LSD, Reconsidered for Therapy

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/04/health/lsd-reconsidered-for-therapy.html

by boh • 12 years ago

278 177 12 years ago

zebra• 12 years ago

A friend of mine had very good results in work with micro-dosing - he took 1/10 of trip dose and was more focused and creative. He suffered no hallucinations or giggles.

EDIT: Just trying to give second good use of this substance. Easing the suffering of a terminally ill person is good. Enhancing creativity and focus in young person is also good.

ambler0• 12 years ago

Was this friend working in the laboratory then?

Pxtl• 12 years ago

To be fair, the article is about the polar opposite approach: Giving a full-bore hallucinogenic dose to people who are dying anyways so it really can't make their situation worse, and seeing if it helps them cope with the inevitable.

Which is very interesting. I always feel like the war on drugs is horribly unfair to people in end-of-life situations who really should have access to all the most destructive mind-altering chemicals to ease that.

kmtrowbr• 12 years ago

Just to be fair, 'destructive' seems like a bad adjective to apply to LSD. It's way, way less toxic than alcohol, for example.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_caus... http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drug_danger_and_depen...

'Mind altering' yes, I will grant you that. But most things you ingest are mind altering. For example, this chocolate chip cookie I am eating now will shortly make me feel a burst of energy, but then shortly afterwards, sleepy and fat.

rasur• 12 years ago

I believe it was Aldous Huxley who, on his death-bed, requested a mixture of LSD and Opiates to leave this world by.

Frankly, I applaud that kind of thinking.

EDIT: My apologies, I did not see dns's comment below, saying the same thing, but with actual links :)

berberous2• 12 years ago

I've never tried micro-dosing but those interested in the idea should check out Gwern's lengthy piece on the subject:

http://www.gwern.net/LSD%20microdosing

natdempk2• 12 years ago

When this got posted before on HN the consensus was likely that the LSD got destroyed before he actually took any. I would really like to see that study done with more controlled dosing/storage.

melloclello2• 12 years ago

I have tried microdosing. Took a sixth of a tab and disappeared for eight hours. When I emerged from this fugue state there was all this code there that wasn't there before~

In retrospect, that probably wasn't microdosing so much as it was just coding on acid.

mvanvoorden2• 12 years ago

One trip about 2 years ago made me realize that I should not worry about things I can't control, and changed me from the bitter, angry person I'd become to the life loving happy person I used to be when I was young, in an instant.

bananas• 12 years ago

About 20 years ago I had some bad shit going on in my life and did the same. It was the most horrible experience of my life. I thought I was shitting snakes and they were then eating me.

However I instantly stopped smoking, drinking and haven't touched anything since.

YMMV as they say.

Edit: perhaps its related but it was shortly after that I finally grokked Unix and C.

essteesee• 12 years ago

but that's what psychedelics do. they magnify what you bring to the experience and give it back to you 10 fold.

melling• 12 years ago

Scientifically speaking, are you saying that this would be the result for most people? Steve Jobs, for example, famously took LSD but he certainly cared about controlling most things in his life, and sweated the details.

mvanvoorden2• 12 years ago

I like to control things as well, but not things I am not able to, like other people, or distant wars, or politicians, etc :)

Anyway, I got a lot of insights that really changed my life for the better. Funny thing is that most of it is common knowledge, these things that are 'easier said than done', that then turn out to be just as easy done as said :)

(I can only talk from my own perspective of course)

angersock• 12 years ago

Yeah, but he was kind of a douche.

GuiA• 12 years ago

I'm glad the taboos around psychedelics research, especially as tools for therapy, are slowly falling down- there's some fascinating stuff in there.

To people who have never experienced drugs, grown up in a culture that demonizes them all indiscriminately, have a hard time wrapping their head around what they are/do exactly but are curious about them, I recommend this article by Sam Harris, a great neuroscientist[0]

For a slightly more in depth essay, Aldous Huxley's "Doors of Perception" [1] is a great book, albeit slightly dated.

There are also some extremely interesting synergies between the origins of the computer industry and the psychedelics/California counter culture era. John Markoff's "What the Dormouse Said" [2] is a fantastic read, although it requires knowing about computer history a little bit already. I learned from it that there was scientific research on LSD conducted in Menlo Park, a few blocks away from where I used to live.

There's also a great essay by Timothy Leary about parallels between psychedelics as tools for expanding the human mind and the computer as a tool to enhance the human brain in Brenda Laurel's book "Art of Human Computer Interaction Design". [3]

There's a great essay by Carl Sagan about his experiences using marijuana creatively/intellectually [4].

