcore' hallucinogens will do similar things, but more in depth.

Xcelerate9• 13 years ago

You may like the other post I wrote about this elsewhere on this page.

Basically, the reason I don't try drugs (I hope the sense I am using that word can be inferred), is because of my chemical engineering and research background. Every chemical (e.g. anything) you ingest has a certain effect on your body. I feel that with some drugs (marijuana, cocaine, etc.), there is a higher probability of a long-term negative effect. Is this actually the case? I don't know. But I know that science is at no position right now to answer the question as we only know with certainty the effects and mechanisms of the most basic chemical reactions. All of the subtle interactions with something as complex as the human body are nearly impossible to ascertain. What study could one possibly devise that would rule out so many confounding factors?

So, for something like marijuana, there may in fact be no long term effects. But when it's easy (at least for me) to not try it, I just don't see there being any benefit for myself. Others, obviously, see the risk/reward ratio as being more favorable.

Does that fit the use of the word "apathetic"? I think so. Maybe you think another word is more suitable. I am as apathetic to drug use as I am about skydiving, or tightrope walking, or running in a lightning storm. I'm simply indifferent to these activities because I don't see any reward they would provide me.

herbig• 13 years ago

Yeah I think you're missing the point, that everyone takes drugs in some form and he'd like to guide her into doing so intelligently.

He doesn't assume she's going to try all sorts of things at all. At least I didn't read that into anything he said.

I'm 29, and I've never tried alcohol or drugs aside from caffeine, and I have not had the same feelings of incredulity from anyone.

Also, I'd bet that our apathy comes from our never having experienced drugs, rather than some innate apathy to the idea.

Oxxide2• 13 years ago

Did you also read the part where it said "If she doesn't, I'm afraid she'll miss out on one of the most important rites of passage."

Psychedelics are a tool to be used for self discovery, not some seedy thing only losers use. Maybe you are the one who is blinded by preconceptions here, not him.

andrewcooke• 13 years ago

i 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?

vehementi3• 13 years ago

Short answer: talk to hippie looking people in real life. Research on erowid too.

cnp6• 13 years ago

LSD 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.

pessimizer4• 13 years ago

Legal 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

pbhjpbhj• 13 years 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.

Nursie20• 13 years ago

Legal? AL-LAD

Safe, reliable... no such thing.

corford• 13 years ago

Lol, no, there isn't a safe, reliable, legal way to do it :)

You'll have to find a good dealer since it's a lot less common than weed, ecstasy, coke, ket etc.

And if you haven't taken psychedelics before I'd _seriously_ suggest first figuring out how good your head is on them with something a little less nuts (e.g. shrooms).

LSD has its reputation for a reason. It's not a toy and you'll be tripping for ~14 hours. So if you do decide to do it, make sure you're in a happy, safe environment (physically _and_ mentally) with at least one person with you who you trust.

lettergram• 13 years ago

Personally, 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• 13 years ago

It 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.

cnp6• 13 years ago

There 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.

Nursie20• 13 years 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.

diydsp• 13 years ago

During an undergrad research project in a hospital, I had access to a medical library and found a few articles on persistent visual tracers following LSD use. I can't find them now, but I turned this up in the British Journal of Psychiatry

"A chronic impairment of colour vision in users of LSD." http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/140/5/518.short

ygmelnikova3• 13 years ago

I'll second that. Having done my share of psychedelics, rest assured, you will meet the devil, and he will laugh while he plays you like the puppet that you are. Just ask Adam and Eve.

GuiA2• 13 years ago

Your post, while I'm sure it has many literary merits, does not bring much to the conversation. Factual accounts of your experiences might though.

kinghajj• 13 years ago

Dick's experiences were mostly with amphetamines, not psychedelics. Most don't include LSD and psilocybin as "hard drugs," either, and all of the credible drug advocates I've seen have always clearly stated that one should carefully research and consider before taking any drug into one's body, and advise against those with predispositions to mental illness or who feel that they are not ready for such experiences or capable of properly preparing for them ("set and setting"). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rational_scale_to_assess_t...)

pessimizer4• 13 years ago

What you think you know about psychedelic drugs is not true. If you judge what drug proponents say against what you think that you know, of course you'll find what they say dishonest. What many of them say is on a far firmer scientific footing than what you're saying.

LSD does not cause people to be schizophrenic; schizophrenia shows itself during the most likely years for people to be experimenting with drugs.

edit: and to add to what kinghajj mentioned about Philip K. Dick; Dick was on amphetamines, and amphetamines have a very established history of actually making you long-term crazy.

shantanubala2• 13 years ago

LSD does not cause people to be schizophrenic; schizophrenia shows itself during the most likely years for people to be experimenting with drugs.

This is very misleading at best. LSD use causes direct symptoms of psychosis, including symptoms of schizophrenia, schizoaffective, and schizophreniform disorders.

The effects of LSD resemble schizophrenia so closely, in fact, that it has led to studies on rats using LSD as a hypothetical model to represent schizophrenia. In other words, we give rats LSD and see what chemicals reduce the effects to find treatments for schizophrenia.

A very incomplete list of sources:

Aghajanian, G. K., & Marek, G. J. (2000). Serotonin model of schizophrenia: emerging role of glutamate mechanisms. Brain Research Reviews, 31(2), 302-312.

Crow, T. J. (1980). Molecular pathology of schizophrenia: more than one disease process?. British medical journal, 280(6207), 66.

Schneier, F. R., & Siris, S. G. (1987). A review of psychoactive substance use and abuse in schizophrenia: patterns of drug choice. The Journal of nervous and mental disease, 175(11), 641-652.

