Here’s an unorganized list of interesting things I’ve learned about drugs over the years.
Anti-drug people cried wolf way past the point where you should stop listening to them.
Even the worst drugs that legitimately screw people up do so because those people are taking them in ridiculously stupid ways. These drugs can often be useful tools to have when used responsibly.
Addiction, as far as I can tell, can be prevented just by using a little forethought, precommitments, and outside view: “This drug might be too fun, so I wont do it again for at least a month, no matter what. Longer if it turns out to be more temping than predicted”, and “Is this the kind of thing that addicts do before becoming addicted? (and that non addicts don’t)”
Some foods do produce strong enough mental changes to notice (if you’re paying attention). Butter and MCT oil both improve my brain function. The effect is different from the ’racetam family. For example, when playing guitar, my fingers aren’t sped up, but they do play new songs as if I’m more familiar with them.
GHB is in all ways a better version of alcohol. Therapeutic index, long term toxicity, clear headedness, shorter duration of action, no hangover, higher sleep quality, possibly even less addictive, and causes numerically fewer date rapes (:P). It’s a shame that this hasn’t replaced alcohol. EDIT: Might not be so non toxic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-Hydroxybutyric_acid#Neurotoxicity
Marijuana makes SWIM feel mentally impaired and makes it harder to put sentences together, but has also led to his fastest arithmetic time since Alexei came out with his lifetracking app. The average of times was not improved, however.
It is possible to sleep on modafinil, but even if you stay up late on it, you can wake up at a normal time the next day and feel good. Modafinil makes all of SWIM feel energetic except for facial muscles.
Threshold doses of mushrooms taken before bedtime seem to make SWIM wake up in an exceptionally good mood and feeling exceptionally well rested, regardless of whether the mushrooms helped him get to sleep earlier or if they kept him up very late by making him be productive.
My hand wavy model for psychedelics is that they change your thinking in ways that make it easier to move through thought/belief/identity space than normal, but with no strong bias in any direction. Most people (especially in therapeutic environments) tend to find positive paths, but it’s possible to walk down the wrong path too. Learn to navigate.
My other hand wavy psychedelics model (for describing the experiences themselves, rather than the effect of them) is that they turn up the signal from many different parts of your brain. For example, it cranks up the volume for pattern matching algorithms and interest/curiosity- sometimes to the point of noticing patterns that you’ve never noticed before, and sometimes to the point of seeing patterns that don’t exist at all. It also tends to make you see things as if its the first time seeing them. For example, despite knowing for his whole life that ageing is bad, 50ug of LSD made SWIM see old people ‘for the first time’ and get a deeper appreciation for “Aging SUCKS, and the world is insane for ignoring it!”. Mechanisms like this can make it easier to take ideas seriously (which makes it easier to make lasting changes ^^^).
Psychedelics are much less scary and less dangerous than most people assume. Starting with low doses and proper set and setting, people rarely freak out, and the main damage it causes when it happens is to turn people away from psychedelics. There is next to no physiological danger.
Psychedelics aren’t a whole new level more intense than marijuana. SWIM has had his two most intense and scary experiences after taking one hit of marijuana even though he has taken a fairly high dose of LSD and has taken low dose psychedelics more times than he can list. His only close friend to have had a scary experience had it on marijuana and wasn’t scared on LSD.
I realize it isn’t typical to resurrect dead threads, but since I was searching for threads on LW about psychoactives I decided to go ahead.
Regarding the last bullet point:
I agree that cannabis can be frighteningly strong, of course. Even the renowned Alexander Shulgin, creator and consumer of many novel tryptamines and phenethylamines, doesn’t react well to weed(see Pihkal).
I also agree with the second to last bullet point, as a generalization.
However, I felt that must address this, in case curious readers dig this thread up:
Warning
Psychedelics can absolutely be a whole new level more intense than marijuana. Please be careful with and respectful of all psychedelics, especially those used in conjunction with MAOIs and smoked tryptamines.
These drugs can be absurdly powerful and weird. It’s all too easy to be unexpectedly plunged into a whir of terror, forget that one has consumed a drug, feel as though one is dying, perceive oneself to be tortured for eternity, perceive oneself to be poisoned, perceive demonic entities, and all the while perhaps be experiencing physical symptoms like vomiting and screaming/crying.
Psychedelics, as typically used by recreationally motivated Westerners(ie your typical LSD or whatever dose), are fairly easy to manage. In no way does this mean that all modes and forms of psychedelic drug use are 1) anywhere near as safe psychologically 2) anywhere near as easy to manage/undergo/guide 3) anywhere near as limited in the broad range of both positive and negative effects.
