Will reductionist science ruin psychedelics?

[Jodistrict]

“However, some psychedelic drugs that are being investigated for their medical effects, such as psilocybin, routinely trigger hallucinations, which means they should only really be used as a treatment under the guidance and supervision of experts.

Finding a safe alternative without the risk of hallucinations would be extremely useful clinically, but the thing is, we still don't know if these hallucinogenic effects are needed to actually reshape the brain.”

“Scientists Discover Psychedelic-Like Drug That Doesn't Cause Hallucinations”

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-discover-a-psychedelic-like-drug-that-doesn-t-cause-hallucinations
 

[Truth-Seeker]

@Jodistrict

Yea, this is shocking and sad but not surprising. 

Even if we tell them that hallucinations aren't "bad" and that they are projecting "badness" onto hallucinations, they will say that we are fools and that we are stupid and endangering patients...

• We are enandering pateints?
  • They say this while they are literally leaving miserable depressed people to suffer for 6 weeks waiting on a medication that has tons of foul side effects only for it to not work so that they try another one and so on. 
    • During these 6 weeks, the patient might just kill themselves to rest in peace.
      • Yet, we are endangering patients and not them... 

[BipolarGrowth]

They will certainly try. It’s funny how when they usually say things like “under the supervision of experts” they are referring to people who often have little to no experience with taking a psychedelic themselves. 

[outlandish]

Why would discovery of new drugs that don't cause psychedelic effects "ruin" psychedelics? It's not like these discoveries will take away your acid. They're just looking for new drugs.

[Forestluv]

In addition to trippy states of consciousness, psychedelics induce neurogenesis and expand neural plasticity potential. Designing compounds that utilize this feature has value. They would essentially be powerful forms of nootropics without the trippy psychological part.

And the trippy part also has value. Clinical psychologists have used the trippy features to induce transcendent insights in which people face and observe life issues in ways they have never before. This can trigger psychological breakthroughs they may have taken years of therapy. 

If there was a psychedelic-like substance that offered increased synaptic plasticity, without the trippy part - I'd be very interested in taking it. In particular, I'd be curious how this might enhance learning. And traditional psychedelics are still available for trippy times.

As psychedelics become mainstream, many new variations will be created with higher resolution. For example, you want to enhance forming new neural circuits to learn a foreign language faster? Then take the 4-Azo-144-B2 compound. 

[outlandish]

The structure of AAZ-A-154 looks pretty interesting: 

It's like 6-MeO-almostDMT

There must be thousands and thousands of variants on these molecules, how wonderful that the doors to this kind of research are opening up again.

[Forestluv]

16 minutes ago, outlandish said:

 

The engineering of that 5HT2AR PshychLight biosensor is brilliant. 

[Carl-Richard]

When "trigger hallucinations" is used in this way, it just screams 1960s stuck-up news broadcasters and drug scare stories. The ignorance ?

Edited May 2, 2021 by Carl-Richard

[outlandish]

12 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

The engineering of that 5HT2AR PshychLight biosensor is brilliant. 

Indeed. I checked out https://www.selectscience.net/industry-news/psychlight-sensor-to-enable-discovery-of-new-psychiatric-drugs/?artid=54608 to read more about it. Sounds like one of those tools that could really revolutionize the field. I think similar kinds of tools have been used a lot over the last decade within neuroscience? Neurons that flouresce when activated etc.

[Tim R]

Best case scenario: psychedelics will ruin reductionist science

But these new compounds are definitely a step in the right direction. Remember, not everyone is interested in tripping. Many people would benefit enormously from the effects of those drugs. Imagine if we could actually treat depression effectively. How that would transform society...

Quote

For example, you want to enhance forming new neural circuits to learn a foreign language faster? Then take the 4-Azo-144-B2 compound. 

@Forestluv Never heard of it. Can't find anything about it on the internet, what is it? New research? Any papers on it? 

Edited April 30, 2021 by Tim R

[Jodistrict]

13 hours ago, outlandish said:

Why would discovery of new drugs that don't cause psychedelic effects "ruin" psychedelics? It's not like these discoveries will take away your acid. They're just looking for new drugs.

Well, several concerns.  

First, they could take the chemicals they find useful and then keep the real psychedelics illegal.  

