The Therapeutic Value of Psychedelics and other drugs

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sciborg2

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« on: September 13, 2013, 04:20:10 am »
I mentioned in the Hungry Ghosts thread that I'd make a new thread to talk about the actual therapeutic value of psychedelics.

I wanted to step away from the paranormal aspects, though I'll try to find some stuff about the life review process that occurs in some (many?) ayahuasca and ibogaine cases. People seem to be guided in these reviews by entities, but discussion about the nature of said entities is better left to the ghost thread.

Knowledge from all spheres welcome, as well as any contrary evidence that these drugs are bad. Just note that we aren't talking about recreational use here, though a discussion about self-medicating does fit.

Why Doctors Can't Give You LSD (But Maybe They Should)

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Part of the problem with studying psychedelics--and other illicit drugs, such as marijuana--for medical use, is simply that they're not high-tech, and no pharmaceutical company needs or wants to get involved. There's no money in it for them. Though drugs like LSD and psilocybin are relatively easy to make in the lab, as MAPS founder Rick Doblin pointed out in a 2012 interview, "psychedelics are off-patent, can’t be monopolized, and compete with other psychiatric medications that people take daily."

"My colleagues say to me, in these days of nanotechology and targeted therapy, what are you doing?" says Donald Abrams, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco who has done research on medical marijuana. "We live in the 21st century. Studying plants as medicine is not where most investigators are putting their money."

And without the outside funding to continue researching, a scientist's career goes nowhere, so even fewer scientists want to get involved.

jamesA01

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« Reply #1 on: September 13, 2013, 08:02:52 am »
Common drug fallacies:

A drug is what it is called or what you have been told it is: Unless you have a testing kit, you don't know. Anyone who has ever bought ecstacy knows this one. We can smell, touch,  taste and see the substance, but we can't automatically identify what it is composed of.

Prohibition fallacy: It is commonly assumed that because drugs are prohibited,  they must therefore actually be safe/good/a radical posture of defiant individualist heroics. Just because their harms are routinely exaggerated or theatricised does not therefore mean they are safe.

Creativity fallacy: Drugs do not enhance creative ability, only alter neuro physiology.  This may or may not enhance ability in a favourable way.

Feeling fallacy: what little effects of drug use we are able to consciously notice are not trustworthy markers of the total affects the drug is having. Cokeheads don't consciously intend to become hyper sexual gibbering creeps but it happens. The positive effects of a drug are usually temporary and override our rationality with cravings that make us neglect to consider long term consequences. If brain damage is the loss of neurological capabilities, then it stands to reason it would feel fun as hell. Being stupider is probably a welcome relief to everyone.

Control fallacy: we are not able to consciously control the effects drugs have on us. We can only notice their affects after the fact, and usually we have very poor insight even then.

Dopamine bias: I am too scientifically ignorant to speak on this, but would I be correct in saying most drugs release a short burst of pleasure chemicals which cause us to crave them in spite of other more detrimental affects?

Erowid bias: the tendency to attribute mystical or religious insight to a conscious state brought about by narcotics while remaining in total ignorance of the physical state of ones brain. It is not controversial to say that certain neurological states are responsible for our feelings of religious insight. A sounder method would be to scientifically deduce these rather than shovelling dubious plants into our stomachs and hoping for the best.

You may sense a slight bitterness to my post. I'm just suffering from Junkie bias: being surrounded by dim witted hedonists and new age hippies for so long one becomes desensitised to the correlation between stupid enthusiasm for narcotics and the rate of psych ward institutionalizations and wrecked lives.

Having said all that I hope to see the day when a sound understanding of the possible therapeutic effects of certain drugs becomes uncontroversial. 

Royce

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« Reply #2 on: September 13, 2013, 08:34:47 am »
Every time I try to discuss this with people,they tend to dismiss it because of its legality issues.There is just no way that the government would keep these substances illegal if they were of great value.Especially if they would be beneficial in therapy or medicine,it would be almost a crime against humanity to keep these substances illegal.So the question is why are they illegal? Where I live(Norway) people put these substances in the same category as crack,speed and heroine,so called heavy and dangerous drugs.That is simply not true,if you have had any experience with psychedelics,you just know that is bullshit.