I had never tried any drugs before moving to California in my 20s, and had grown up in a fairly standard European culture of all drugs = the devil. Some changes occurred, and it turns out there's a really fascinating history and philosophy in there (especially w/ regards to parallels with computer history, as described in the aforementioned book).

[0] http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-...

[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Doors-Of-Perception-thINKing/dp/19...

[2] http://www.amazon.com/What-Dormouse-Said-Counterculture-Pers...

[3] http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Human-Computer-Interface-Desig...

[4] http://marijuana-uses.com/mr-x/

EC12• 12 years ago

Before entering the corporate work place I never touched anything. Once my one coworker started talking about it, the whole chain revealed itself, now it's super social to go smoke a joint with my bosses after work and have a beer, I love it.

I wonder how much I'm actually destroying my health by smoking weed every day, drinking coffee, and having some alcohol at least in a minor capacity.

I feel as if the emotional/mental pain I suffered by not having any outlet greatly outweighs the physical damage I'm doing to myself.

Now that I smoke/drink while working most of the time (self unemployed), I find that I am much more productive because I'm enjoying myself the entire time. Tunes, a drink, a smoke, and code.

Never seen talk on HN about drugs really. What's your routine like with HN? What are your experiences?

hiphopyo• 12 years ago

Everything excess in life is poison. Like they say, it is possible that you hate a thing which is good for you [emotional/mental pain], and love a thing which is bad for you [being a drunk].

today• 12 years ago

I thought I had things under control with weed. Gradually I realised I was using it to cope with chronic depression due to an earlier personal tragedy.

Weed probably is great when things are actually in order in your life, but you may be losing contact with reality precisely because it makes it possible to enjoy yourself the entire time. I think you have to be very mindful of that.

It's a painful processes, turning to face life directly, but I feel like I'm managing to do so day by day. Part of this processes involves speaking to a psychiatrist and starting an SNRI prescription.

I do plan to smoke weed again, cautiously, once things are "in order".

It's funny - when I used to smoke weed, I always felt like I needed to clear my daily todo list before hand. I would take out the trash I should have taken out, put clothes in the laundry, maybe respond to some lingering emails. It was quite productive.

Now I'm recapitulating that pattern at a higher level in life. At least, I hope that's what's happening...

jonnathanson3• 12 years ago

Alcohol is probably much worse than weed or coffee over the long run. It's exceedingly hard to slowly poison your liver and brain over the course of a lifetime by smoking herb. It's easier than you think to do it drinking alcohol.

I'm not a teetotaler by any means. I drink a couple of glasses of something pretty much every other day. But that's about the limit of what a healthy, adult male should be drinking. Any more than that, especially over the long run, and you're setting loose a lot of chickens that will come home to roost when you're older.

I don't smoke weed with nearly the frequency I did when I was young. That's got less to do with my beliefs about its health effects, and more to do with being too busy. But every now and then, sure. Sharing a couple of beers and a joint is a fantastic social experience.

On a related note: SF is one of the most weed-friendly towns I've ever lived in, and there is virtually no stigma whatsoever here. One time I saw a dude light up right outside the freaking airport baggage claim, in broad daylight, and nobody around him seemed to care.

dobbsbob2• 12 years ago

When you stop smoking weed every day you have insanely vivid dreams for a few days, that's the only noticeable side effect I had. Weed can sap motivation if you let it too

Crito4• 12 years ago

A vaporizer is perhaps a bit less social, but I find that it is much easier on my lungs than smoking. I'd recommend looking into them. I'm turned off by the pen-form factor/vapor liquid/nicotine scene, but a small vaporizer for ground plant matter is great.

One problem with vaporizers is that there isn't a great word to use to describe the action of using one. "Vap" sounds lame or maybe even show-offy, so I just use the word "smoke". ;)

Alcohol is what I truly appreciate though. The reason I smoke is so that when I want to unwind and tune out, I have options other than alcohol every time. Heavy long term alcohol use can be very bad for you, but by giving myself other healthier options I've managed to get my drinking back to 4-8 times a month (always Wednesdays, sometimes Fridays). Alcohol is what I love/fear, weed is what I entertain myself with between flings with booze.

I am starting to suspect that caffeine is a net-negative force in my life, as it constantly jostles my sleep schedule.

tbirdz• 12 years ago

Personally, I don't use any illicit drugs, smoke tobacco, drink alcohol, or drink coffee. I never have done any of these things either. I used to drink soda pop, but I cut that out of my diet a few years ago. I'm not even really tempted to start any of these things either. Sometimes people give me some flack about it, but I'm used to that by now, and once they get to know me they drop the issue (except for a few people who simply refuse to let it go).

