Psychedelics as healing agents

[Nihilism]

Fair enough, just forget what i've said. One last thing i want to add is that cannabis is better to 'balance' someone's stress levels and therefore prevent a panic attack. Or that's what's the good thing in my case.

[Electric_Head]

cannabis is terrible for depression. it removes motivation and structure from peoples lives, two things a depressed person needs.

Can't really blame cannabis.

[DJoe]

Why not? i cant count on two hands the number of people i know who have become depressed and entered a skunk hole for a few months.

[m8son666]

But that doens't mean it's bad and that xanax / prozac is the only good solution when it comes to such matters.

Who said that?

your original point was:

Ppl have to stop thinking that Prozac and Xanax are any better then drugs like ganja and shrooms. That mentality has to go away.

While it doesn't make any sense (better in what way?) i will presume you mean better at treating depression or anxiety. There have been many studies to show the effectiveness of prozac and xanax, and the only thing currently supporting the effectiveness of weed and shrooms is the anecdotes of people with very little knowledge of the relevant science behind it.

'This mentality has to go away' by this do you mean we should ignore what the people who know what they are talking about say and follow the advice of the ignorant? Sometimes when i'm feeling anxious if i tap my fingers 20 times i feel better maybe we should stop thinking the peer reviewed and proven effective drugs for treating anxiety are any better than finger tapping.

[m8son666]

One last thing i want to add is that cannabis is better to 'balance' someone's stress levels and therefore prevent a panic attack.

Once again complete gibberish that means nothing, 'balance someones stress levels'. Please read a book on pharmacology before pretending you know about it, you wouldn't go into the physics thread and pretend you know what you're talking about so why do the same when talking about drugs?

[Samuel_L_Damnson]

ye everyone thinks they know about everything drugs to be fair. im pretty sure i know fuck all about em myself.

[Muncey]

you wouldn't go into the physics thread and pretend you know what you're talking about so why do the same when talking about drugs?

Judging by the majority of posts in this thread its because its less about science and more about 'enlightenment' lol.

[Dub Baba]

Surely psychedelics can tune you up and heal you. if you are comfortable with the weed high, then other psychedelics will enable you to shift your consciousness higher and deeper, thereby affording relief from depression. In many ways, it helps you to become creative in spending your time with an overall sense of being attuned with nature and one's self.

Check this write-up by Terence 'psychedelic' Mckenna

http://willmushiamroom.wordpress.com/20 ... ear-drugs/

http://www.matrixmasters.net/podcasts/T ... elics.html

[SunkLo]

Cannabis does have pretty strong anxiolytic effects. You can't be retarded and buy a random strain from your buddy and expect it to work well for you though. Indica for anxiety, sativa for depression is pretty standard. The whole "it makes u lazy man" argument is just tired recycled stereotypes. I've always been the same level of lazy whether I've been sober for a year or baked for a year. I've certainly felt more motivated to be productive and try to advance my life on a decent sativa strain than I have in any other state of mind. The novelty of the experience alone is enough to eradicate any depression symptoms. As for mushrooms, that novelty effect is a hundredfold more pronounced. The experience is very reaffirming in terms of your connection to yourself and your environment. If that doesn't give you a will to live, I don't know what will. Numbing you to the point of unconsciousness doesn't really count as a viable alternative, not to mention the other side effects users of those commonly prescribed drugs have to contend with.

I do agree that it's stupid that people will eat some pill given to them by their doctor and think it's ultra safe. It's just some chem that a fairly educated man discovered (oh but he's a 'scientist' though!) that they then tested on rats and humans and found that a statistically significant amount of test subjects responded to in a way deemed to be positive. A lot of times the mechanism of action is completely unknown and the list of side effects rivals some short stories. If there wasn't money involved I'd be much more compelled to be trusting but the fact of the matter is, these chemicals are being constructed by fallible humans for profit after some relatively brief trials. Do you really trust that over organic substances that humans have been using for millennia? People will ridicule tweakers at a rave and then go put their kids on Adderall and not realize it's the exact same drug.

In terms of risk/reward ratio, cannabis and mushrooms are certainly much much better than prozac and xanax. I don't even understand how that's being debated here. Can someone remind me of the LD50s of the above mentioned substances again?

[m8son666]

Cannabis does have pretty strong anxiolytic effects. You can't be retarded and buy a random strain from your buddy and expect it to work well for you though. Indica for anxiety, sativa for depression is pretty standard.

Thats all fine an dandy for you americans but in the U.K there's no such choice.

I've always been the same level of lazy whether I've been sober for a year or baked for a year. I've certainly felt more motivated to be productive and try to advance my life on a decent sativa strain than I have in any other state of mind.

Personal experience, cannot be generalised and so is irrelevant.

