“If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen.” ― Alan Watts

Even Alan Watts wasn't right about everything.

This is fine as far as his personal preferences go; as for everyone else, none of his business.

LSD is not a drug that you can develop an addiction to. Habit is one thing—some people take it regularly—but it doesn't work very well if you do take it frequently.

Which is not to say that LSD can't potentially be harmful. Of course it can. But it's not very analogous to the typically destructive drugs (alcohol, amphetamines, strong opiates) and it's not going to mess with your dopamine the way they do.

You can develop a psychological addiction to any experience, and some like LSD.

Once every week or so for a while is perfectly doable.

Agreed, very different kinds of substances.

> Some do, and that's fine too.

And those should learn something from Syd Barret's life

Could had been a millionaire rock star, women, expensive toys, children. He could had everything for the rest of his life. But he choose LSD. As a lot of people claim, LSD is a cool and harmless funny drug, right?.

His life instead was: living in his mum house since 24 Yo, with his brain like a car crash, and all the time in the world to think on his boy room about how he managed to mess up his life so badly.

So thanks, but no way.

I don't think you can speak authoritatively about Syd Barrett's life, or his mental health issues.

Those that can, do not agree that LSD was causative.

Syd was not the only person doing LSD in the 1960s, and if your argument boils down to "people with life-long major neurodivergence, who are living multiple years of extraordinarily stressful life, should not do huge amounts of psychedelic drugs" ... then OK! That's a good rule of thumb!

But the vast majority of people are not latent schizophrenics. And the vast majority of drug users could not approach Syd's consumption in quantity or duration.

So an argument from the same data is that occasional or even moderate use of LSD by almost every adult human, is perfectly safe.

...

Reframed: Every adult can make their own decisions about their personal level of risk tolerance. Hopefully the decision will be an informed one. Syd Barrett can be a huge terrifying red flag, or a bright illuminating green light, depending on the decisions you've made.

On one extreme of risk tolerance, you'd never leave the house. On the other extreme, (with some bad luck, some excellent luck, and a great deal of effort and resources!) you might approach Syd Barrett's lifestyle. Neither extreme is appropriate for most people.

The stories of what acid did to Syd Barrett are vastly exaggerated.

Not in the same way as alcohol, weed or cigarettes. Not even close.

Weed comes close at high doses but no two drugs are the same.