I don't know how much this is positively affecting my health, or if it is at all.

anewcolor• 12 years ago

marijuana and writing code go together like song and lyric

ridgeguy2• 12 years ago

"I wonder how much I'm actually destroying my health by smoking weed every day, drinking coffee, and having some alcohol at least in a minor capacity."

Probably not at all. Cue the "correlation isn't causality" soundbite, but coffee consumption is negatively correlated with developing Parkinson's disease, and moderate consumption of alcohol has been shown by many studies to correlate with positive cardiovascular status. Haven't researched the literature on associations of weed with positive health outcomes, but it's interesting that smoking weed doesn't correlate with developing lung cancer.

You're probably just fine so long as moderation is your mode.

staticelf• 12 years ago

I have experience from three different substances that I thought I'd share.

The first other substance that I tried and did so several times was something called "Spice". It was legal in my country for the time being and you could order it online quite cheap actually.

It is a substance created to be as similar as cannabis and to be legal. However a couple of years ago they banned it in my country. The experience of the substance was pretty bad actually, but since I was so young and hadn't really done anything else I had nothing to compare it to. The first time I got really high on it was with my childhood friends. We sat on a bench in a small forest and lighted it up in a bong. I took several hits and felt nothing special at the moment.

So we started walking and soon I began to feel something, it was walking in a mist (not visually) but my head started to feel thicker and suddently we'd walked over 1km and it felt like it was in a blink of an eye. I started to panick since I had no idea what was going on and felt pretty scared. Every step I took my knees itched so bad and it wasn't very pleasant at all. It took more than 1 hour before I calmed down and I thought my heart would collapse or something. That experience sucked basically. But after that hour, I began to enjoy it a little but not that much. The drug mainly made you feel scared and it wasn't the best drug I've tried.

Second drug to do was cannabis if I recall it correctly. It was hasch and the I didn't feel much at all. It took me several tries (in seperate occations) until I finally got high. The experience from hasch was much better than spice. Imo, you can't even compare the two since the experience is so different, at least for me. I've also done marijuana several times and it is a really good drug, much better than its brown sister hasch from the times I've tried it anyway.

My weirdest experience is altough on LSA which is also legal in my country and we ordered it online, just as spice. As our understanding goes it's some kind of seed from a plant or something. So we just swallowed some with water. It is supposed to make you feel ill in the stomach in the beginning since I think it's poisionous for humans and I felt a little ill a while. But after like 1.5 hours the illness was completely gone but I didn't feel a thing.

So me and my friend walked around in our neighborhood and looked at stuff. It took a while until I realized this drug doesn't make you feel high at all. I was completely clear in my mind and I don't think I've ever been so clear-minded before or after taking that drug. It was a wonderful "feeling" and in those days I didn't program but if I would I think it would be a perfect fit. After spending some time, me and my friend seperated and I walked home. I looked upon myself in the mirror and I could not see any color in my eyes, just black and white (almost). It was a very very wierd experience since I looked so strange, but I didn't feel anything special unless more emotional and very clear-minded. I thought a lot on my life in general and what I wanted to do with it and so on. I felt happy in short, I felt that my life was really headed in a good direction and everything was basically good.

The clear-mindedness just continued through the day but as the drug wore of, so did the clearness of everything.

Unfortunately, several years after this usage my friend committed suicide and he had a lot of problems with drugs. But the problems did not originate in the drugs but rather on his family situation. He was a very intelligent guy and I miss him. He was depressed for a long time and even when we contacted the authorities for help he recieved none.

I hope you guys will get something from my experiences :) my general stand on drugs is very liberal even if a tragic event has happened in my life because I know the drugs weren't the real issue, just an escape.

amartya916• 12 years ago

I second the reference to Doors of Perception. If you folks have the time, and you haven't already read about Sasha (Alexander Shulgin), give it a whirl. Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Shulgin

There's a movie on his life, isn't great but it's a decent watch, Dirty Pictures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA8ddx_iC_g

Nursie11• 12 years ago

"LSD - My Problem Child" is also well worth a read IMHO. It's by Hoffman and it tells the story of its discovery, also giving a few of his thoughts on what happened afterwards.

Personally I'm not a huge fan of the "wonder drug that will cure all ills and open your EYES man" theories that abound around psychedelics. They can certainly induce a sense of the profound but I'm not sure they actually produce profundity.