GHB is in all ways a better version of alcohol. Therapeutic index, long term toxicity, clear headedness, shorter duration of action, no hangover, higher sleep quality, possibly even less addictive, and causes numerically fewer date rapes (:P). It’s a shame that this hasn’t replaced alcohol.
What? This is wrong. GHB has a excessively steep dose-response curve and a terrible theraputic index. Enough so that GHB was the example the lecturer used in my pharmacology class when explaining what the theraputic index is and the risks of a bad one. It’s about 2, which means that double the dose that gets you high can kill you. He went on to give details about the later stages of the synthesis of the end product (typically done a step or two closer to the final dealer) and how varying practices can lead to a variability in the delivered dose greater in magnitude than the theraputic index. This is bad.
My past self seems to have voted up the parent. I can only hope that is because he didn’t read through fully. While most of the claims are true, the one that is wrong is a belief that gets people killed.
You have a cite for the LD50? Erowid gives 2000mg/kg for male rats and 1650mg/kg for female rats, and a strong dose of up to four grams for a human. I haven’t seen any LD50 data for humans, but have read about people taking well over the normal dose, passing out, and waking up fine. It does seem to imply a therapeutic index well over two, and the comparison was made to alcohol which has a quite low one itself. Lethal BAC is around 0.4 and up to 0.2 is pretty common.
Mixing GHB with alcohol is a big no-no though, and does get people killed.
Pardon me. Cntrl-C failure. The link in the grandparent was supposed to be to the source but I evidently copied the wrong tab. In any case the measure was likely based on rats—there doesn’t seem to be good data for humans. It also seems that the more ‘official’ (in social authority not academic authority) a source is the worse the drug is made to appear.
Further investigation brought up a few things worth mentioning:
The cause of death from GHB overdose is respiratory failure from CNS depression. If respiratory support is supplied the lethal dose (from whatever critical thing fails next) is several times higher. This suggests increased expected valueof having a sober friend who knows Expired Air Resuscitation and the emergency services number relative to other drugs of abuse.
Many of the deaths that are attributed to “GHB overdose” can (allegedly) actually be better attributed to a different cause of death (including the GHB and alcohol cocktail mentioned).
More ‘official’ sources suggest a lower LD50 than less official sources. In this case ‘official’ refers to social authority and not academic authority and there is good cause to doubt the credibility of sources for which writing a high LD50 could get the author fired by some moralizer with power.
Here’s an unorganized list of interesting things I’ve learned about drugs over the years.
Anti-drug people cried wolf way past the point where you should stop listening to them.
Even the worst drugs that legitimately screw people up do so because those people are taking them in ridiculously stupid ways. These drugs can often be useful tools to have when used responsibly.
Addiction, as far as I can tell, can be prevented just by using a little forethought, precommitments, and outside view: “This drug might be too fun, so I wont do it again for at least a month, no matter what. Longer if it turns out to be more temping than predicted”, and “Is this the kind of thing that addicts do before becoming addicted? (and that non addicts don’t)”
Some foods do produce strong enough mental changes to notice (if you’re paying attention). Butter and MCT oil both improve my brain function. The effect is different from the ’racetam family. For example, when playing guitar, my fingers aren’t sped up, but they do play new songs as if I’m more familiar with them.
GHB is in all ways a better version of alcohol. Therapeutic index, long term toxicity, clear headedness, shorter duration of action, no hangover, higher sleep quality, possibly even less addictive, and causes numerically fewer date rapes (:P). It’s a shame that this hasn’t replaced alcohol. EDIT: Might not be so non toxic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-Hydroxybutyric_acid#Neurotoxicity
Marijuana makes SWIM feel mentally impaired and makes it harder to put sentences together, but has also led to his fastest arithmetic time since Alexei came out with his lifetracking app. The average of times was not improved, however.
It is possible to sleep on modafinil, but even if you stay up late on it, you can wake up at a normal time the next day and feel good. Modafinil makes all of SWIM feel energetic except for facial muscles.
Threshold doses of mushrooms taken before bedtime seem to make SWIM wake up in an exceptionally good mood and feeling exceptionally well rested, regardless of whether the mushrooms helped him get to sleep earlier or if they kept him up very late by making him be productive.
My hand wavy model for psychedelics is that they change your thinking in ways that make it easier to move through thought/belief/identity space than normal, but with no strong bias in any direction. Most people (especially in therapeutic environments) tend to find positive paths, but it’s possible to walk down the wrong path too. Learn to navigate.
My other hand wavy psychedelics model (for describing the experiences themselves, rather than the effect of them) is that they turn up the signal from many different parts of your brain. For example, it cranks up the volume for pattern matching algorithms and interest/curiosity- sometimes to the point of noticing patterns that you’ve never noticed before, and sometimes to the point of seeing patterns that don’t exist at all. It also tends to make you see things as if its the first time seeing them. For example, despite knowing for his whole life that ageing is bad, 50ug of LSD made SWIM see old people ‘for the first time’ and get a deeper appreciation for “Aging SUCKS, and the world is insane for ignoring it!”. Mechanisms like this can make it easier to take ideas seriously (which makes it easier to make lasting changes ^^^).
