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"psychedelics had always been that they were illegal not because it troubles anyone that you have visions but because there is something about them that casts d

"psychedelics had always been that they were illegal not because it troubles anyone that you have visions but because there is something about them that casts doubts on the validity of reality." No. Psychedelics are illegal because they make you want to run in front of an oncoming bus because its headlights sound like tchaikovsky and the wind tastes like blueberries.

dalke 12y ago
While vivid, is that true? Given all of the people who have taken LSD, I would expect more reported accidents of the sort you describe. According to http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/nationwide-trends http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/nationwide-t... , about 0.4% of the US uses a hallucinogen each month. According to http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistics http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-con... about 60% have had alcohol in the same month. Thats a ratio of about 150. Let's round it up to 200. Nearly 88,000 people die from alcohol related deaths per year (see http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistics http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-con... ). Thus, if the risk factors for death related to hallucinogens is higher than that of alcohol, I would expect to see about 440 such deaths per year. 10,322 died due to alcohol-impaired-driving. Using the same ratio, I would expect to see about 50 such deaths related to hallucinogens. I have failed to find deaths of the sort you described, which make me doubt that there's a simple causal relationship between the number of fatalities and the prohibition of a substance.
- Symmetry 12y ago
  LSD certainly kills people, but it's down around the danger level (to the user) of Cannabis or Ecstasy. Much safer than scary drugs like alcohol or cocaine let alone even worse ones (to the user) like Meth or Heroin. http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_cause_most_harm http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_caus... (That list has alcohol at the top but that's mainly due to drunk people's tendency to harm others via driving or violence)
  - MichaelGG 12y ago
    Alcohol is far worse than Heroin or the other opiates. Nearly all the problems with opiates relate to having unknown quantities due to the lack of regulated producers. The opiate side effect profile is rather tame, mainly constipation. (Apart from respiratory depression, and the unfortunate people that get nauseous.)
    - azernik 12y ago
      There is one more issue with many opiates, which is actually inherent to the drugs and not to the regulatory/market context - the relatively quick gain and loss of tolerance, and the uncertainty this introduces as to the actual physiological effects even of a known dosage. This is why there are many opiate overdoses where the victim is starting to use after being sober for some time - they go back to the doses that were normal for them not so long ago, but their body chemistry has changed enough that those dosages are now dangerous. See for example http://www.bmj.com/content/326/7396/959 http://www.bmj.com/content/326/7396/959
      - MichaelGG 12y ago
        Well that's still rather related to legal issues. If opiates didn't have legal issues, then the social stigma would drop and people wouldn't need to go on these binge rehabs. Also note that other very popular legal drugs require care when going on or off. Eg benzodiazepines can cause death if suddenly discontinued. SSRIs also require care when stopping. Yet these two groups are the most prescribed medications, ever.
        azernik 12y ago
        Sure - and some opiates (including ones with dangers of addiction and overdose morphine) are themselves prescribed, carefully. But they're not safe on the same level that, say, marijuana or LSD are.
        MichaelGG 12y ago
- TylerJay 12y ago
  While I expect the death rate of psychedelics/hallucinogens to be much, much lower than that of alcohol, it should be noted that the analysis you presented here doesn't really provide solid evidence that it is so. Given that an average LSD dose is 50-150mcg and because of the "Cascade effect" nature of the drug, LSD is often not measurable in the blood even when someone is heavily under the influence. And even in the cases where it would be detectable if they tested for it, LSD is not included in coroners' postmortem tox-screens unless it is specifically suspected. Movies and TV get this wrong frequently. Basically, I'm saying that since it isn't routinely tested for (and is often undetectable anyway) the published statistics have no reason to be accurate. But really, how much more common (even after adjusting for frequency of overall usage) are "Hey, watch this. Hold my beer" deaths than any deaths from LSD? My estimate is "a lot."
  - dalke 12y ago
    I agree. The OP drew a conclusion, and rather than just demanding proof I wanted to point out why I didn't think it was obviously true. There would very well be other things not in my analysis that could lead the OP to that conclusion. For example, methods besides chemical traces might determine the cause of death. Friends of the deceased might provide information about the circumstances of death, additional drugs or paraphernalia might be in the pockets of the victim, or in the immediate surroundings. In addition, if it were true then there should be a lot more people who are injured in similar circumstances. The medical personnel at the hospital may learn some of the background context when asking for details about what happened to cause the injury.
- pmoriarty 12y ago
  I would be very wary of "drug-related death" statistics. I've read that when people are admitted to the hospital, if drugs are mentioned, they are required by law to report the admission as "drug-related". The person admitted doesn't have to be actually taking any drugs him/herself, much less be in the hospital because of any action on such drugs on their body or mind, nor even do the people around them have to be on any drugs. They only have to be mentioned and then the admission is considered "drug-related". Furthermore, when people die and they're on illegal drugs, it's rare for there to be just one drug involved. Usually it's a cocktail mix of chemicals (often with alcohol being one of them, and one of the drugs that's most dangerous to mix with others). Finally, lots of drugs are metabolized very quickly or don't show up in the standard tests that are done during an autopsy (if an autopsy is actually performed).
  - dalke 12y ago
    You are making a general statement, right, and not something related to my estimate? The bias you mention should only serve to increase the number of reported cases. As I cannot find statistics anywhere near the scores of people who must die each year for the OP's comments to make sense, nor historical justifications for the prohibition of psychedelics that were based on scores of people dieing per year, your comment doesn't seem relevant. That is, I could ignore it completely and still draw the same conclusion.
fein 12y ago