That said, long term changes to thought patterns and moods are certainly evident and I think research in this area could be very useful.

I also think it's a person's own business what they take, that the dangers of "drugs" are vastly and deliberately overstated, and that the drug war is an inhuman waste of lives, time and money. That probably makes me some sort of crazy hippy radical...

epsylon• 12 years ago

They can certainly induce a sense of the profound but I'm not sure they actually produce profundity.

What's the difference?

derwiki• 12 years ago

Electric Kool-aid Acid Test[0] by Tom Wolfe is an interesting perspective on LSD as well. It starts with the main character, Ken Kesey, taking part in the CIA-run LSD experiments in Menlo Park. The book details his journey from straight-laced-not-even-alcohol to driving a psychedelic bus across the country and finishing with large-scale public acid trips -- all before LSD was criminalized.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/The-Electric-Kool-Aid-Acid-Test/dp/031...

[Edit to fix run-on sentence]

doorhammer• 12 years ago

If you haven't read it, you should check out Hallucinations, by the neurologist Oliver Sacks. His books in general are super fascinating, but there's a really interesting section on drugs in that one, and specifically mentions psychedelics a number of times (which isn't a shock considering it's a book on hallucinations).

http://www.amazon.com/Hallucinations-Oliver-Sacks/dp/0307957...

skidoo• 12 years ago

Way to go, Obamacare.

debt3• 12 years ago

I gotta say if you're an expert at something or at least consider yourself an expert at something: take LSD.

LSD really dislodges how you view the world; it cleans out your mental system, like moving a fridge and cleaning all the crap that's been swept under there over the years.

I would love if some of these prominent intellectuals like Noam Chomsky or any of the nobel prize winners did LSD. I saw a really intense movie a few days before I did mushrooms and it totally changed how I viewed the world during my mushroom trip.

I can only imagine if you've been sitting on some idea(especially a really big intense one like how humans acquire language(!)) for decades how LSD would completely alter your viewpoint.

dobbsbob2• 12 years ago

Larry Hagman credited LSD with helping him to quit booze. Shakes your brain up like a snowglobe breaking all those addiction paths, so he claimed. I did ridiculous amounts of Nicholas Sand made LSD back in the early 90s when I was Lisp hacking, went from depressed teen to motivated info sponge couldn't read enough

biofox• 12 years ago

There are at least two Nobel Laureates who have used LSD:

Kary Mullis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis

Francis Crick http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/11/science/11book.html?_r=0

phusion3• 12 years ago

And let's not forget the Wired article

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/01/70015?...

sar94• 12 years ago

I wish more experienced DMT. It's like the ultimate Oculus Rift. The resolution, colors and sense of intelligence communicating with you is beyond anything any other psychedelic can produce. It is literally like opening a door to another dimension, one full of overwhelming love. Maybe it's just a biological trick but it is one of the most fascinating and unbelievable things in nature.

Not everyone should try it but I hope one day Sam Harris eventually does. His insight on it would be riveting.

debt3• 12 years ago

Terrence McKenna talks a ton about DMTs transcendental effects in his book Food for the Gods. He thinks it literally allows us to talk to Aliens or the Other as he calls it. It's a strange book but has definitely piqued my interest in DMT.

junto• 12 years ago

I know what you mean. DMT is something I recommend everyone and nobody should try.

The experience was extremely weird. It was like the filters that my brain uses so that it can adequately process the 'live stream' from all my senses got switched off. I was subjected to to the 'live stream' in its full bit rate. I revelled in it for a while but eventually the wave was so huge that my brain shut down. No ego whilst I was in there surrounded by millions of video images almost to fast to process (memories maybe).

I have to admit though that it wasn't a pleasant experience, but for me it was an experience I wouldn't change.

md224• 12 years ago

I wonder if we'll ever reach a point where one could have a DMT experience in a comfortable and legal fashion. It would be nice if the laws allowed for licensed psychedelic exploration centers where one could be attended to by experienced trip sitters.

(And yes, I know there are numerous Ayahuasca retreats available in South America.)

mentos• 12 years ago

My late aunt was schizophrenic and apparently became so after experimenting with LSD. I've always thought it was coincidence but I remain wary of the cost/benefit. Here's an interesting article on experimentation with LSD by mathematicians, engineers, designers and artists.

