It's funny how the Wikipedia article call hallucinations "ill effects". I am yet to hear people call caffeine effects "ill effects". People and their sociocultural biases, uh?
> I am yet to hear people call caffeine effects "ill effects". People and their sociocultural biases, uh?
Coffee has well known ill-effects, I think every coffee drinker at one point have drank too much and felt them themselves. Apparently such a big topic that it isn't just a section of the Caffeine page, it has it's very own Wikipedia page! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine_toxicity
There are a lot of people with a cultural bias toward hallucinations, who want really hard to get high off anything that could allegedly make them high.
But despite that, this mushroom is not a popular recreational drug. Much like amanita muscaria, which certain people insist must be great if used right, is common as dirt, and yet is so unpopular as a drug that it isn't even restricted.
By these same accounts, you'll get sick. It's unpleasant. Not even the most enthusiastic "psychonauts" seem to manage to take joy in this thing, little people or not.
> Much like amanita muscaria, which certain people insist must be great if used right, is common as dirt, and yet is so unpopular as a drug that it isn't even restricted.
Psilocybe, the genus containing the most commonly cultivated magic mushroom, is also quite common. It is globally distributed with native species on every continent (less antarctica ofc). It didn't become illegal because it was common in the "wild", but because of the cultivation of one particular species at home and in closets.
A. muscaria on the other hand has never been successfully cultivated as far as we know. You would be surprised how many powerful psychoactive "drugs" can be found in ecosystems around the world
Granted, amanita mushrooms are mycorrhizal, so it wouldn't be worth it to farm them. But they are also extremely common, so why would cultivation make a difference? There are plenty of wild foods which are also not cultivated (cloudberries, lingonberries, chanterelles) yet you can find in supermarkets. They can also be dried, and according to conventional psychonaut wisdom (such as it is - ibotenic acid bad, muscimol good) that makes them better.
I didn't say it was legal because it's common - as you say, psilocybe mushrooms are also common - but because it's so unpleasant it has low abuse potential.
The presence of bioflavinoids, polyphenols, and other things that signal the endocrine and nervous systems in adaptogenic ways is wildly under discussed, and underrated.
Plants/fungus can help convince your systems that things are okay, that it’s okay to be closer to resting state / content - not just “provide nutrients and fiber” as believed - though those things are super important, too!
> It stops the uncountably large majority of people from doing it. Like more then 99.9% of people.
Most people don't even know about it or have the means to access it as its either not available or not legal in their jurisdiction so not accurate. About 45% of the adults drink. How much lower would that percentage be if alcohol was little known and subjected to the same regulations psychedelics are under?
That it's not legal in their jurisdiction doesn't stop other drugs. Hallucinogenic drugs just don't catch on. They have periodic fads, but even then they're a fringe phenomenon compared to other illegal drugs.
It's the best argument to legalize them if you ask me. It's clearly a self-limiting problem - I think it's simply because of unpleasant experiences, but I suppose it's also possible that the life-changing experiences make them not need the drugs anymore.
No, intent matters. If you drugged someone with caffeine (or someone drank it not knowing what it was) then their symptoms would also be called ill effects.
What a wild claim. You can't just say it's arguable, you have to actually argue it. Personally I think it's true but only in a metaphorical way that doesn't apply to hallucinogenic drugs; inasmuch as it applies to hallucinogenic drugs, it's false.
I dunno if it's so wild, but maybe I'm zooming out way too much. The example that came to my mind was "mathematics", something that doesn't "exists" but we "see" it everywhere and humanity got massively improved thanks to it. Electricity would be another example :) I guess how wild the claim is depends on how charitable you read it.
Right, and I think any serious civilizational benefit of drugs in the sub-hallucinatory regime is at least unproven, and benefit in the hallucinatory regime doesn't exist. That's sorta what I mean: "where big, false; where true, not big."