The novelty of the experience alone is enough to eradicate any depression symptoms. As for mushrooms, that novelty effect is a hundredfold more pronounced. The experience is very reaffirming in terms of your connection to yourself and your environment. If that doesn't give you a will to live, I don't know what will.

For you perhaps but again that is personal experience. If a double blind study shows this to be true in thousands of people then you may be on to something.

If there wasn't money involved I'd be much more compelled to be trusting

That money is necessary to research new drugs and compensate for the money lost from failed trials, who do you think funds the research into new drugs?

relatively brief trials.

Here your ignorance shows. The trials are in no way brief, they are incredibly thorough and usually the process from inception to production will take at least 10 years.

Do you really trust that over organic substances that humans have been using for millennia?

Yes i do, i trust peer reviewed studies coming from people who have spent the majority of their life learning about pharmacology over anecdotal evidence from hippies who have done too many psychedelics. I presume instead of accepting chemotherapy if you ever get cancer you will take whatever 'organic substance' has been used in previous centuries?

I do agree that weed and shrooms may have a place in the future of treating various mental disorders. Although completely dismissing drugs that have been proved to be successful by people much more knowledgeable than yourself after reading a wikipedia article in favour of something that has helped you or your mates with mild anxiety or depression is beyond ignorant.

[titchbit]

m8son i generally think you know ur shit when it comes to these things but i think ur placing a little too much faith in science and "studies" which have been, at some times, manufactured by the pharmaceutical industry. xanax is absolute shit for treating anxiety or depression. everyone knows it actually makes anxiety and whatever else its used to treat (other than seizures) worse after a few weeks. is it "approved" by big pharma teaming up with the govt to make a boatload of cash? yes. but does that mean it's actually good at treating anxiety? no

Also, ssri's (prozac) have been shown to be no more effective than placebo. The drug laws (in the us at least) have the system rigged so that it's almost impossible to perform actual studies on the benefits of illegal drugs for health. Even at times when nobody doubts the effectiveness of an illegal drug, such as mushrooms for cluster headaches, they aren't "approved" for it by the money-making machine because they've invested too much in sumatriptin or whatever the latest headache drug to be patented is. Many illegal drugs are illegal only because, at some point in time, they threatened the interests of private companies (eg hemp threatened the paper industry).

[m8son666]

What i'm saying isn't so much concerning the specific examples of prozac and xanax which are not regularly prescribed in the UK anyway. Just the general distrust of anti depressants and anxiolytic drugs. I may have too much faith in science but you don't place enough faith in it.

Without profit the pharmaceutical companies would not be able to afford to research new drugs, end of story. Your post is dripping in conspiracy.

You are wrong in saying that it is impossible to research illegal drugs, there are lots of studies into ketamine as an antidepressant (one example http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00088699) and several into magic mushrooms (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23727882). Surely it would be a lot more profitable for a company to research into an already known chemical as opposed to developing a completely novel one?

[Muncey]

I do agree that it's stupid that people will eat some pill given to them by their doctor and think it's ultra safe. It's just some chem that a fairly educated man discovered (oh but he's a 'scientist' though!) that they then tested on rats and humans and found that a statistically significant amount of test subjects responded to in a way deemed to be positive.

Do doctors really give out these things without talking to the patient first though? In which case they should know they aren't 'ultra safe'.

In terms of risk/reward ratio, cannabis and mushrooms are certainly much much better than prozac and xanax. I don't even understand how that's being debated here.

Mason pretty much answered this already, doctors don't prescribe them for no good reason and you're ignoring how serve a condition they're under.

Ok come back to me when you're unable to get out of bed and holding a razor to your throat cos your depression is so severe, i'm sure a spliff will help then.

Can I ask what your opinion (and Nihilisms) on MDMA being given out as anti-anxiety/depression? I could be wrong but I think theres been a lot more scientific testing with MDMA than there has with weed and shrooms, you can read about it being used for anxiety/depression with cancer patients here:

http://www.cancer.gov/clinicaltrials/se ... on=Patient

Of all the illegal drugs to choose from I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet weed has.. something that, from what I've read, is based completely on personal experience.

Plus theres been nothing about social problems which is a huge factor in what drugs are legal/illegal or available as treatment. It just isn't culturally acceptable to allow people to walk around smoking weed in the UK because of anxiety. Just like if I find alcohol to be great for anti-anxiety it wouldn't socially acceptable to allow me to drink. Things like working with machinery, driving ect. Can't get drunk/stoned/take shrooms for mild anxiety and expect to fit into modern society.. whether you feel thats wrong or not is irrelevant you would still be discriminated against for it. There are many jobs you just wouldn't be allowed to do because you take shrooms/weed for mild anxiety.