At no time in any of my experiences with various psychotropics have I ever wanted to jump in front of traffic. In fact, while dazzling, that bus is goddamn terrifying in that state. I would worry more about the folks taking stuff like Ambien and Chantix, as those are legal and have well documented horror stories of people losing complete control.
- gooseyard 12y ago
  Dextromethorphan seems to fall into the same category- a friend of mine lost his son recently to an overdose of it. I'm not sure whether he was using it because it was more readily available than LSD, or because he preferred it, but he was a frequent LSD user and it seemed tragic that it was cough syrup that killed him.
colordrops 12y ago
Maybe you are trolling. In any case what you say is patently untrue for popular psychedelics. It may be true of users of deliriants and stroke victims, but not psychedelics.
- pianoforted 12y ago
  I'm not trolling. My cousin's friend did exactly this. She was on off her face on Ecstasy and wondering straight into oncoming traffic in front of all her friends whilst having a big smile on her face.
  - cgh 12y ago
    Ecstacy is not considered to be a classic psychedelic and does not fall under the category discussed in the article. Too bad for your cousin's friend but it's not a valid counterargument.
  - sigmar 12y ago
    You might not be trolling, but you sound willfully ignorant.
  - dalke 12y ago
    Is that enough to make a national policy change and prohibit Ecstasy? Here's someone who died because of walking into traffic while wearing an iPod: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1091715/Girl-14-killed-speeding-driver-crossed-road-listening-iPod.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1091715/Girl-14-kill... . Should we prohibit listening to music while walking? Personally, I think both indicate that we should change social policy to reduce the number of cars, have strictly enforced speed limits, and place primary responsibility for such incidents on the driver of the vehicle. The Dutch road traffic engineer Hans Monderman is famous for his "shared space" urban design, where he would "walk backwards into dense traffic to demonstrate that drivers would be sufficiently human not to run him over." Why shouldn't we draw that conclusion, instead of prohibiting Ecstasy?
  - Igglyboo 12y ago
    Is ecstasy really a psychedelic? It's not very similar to LSD or shrooms.
girmad 12y ago
Come on guys, let's not downvote the dissenting opinion.
- vichu 12y ago
  The problem isn't inherently that it's a dissenting opinion, but it's a comment that provides no added information aside from the fact that they disagree. Had they actually provided an argument, statistics, or a new insight on the problem, I doubt they would be so downvoted.
  - analog31 12y ago
    It occurs to me that a downvote is also a comment that provides even less added information.
- clusterfoo 12y ago
  It's not a dissenting opinion, it's plain false. What he's thinking of is dissociative drugs. Even at very high doses of psychedelics, you remain perfectly aware that you are tripping, and if anything, tend to be extra-careful not to do anything that might be foolish in "the real world", which you understand you still physically inhabit. On the other hand, dissociative drugs, as the name implies, are drugs that make you lose your grip on reality (and even your own personhood). These are the "jump out the window" drugs. They can be dangerous in that sense, and also in the sense that they can be used to cause harm to others - for example, as date rape drugs. They are not always hallucinogenic, are not the same thing as psychedelics, and they tend to be extremely unpleasant so they're not even particularly popular. If done responsibly, about the worst thing that a person on LSD will do (assuming no pre-existing mental instability) is lie down, cry, and have a very bad time waiting for the bad trip to be over. No murderous rampage or flight attempts.
  - MichaelGG 12y ago
    This is not true. It's quite easy to trip hard enough to be disconnected enough from understanding some things will cause permanent damage that you won't want. For instance, thinking that blood is life energy and so is electric so why not connect the two? Additionally, the idea of death can become non-scary entirely (which can make it great in therapy), lowering inhibitions. Perhaps it's not common to have such problems, but your key word is responsibly. It's misleading to suggest that an uncontrolled bad trip can't easily result in tragedy. (Not that that's good justification for making it illegal.)
tokenadult 12y ago
I actually have seen a person on a bad trip run out into a street without looking for oncoming cars. That was one of the most frightening experiences of my life, because I know and love the person who did that. And, indeed, many people are quite wary of their friends and loved ones using psychedelic drugs because they have observed other friends and loved ones experience bad outcomes from using those drugs. Medical doctors who work in emergency rooms have more been-there, done-thats on this issue than I have. On a statistical, national population level, it does appear that alcohol (legal but regulated) is more dangerous to more people than LSD (currently basically illegal). But individual personal risk profiles vary, and I would not want LSD (for example) to be more readily available to the general public than the typical prescription medicine. If a knowledgeable physician prescribes LSD for an indication for which LSD is generally safe and effective, then fine, but I hope nobody I hope to see live a long and healthy life is obtaining LSD from current "street" dealers or "friends." On the broader topic of drug regulation, there does appear to be some cross-national evidence to suggest that "decriminalization" (which is not the same thing as "legalization") may help set up systems of drug regulation that actually reduce societal use of dangerous drugs, which sounds like a very good idea to me. Let doctors figure out what each kind of drug is good for, and let most members of the general public pursue a typically sober lifestyle and pursue new ideas and creative thoughts in their right minds.
- pmoriarty 12y ago
  "I actually have seen a person on a bad trip run out into a street without looking for oncoming cars." And I have seen people do this when they weren't on any drugs (not to mention those who were drunk on perfectly legal and socially respectable alcohol). Sometimes it was because they were listening to an iPod and were so wrapped up in their own thoughts and the music that they were oblivious to what was going on around them. Perhaps we should make iPods illegal.
RangerScience 12y ago
"Fire is hot, cars are hard, and if you want to fly, start from the ground." Very few psychedelics render you capable of that level of dissociation from reality while also leaving you capable of locomotion.
RangerScience 12y ago
I think a pretty good anecdotal data point relating "issues due to alcohol" to "issues due to drugs" is the relative lack of injuries and crimes at Burning Man versus, say, Mardi Gras, Coachella, etc. It'll have to stay anecdotal due to such things as self-selection, local support networks, and the environmental hazards in the different situations, but BM still has way less per capita than any similar-or-larger sized festival.

