Title: Recent Studies Show That Psychedelic Drugs Are Not Bad For Mental Health — But Alcohol Is Source:
Free Thought Project URL Source:http://thefreethoughtproject.com/st ... ugs-bad-mental-health-alcohol/ Published:Oct 10, 2015 Author:John Vibes Post Date:2015-10-10 12:16:27 by Deckard Keywords:None Views:32403 Comments:116
It is a matter of provable fact that psychedelics are the safest compounds within the modern drug culture. The strongest hallucinogen known to man dimethyltryptamine is actually less damaging to the human body than America’s favorite fix, caffeine.
Many substances that are deeply embedded in American culture such as alcohol, caffeine, nicotine or pharmaceutical narcotics are in fact toxins, while psychedelic compounds are actually physically benign and many times already occur naturally in human chemistry. What this means is that the chemicals which make psychedelics do what they do are actually naturally occurring compounds that are chemically suited for your body.
Study after study confirms the safety and natural composition of these substances, yet psychedelics are vilified in our media, politics and other cultural institutions. This massive public smear campaign exists because the establishment fears the impact that psychedelics would have on their control structure.
You see, these drugs are not dangerous to the individual or the community, but they make us seek our own answers about the world around us, instead of swallowing the line of garbage that we have been fed by the establishment.
Psychedelics will break down the personal ego and cultural barriers that our society has corrupted us with and will make negative cultural norms such as war, poverty and oppression seem completely insane. This kind of social clarity could be very dangerous for the establishment and their control system, which is why they insist that these substances are bad and cannot be introduced into society.
A recent study conducted by the Research Council of Norway has found that psychedelics do not have any long-term negative effects on mental health.
A recent large population study of 130,000 adults in the United States failed to find evidence for a link between psychedelic use (lysergic acid diethylamide, psilocybin or mescaline) and mental health problems. Using a new data set consisting of 135,095 randomly selected United States adults, including 19,299 psychedelic users, we examine the associations between psychedelic use and mental health.
After adjusting for sociodemographics, other drug use and childhood depression, we found no significant associations between lifetime use of psychedelics and increased likelihood of past year serious psychological distress, mental health treatment, suicidal thoughts, suicidal plans and suicide attempt, depression and anxiety.
We failed to find evidence that psychedelic use is an independent risk factor for mental health problems. Psychedelics are not known to harm the brain or other body organs or to cause addiction or compulsive use; serious adverse events involving psychedelics are extremely rare. Overall, it is difficult to see how prohibition of psychedelics can be justified as a public health measure.
The study went on to point out that, “drug abuse experts consistently rank LSD and/or psilocybin mushrooms as much less harmful to the individual user and to society compared to alcohol and other controlled substances.”
The government isn’t against all drugs, they shove drugs down your throat every day through your food, alcohol, and prescriptions. What the government is against is people thinking about the world differently and questioning the authority that they have been trained to live under.
Psychedelics can catalyze this thought process, and it is for this reason that the American government took quick action to make these substances illegal and to vilify them in the public arena.
These psychedelic compounds are so important that we cannot let them be suppressed in the extreme manner that we see in western culture. Psychedelics offer us a glimpse into the final frontier of humanity, the consciousness. With these substances, we can explore the human imagination for profound insight that will help us in our own personal lives and the bigger picture as well. We must push for new legitimate scientific research into the therapeutic uses for these drugs. These studies will prove, as they have in the past, that psychedelic compounds have many medical and spiritual uses that are necessary for our species to continue the evolution of our consciousness.
The strongest hallucinogen known to man dimethyltryptamine is actually less damaging to the human body than America’s favorite fix, caffeine.
True,but I noticed you were careful to leave out harm to the mind. I suspect I know why.
Yeah,pretty much anybody can drop "clean" acid several times with no mental,physical,or emotional harm,providing they know they are talking acid and chose to do so.
Do it every day over a period of time and you become a walking vegetable. I do personally know a few people who appeared to be seriously burnt out back in the 70's that quit taking hallucinogens by the early 80's that seem to be ok now,but I would be surprised if they were back to a normal mental state. Too many fried synapses for a complete recovery.
Frankly,I am surprised they are doing as well as they are.
Not going to mention names or states,but I have seen one guy that is a regular cast member on a tv show that is now an adult with children of his own,but I remember when he was born,and I know for a fact his mother was taking LSD several times a week the whole time she was pregnant with him. He was a mental basketcase when he was a small child. He would be standing beside her while she was talking,and would suddenly start shrieking and pointing to things that weren't there.