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Part of the problem with studying psychedelics--and other illicit drugs, such as marijuana--for medical use, is simply that they're not high-tech, and no pharmaceutical company needs or wants to get involved. There's no money in it for them. Though drugs like LSD and psilocybin are relatively easy to make in the lab, as MAPS founder Rick Doblin pointed out in a 2012 interview, "psychedelics are off-patent, can’t be monopolized, and compete with other psychiatric medications that people take daily."

It seems plausible that this is a political/business issue.If anyone have read "The emperor wears no clothes" by Jack Herer,you will see that there are hundreds of areas where you can use hemp.Even the hemp plants that you can`t get high on are illegal.

Royce

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« Reply #3 on: September 13, 2013, 01:12:00 pm »
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A drug is what it is called or what you have been told it is: Unless you have a testing kit, you don't know. Anyone who has ever bought ecstacy knows this one. We can smell, touch,  taste and see the substance, but we can't automatically identify what it is composed of.

I agree,lots of dirty drugs out there.On the other hand,if you pick your own mushroom in the woods,you know what it is right? nobody fucked around with that mushroom,it is pure.

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Prohibition fallacy: It is commonly assumed that because drugs are prohibited,  they must therefore actually be safe/good/a radical posture of defiant individualist heroics. Just because their harms are routinely exaggerated or theatricised does not therefore mean they are safe.

I agree about the safety part.No drug is safe,you take a risk.I am not promoting the use of psychedelics,you should treat it with respect and use it only if you feel you can gain something from it.You can easily provoke a bad trip just out of fear(my own experience),and doing it a "wrong" setting with the "wrong" people.

I think that when evidence shows that these substances can be helpful in therapy,we should look into it more.

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Erowid bias: the tendency to attribute mystical or religious insight to a conscious state brought about by narcotics while remaining in total ignorance of the physical state of ones brain. It is not controversial to say that certain neurological states are responsible for our feelings of religious insight. A sounder method would be to scientifically deduce these rather than shovelling dubious plants into our stomachs and hoping for the best.

Well,you just slammed many cultures who have used these substances for thousands of years :) I think we need to show some humility toward this,because this seem to work in these various cultures.To throw science in their faces would not do any good.

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You may sense a slight bitterness to my post. I'm just suffering from Junkie bias: being surrounded by dim witted hedonists and new age hippies for so long one becomes desensitised to the correlation between stupid enthusiasm for narcotics and the rate of psych ward institutionalizations and wrecked lives.

We are all biased one way or the other James ;) I spent a year working with heavy addicts of all sorts,so I know perfectly well what you mean.I hardly do any drugs anymore,just some caffeine and the very rarely occasional trip

sciborg2

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« Reply #4 on: September 13, 2013, 02:29:18 pm »
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You may sense a slight bitterness to my post. I'm just suffering from Junkie bias: being surrounded by dim witted hedonists and new age hippies for so long one becomes desensitised to the correlation between stupid enthusiasm for narcotics and the rate of psych ward institutionalizations and wrecked lives.

Having said all that I hope to see the day when a sound understanding of the possible therapeutic effects of certain drugs becomes uncontroversial.

Actually, I'm glad to have you in this thread. It's easy to become so optimistic about a treatment you miss the other side. I've a friend who strongly feels people should be able to self-medicate with psychedelics and I'm very much against that.

I also lack personal experience because I've not done any recreational drug save alcohol, and even then I've never been drunk. I'm just looking at the potential for treatment.

For example:

Mind-altering drug could offer life free of heroin

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Several clinical trials have shown that low doses of ibogaine taken over the course of a few weeks can greatly reduce cravings for heroin and other drugs. There was extensive research on it in the 1990s, with good evidence of safety in animals and a handful of studies in humans. The US National Institute on Drug Abuse invested over $1 million, but then abandoned the project in 1995. A study had shown that at high doses, ibogaine caused some brain cell degeneration in rats. Lower doses similar to those used in human addiction trials showed no such effect, however....