dalke 12y ago

While vivid, is that true? Given all of the people who have taken LSD, I would expect more reported accidents of the sort you describe. According to http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/nationwide-trends http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/nationwide-t... , about 0.4% of the US uses a hallucinogen each month. According to http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistics http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-con... about 60% have had alcohol in the same month. Thats a ratio of about 150. Let's round it up to 200. Nearly 88,000 people die from alcohol related deaths per year (see http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistics http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-con... ). Thus, if the risk factors for death related to hallucinogens is higher than that of alcohol, I would expect to see about 440 such deaths per year. 10,322 died due to alcohol-impaired-driving. Using the same ratio, I would expect to see about 50 such deaths related to hallucinogens. I have failed to find deaths of the sort you described, which make me doubt that there's a simple causal relationship between the number of fatalities and the prohibition of a substance.

Symmetry 12y ago
LSD certainly kills people, but it's down around the danger level (to the user) of Cannabis or Ecstasy. Much safer than scary drugs like alcohol or cocaine let alone even worse ones (to the user) like Meth or Heroin. http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_cause_most_harm http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_caus... (That list has alcohol at the top but that's mainly due to drunk people's tendency to harm others via driving or violence)
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  Alcohol is far worse than Heroin or the other opiates. Nearly all the problems with opiates relate to having unknown quantities due to the lack of regulated producers. The opiate side effect profile is rather tame, mainly constipation. (Apart from respiratory depression, and the unfortunate people that get nauseous.)
  - azernik 12y ago
    There is one more issue with many opiates, which is actually inherent to the drugs and not to the regulatory/market context - the relatively quick gain and loss of tolerance, and the uncertainty this introduces as to the actual physiological effects even of a known dosage. This is why there are many opiate overdoses where the victim is starting to use after being sober for some time - they go back to the doses that were normal for them not so long ago, but their body chemistry has changed enough that those dosages are now dangerous. See for example http://www.bmj.com/content/326/7396/959 http://www.bmj.com/content/326/7396/959
    - MichaelGG 12y ago
      Well that's still rather related to legal issues. If opiates didn't have legal issues, then the social stigma would drop and people wouldn't need to go on these binge rehabs. Also note that other very popular legal drugs require care when going on or off. Eg benzodiazepines can cause death if suddenly discontinued. SSRIs also require care when stopping. Yet these two groups are the most prescribed medications, ever.
      - azernik 12y ago
        Sure - and some opiates (including ones with dangers of addiction and overdose morphine) are themselves prescribed, carefully. But they're not safe on the same level that, say, marijuana or LSD are.
        MichaelGG 12y ago
TylerJay 12y ago
While I expect the death rate of psychedelics/hallucinogens to be much, much lower than that of alcohol, it should be noted that the analysis you presented here doesn't really provide solid evidence that it is so. Given that an average LSD dose is 50-150mcg and because of the "Cascade effect" nature of the drug, LSD is often not measurable in the blood even when someone is heavily under the influence. And even in the cases where it would be detectable if they tested for it, LSD is not included in coroners' postmortem tox-screens unless it is specifically suspected. Movies and TV get this wrong frequently. Basically, I'm saying that since it isn't routinely tested for (and is often undetectable anyway) the published statistics have no reason to be accurate. But really, how much more common (even after adjusting for frequency of overall usage) are "Hey, watch this. Hold my beer" deaths than any deaths from LSD? My estimate is "a lot."
- dalke 12y ago