At least not in the UK.

[ezza]

speaking personally... mdma makes me depressed. i had to stop taking it, i get like a week of wanting to kill myself

at first that didnt happen, it started after a year or two of fairly regular use

so i dont reckon its gonna work on depression, or at least not after a significant amount of time

[titchbit]

What i'm saying isn't so much concerning the specific examples of prozac and xanax which are not regularly prescribed in the UK anyway. Just the general distrust of anti depressants and anxiolytic drugs. I may have too much faith in science but you don't place enough faith in it.

Without profit the pharmaceutical companies would not be able to afford to research new drugs, end of story. Your post is dripping in conspiracy.

You are wrong in saying that it is impossible to research illegal drugs, there are lots of studies into ketamine as an antidepressant (one example http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00088699) and several into magic mushrooms (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23727882). Surely it would be a lot more profitable for a company to research into an already known chemical as opposed to developing a completely novel one?

Well for one, I said it's almost impossible, not completely impossible. It's much harder than it should be. All the things in my post are true events, not conspiracies. Sure without profit big pharma couldn't function. No private business could. But you should look up how big their profit margins are. It's obscene.

Why do you have ANY trust at all in anti-depressants or anxiolytics? There are pretty much zero drugs that are "approved" for those purposes that have been proven to be more effective than placebo. The only drugs that are truly effective for these purposes are addictive. Look at the history of the treatment for anxious depression - opiates, amphetamines, barbiturates/benzos, anti-depressants. The addictive drugs are too addictive, the non-addictive drugs don't work.

I honestly can't think of one drug that is approved and is more effective than placebo.

[Muncey]

speaking personally... mdma makes me depressed. i had to stop taking it, i get like a week of wanting to kill myself

I don't think any doctor will even come close to prescribing the amount you were taking for recreational use for anxiety/depression lol.

[SunkLo]

Cannabis does have pretty strong anxiolytic effects. You can't be retarded and buy a random strain from your buddy and expect it to work well for you though. Indica for anxiety, sativa for depression is pretty standard.

Thats all fine an dandy for you americans but in the U.K there's no such choice.

The availability of certain strains to you is irrelevant to their efficacy.

I've always been the same level of lazy whether I've been sober for a year or baked for a year. I've certainly felt more motivated to be productive and try to advance my life on a decent sativa strain than I have in any other state of mind.

Personal experience, cannot be generalised and so is irrelevant.

It's relevant because of the claim that weed makes you lazy. All it takes is a single case of that being untrue to prove it wrong. Much like how if the argument was that weed makes everyone sprout a third arm and I'm sitting over here with two arms, that would make that claim untrue. Perhaps weed enables some people to be lazy but I don't think it causes laziness, much to the contrary in my experience.

The novelty of the experience alone is enough to eradicate any depression symptoms. As for mushrooms, that novelty effect is a hundredfold more pronounced. The experience is very reaffirming in terms of your connection to yourself and your environment. If that doesn't give you a will to live, I don't know what will.

For you perhaps but again that is personal experience. If a double blind study shows this to be true in thousands of people then you may be on to something.

I'm sure there are easily thousands of people to corroborate.

If there wasn't money involved I'd be much more compelled to be trusting

That money is necessary to research new drugs and compensate for the money lost from failed trials, who do you think funds the research into new drugs?

The fact that funding is a necessary evil has nothing to do with the trustworthiness of the financially motivated. Capitalism props up most economies but that doesn't make an infomercial salesman any more trustworthy does it?

relatively brief trials.

Here your ignorance shows. The trials are in no way brief, they are incredibly thorough and usually the process from inception to production will take at least 10 years.

I consider that brief.

Do you really trust that over organic substances that humans have been using for millennia?

Yes i do, i trust peer reviewed studies coming from people who have spent the majority of their life learning about pharmacology over anecdotal evidence from hippies who have done too many psychedelics. I presume instead of accepting chemotherapy if you ever get cancer you will take whatever 'organic substance' has been used in previous centuries?

Strawman.
Also you're still failing to account for financial motivation. Why invent a cure when you can keep charging for treatment. Pure science as a sovereign discipline is trustworthy by design, but money taints everything and those practicing under the guise of science for profit aren't true scientists. You can construct a flawed experiment to prove anything, and you can pay doctors to prescribe your drugs to patients for any wide variety of ailments. Go to a doctor and say you're having problems focusing. They'll whip out their Rx pad before suggesting you do daily intense exercise, guaranteed. At least mine did. Don't put your faith in a flawed system just because the practitioners have paper on their wall.

[Sonika]

[nowaysj]

Blanket party for masson, enough of his shit.

[ezza]

hes making the best arguments lol

sais something about this whole thread if im honest