> sub-hallucinatory regime is at least unproven, and benefit in the hallucinatory regime doesn't exist
It's a interesting train of thought if nothing else. How would we "prove" a thing like "humanity benefits from being able to create, share and read books?" for example? Or that we can organize in grassroot movements? It's also really hard to qualify directly, as the impact is so indirect.
Same with psychedelics, a lot of scientists, researchers, creatives or even business-people attribute psychedelic usage to some of their success in their fields, but how can we really know if it was because of that or not?
> any serious civilizational benefit of drugs in the sub-hallucinatory regime is at least unproven
If you do want to get into the "where big":
Shamanic/ritual/religious/social practices that wholly involve hallucinatory experiences (both with and without the aid of hallucinogenic substances) are well attested and documented throughout human development.
So the existence is there; if you want to argue that actually it was a Bad Thing for human collectives, from Siberia to the Amazon, from 50k years ago to the present day, to engage in these practices and that they'd have been much better off Not Doing It, I guess the burden of that proof is on you?
People don't see math or electricity with their eyes and it is simultaneously hard to argue that their physical counterpart doesn't exist. Your examples are things you can't see but exist.
> People don't see math or electricity with their eyes and it is simultaneously hard to argue that their physical counterpart doesn't exist. Your examples are things you can't see but exist.
How is that different from psychedelics? We can "see" their physical counterparts (and chemical reactions) in people's head and body as they trip too.
I have a camera. Suppose I rub course-grained sandpaper all over its lens. Now the camera sees scratches, instead of the outside world. But those scratches are real! We can see their physical counterparts if we study the camera. Clearly, the camera has been much improved.
I read it as “we can see with our imagination”. We build, we invent, we follow our “hallucinations” whether they come from drug use or just an active imagination giving revelations.
Some ADHD stimulant medications quite literally boost your mood. A literal anti-depression pill.
This function is listed as a side effect of being on these meds. Which is true, it's not being used to treat depression, though is often being used to treat people with depression and treat the root cause of that depression. It just also happens to "perk" you up.
If you're basing your perception of sociocultural biases on what you (1 person) have seen or not seen, you may be speaking to your own biases, rather than others'
To wit: multiple people here have definitely heard the thing you have yet to hear.
Not all hallucinations are pleasant. Magic mushrooms are known to be pleasurable for many people, but I've heard these mushrooms are not very fun and can last days. Given these effects have been known for a long time there could be a good reason it never caught on
That's probably based on some specific definition of food poisoning where you get effects from the food. It's semantics rather than saying anything useful about what's going on.
The religious will love them if they arrive naturally. There are even a few studies that administered psilocybin to religious professionals. They described it as the most profound experience of their life.
Imagine a person who does not want social media companies to shape their reality, yet does not want their perception of reality to be compromised by hallucinations. Or perhaps you would be fine with being snuck LSD on your way to work, or court, or picking up your kids from kindergarten? Most people do not seek out hallucinations
Caffeine is beneficial; it's not just a feeling. It has a neuroprotective effect shown in animal model of ALZ and a statistically significant effect in humans that decaffeinated beverages don't provide.
I wasn't meaning to say it's not actually beneficial, I just don't like how often people get dependent on it without realizing. (As in, I wouldn't really mind if people knew they are dependent, but being completely oblivious to it is sort of offputting.)
Meth can be neuroprotective at low doses and is available by prescription for ADHD and obesity. Though, I treat my ADHD with dextroamph and I don't think I need to experience meth (I've heard it is more prone to addiction).
Vast majority of illicit adhd/Adderall on the street is actually just lower dosed meth.
You probably would never know the difference, and many people don't.
A lot of sold-as pure isomers are also simply racemic. People often won't notice that either (due to placebo and other factors), but they won't be getting the full benefit they wanted.
There are outliers like myself of course that cannot have levoamphetamine, it completely disables me. I do not know why and I don't really care to find out. The one and only time I took regular adderall, I had to sleep it off.