'In mid-'60s LSD research study, dosed scientists achieved creative breakthroughs:

Over the course of the preceding year, IFAS researchers had dosed a total of 22 other men for the creativity study, including a theoretical mathematician, an electronics engineer, a furniture designer, and a commercial artist. By including only those whose jobs involved the hard sciences (the lack of a single female participant says much about mid-century career options for women), they sought to examine the effects of LSD on both visionary and analytical thinking. Such a group offered an additional bonus: Anything they produced during the study would be subsequently scrutinized by departmental chairs, zoning boards, review panels, corporate clients, and the like, thus providing a real-world, unbiased yardstick for their results.

In surveys administered shortly after their LSD-enhanced creativity sessions, the study volunteers, some of the best and brightest in their fields, sounded like tripped-out neopagans at a backwoods gathering. Their minds, they said, had blossomed and contracted with the universe. They’d beheld irregular but clean geometrical patterns glistening into infinity, felt a rightness before solutions manifested, and even shapeshifted into relevant formulas, concepts, and raw materials.

[The volunteers] remained firm: LSD absolutely had helped them solve their complex, seemingly intractable problems. But here’s the clincher. After their 5HT2A neural receptors simmered down, they remained firm: LSD absolutely had helped them solve their complex, seemingly intractable problems. And the establishment agreed. The 26 men unleashed a slew of widely embraced innovations shortly after their LSD experiences, including a mathematical theorem for NOR gate circuits, a conceptual model of a photon, a linear electron accelerator beam-steering device, a new design for the vibratory microtome, a technical improvement of the magnetic tape recorder, blueprints for a private residency and an arts-and-crafts shopping plaza, and a space probe experiment designed to measure solar properties. Fadiman and his colleagues published these jaw-dropping results and closed shop.'

http://boingboing.net/2012/08/03/in-mid-60s-lsd-research-stu...

debt3• 12 years ago

Told ya. :) Cool study.

In all seriousness though LSD can have long-lasting effects on your personality. Also, while it seems possible you could develop a serious mental disorder from LSD, it seems unlikely; but I base that on my first-hand experience with it.

dnc• 12 years ago

This is striking testimony about Aldous Huxley taking LSD on his deathbed written by his wife: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/03/most-beautiful-death.ht.... It seems that this very emotional account is in accordance with the findings of the Swiss psychiatrists.

spinlock3• 12 years ago

I had a friend in college -- really smart physics major -- drop acid one summer and lose the ability to do math. He needed to take a year off and finally finished his degree but was never on top of his game again.

I'm not saying that always or even usually happens. But, acid is no joke and I just wanted to make sure that the inexperience reading this know that trips can go really wrong. Especially when you aren't using medical grade LSD but whatever you can buy from a stranger on SilkRoad/wherever.

jey• 12 years ago

lose the ability to do math

What does that mean? (How did it play out and what did it look like?)

spinlock3• 12 years ago

I have no idea what was going on inside his head but he just couldn't figure out things like making change for a dollar. He and my roommate were doing their calculus homework shortly before he left and he just couldn't do simple problems. He went from just getting math to being mistified by it.

munkle• 12 years ago

It is true that LSD can mess you up if taken under certain circumstances, however, you shouldn't intimidate the inexperience. If all you ever heard about LSD is that it could mess you up, then there is a higher probably that it will harm you. Instead, I would recommend the following to all those who are inexperienced: Make sure you understand it's effects and try to find someone who has experience with LSD to guide you through your first trip.

tothepixel• 12 years ago

The paradoxical thing about LSD is that you simply cannot understand its effects until you've already tried it.

tomelders• 12 years ago

It's LSD, it can go one way or the other. My tip, if you're going to do it, do it. Take a full dose or don't do it at all. Doing "just a bit" is always miserable.

Even when it's bad, if you've got decent people around you, you can keep your shit together. But then if you've got decent people around you, you're unlikely to freak out.

scott_karana• 12 years ago

Especially when you aren't using medical grade LSD but whatever you can buy from a stranger on SilkRoad/wherever

Ironically, in the heyday of Silk Road, you likely were buying medical-grade LSD if you were careful.

http://www.gwern.net/Silk%20Road#lsd-case-study

http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/14/4828448/silk-road-lsd-ave...

mycroft-holmes• 12 years ago

spinlock is completely misinformed on this one. Like scott_karana said, the Silk Road was the place to get high quality drugs. If I'm not mistaken, many reputable sellers on the site had their products tested for purity.

ph4• 12 years ago

Sorry, but that sounds like absolute bullshit.

snake_plissken2• 12 years ago

I've always found it incredibly amazing that psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, DMT etc) were outlawed in responses to forms of massive, peaceful "movements" in which taking psychedelics was something the members of the movement were known to do; that legislators and policy makers were so afraid of the affects these chemicals would have on society that they had to put the serious force of the law behind getting them out of the hands and the minds of the people.

