> lsd was and is a mythological drug in every sense of the word. Nothing you know about it is true either to the good or to the bad.

This is false, LSD is the most researched psychedelic of them all and while we're not entirely sure of the mechanics of its actions (nor do we know of any of these kinds of brain mechanics, that's why the prescription of anti-depressants seems to be more of a guessing game than a science), we're definitely sure of a few things that occur.

LSD is not a unicorn.

mythological in the sense that all sorts of people build up myths about it and it's supposed powers.

( blinding flashes of insight, make you throw yourself off buildings, make you a god, make you an ant, turn your world inside out, heal all traumas, traumatize the most mentally sound, etc. etc. )

Now while there has been some scientific study of LSD's biopharmacology there is an unfortunate tendency for researchers to sample the product and then become evangelists for the drug. Which tends to render their methodology suspect; Leary being only the most notorious example.

LSD is a drug just the same as alcohol and painkillers. There are many irresponsible ways to use it. It is nonetheless something that can be used responsibly.

LSD has many whimsical properties. Many of the things that you see and believe while on the drug have no basis in reality. It can nonetheless change your outlook on the world for the better. It can change the things that you perceive to be valuable in the world, and typically you end up valuing both people and nature more after your experience.

A frequent theme among newbies is "I learned that people are really important, and that I should help them more." Surely this is a good lesson to learn.

"Please trip responsibly."

This bit of fear, uncertainty, and doubt was brought to you by the Institute For Armchair Psychonauts Who Never Use Drugs.

So advice like this:

> 4. Be skeptical, read the literature; understand the risks you are taking.

is bad? Is the idea that we should turn off critical thought and blindly accept pro-LSD arguments, while blindly rejecting the anti-LSD arguments? That seems backwards.

That's right. Pretend the other three points not only didn't exist, but weren't directly contradictory to the point you quoted.

But I'll be down voted to oblivion for calling you a propagandist for doing things that propagandists do. So this is me not calling you one.

You are being downvoted for your ridiculously hostile tone.

Yeah, but you know the drill, I'm inviting the down votes. When I have conclusive data on what I'm working on here, you and Dang will definitely be the first to know.

Either way, thank you for the commentary. There have been times I actually didn't understand the downvotes, and your posts were rather enlightening.

Hang on: dang is an HN mod. I'm not. I'm just someone who comments too often.

Which is why I figured you'd be first to know. :-)

I'm sorry, I don't quite get what you're trying to say. Are you saying that using/taking drugs is a prerequisite for talking about drugs (and drug use in general)?

If so: That's total nonsense and an unbelievably unscientific attitude.

Yeah, calling someone out on FUD is definitely unscientific. Thanks for that.

You have yet to substantiate your claim of FUD. (And your claim of unfitness-to-comment, but I'll leave it at that.)

One does not need to be a sock puppet account to astroturf.

Again, I'm mystified. Please state your case plainly. Whom, exactly, are you accusing of astroturfing?

(I realize that this not necessarily contributing to NH as such, but I'm genuinely intrigued.)

I'd say the first point is kind of important, considering it's a synthetic drug and not a plant. I have no anecdotes for LSD, but a few people died in my city after only a normal dose of ecstasy (no alcohol).

Ecstacy is known to cause the body temperature to rise. People write it off as just being the club, alcohol, etc. For some people, the temperature becomes high enough to cause death.

This doesn't have anything to do with drug purity and has everything to do with the effects of the drug itself.

Millions of people take MDMA every weekend. Deaths from pure MDMA have happened, but they are extremely rare. It's important to think about risk from a statistical point of view. Everything has risks.

To be fair, I think that you are more likely to get a bad batch of a "party drug" like ecstacy than LSD. Though I can't really talk from experience here, it would seem (to me) that party drugs are more popular and would attract more people to cut corners to turn a quick buck.

Pure mdma would not kill anyone at a normal dose. Test your pills everyone!

Test your pills? How? Anyone can do it?

In fact, yes: there are nonprofits that distribute testing kits for recreational drugs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pill_testing).

Are you proposing that one should do any drug without skepticism after reading a wired article about it?

Lemme know what part of my grandparent mentioned your straw man.

Lemme know what part of my statement was a strawman.

The part about doing any drug without skepticism. I'll wait.

What about that is straw man? I don't think you have a full understanding of the fallacy. The wikipedia definition is

"A straw man is a common type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on the misrepresentation of an opponent's argument."

I haven't misrepresented your argument in any way since I haven't represented your argument in any way. I never claimed you claimed anything. It isn't fallacious to ask someone to clarify an argument.

You didn't explicitly state your argument (or anything of substance), so I asked what you were actually trying to claim.

You van insult my post all you want, but you're blind if you honestly think your reply wasn't a misrepresentation of my original statement, unless you can prove that I said exactly what you said I did in the post before I pointed out the straw man.

But you can't, so you won't.

There is no strawman because I was asking a question about your position, not asserting that you held a certain position.

Please, if your position isn't what I asked, state what it is.

really? your entire defense is coming down to "it's not a strawman if it's asked in a question"?

definitely adding you to the list of astroturfers on HN with that reply.

Questions aren't assertions, and one of the requirements for straw man is asserting you hold a position.

I'm done with this discussion at this point. I don't think you really have a concrete claim regarding the topic and you are avoiding creating one by derailing the conversation by arguing my question is fallacious.

You are not even wrong.

