Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new category for them

Re:Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new cate... by TaylorAlexander on Saturday July 01, 2023 @08:30PM (#36556866)

Oh I think people are unhappy because of an abusive political system designed to funnel all wealth to the top while everyone else works themselves to death. Collective action is absolutely the real solution, but psychedelics can help people locked in the mindset that things can’t change to consider a better world.

There are simple things, like the fact that we are isolated. This according to Noam Chomsky is an intentional and desirable outcome of a corporate mass media system that wants to keep us separated. And a nice psychedelic trip with friends is a great way to remember not just that you like being with your friends, but that the world that keeps you apart is genuinely inhumane, and we should start to look deeper at how to solve these issues.

Basically I think psychedelics can be a tool that leads to the collective action you have rightly pointed out is the ultimate solution.

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Re:Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new cate... by ecshafer on Saturday July 01, 2023 @11:52PM (#36558057)

The reverse seems much much more likely. The abusive political system pushes drug legalization as an opiate of the masses so they are more content to deal with the abusive political system. A weekend of legal drug use to make the pain go away and disrupt solidarity.

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Re:Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new cate... by __MatrixMan__ on Sunday July 02, 2023 @12:50AM (#36558328)

Opiates are quite a different animal. A weekend of psychedelics with your friends is not going to help you ignore anything.

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Re:Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new cate... by chiefalchemist on Sunday July 02, 2023 @09:27AM (#36561297)

re: opiate of the masses

https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/the+opiate+of+the+masse...

In short, it's not to be read literally.

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Re:Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new cate... by __MatrixMan__ on Sunday July 02, 2023 @10:56AM (#36562014)

I'm aware, and in context with religion is an apt metaphor. But in context with psychedelics it's not.

They're not a numbing agents, they're catalysts for change, that's why they're applicable to therapy in ways that opiates are not.

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Re:Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new cate... by chiefalchemist on Wednesday July 05, 2023 @10:53AM (#36601260)

Yes and no. At some low-level the brain doesn't differential between physical pain and mental / emotional pain. It's pain, and it needs to be reckoned with. Maybe psychedelics aren't painkillers in the opioid sense. However, they do provide pain relief, and yes perhaps an opportunity for healing.

The difference really isn't all that much.

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Re:Shifting views about psychedelic drugs require a new cate... by TaylorAlexander on Sunday July 02, 2023 @07:10PM (#36566779)

I agree with the other commenter that this is not how psychedelics work. They do not "make the pain go away" like depressants. If they have any effect on solidarity it would be to strengthen it, not disrupt it.

This is interestingly a great example of the point being made in TFA. That we need a new category for psychedelics because they are not anything like opiates etc.

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