Nursie11• 12 years ago

I think it was just a convenient way to continue to suppress the counterculture while also looking tough and moral, because we all know how much our politicians love that. The effects of LSD in freeing peoples minds or somehow waking them up to reality are exaggerated IMHO.

I mean, do you need LSD to know the government is wasting your money and making insane legislation?

benched8• 12 years ago

I guess if it is humble enough, that opinion isn't too harmful. I think many people would find it dismissive of their experience, especially since you have no justification for characterizing their experience for them. To presume to speak of "The LSD Experience" is anything but humble.

snake_plissken2• 12 years ago

Oh yeah, of course it was a way to suppress the countercultures. But not all countercultures had or have drug use perceived as one of their defining characteristics.

munchhausen2• 12 years ago

The effects of LSD in freeing peoples minds or somehow waking them up to reality are exaggerated IMHO. I mean, do you need LSD to know the government is wasting your money and making insane legislation?

Nice red herring.

Indeed, you do not need to take LSD to know that the government is wasting money and making insane legislation. It's really pretty obvious and in the midst of a breakthrough LSD trip, you would probably find this to be a trifling, utterly irrelevant matter, and wouldn't waste too much time thinking about it.

The effects of LSD on freeing people's minds lie elsewhere, not in making people aware of the governmental abuses of power.

MichaelGG• 12 years ago

The people promoting psychedelics back then were also being quite irresponsible. Dosing people without consent or knowledge and whatnot. All the "science" done then was terribly flawed.

Not that they should be responsible or that I'm blaming them for the backlash, but a bit more tact may have helped the movement in the long-term.

Crito4• 12 years ago

"psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, DMT etc) were outlawed in responses to forms of massive, peaceful "movements" in which taking psychedelics was something the members of the movement were known to do"

I think that is true, but I think you have misidentified the actual rational behind the bans.

In Dan Baum's Smoke and Mirrors, Dan Baum has John Ehrlichman, Nixon's domestic policy advisor, admitting that heroin and weed were targeted because their use was [perceived to be] popular among black people and hippies, both groups that the 'silent majority' feared. Targeting these drugs appeased the fearful ignorant 'silent majority', and it allowed the government to actually go after and disrupt these groups.

"we understood we couldn't make it illegal to be young or poor or black in the United States, but we could criminalize their common pleasure."

phusion3• 12 years ago

Sorry to parrot hippies and/or Bill Hicks, but they outlawed those drugs because they're not alcohol and cigarettes, they allow you to see how you're being fucked every day of your life, so of course they're outlawed :)That peaceful movement was a threat to the powers that be..

nanidin2• 12 years ago

Yes, it's definitely a conspiracy. Never forget the man is out to get us!

lutusp2• 12 years ago

A quote: "After about two months of weekly therapy, the eight participants who received full doses of LSD improved by about 20 percent on standard measures of anxiety, and the four subjects who took a much weaker dose got worse."

I hope no one thinks this is science. There's no control group, those who received the treatment under study knew who they were, and they were asked about their emotional state after the treatment ended. This is a classic case where the Placebo effect cannot be either eliminated or discounted.

This is not say that LSD has no beneficial effects in therapy. This is to say we have no idea, and this study provides no useful scientific data.

disgruntledphd2• 12 years ago

Interestingly enough, there was a student at Harvard in the 1960's (recounted in the Varieties of Psychedelic Experience), who did a placebo-controlled study of psilocybin (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Chapel_Experiment).

Long term follow-ups seem to indicate that the differences (in terms of a self-report questionnaire, at least) were maintained over 25 years.

In the book at least, it was concluded (by the primary researcher) that the blinding was completely ineffective (though I don't think that this was confirmed with a manipulation check).

I would say that placebo-controlled studies of psychedelics, for similar reasons that placebo-controlled studies of other drugs (cigarettes, coffee, alcohol) will be difficult. Namely that a placebo should be identical to the treatment in every respect except for the active ingrediant, and what's the active ingrediant?

Its really well-worth checking out the Varieties for some good pointers to research in the 50's and 60's, there was quite a lot of it, and although some of it was methodologically unsound, and there are very few RCT's, the sheer amount of studies should probably carry some weight.

benched8• 12 years ago

I hesitate to even bother in this environment, where anything other than studies that meet the standards of rigor of Hacker News are dismissed, however:

A lot of people have a lot of idea about it, because a lot of psychiatrists and psychotherapists used LSD on their patients (and themselves) before it was outlawed.