From my experience, I would liken LSD to peanuts. The vast majority of people out there can have a handful of peanuts with no problems. They may like the flavor or not but it won't cause long term harm. A small percentage are allergic and will have a reaction to peanuts ranging from mild sickness to death. LSD is similar, a small percentage of people will have problems mentally with LSD. It might last just a little while, it might cause (or trigger) life long problems. If you are unsure, take a tiny dose, maybe a 1/4 hit and see what happens. Or better yet, take a tiny dose of psilocybin mushrooms as they are the easiest to come down quickly from. Just eat a meal and you will be mostly down in about 45 minutes.

The other thing I discovered was once the paranoia starts to invade every trip consistently, you have learned all there is to learn and it's time to move on. I was annoyed with the paranoia and tried to work through it, though I was somewhat successful, LSD was just not that much fun anymore...

Just eat a meal? I think thats an over-optimistic suggestion?

As someone with 10 years drug experience, I'll agree with you. I often see people say LSD is provably safe, when we don't even understand the brain.

I'd say instead that it's empirically proven that some people have suffered from negative psychological side-effects for months after an experience. You just have to read boards. From what I've read, it can last up to 6 months.

A female friend of mine actually had panic attacks for a while after. It's rare but it happens. And from my own experience, I'd say it has changed me probably more than anything else I tried, in ways I can't describe. I'd rather see someone responsible take ecstasy once or once a year, even though it's addictive and potentially neurotoxic, especially without antioxidants, it tends to be a spectacularly positive experience, emotionally and psychologically, a lifetime event. Also there are studies about how it may help against neurosis, shyness and all. And doing it with close friends or a lover, will give memories to cherish. At least it did for me. It's dangerously addictive and very negatively connotated, it doesn't have the esoterically intellectual marketing appeal of LSD, but I'd dare say it's more intellectually interesting, in that its rewards are clear, human and real.

There are a lot of people who take LSD regularly, so it's not that risky, but it's not trivial, especially for intellectual people with anxiety, higher sensitivity, and often difficult lives and childhood. But it's certainly interesting and perspective-shifting.

1. When in doubt, get a testing kit from dancesafe.org and test a sample. This has saved me on a few separate occasions, as 2-C's get passed around as a cheap substitute.

2-4. The past and present purveyors of L treat the substance as sacred. Even though the laboratory synthesis of LSD is rather difficult, it's still rarely sold and usually gifted to fortunate or lost individuals.

Authentication and quality control are obviously problematic with "illegal" (statist BS) drugs. While customer feedback on anonymous marketplaces does provide some assurance, it is easily gameable.

Still, LSD is so potent that adulteration is not a serious risk. Few drugs are hazardous, let alone effective, at doses well under 1 mg. And those that are would not likely be sold as LSD, but rather explicitly as poisons.

Blotter and windowpane are the safest dosage forms, because there is less capacity for adulterants. Starting with a low dose is prudent for many reasons. There's a good discussion of progressive dosing strategy in PiHKAL.

Two and four seem to be in blatant contradiction.

> 1. lsd is illegal, so no quality control and no certainty that that is what you are ingesting.

Non sequitur. Its legality has no bearing on quality control or authenticity.

LSD is illegal so you are taking a legal risk.

If someone purchases prescription medications from a non-regulated online pharmacy in a remote, third-world country is that simply a legal risk too?

Unless you synthesized it yourself or have the ability to analyze it in a lab, you absolutely cannot be certain of quality or authenticity. This is what legally enforced regulatory standards are all about ensuring. The illegal nature of the drug trade not only lacks provision for that, it influences and informs the behavior of participants on the supply side for economic reasons too.

In a logical vacuum, yes, it is a legal risk. In practical application, the legal risk is often correlated with the quality risk too.

Risk of mis-prescription: "one in 12 visits to the doctor in the US results in the patient receiving dangerous medications"

http://www.in-pharmatechnologist.com/Drug-Delivery/No-improv...

Risk of prescription being mis-filled: "An estimated 51.5 million errors occur during the filling of 3 billion prescriptions each year."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12688437?dopt=Abstract

Risk of manufacturing error in prescription drugs: "Dr. Collazo recently worked with a drug manufacturer that had a baseline rate of 4.7 errors per thousand units manufactured."

http://www.fdanews.com/humanerrordrugdevice

Risk of ??????: "Three batches of Nurofen Plus in pharmacies in south London have been found to contain another drug, Seroquel XL 50mg, which is manufactured by AstraZeneca – a completely separate drug company."

http://metro.co.uk/2011/08/25/nurofen-plus-containing-antips...

That's all entirely fair to point out - clearly serious breaches happen, even in heavily regulated environments! I don't think failings in those arenas undermine the notion that legal risk and quality/authenticity risk of illegal drugs is very often intertwined.

I think even folks over at Erowid advise caution in dealing with these things. In that regard, conflating legal risk & qualitative risk isn't really a non sequitur. That's really all I was trying to say.

I understand your point, but - as you identify - LSD users are more aware of the risks and have a higher perception of risk.

Although I don't have evidence either way, my suspicion is that this results in a comparatively low risk in truth. It's not immediate that the legal status impacts on the risk at all.

Only 6.5% of those misfillings were clinically significant. Overall less than 1% danger rate. That is bad, but not worse than street drugs.

The mis-prescriptions were for infirm elderly patients, who I suspect wouldn't do great on LSD either.