  I agree. The OP drew a conclusion, and rather than just demanding proof I wanted to point out why I didn't think it was obviously true. There would very well be other things not in my analysis that could lead the OP to that conclusion. For example, methods besides chemical traces might determine the cause of death. Friends of the deceased might provide information about the circumstances of death, additional drugs or paraphernalia might be in the pockets of the victim, or in the immediate surroundings. In addition, if it were true then there should be a lot more people who are injured in similar circumstances. The medical personnel at the hospital may learn some of the background context when asking for details about what happened to cause the injury.
pmoriarty 12y ago
I would be very wary of "drug-related death" statistics. I've read that when people are admitted to the hospital, if drugs are mentioned, they are required by law to report the admission as "drug-related". The person admitted doesn't have to be actually taking any drugs him/herself, much less be in the hospital because of any action on such drugs on their body or mind, nor even do the people around them have to be on any drugs. They only have to be mentioned and then the admission is considered "drug-related". Furthermore, when people die and they're on illegal drugs, it's rare for there to be just one drug involved. Usually it's a cocktail mix of chemicals (often with alcohol being one of them, and one of the drugs that's most dangerous to mix with others). Finally, lots of drugs are metabolized very quickly or don't show up in the standard tests that are done during an autopsy (if an autopsy is actually performed).
- dalke 12y ago
  You are making a general statement, right, and not something related to my estimate? The bias you mention should only serve to increase the number of reported cases. As I cannot find statistics anywhere near the scores of people who must die each year for the OP's comments to make sense, nor historical justifications for the prohibition of psychedelics that were based on scores of people dieing per year, your comment doesn't seem relevant. That is, I could ignore it completely and still draw the same conclusion.

fein 12y ago

At no time in any of my experiences with various psychotropics have I ever wanted to jump in front of traffic. In fact, while dazzling, that bus is goddamn terrifying in that state. I would worry more about the folks taking stuff like Ambien and Chantix, as those are legal and have well documented horror stories of people losing complete control.

gooseyard 12y ago
Dextromethorphan seems to fall into the same category- a friend of mine lost his son recently to an overdose of it. I'm not sure whether he was using it because it was more readily available than LSD, or because he preferred it, but he was a frequent LSD user and it seemed tragic that it was cough syrup that killed him.

colordrops 12y ago

Maybe you are trolling. In any case what you say is patently untrue for popular psychedelics. It may be true of users of deliriants and stroke victims, but not psychedelics.

pianoforted 12y ago
I'm not trolling. My cousin's friend did exactly this. She was on off her face on Ecstasy and wondering straight into oncoming traffic in front of all her friends whilst having a big smile on her face.
- cgh 12y ago
  Ecstacy is not considered to be a classic psychedelic and does not fall under the category discussed in the article. Too bad for your cousin's friend but it's not a valid counterargument.
- sigmar 12y ago
  You might not be trolling, but you sound willfully ignorant.
- dalke 12y ago
  Is that enough to make a national policy change and prohibit Ecstasy? Here's someone who died because of walking into traffic while wearing an iPod: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1091715/Girl-14-killed-speeding-driver-crossed-road-listening-iPod.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1091715/Girl-14-kill... . Should we prohibit listening to music while walking? Personally, I think both indicate that we should change social policy to reduce the number of cars, have strictly enforced speed limits, and place primary responsibility for such incidents on the driver of the vehicle. The Dutch road traffic engineer Hans Monderman is famous for his "shared space" urban design, where he would "walk backwards into dense traffic to demonstrate that drivers would be sufficiently human not to run him over." Why shouldn't we draw that conclusion, instead of prohibiting Ecstasy?
- Igglyboo 12y ago
  Is ecstasy really a psychedelic? It's not very similar to LSD or shrooms.