He not only appears to be normal in all respects,but he even holds a very responsible job where the lives of others are in his hands and people could die if he makes wrong decisions.
I have also been told by people that know him as an adult that he neither drinks to excess or does drugs.
I know I seem to be contradicting myself,but IMHO this is not a "One Size Fits All" situation. To say that no one that does drugs like this for extended periods of time suffers any mental or physical injuries is insane.
A recent large population study of 130,000 adults in the United States failed to find evidence for a link between psychedelic use (lysergic acid diethylamide, psilocybin or mescaline) and mental health problems. Using a new data set consisting of 135,095 randomly selected United States adults, including 19,299 psychedelic users, we examine the associations between psychedelic use and mental health.
After adjusting for sociodemographics, other drug use and childhood depression, we found no significant associations between lifetime use of psychedelics and increased likelihood of past year serious psychological distress, mental health treatment, suicidal thoughts, suicidal plans and suicide attempt, depression and anxiety.
We failed to find evidence that psychedelic use is an independent risk factor for mental health problems. Psychedelics are not known to harm the brain or other body organs or to cause addiction or compulsive use; serious adverse events involving psychedelics are extremely rare. Overall, it is difficult to see how prohibition of psychedelics can be justified as a public health measure.
I am NOT for keeping it illegal, but lying about its impact on those who don't have their shit together really rubs me the wrong way.
Well I suppose any drug taken by those who don't have their shit together can result in dire consequences.
Of course taking LSD every day is probably not a good idea, but then neither is drinking a fifth of whiskey a day.
The study did find ...no significant associations between lifetime use of psychedelics and increased likelihood of past year serious psychological distress, mental health treatment, suicidal thoughts, suicidal plans and suicide attempt, depression and anxiety. but doesn't elaborate how often the subjects used the drug - it just states "a lifetime of use".
That could mean once a week, once a month or once a year.
If one has never done LSD, they really have no frame of reference of what could happen. Also, even those who have done it, even the same exact batch, do not know how another may react to it.
Many have committed suicide during their first trip on that.
This study throws all that out, and to me, that's criminal negligence bordering on the point of murder if someone reads this and decides it's a safe thing, then trips on acid, hates what they see, and decide to end it.
Alot of people say (within my sphere of being) that LSD provided a glimpse into an unknown structure about how to regard the world around us. What does an altered perception regarding the Universe about each of our lives really mean?
Alot of people say (within my sphere of being) that LSD provided a glimpse into an unknown structure about how to regard the world around us. What does an altered perception regarding the Universe about each of our lives really mean?
Why not suck down a healthy dose of LSD and mix that shit with a lot of alcohol. Just before your stroke or heart attack you might find the info you seek.
Why not suck down a healthy dose of LSD and mix that shit with a lot of alcohol. Just before your stroke or heart attack you might find the info you seek.
Why not? What do you know about the issue other than walking little kids across the street to school?
Why not? What do you know about the issue other than walking little kids across the street to school?
Bucky, I've seen more dead stupid drug overdose fucks than you've probably been laid. I've had the pleasure up close and personal to smell their rotting ignorance.
GrandIsland (#22) ----- mommy nature thins the herd of people that do stupid shit. It's my favorite part of legalizing drugs.
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If I knew drug users would die I'd vote for legalization in a heartbeat.
But they don't die. All they do is impose a financial and emotional burden on the responsible and productive members of society.
They want the freedom to get high, but demand that the rest of us stay sober to take care of them when they f**k up.
misterwhite
Here we see our fake conservative duo 'out' themselves once again, --- but, of course, they don't have a clue they're doing it..
misterwhite claims that if we left drug users to die, he'd vote for legalization in a heartbeat.
"But they don't die. All they do is impose a financial and emotional burden on the responsible and productive members of society."
Conservatives, who ARE the responsive and productive members of our republic, do NOT WANT government medical schemes that rescue drug addicts from suicide attempts. -- Communitarian activists like misterwhite do...
They want the freedom to get high, but demand that the rest of us stay sober to take care of them when they f**k up.
Drug users want the freedom to get high, and don't give a f##k beyond that. -- Only bleeding heart liberals insist that the rest of us MUST be sober to take care of our 'comrades'..
Grandisland and misterwhite think they're fooling everybody here, when actually, they are the liberal fools...
Find me one time in history where the conservative or Republican Party included legalized drugs on their platform.
The only thing that's faux... is you. You are a Democrat with a gun collection.
No, I'm a conservative libertarian that respects our Constitution, and has a gun collection.
And true enough, fake conservatives and rinos have never had anti-drug platforms.