I am also thinking of things like the chocolates that have THC and CBD and is called cannabis.   The reductionists assume that cannabis can be embodied by two chemicals and they throw everything else away.   When I have used these edibles, it has resulted in paranoid states and nausea, nothing like the effect of a naturally grown plant.  It is actually a different substance but they still label it cannabis.  Similarly, a mushroom is not just psilocybin, it is a complex living being.  The substances could be reduced and altered with the same name used, and growing the real thing made illegal. 

I  don’t trust how stage orange is going to package psychedelics in order to maximize profits, not awareness.  They can transform the products and use the same name for a totally different substance.  The eggheads see what they call “hallucinations” as just an annoying side effect.  In their lower state of consciousness, they have no belief in awakening and view the idea with contempt.  To get the "hallucinations" you will need to be monitored by "experts"  who have a presumably been tested with a multiple choice test and given a piece of paper to put on their wall, which will make their fees high (which is good for stage orange).     

Also, why would the ruling elite want the world to be awakened?  That is dangerous for them.  LSD was quickly made illegal.  Richard Nixon complained that his soldiers didn’t want to fight in Vietnam because of LSD.  Richard Nixon was right.

The indigenous people don’t see chemicals, they see plant teachers – separate beings worthy of respect and composed of incredible complexity.
 

Edited May 1, 2021 by Jodistrict

[Egzoset]

23 hours ago, Jodistrict said:

...Richard Nixon...

 

Actually Nixon's legacy was patiently built on that of preceeding generations.  For example, in days when Canada used to be a dominion of the British Empire, it happens that my province's own Pharmacy Act somehow already restricted access to "L'ergot de seigle et ses préparations." (LSD), as soon as 1875 (e.g. just a few years after Ontario i think)...  So i guess what i'm saying here is that we can bet USA probably shared some similar events in its history as well, because although there were no iPhones the Commonwealth's doctors and pharmacists still gradually managed to take over dentists and apothecaries, protected behind the United Nations acting as a shield against truly democratic debate, if i'm not mistaking...

 

>> The reductionists assume that cannabis can be embodied by two chemicals and they throw everything else away.

 

The word "insult" sounds most appropriate to me relatively to "legal" cannabis of which all "entourage" (full-spectrum) effect gets seriously challenged by the socio-toxic neccesities of greed, etc., considering the plant's genetic can only code for a limited number of cannabinoïds, and the more its THC and/or CBD concentration levels go up the less opportunities remain to explore other synergies still systematically excluded in my province today, now as a result of industrialization!

 

About LSD, i can tell during college it felt relatively safe to use hashish but i also occasionally appreciated LSD as a fair trade-off between playing safe and having fun...

 

But anyway i don't see Nixon as the drug-haters prototype since he didn't even invent the concept, actually.

 

Good day, have fun!! 

[WaveInTheOcean]

The top obvious thing that many rational-minded scientists forget is that we are ALL tripping our balls off on Serotonin! Like serotonin is probably the most fucking potent psychedelic hallucinations-inducing substance on the planet! Just look! We are all hallucinating being human! Haha. Fucking eternity trip!

[Egzoset]

Beware of bull fights over science vs belief as these moments might risk to challenge those of that serotonin's contribution...

[Lyubov]

On 5/1/2021 at 0:32 AM, Jodistrict said:

  When I have used these edibles, it has resulted in paranoid states and nausea, nothing like the effect of a naturally grown plant.  

it's cause you took way more of what's getting you high when you took an edible. do your research. you're gettin way more high on edibles than just smoke a bowl or two from a bong. 

[Jodistrict]

1 hour ago, Lyubov said:

it's cause you took way more of what's getting you high when you took an edible. do your research. you're gettin way more high on edibles than just smoke a bowl or two from a bong. 

No, I experimented with different dosages, all with the same result.  The point is that it is a different substance.  

[Carl-Richard]

On 30.4.2021 at 11:34 PM, Kalo said:

The concept of "hallucinations" is a false and deluded one. There are no hallucinations. 

Only Reality is.

Relative/absolute conflation. The concept of hallucination is fine. It's just that some people (including scientists) have a completely vacuous definition of it. For instance, there are some hallucinatory phenomena that could be completely unproblematic in a clinical context and some that could make it completely impossible. You can also distinguish it from general "trippiness".

Edited May 2, 2021 by Carl-Richard

[Jodistrict]

The scientific materialists are going to launch a full attack against psychedelics because it is a direct threat to their deluded paradigm.

 

"Do Psychedelics Just Provide Comforting Delusions?"

https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7eb59/do-psychedelics-just-provide-comforting-delusions