Questions about LSD use

[lalle]

Hey, I'm writing a half-arsed paper for my prof who wont let me finish the semester without it and would really appreciate it if you guys could answer a couple simple questions.

PS: If this kind of thing isn't tolerated here if or if I'm posting in a wrong subforum, apologies.

1. Age
2. When did you first try LSD
3. Approximately how many times have you done LSD
4. Have you had any bad trips? If yes, please specify how many.
5. If yes, have they left lingering bad effects?
6. Have you ever had LSD flashbacks? If yes, please specify how many.
7. If yes, were they pleasant or unpleasant.
8. Would you rate your experience with the drugs as positive, negative or neutral.

 

[peach]

Not wishing to be annoying, but this information is already available. You have to realize that this kind of forum is often frequented by people doing surveys for papers or studies. Some of which take a biased view towards the subject before they even start. I think even the Wiki entry on it mentions how many people experienced flashbacks in controlled studies and how many of them considered these positive or negative. And how many of them thought it was due to the drug or the setting. I would also refer you to the shroomery poll where some 3,000 users have voted on their usage and experiences of psilocybin. The shroomery has far more frequent posts that just about every other forum to do with hallucinogens; it's the epicenter of hallucinogens. As much as I'm starting to hate trippers, don't go annoying them by remaking a poll that's similar to one 3,000 of them have already answered. There's also Erowid.

 

[IJesusChrist]

"starting to hate trippers"

...

 

[ophiuchus]

if by trippers, you mean people who take psychedelics like every week or couple weeks or so, but only in the tiniest of doses, never straying outside their comfort level, then yeah i feel you.

i dont hate them, however, but in a sweeping, brutally honest blow on how i feel about them, they are like children in a playpen, thinking that they are experiencing life to the fullest. but their ego remains, they put themselves in their own box that "they are the king of", not realizing how small they made the damn thing. it's like somebody starting a new game, leveling up once or twice and then talking mad shit on anyone who isn't a max lvl character. grow balls and give up your ego, it doesn't hurt.

done ranting. to the original poster: you didn't even look around the site did you? just look up posts by each individual person in the appropriate areas of the forum, (like experiences, or trip reports) that goes for any website, and you'll have more than enough.

USE the internet in front of you instead of trying to get people to use it for you.

 

[peach]

You got my own opinion pretty much dead on. I also dislike the way they try to distance themselves from people who like pills or other drugs, and try to make out that those are 'dirty', whilst messing around with hallucinogens is something holy and nothing related to drug use. Or that because it grows wild, it's okay. Deadly nightshade grows wild. Surprise, surprise. It's deadly. Uranium is a naturally occurring substance. Not many people like having it around. The hippies go on about squares and systems, yet they are the people who most heavily rely on those systems and squares to give them the freedom to spend their lives messing around acting like shamans and all spiritual whilst others get on with digging up roads 12h a day. Also, they have some fairly odd disparities between what they say and what they do. The end of woodstock when jimi played is a favorite of mine. A field full of hippies. And at the end. A field full of litter. To be clear about my own involvement, I started reading about LSD when I was about 9. As a teen, I wouldn't drink or smoke, but was constantly messing around with hallucinogens. My involvement with mushrooms has been fairly extreme, even by shroomery standards. So I know as well, or better than themselves, where they're coming from. But I can't stand the hypercritical nature of them. At least other drug users acknowledge their substances of choice for what they are. Fun, but not reality. And probably not good for them. Trippers don't even manage that. They extend the illusions to some hyper-reality and make fun of others.

 

[ophiuchus]

But I can't stand the hypercritical nature of them.

i have to agree. although i should point out that i dont really generalize everyone like that, but i do see a flimsy-footed majority that this applies to. the hippies today are not hippies by comparison to the first wave of the movement. but lets not get carried away..

I also dislike the way they try to distance themselves from people who like pills or other drugs, and try to make out that those are 'dirty', whilst messing around with hallucinogens is something holy and nothing related to drug use.

i refuse to take downers, ie: opiate derived pharmaceuticals, muscle relaxers, etc. because of their addictive potential as well as the fact that i simply DO NOT like being UNable to function properly, it's as simple as that. psychedelics do not do this to me, and i have had insights from them, some SO significant that i would not be alive today if i had not encountered them. that being said, alot of psychedelic substances ARE toxins, so i think alot of people should be clear on that, and in this line of thinking i cannot say that psychedelics reign supreme over other drugs, even if you COULD compare two drugs to each other, which you CANT. each have their respective uses, and should be taken in moderation. fact is, if you take a certain substance on a regular enough basis, it will lose its effects and start to cause your body harm. opiates stop "killing" your pain and they slow your mind. psychedelics stop giving insights and start to make the mind unstable. too much time away from sober EITHER WAY is not good for ones health. EVEN SMOKING WEED.