6d0debc071• 13 years ago

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.

Even assuming that's true - which it probably is even just based on the fact that some people already have fragile mental states - a certain percentage of people who go motorcycling get creamed by bad drivers. Life is risk. What the percentage is matters.

Without number it's just hand-waving - and the longer the hand-waving goes on the less dangerous it seems because scary correlates are being given adequate time to show up.

eightyone4• 13 years 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."
"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."

Don't make outlandish claims if you're not going to bother to cite your sources. Also, even if what your claiming regarding the Arizona shooter is true, I have a mustache, does that mean I'm going to commit genocide?

alexhill3• 13 years ago

I think it's pretty inaccurate to say this article ignores the negative effects of drugs or pretends that LSD is harmless. Quoting verbatim:

This is not to say that everyone should take psychedelics. As I will make clear below, these drugs pose certain dangers. Undoubtedly, there are people who cannot afford to give the anchor of sanity even the slightest tug.

and

Even if drugs like LSD are biologically safe, the potential for extremely unpleasant and destabilizing experiences presents its own risks. I believe I was positively affected for weeks and months by my good trips, and negatively affected by the bad ones. Given these roulette-like odds, one can only recommend these experiences with caution.

and

But as the peaks are high, the valleys are deep. My “bad trips” were, without question, the most harrowing hours I have ever suffered—and they make the notion of hell, as a metaphor if not a destination, seem perfectly apt.

It's pretty even-handed, overall.

ramblerman2• 13 years ago

"Pretending that LSD is harmless is utter utter bulshit."

You obviously didn't read the full essay if that is what you came away with. The book you cite is about amphetamines. Throwing Amphetamines and Psychedelics into the general "drugs" category really betrays your complete lack of any knowledge on this subject.

Finally I agree that pro-drug advocates will certainly be biased but you are on the other end of the spectrum. You seem to claim author's aren't truthful about their experiences with drugs unless it's negative?

ohwp• 13 years ago

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_caus...

LSD is indeed harmful but not as harmful as you might think.

netcan• 13 years ago

opponents & proponents are almost by definitions biased or dishonest.

Have you ever heard an anti-drug campaigner make the argument that LSD can have a valuable impact on creativity and perspective but overall the risks outweigh those benefits?

Oh and from this article:

"This is not to say that everyone should take psychedelics. As I will make clear below, these drugs pose certain dangers. Undoubtedly, there are people who cannot afford to give the anchor of sanity even the slightest tug. It has been many years since I have taken psychedelics, in fact, and my abstinence is born of a healthy respect for the risks involved"

burgerz• 13 years ago

It is really annoying that drugs proponents ignore the obvious negative effects of drugs.

No they don't. Even if there are negative effects, which by the way are nowhere near as bad as the negative effects of overeating shit and sitting on your fatass ass all day which 90% of the Western generation does on a daily basis, who gives a fuck? They're fun and the benefits (especially the benefits of psychedelics and empathogen) outweigh the risks if you do them safely and in moderation.

Now anti-drug people cannot see this no matter what evidence you present them because they've been indoctrinated by a system that imprisons people for smoking weed.

Oxxide2• 13 years ago

You are literally spouting bullshit out of your ass. Insanity? Are you fucking kidding me?

Blow it out your ass pops, you're making shit up.

This kind of flatout lying is even worse than people who pretend drugs have no risks. Making risks up to scare people into agreeing with you is no better.

easy_rider2• 13 years ago

Those who are affected by LSD in that way will probably also be more susceptible to drug induced HPPD or Schizophernia from other controlled and non-controlled substances. It has to do with the structure of the brain. http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/178/4/337.full Basically they are born with less ability to distinguish reality from fiction. A good indication for this would be the well known ink spot test.

Responsible self-admission of controlled substances would always advocate starting at the dose that might cause an adverse allergic reaction of some sort, and move up from there.

I've seen a Scanner Darkly, and I've tried hard drugs. In my experience and knowledge of stimulating drugs like amphetamines and esp. cocaine. The chance of psychosis from these line of drugs and the potential of abuse are of an order of magnitude worse, while we blindly prescribe our ADD and ADHD suffering kids to methylphenidate (Ritalin) and amphetamine salts (Adderall). I would advice you to look them up.

The abuse potential for these kind of drugs are huge with ADD/ADHD patients since their disorder pretty much means they require more dopamine stimulation to be able to complete tasks, and these drugs are very much addictive in nature because of their actions on the dopamine system. Stimulating this area in the brain is way more "rewarding" than for example serotonergic drugs like LSD.

I understand that a lot of street drugs are adulterated or chemically inferior to the medical grade stuff, but it is still hypocritical and dangerous to make a Black/White area of what is supposedly not bad for you (i.e. prescriptions, OTC or legal substances ) and bad for you (controlled substances).

I understand that these drugs are prescribed under doctors supervision, but the reality learns that this is usually not a game stopper for abusers. Also they are being given to patients for a number of disorders without adequate research backing their perceived safety profile. Long-term effects on kids and teenagers who have been on these medications are not known at all.

philthesong3• 13 years ago

I 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.

CamperBob22• 13 years ago

Wow. 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• 13 years ago

Why would that be cowardice?

CamperBob22• 13 years ago

I'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.

Nursie20• 13 years ago

Bit 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• 13 years ago

I'm kind of amazed nobody has mentioned MAPS yet (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). 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.

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/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_rider2• 13 years ago

I 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!

Drugs and the Meaning of Life (2011)

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