Hamilton's Pharmacopia covers this topic, including an interview with the supposed author, then later corrected, then the true author revealed. Definitely worth checking out.
Every time I find one of these in my backyard with my dog, I have to spray my dog’s mouth out with the hose for 5 minutes. Psychedelic, but also very toxic.
Just my local regular non hallucinogenic toads makes dogs drewl like crazy if they try to catch on (or more commonly find a toad chip road kill on the gravel roads)
A couple groups are trying to commercialize it. There have been some trials, but they're all relatively limited by depression trial standards. Double-blind is impossible because the participants know 100% if they've received it or not. Someone volunteering to sign up for a depression study to receive psychedelic drugs is probably a believer that they work, so the placebo groups end up disappointed and the active groups are happy they got assigned the psychedelic they signed up.
They followed participants for 8 days, which is pretty disappointing. They really need to follow people for several months to see if anything holds or if it's a short-term placebo effect that wears off.
This is an endangered species getting massively abused by the wellness "shaman" industry. It fucking sucks. Just use synthetic 5me0-dmt if you really must do a goofy vision quest larp.
You don't need anything more than psilocybin and some weed from time to time.
Anything else is just unnecessary noise and introduces vulnerabilities to your Fortress of Mind.
Backdoor here, trapdoor here, tunnel there. Before you know it, your psyche collapses under all the brain neuroplasticity. Mind cannot form any shape at all.
Truly terrible thought so be careful my people. Don't malleableize yourself into a goo.
It is the bilion dollar industrial complex that sold you solution to the problem created by the very same system. Just take a pill.
It's ingenious really.
Create the problem, sell the solution.
I am rich generally speaking and I have privilege to see everything from my high vantage point.
From here I can easily see how life looks if you can afford to say: No thank you.
I don't even understand the very concept of suicide or depression. It seems fantastical. Because, I am outside the cruel system or rather I am at the steer in some capacity.
this post just demonstrates the lack of sympathy/empathy so many rich people seem to have for others. There is a huge difference between taking pills designed to eternally treat symptoms and never the root cause, vs a plant medicine that might actually address the root cause of a problem. Bufo unfortunately has the added problem of coming from an animal rather than a plant, I agree with another post that suggests using synthetic where possible, but one should also not give up the opportunity to do life-changing personal development...
I also think that the system is cruel to convince its cogs that it is acceptable to experience stress to the point of requiring hard drugs, and I think the person you're responding to has provided a valid counter example of what life can be like without such stress.
Except I don’t use “hard drugs” I use a dose of Adderall prescribed to children to correct a specific chemical imbalance that is exceptionally well documented. I could, and did for a while, live without such medication and my basic quality of life was significantly worse. Not because of society, but because of my brain.
I am the person being told that I don’t need a stimulant by the condescending rich person, and I have to say that mental health is far too nuanced for casual armchair debate about how society is forcing people to need this drug or that drug.
The point I wanted to convey is that this topic is incredibly specific to the individual, and “generalizations” MUST use extensive qualifiers to even come close to being accurate.
rather than attributing this to the brain or system inherently, it seems more accurate to focus on the position of the brain relative to the system. I think that's what the other person was trying to get at, but you're already aware based on how you specifically qualified this. I don't think it's fair to bring up a topic and then shut down resulting discussion as non nuanced, public forums probably aren't a good idea if youre not comfortable with receiving conflicting takes. like, amphetamine is a hard drug regardless as to whether or not a legal framework encourages its usage. and I have friends who immediately received their amphetamine script after a quick chat and an A4 questionnaire, which didn't involve any assessment of brain chemical imbalance, therefore brain chemical imbalance might be a valid theory but it's irrelevant practically. and this discussion may be individual specific, but amphetamine prescription rates are sky rocketing, so at some point the generalized conversation does need to take place as to how many people can get dosed before problems start happening (eg widespread heart issues due to long term hard stimulant consumption)
Oh I’m fine with receiving conflicting takes. I wouldn’t post any of this on e.g. reddit because it offers no value to the users there. HN is a different crowd. I am “shutting down” comments here based on their perceived merit, not because they personally offend my sensibilities. I am comfortable holding people here to a higher standard of rigor, and accept when my own comments are responded to in kind, because that is the type of discourse I come here for!
Pharmacologically speaking, classifying Adderall as a hard drug by industry terminology standards requires taking the patient into account, the dosage, and its effects on the patient. In the case I was referring to (mine) it is not a hard drug.