Psychedelics are much less scary and less dangerous than most people assume. Starting with low doses and proper set and setting, people rarely freak out, and the main damage it causes when it happens is to turn people away from psychedelics. There is next to no physiological danger.
Psychedelics aren’t a whole new level more intense than marijuana. SWIM has had his two most intense and scary experiences after taking one hit of marijuana even though he has taken a fairly high dose of LSD and has taken low dose psychedelics more times than he can list. His only close friend to have had a scary experience had it on marijuana and wasn’t scared on LSD.
I realize it isn’t typical to resurrect dead threads, but since I was searching for threads on LW about psychoactives I decided to go ahead.
Regarding the last bullet point:
I agree that cannabis can be frighteningly strong, of course. Even the renowned Alexander Shulgin, creator and consumer of many novel tryptamines and phenethylamines, doesn’t react well to weed(see Pihkal).
I also agree with the second to last bullet point, as a generalization.
However, I felt that must address this, in case curious readers dig this thread up: Warning Psychedelics can absolutely be a whole new level more intense than marijuana. Please be careful with and respectful of all psychedelics, especially those used in conjunction with MAOIs and smoked tryptamines.
These drugs can be absurdly powerful and weird. It’s all too easy to be unexpectedly plunged into a whir of terror, forget that one has consumed a drug, feel as though one is dying, perceive oneself to be tortured for eternity, perceive oneself to be poisoned, perceive demonic entities, and all the while perhaps be experiencing physical symptoms like vomiting and screaming/crying.
Psychedelics, as typically used by recreationally motivated Westerners(ie your typical LSD or whatever dose), are fairly easy to manage. In no way does this mean that all modes and forms of psychedelic drug use are 1) anywhere near as safe psychologically 2) anywhere near as easy to manage/undergo/guide 3) anywhere near as limited in the broad range of both positive and negative effects.
What? This is wrong. GHB has a excessively steep dose-response curve and a terrible theraputic index. Enough so that GHB was the example the lecturer used in my pharmacology class when explaining what the theraputic index is and the risks of a bad one. It’s about 2, which means that double the dose that gets you high can kill you. He went on to give details about the later stages of the synthesis of the end product (typically done a step or two closer to the final dealer) and how varying practices can lead to a variability in the delivered dose greater in magnitude than the theraputic index. This is bad.
My past self seems to have voted up the parent. I can only hope that is because he didn’t read through fully. While most of the claims are true, the one that is wrong is a belief that gets people killed.
You have a cite for the LD50? Erowid gives 2000mg/kg for male rats and 1650mg/kg for female rats, and a strong dose of up to four grams for a human. I haven’t seen any LD50 data for humans, but have read about people taking well over the normal dose, passing out, and waking up fine. It does seem to imply a therapeutic index well over two, and the comparison was made to alcohol which has a quite low one itself. Lethal BAC is around 0.4 and up to 0.2 is pretty common.
Mixing GHB with alcohol is a big no-no though, and does get people killed.
Pardon me. Cntrl-C failure. The link in the grandparent was supposed to be to the source but I evidently copied the wrong tab. In any case the measure was likely based on rats—there doesn’t seem to be good data for humans. It also seems that the more ‘official’ (in social authority not academic authority) a source is the worse the drug is made to appear.
Further investigation brought up a few things worth mentioning:
The cause of death from GHB overdose is respiratory failure from CNS depression. If respiratory support is supplied the lethal dose (from whatever critical thing fails next) is several times higher. This suggests increased expected valueof having a sober friend who knows Expired Air Resuscitation and the emergency services number relative to other drugs of abuse.
Many of the deaths that are attributed to “GHB overdose” can (allegedly) actually be better attributed to a different cause of death (including the GHB and alcohol cocktail mentioned).
More ‘official’ sources suggest a lower LD50 than less official sources. In this case ‘official’ refers to social authority and not academic authority and there is good cause to doubt the credibility of sources for which writing a high LD50 could get the author fired by some moralizer with power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-Hydroxybutyric_acid#Neurotoxicity seems at least slightly scarier than what I’ve read about alcohol… but I’m far from a neuroscientist.
Agreed, and edited. Thanks!
When I originally looked into it, those studies weren’t around, and I missed them when they came up :(
MCT oil.. that’s stuff like coconut oil right? I would never even have considered trying something like that, thanks.
It’s a big component of coconut oil, but you can buy it by itself.