girmad 12y ago

Come on guys, let's not downvote the dissenting opinion.

vichu 12y ago
The problem isn't inherently that it's a dissenting opinion, but it's a comment that provides no added information aside from the fact that they disagree. Had they actually provided an argument, statistics, or a new insight on the problem, I doubt they would be so downvoted.
- analog31 12y ago
  It occurs to me that a downvote is also a comment that provides even less added information.
clusterfoo 12y ago
It's not a dissenting opinion, it's plain false. What he's thinking of is dissociative drugs. Even at very high doses of psychedelics, you remain perfectly aware that you are tripping, and if anything, tend to be extra-careful not to do anything that might be foolish in "the real world", which you understand you still physically inhabit. On the other hand, dissociative drugs, as the name implies, are drugs that make you lose your grip on reality (and even your own personhood). These are the "jump out the window" drugs. They can be dangerous in that sense, and also in the sense that they can be used to cause harm to others - for example, as date rape drugs. They are not always hallucinogenic, are not the same thing as psychedelics, and they tend to be extremely unpleasant so they're not even particularly popular. If done responsibly, about the worst thing that a person on LSD will do (assuming no pre-existing mental instability) is lie down, cry, and have a very bad time waiting for the bad trip to be over. No murderous rampage or flight attempts.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  This is not true. It's quite easy to trip hard enough to be disconnected enough from understanding some things will cause permanent damage that you won't want. For instance, thinking that blood is life energy and so is electric so why not connect the two? Additionally, the idea of death can become non-scary entirely (which can make it great in therapy), lowering inhibitions. Perhaps it's not common to have such problems, but your key word is responsibly. It's misleading to suggest that an uncontrolled bad trip can't easily result in tragedy. (Not that that's good justification for making it illegal.)

tokenadult 12y ago

I actually have seen a person on a bad trip run out into a street without looking for oncoming cars. That was one of the most frightening experiences of my life, because I know and love the person who did that. And, indeed, many people are quite wary of their friends and loved ones using psychedelic drugs because they have observed other friends and loved ones experience bad outcomes from using those drugs. Medical doctors who work in emergency rooms have more been-there, done-thats on this issue than I have. On a statistical, national population level, it does appear that alcohol (legal but regulated) is more dangerous to more people than LSD (currently basically illegal). But individual personal risk profiles vary, and I would not want LSD (for example) to be more readily available to the general public than the typical prescription medicine. If a knowledgeable physician prescribes LSD for an indication for which LSD is generally safe and effective, then fine, but I hope nobody I hope to see live a long and healthy life is obtaining LSD from current "street" dealers or "friends." On the broader topic of drug regulation, there does appear to be some cross-national evidence to suggest that "decriminalization" (which is not the same thing as "legalization") may help set up systems of drug regulation that actually reduce societal use of dangerous drugs, which sounds like a very good idea to me. Let doctors figure out what each kind of drug is good for, and let most members of the general public pursue a typically sober lifestyle and pursue new ideas and creative thoughts in their right minds.

pmoriarty 12y ago
"I actually have seen a person on a bad trip run out into a street without looking for oncoming cars." And I have seen people do this when they weren't on any drugs (not to mention those who were drunk on perfectly legal and socially respectable alcohol). Sometimes it was because they were listening to an iPod and were so wrapped up in their own thoughts and the music that they were oblivious to what was going on around them. Perhaps we should make iPods illegal.

RangerScience 12y ago

"Fire is hot, cars are hard, and if you want to fly, start from the ground." Very few psychedelics render you capable of that level of dissociation from reality while also leaving you capable of locomotion.

RangerScience 12y ago

I think a pretty good anecdotal data point relating "issues due to alcohol" to "issues due to drugs" is the relative lack of injuries and crimes at Burning Man versus, say, Mardi Gras, Coachella, etc. It'll have to stay anecdotal due to such things as self-selection, local support networks, and the environmental hazards in the different situations, but BM still has way less per capita than any similar-or-larger sized festival.