The chemical imbalance I refer to isn’t something that is easily and REPEATABLY tested for and prescription of the drug itself is heavily guided by the individual respondent because that is how most psychiatric diagnostics are performed. The chemical imbalance is not the exact same between patients, and ADD/ADHD could be classified as multiple physiological conditions that all overlap into a single group of symptoms. For the purposes of treating it, prescribing a medication that treats a large subset of the underlying causes with no permanent adverse side effects if you treat the “wrong one” is largely good enough for most medical systems. Follow up appointments with providers checking with patients to find the right medication for their brain is part of that process.
So yeah, you can fill out a questionnaire and get amphetamines you don’t need, or don’t treat your specific condition. That doesn’t invalidate the scientific research that has linked the symptom to the one of n chemical causes in the brain.
So in discussions of both philosophical introspection of our society as well as academic discussion of drugs, my original comment is entirely relevant to those informed on this ONE specific mental disorder, of which there are MANY more that are equally as nuanced.
They're pretty but definitely a "look, don't eat" plant.
https://youtu.be/qipKKBmY_LQ
One of the latest studies: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/...
They followed participants for 8 days, which is pretty disappointing. They really need to follow people for several months to see if anything holds or if it's a short-term placebo effect that wears off.
https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/5meo_dmt/5meo_dmt.shtml
scientific references specifically at https://www.erowid.org/references/refs.php?S=5meo_dmt
Mebufotenin is 5-MeO-DMT
https://www.wsj.com/video/the-race-to-commercialize-the-worl...
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/03/28/the-pied-piper...
This is an endangered species getting massively abused by the wellness "shaman" industry. It fucking sucks. Just use synthetic 5me0-dmt if you really must do a goofy vision quest larp.
So yeah, let the frogs be, but I don’t think we should invent (hallucinate, in this case, perhaps?) reasons why…
You don't need anything more than psilocybin and some weed from time to time.
Anything else is just unnecessary noise and introduces vulnerabilities to your Fortress of Mind.
Backdoor here, trapdoor here, tunnel there. Before you know it, your psyche collapses under all the brain neuroplasticity. Mind cannot form any shape at all.
Truly terrible thought so be careful my people. Don't malleableize yourself into a goo.
It’s inaccurate to frame weed and psilo as “necessary”.
It is the bilion dollar industrial complex that sold you solution to the problem created by the very same system. Just take a pill.
It's ingenious really.
Create the problem, sell the solution.
I am rich generally speaking and I have privilege to see everything from my high vantage point. From here I can easily see how life looks if you can afford to say: No thank you.
I don't even understand the very concept of suicide or depression. It seems fantastical. Because, I am outside the cruel system or rather I am at the steer in some capacity.
> does not understand the concept of [incredibly common psychological problem]
I am the person being told that I don’t need a stimulant by the condescending rich person, and I have to say that mental health is far too nuanced for casual armchair debate about how society is forcing people to need this drug or that drug.
The point I wanted to convey is that this topic is incredibly specific to the individual, and “generalizations” MUST use extensive qualifiers to even come close to being accurate.
Pharmacologically speaking, classifying Adderall as a hard drug by industry terminology standards requires taking the patient into account, the dosage, and its effects on the patient. In the case I was referring to (mine) it is not a hard drug.
The chemical imbalance I refer to isn’t something that is easily and REPEATABLY tested for and prescription of the drug itself is heavily guided by the individual respondent because that is how most psychiatric diagnostics are performed. The chemical imbalance is not the exact same between patients, and ADD/ADHD could be classified as multiple physiological conditions that all overlap into a single group of symptoms. For the purposes of treating it, prescribing a medication that treats a large subset of the underlying causes with no permanent adverse side effects if you treat the “wrong one” is largely good enough for most medical systems. Follow up appointments with providers checking with patients to find the right medication for their brain is part of that process.
So yeah, you can fill out a questionnaire and get amphetamines you don’t need, or don’t treat your specific condition. That doesn’t invalidate the scientific research that has linked the symptom to the one of n chemical causes in the brain.
So in discussions of both philosophical introspection of our society as well as academic discussion of drugs, my original comment is entirely relevant to those informed on this ONE specific mental disorder, of which there are MANY more that are equally as nuanced.
Anyone watch Hamiltons pharmacopeia