But anecdotal accounts suggest that a single treatment is just as effective as multiple low doses. The dose is much higher, although still nowhere near the levels found to cause harm in rats. A single treatment is less expensive than standard addiction therapies, and the intensity of the experience is not a recreational high that users seem to want to repeat....

"There have been claims by the government that there's a high potential for abuse and no medical use, and claims from ibogaine advocates that one dose is a miracle cure. We're trying to gather some scientific evidence to better evaluate it," says Rick Doblin, executive director of MAPS. A similar study is also being carried out in New Zealand.

Madness

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« Reply #5 on: September 13, 2013, 04:27:41 pm »
Creativity fallacy: Drugs do not enhance creative ability, only alter neuro physiology.  This may or may not enhance ability in a favourable way.

I'll repeat - it seems helpful to adopt a perspective whereby to your brain, everything is a drug.

Dopamine bias: I am too scientifically ignorant to speak on this, but would I be correct in saying most drugs release a short burst of pleasure chemicals which cause us to crave them in spite of other more detrimental affects?

I'm not sure what you are trying to communicate so I'll throw some description at it.

Some drugs seem to manipulate/hijack the release of specific neurotransmitters in areas of the brain that are usually densely populated with those specific neurotransmitters to begin with. It is extremely misleading to think of any one specific neurotransmitter as being exclusively active in any one specific area. For instance, a dopaminergic neuron is simply an area of the brain, which utilizes more of the neurotransmitter dopamine than other neurotransmitters that are also present in dopaminergic neuron. It's a concert, not a solo.

There are number of competing perspectives but essentially those drugs, which manifest the most destructive behaviors of addiction, seem to all co-opt the same dopaminergic structures and their normal release of a number of neurotransmitters, including dopamine.

You can imagine how that science, as it disseminates, becomes "my dopamine made me do it" ;).

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Erowid bias: the tendency to attribute mystical or religious insight to a conscious state brought about by narcotics while remaining in total ignorance of the physical state of ones brain. It is not controversial to say that certain neurological states are responsible for our feelings of religious insight. A sounder method would be to scientifically deduce these rather than shovelling dubious plants into our stomachs and hoping for the best.

Well,you just slammed many cultures who have used these substances for thousands of years :) I think we need to show some humility toward this,because this seem to work in these various cultures.To throw science in their faces would not do any good.

I actually think its helpful to imagine the mundane results of culture and society as conceived by drugs users with fanatical followers - it's historically prevalent. A certain number of sages, wise-men, kings, emperors, etc, regularly consulted with drugs in various forms for insight.

Yesterday's visionary is today's junkie.
« Last Edit: September 13, 2013, 04:29:32 pm by Madness »
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Royce

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« Reply #6 on: September 13, 2013, 05:07:04 pm »
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I actually think its helpful to imagine the mundane results of culture and society as conceived by drugs users with fanatical followers - it's historically prevalent. A certain number of sages, wise-men, kings, emperors, etc, regularly consulted with drugs in various forms for insight.

Yes,and the Aztecs is a very good example of how you can misuse psychedelics and provide horrific results.

sciborg2

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« Reply #7 on: September 13, 2013, 07:45:30 pm »
Yes,and the Aztecs is a very good example of how you can misuse psychedelics and provide horrific results.

Can you elaborate? - thanks!

Royce

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« Reply #8 on: September 13, 2013, 08:38:19 pm »
They had child offerings during psilocybin rituals,and after consuming the substance they communicated with deities(war god),and these deities told them to kill people in the most horrible ways you can imagine.It does not matter if they imagined this contact with deities or not,the substance was used to commit horrible acts of violence.

Graham Hancock wrote a book about this called "war god",and he also features on a podcast with Joe Rogan,where he talks about the history and use/misuse of various psychedelics.

sciborg2

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« Reply #9 on: September 17, 2013, 06:05:05 am »
It's not the morphine, it's the size of the cage: Rat Park experiment upturns conventional wisdom about addiction
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So, if Rat Park is to be believed, drug addiction is a situation that arises from poor socioeconomic conditions. From literally being a rat in a cage. If you're a rat in a park, you'd rather hang out with your friends and explore the world around you.