But even you must admit, republican conservatives fought long and hard against booze prohibition, and failed, because they had phony backstabbers like you two, even back then...
And true enough, fake conservatives and rinos have never had anti-drug platforms.
Fake conservatives? lmao
More like you're a Democrat that knows your party will NEVER love guns or the ideal of smaller, less intrusive government... so you ride the coattails of the (R) party wondering why they won't love drugs.
The only thing that's faux... is you. You are a Democrat with a gun collection.
No, I'm a conservative libertarian that respects our Constitution, and has a gun collection.
And true enough, fake conservatives and rinos have never had anti-drug platforms.
But even you must admit, republican conservatives fought long and hard against booze prohibition, and failed, because they had phony backstabbers like you two, even back then...
--- you're a Democrat (delusional idiocy) that knows your party will NEVER love guns or the ideal of smaller, less intrusive government... so you ride the coattails of the (R) party wondering why they won't love drugs. --- Piss off.
Far from riding coattails, libertarians are gaining real power in the GOP, replacing RINO phonies like you two. -- Which scares the hell out of pissed off clowns.
And 'loving' guns or drugs isn't the point. It's the freedom we have to possess them that's important.
And true enough, fake conservatives and rinos have never had anti-drug platforms.
Then fuck off, you aren't part of the CLUB.... and since drug legalization is more of a libtard Democrat platform staple, JOIN THEM. The conservatives have already moved left far enough... we don't need to add legalized drugs to the conservative platform.
....we don't need to add legalized drugs to the conservative platform.
Wait a minute - aren't conservatives supposed to be in favor of LIMITED government and personal responsibility?
How is waging an unconstitutional drug war that is a trillion-dollar failure considered to be a conservative position?
As far as personal responsibility, why is it that "conservatives" who want the government to stay out of the way and allow people to make their own choices in any other areas become authortiarians when a free American chooses to make his own decisions about the use of drugs?
Does the government own you GI?
Does the government own your body and have the authority to tell you what substances you may partake of?
Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great.
The laws aren’t exactly indefensible, because practically nothing is, and the thunderers who tell us to stay the course can always find one man or woman who, having taken marijuana, moved on to severe mental disorder. But that argument, to quote myself, is on the order of saying that every rapist began by masturbating. General rules based on individual victims are unwise.
And although there is a perfectly respectable case against using marijuana, the penalties imposed on those who reject that case, or who give way to weakness of resolution, are very difficult to defend. If all our laws were paradigmatic, imagine what we would do to anyone caught lighting a cigarette, or drinking a beer. Or — exulting in life in the paradigm — committing adultery. Send them all to Guantanamo?
Legal practices should be informed by realities. These are enlightening, in the matter of marijuana. There are approximately 700,000 marijuana-related arrests made very year. Most of these — 87 percent — involve nothing more than mere possession of small amounts of marijuana. This exercise in scrupulosity costs us $10-15 billion per year in direct expenditures alone.
Most transgressors caught using marijuana aren’t packed away to jail, but some are, and in Alabama, if you are convicted three times of marijuana possession, they’ll lock you up for 15 years to life. Professor Ethan Nadelmann, of the Drug Policy Alliance, writing in National Review, estimates at 100,000 the number of Americans currently behind bars for one or another marijuana offense.
And we haven't spent $1 trillion on "the drug war". The federal ONDCP budget (which includes drug treatment programs and anti-drug marketing and border patrol and overseas interdiction) is $26 billion. In a $3.8 trillion federal budget. That works out to .6%.
And we haven't spent $1 trillion on "the drug war".
....four decades after Richard Nixon declared the war on drugs in 1971 and $1 trillion spent since then.
The federal ONDCP budget (which includes drug treatment programs and anti-drug marketing and border patrol and overseas interdiction) is $26 billion. In a $3.8 trillion federal budget.
In the United States, if illegal drugs were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco, they would yield $46.7 billion in tax revenue. A Cato study says legalizing drugs would save the U.S. about $41 billion a year in enforcing the drug laws.
Have U.S. drug laws reduced drug use? No. The U.S. is the No. 1 nation in the world in illegal drug use. As with Prohibition, banning alcohol didn't stop people drinking -- it just stopped people obeying the law.
"In the United States, if illegal drugs were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco, they would yield $46.7 billion in tax revenue."
Based on the current black-market price of drugs. If legalized, the price of drugs would drop 90%. Plus, they're assuming 100% tax collection.
The Colorado Department of Revenue, according to recently released figures, just brought in $70 million in taxes relating to marijuana, compared to less than $42 million for alcohol taxes, over the course of a year.