Zelphyr• 12 years ago

True, but my understanding (which could be wrong; grain of salt and all that) is that the study was designed to determine whether a psychedelic could be used in a therapeutic environment safely. Now that that's been established--none of the subjects deaths were in any way related to the LSD--they will move on to trying to more accurately measure outcomes.

mgr86• 12 years ago

Yes, but if you continue reading the start of the very next paragraph addresses this.

The trial was far too small to be conclusive, said Dr. Gasser, whose co-authors include Dr. Doblin, Dominique Holstein of UniversityHospital Zurich and Rudolf Brenneisen of the University of Bern.

they go on to say that

“It’s a proof of concept,” Dr. Doblin said. “It shows that this kind of trial can be done safely, and >that it’s very much worth doing.” --

which is important. This sort of research all but halted in the mid-60s. In fact, the reason LSD even made it into popular culture can be a credited to the fact that many who tried it in clinical trials liked it enough to take it home a share. Of course, that is a bit of a dump down version, but not too far from the truth.

lutusp2• 12 years ago

Yes, but if you continue reading the start of the very next paragraph addresses this. "The trial was far too small to be conclusive ..."

Yes, and it's somewhat discouraging to see how rarely these appropriate caveats never get into either the headlines or the mind of the public.

“It’s a proof of concept,” Dr. Doblin said. >“It shows that this kind of trial can be done safely, and >that it’s very much worth doing.”

That exactly what has not been demonstrated. A 20% change is not statistically significant in a test group of this size even if there had been a control group, and the placebo effect has not been controlled for. That's why I posted as I did -- it's junk science.

Again, LSD might be a breakthrough in therapy, unfortunately this study doesn't contribute to our scientific understanding.

conradfr3• 12 years ago

My mother suffered from cluster headaches recently (the worst pain you can endure in life they say).

Apparently mushrooms and LSD are unofficial treatments. When asked, her doctor encouraged her to use mushrooms ...

Apparently a non-psychedelic version of LSD could be made but it's difficult to justify spending millions in research with the official stance regarding drugs.

I'm glad change seems to come, albeit slowly ...

dave809• 12 years ago

Did the mushrooms help?

conradfr3• 12 years ago

They have been ordered but not received yet.

refurb• 12 years ago

There are already analogues of hallucinogens used to treat headaches/migraines. They've been around for decades...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumatriptan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methysergide

hcarvalhoalves• 12 years ago

I know nothing about her diagnostic, but I have had severe migraine like that in the past. Manifests as a strong pain behind one eye and sometimes the neck. It's so strong you can't even think right, you just crawl to a dark room and wait it go away. You know it's coming when you start seeing visual artifacts and/or develop tunnel vision. If her symptoms are like that, read along.

In my case it was simply stress. Sleep deprivation, a lot of caffeine and stiff neck, jaw muscles all the time. It stopped overnight once I quit a stressful job, changed my lifestyle and cut back on caffeine. I didn't consulted with a doctor, because I knew I would be prescribed some heavy stuff. While I had the crisis, the only thing that worked to subdue the pain were muscle relaxants and a hot shower, headache/migraine drugs I've had already been prescribed did nothing, so I knew it was psychosomatic.

Take that with a huge grain of salt, as it's just one anecdote... but in the face of taking psychotropics at own risk, she might want to try that first.

xtracto• 12 years ago

I remember watching a documentary about exactly that use for LSD. I don't remember the name of the docu. but I found the following link:

http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2011/06/lsd-allevi...

ridgeguy2• 12 years ago

Yes, there's a non-hallucinogenic derivative of LSD that might be an effective treatment for cluster headaches.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2-Bromo-LSD

My wife suffers from refractory migraine headaches - somewhat different from cluster headaches, but near neighbors on the chronic headache agony spectrum. I wish there were a clinical trial of 2-B-LSD she could join. Absent that, I'm building a TCDS system for her. Necessity & invention, etc.

ambiguator• 12 years ago

They'd probably have better results if they did their experiment outdoors.

yogi123• 12 years ago

The most prominent researcher in LSD therapy was Stan Grof. Look up his books - they are the definitive material for psychiatric work using psychedelics. There are experiences in the books that will blow your mind. I believe he was head of the psychiatry department at Johns Hopkins, before this research was shut down.

However, it is interesting that he now appears to be a proponent of meditation and other methods, as far as I know. He teaches an interesting technique called holotropic breathing which aims to replicate the benefits without the risk.