Perhaps it's time the war on drugs becomes a war on the existence of poverty? (edit: Poverty of our relationships to family, community, and nation too, not merely monetary. As commenters have pointed out, there are plenty of people who have plenty of money who may well be the most poverty-ridden in other respects.)

It's not about the drugs. It's about the social environment in which we live.

Royce

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« Reply #10 on: September 17, 2013, 11:59:46 am »
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So, if Rat Park is to be believed, drug addiction is a situation that arises from poor socioeconomic conditions. From literally being a rat in a cage. If you're a rat in a park, you'd rather hang out with your friends and explore the world around you.

This is most likely a stupid question,but can you really compare rats to humans in this way? Surely it is much more complicated to handle this issue with humans.In my experience with working with heroine addicts,the wounds are sometimes very deep and complicated.Especially with long time addicts,the thought of a life without the comfort of drugs is unbearable.Of course,in a utopian world where everyone has their dream life fulfilled and everyone is socially/economically adept,there will be no drug addicts.That is certainly not the case though.

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« Reply #11 on: September 17, 2013, 03:56:00 pm »
Socioeconomics seem to play an important role in drug abuse, neh, Royce?

It's not a be all, end all solution. It's part of what should be a multifaceted approach to drug abuse and, ultimately, what we call people problems.
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Royce

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« Reply #12 on: September 18, 2013, 06:42:16 am »
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Socioeconomics seem to play an important role in drug abuse, neh, Royce?

Yeah it does,but the issue of addiction is a very tricky one.If I can use Norway as an example,you will see that we are one of the wealthiest countries on the planet,we have a system that takes care of everyone socially and economically(in theory).If you don`t have a job,the government provides all you need and more,they even help you out getting a job.Health care is basically free,crime is not a big issue at all.Nevertheless we have among the highest amount of heroine addicts in the world,and it really makes no sense,since socially/economically we are on top.

As you said,ultimately these are people problems.Can society fix that? Maybe to certain degree I guess.

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« Reply #13 on: September 18, 2013, 05:34:17 pm »
The phenomenon speaks towards a dysfunctional organization in some specific aspect?

Clearly, the heroin is getting into the country or being produced there, someone or group has vested interests in the black market sale, vested interests in distributing the heroin to addicts, who become users in the first place for a plethora of reasons, availability included.

Are there a higher number of social dependents? Are people generally unsatisfied with Norway's zeitgeist (the feel of the times)? Are options unavailable that might fulfill people otherwise?

Just freestylin', obviously.
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« Reply #14 on: September 18, 2013, 06:38:36 pm »
I wrote a long rambling post that turned into an essay about how narco capital works. It was far too long so here's a condensed version:

Basically, in a commercial society, the only thing going on is making money. Instead of accepting the pointlessness of existence, in recent years we've tried to organize an entire ideology around enjoyment. Enjoyment is supposed to be the purpose of life, and in many quarters, its the only permissible value and questioning gets you viciously attacked by aggressively passive sneering idiots.

You read something like Vice magazine, they are desperately trying to push this kind of consumer existentialism based around drug taking. There's a constant drive to hype the intense heights of hedonism (instead of comfort). Like its heroic. It's as if we have a religious duty to mask our despair with hedonism, I think this works because we are all fascinated by our own degradation. Most drug users are feeling thought, but they can never truly escape it.

It's a consumerist religion. It functions by this weird kind of disavowed nihilism, like, consuming commodities is the true purpose of life, because enjoying them saves us from nihilism. I think the idea is we don't have to face nihilism if we keep consuming and perform our selves as consumers who have this supernatural power to change their reality through positive thinking. Who can attain this sense of self through hyper consumption and become celebrities. I'm theory wanking a bit here, it's probably just all appetite driven chaos.

The last society that made enjoyment its core value was the Roman Empire, right on the way to their pinnacle of decadence and before they got invaded and blood poured down the aqueducts. I guess because we have drones it won't happen to us, although I live in hope.

Enjoyment is a very stupid principle to try and organize a society around, because its basically covering over the harvesting of human brains, particularly proletarian ones, to turn them into rats moving coins around. They are exhausted and used up in over consumption. Recovery and work become moral issues, and the recovery industry is itself massive. The ideal citizen is one who is smoking and trying to quit at the same time. The managers of these addictions make a decent living, and of course the cash  ultimately flows upwards.

For an organism addicted to oxygen, death is the only sobriety. So we are all being harvested by SOME commodity just to survive, things like food, the need for transportation and energy to live and clean yourself and get to work. If you've ever eaten a bag of crisps, you've consumed a slightly psychoactive substance.

Drugs are a commodity that literally implants itself like a software code into our brains and has an extreme influence on our behavior. No matter what hobby you have or what you love in life, no one will put the sheer effort and work into getting their rocks off as much as a drug addict. No matter how much it destroys you, you will still do it, at all hours of the day and night with all resources available to you.

I could go into a long detailed ramble about how narco capital functions, suffice to say that no one who has the power to stop the influx of drugs has any interest in doing so. The funds all get scrubbed and recycled into 'legitimate' assets, and become untraceable. In the 08 crash an analyst claimed to have discovered that 70% of the global economies assets were criminal - either tax avoidance or crime - which is basically code for drugs.

Drug dealers are like popstars, there's a new one every month and everyone loves them and claims to be their friend, then they get busted and a new one comes along. Cops mainly go after low level dealers, who are replaceable. Once you start going up the chain, you will eventually run into dock workers, transport workers, and eventually government officials and high capital. Without aiming to be condescending, obviously the law has to be imposed by a specific group of people with limited time and resources. Court rooms don't magically appear over night. A rookie cop is not going to be any match for the higher levels of narco capital, who have the funds and lawyers to make pursuing a case a shortcut to a lost career and being counter sued for defamation or whatever. Also, many cop evidence lockers are like candy stores for cops who come in and grab a bottle of seized vodka or a bootleg carton of cigs or a 9 bar of hash for their own personal pleasure. Cops need justifications for their budgets, they make their careers out of getting tax money to 'stop' (usually people on welfare) spending the tax money they were given on drugs. All they are really doing is keeping a lid on it when it threatens the smooth functioning of commerce and maybe helping the middle classes to stay a bit safer. In America the laws basically created an entire industry that sucks up massive budget slices to fight the war on drugs, which they neither win or do much good against.

The cops will periodically take down a supplier and do a photo op with a nice big table of drugs. But all seizure does is ramp up the price by destroying stock and making new gaps in the market. This is what maintains the high profit margins.

The suppliers, who are one level above the dealers, just pay off the tax man. Without wanting to get myself shot, come take a drive around the countryside near here and you might just come across a few mansions and sports cars. The law is like that for the rich, you just pay off whoever. It almost functions as an industry in itself. At best it puts away a few scumbags for a while.

I think because drugs alter human neural functioning so much, we have an incredibly difficult time rationally dealing with them. They derange and addict us. We don't have the kind of control we think we have over them. However, it is necessary to wage some sort of prohibitory battle against them for the sake of society, even if this battle is never ultimately winnable.

IMO its possible the reason we don't have holocausts anymore is narcotics. It's far more economically advantageous to sell the consumer to the substance itself. This is why any kind of materialist, technical or scientific understanding of drugs and other commodities has to be obfuscated by the hedonic culture and the constant repetition that there is an almost supernatural illicit mystique of this stuff. The technical, rational and scientific knowledge of how the brain and these substances function does exist within the society but it is only permissible to mention it as a way to explain the power of the hedonism. You don't want to be nerd now do you! Smoke crack! Authority figures don't want you to so it must be good! There's been more than a few destroyed lives because of this shit.

If anyone wants to try and verify my hypothesis, go see how many people you can find that don't get unconsciously hysterical and/or angry when you question the concept of enjoyment too much.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2013, 06:49:47 pm by jamesA01 »