I think a prominent meditation teacher summed it up best when he said that psychedelics can lead to a powerful opening, but they are not a path.

benched8• 12 years ago

Stan Grof's books are some of the best I've found on the topic of consciousness and 'reality' in general. He is so committed to learning about consciousness, he kept exploring the subject by whatever means he could find or invent, even after he could no longer work with psychedelics. I was lucky to attend a talk he gave on LSD just a few months ago.

gress• 12 years ago

Grof believes he has communicated with aliens.

davidtanner2• 12 years ago

Grof's work _Beyond the Brain_ is particularly interesting. From what little I have read about it, I think holotropic breathing is both physically safe and able to be discontinued at any point during the experience - unlike LSD.

Lambdanaut• 12 years ago

I'm all for LSD being considered for certain therapeutic cases.

I took it at a time of my life when I'd been having a sustained identity crisis for years on end, something I'd made known to friends and family. I had no idea who I was supposed to be and I felt like I was just running on auto-pilot, idly guessing at how I should react to situations and being surprised when things turned out okay. I read tons of self-help books and "know-thy-self" pamphlets, but I was still clueless.

After the LSD, I completely knew who I was again, and I've been on that steady path ever since.

It's a good thing to try when you need to do some introspection that you've been having substantial trouble coming to a solution over.

I seriously believe it skipped over a decades worth of introspection for me. I mean, I was already on year "3" of my crisis, and I had made zilch headway. It gets you through things that are nigh impossible to do without it. That of course combined with the low-toxicity and lack of a potential for addiction makes it a no-brainer.

Like somebody else commented, it's like it shakes your brain up like a snowglobe breaking all of those strongly held pathways in your brain that you would normally be unable to even see. It destroys false pre-conceptions about yourself like a steamroller, and then it helps you build the correct notions back up.

dkarl• 12 years ago

Peter, the social worker, agreed. “I will say I have been more emotional since the study ended, and I don’t mean always cheerful,” he said. “But I think it’s better to feel things strongly — better to be alive than to merely function.”

It's interesting that society has long been comfortable pushing drugs that have the opposite effect, resulting in poor compliance by patients who complain of feeling "dead" or "not there."

jolohaga• 12 years ago

Glad to see a return to awakening.

imperio59• 12 years ago

Yes, let's all get high so we won't face any of our problems...

What a load of garbage. This is science?! No, it's a fucking fraud.

samstave2• 12 years ago

Unpopular opinion penguin:

If you're in tech and have not done LSD; you should notbe in tech.

benched8• 12 years ago

I wouldn't put it so absolutely, but I agree that the kind of people who manipulate some of the most complex systems ever devised by humankind, are the kind of people who would probably benefit greatly from a trip.

samstave2• 12 years ago

True, but then my statement wouldn't be meme-y enough :)

rachellaw2• 12 years ago

If anyone is seriously considering taking LSD please check for drug/chemical interactions first

Most drugs have zero effect if you have ptsd, clinical depression and schizoaffective or similar; LSD will probably make it worse and party drugs (amphetamines) won't work on you. Everyone else will get high, and you'll be bored and sober.

hnisnotreddit• 12 years ago

Hallucinogens have done wnders for my PTSD and depression issues. Please do not confuse them with Amphetamines or other non-hallucinogens.

That said, if you are on MAOI's or SSRI's, you would do well to end their use before attempting any hallucinogen stronger than cannabis.

rachellaw2• 12 years ago

yes that's my concern (drug interactions) I've seen curious users mix all kinds of things without checking first, and they've never had any experience in doing drugs (either legal or illegal) and end up worse off

In terms of reactions, I think it varies from person to person. Generally speaking though, hallucinogens aggravate existing psychotic disorders. If you suffer from PTSD/depression it's not a psychotic disorder (so it's relatively safe for you to take).

Curiously enough, a subset of patients suffering from ptsd/depression/anxiety don't experience the euphoria associated with amphetamines. I'm sorry if I didn't word myself clearly enough

veganarchocap• 12 years ago

They should reconsider MDMA for therapy as well, there was no good reason to ban it, and it was working well for people with post traumatic stress syndrome, people with terminal illnesses etc.

smonff• 12 years ago

This is not new. It is known for depression treatment for a long time.

uptownJimmy• 12 years ago

This stuff can be no surprise to many of us, right? I'm not sure I would have made it out of the darkness of my formative years without those profound psychotropic experiences I had as a young man.

LSD, Reconsidered for Therapy

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