At least other drug users acknowledge their substances of choice for what they are. Fun, but not reality. And probably not good for them. Trippers don't even manage that. They extend the illusions to some hyper-reality and make fun of others.

what is "not reality"? everything is reality. whether it's fucked up cant get off the couch without hiting the floor reality, or, shit i feel funny laughing and cant sit still fucked up, that is your view. it does not separate from normal waking consciousness. just a filter to see through.

about pharmaceuticals. i try to avoid processed things. i dont like white bread, i dont like refined suger, shit i'd be more than happy with a handful of live grain and some fruit instead. i dont prescribe to societies conveniences because they know not what they do, they just do it, and then we are the test subjects until the figure out whats up 20, 40 years later.. aspartame. ephedrine. diet coke. asbestos. would you like a list of all the companies that are getting the shit sued out of them for giving people horrible diseases? i dont think that that should be necessary... therefore, i dont see why one might try to put all drugs in one catagory. that is all that i mean to say. see, i draw the line here. i would smoke or eat OPIUM, but would not take a percocet, which is not to say that i have not, in fact i have done a good bit of dabbling in the world of downers, just found it to not have much mental benefits associated. but my point is that there is a basic point of refinement, that, once passed, gives the substance a much more concentrated and amplified effect, and i DO NOT think that society has learned the proper applications, proper situations, nor proper doses for such things. to set the same "standard dose" for EVERYBODY? a man who is 200 lbs is not a man who is 130. they know not what they do, and they show me that repeatedly. dont even get me started on birth control.

idk i just cannot agree with some of what you said, because clearly there are substances that are better for your health, just like there are substances that are worse. and some stuff inbetween. but i do agree that hippies are virtually extinct by the characteristic definition that they used to be known

 

[spice]

I do not drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, do opiates, meth, cocaine, diazepams, or any of that pharmaceutical life-killing shit that the conservatives force-feed this culture thru their diabolical system of 'health care' (thats sarcasm dripping there) and pharma lobby.


There IS A REAL DIFFERENCE between psychedelics and other drugs, ( yes you can use them like a pussy, then you're no different than any drunkard) but it takes COURAGE to seek these differences out, and it takes GUTS to embrace them, but it takes CONVICTION to hold to it in the face of total opposition.


The hippies were right back in the 60's you know......

 

[ophiuchus]

psychedelics and weed are the only thing i do anymore. so that's basically just weed, and my use is infrequent. i've learned my lesson with all the other shit, and even with the stuff i still do. i couldn't tell you how long it's been since i've tripped. it was a long time. years. i've eaten maybe a gram or so total since my last REAL dose (first time 7g fungi). im feeling another one soon though.

FUCK quitting cigarettes. that was a bitch. 5 years smoking and 2 and a half was me trying to quit... i've been done with them for almost a year now, and its only now really that i can say that i dont desire to inhale one anymore.

im with spice, phuck big pharma. they have banned, all the plants that were traditionally used for ailments, and in their place created horrible cocktails from them, or in most cases not even, they create an artificial approximate, so that you must use their shit or face prosecution for trying to be a more natural human being. that's about all i have to say about them. fuck their ad campaign brainwashing bullshit. i can't get into a bad mood over this, im done for now..

 

[spice]

^

 

[peach]

BREAK OUT THE DEBATE!

Now here we find an ironic twist, as 60's hippies, their free love and the feminism movement were all helped along by the pill meaning random sex wouldn't result in babies.

Sexually transmitted disease (natures own creation) was high among those hippies. How was it cured, pharmaceutical companies.

I've spent literally my entire life from about 9 or 10 thinking about all this, when I started reading about LSD synthesis. I can agree that pharma uses money in the wrong ways sometimes. For example, they spend more of it on advertising than they do R&D. If advertising can win you over that easily, you deserve to be robbed; hopefully it'll smarten you up. But to say they've banned healthier alternatives and replaced them with toxic drugs that they then force you to take kind of suggests you haven't read into this enough or have a somewhat skewed view of reality.

Another example, the drug this thread is about was from a pharmaceutical company. Stoll isolated ergotamine in something like that the 20's at Sandoz. Alberted produced the derivatives in the 40's, at Sandoz. The hippies and people like Terence McKenna made sure it was off the market, our of the hands of the doctors and illegal by the 60's. Hoffmann DID NOT like hippies playing with his work; that's why he ended up sad about it and referring to it as "my problem child".

Penicillin from penicillium. Saved countless lives. A refined and concentrated extraction produced by the companies.

Cure for small pox, entirely iradicated one of the most contagious diseases known to man. Companies.

Antiobiotics are a particularly good example because the damage they can do is brought about by the public, not the companies or the drug it's self.

In terms of risk from commercial products, again... yes, they don't do enough sometimes. However, if you look at what has to occur for something like the clinical trials and R&D that goes into an anticancer or HIV treatment, it's billions of dollars worth. The alternative is that they spend infinity researching it, never release it and no one ever gets any of the positives. Along these lines, nuclear physics and higher levels of electronics are basically around because of the atom bomb and cold war. You're typing on something derived from that line of work, the memory in your phone is relying on quantum mechanics from that work. I am one the biggest anti-war people around, but I can also see the positive results people refuse to connect to the horrors.

People whine on when people get sick in clinical trials. Those people are PAID VOLUNTEERS who've been told about the risk. And if a trial kills a few paid, informed volunteers, how does that compare to the number mother nature will kill if it's left untreated? Without asking, without discriminating and without stopping.

Drugs like LSD are the safest things you'll ever eat in terms of overdosing or physical toxicity. What they do to people's minds isn't so clear. You don't have to be a loony in a ward or outwardly odd to have a damaged mind. And this relates to your point about reality. Having read 18 year old nuclear physics text books when I was 11 or 12 and now reading books about superstring and multidimensional space/time theory, I know far better than all but a tiny percentage just how strange reality can get beyond what we can perceive. But SHIT... scrambled images trippers think are god... open a text book on university level chemistry, biology or nuclear physics and have a read. Trippers trick themselves into thinking they've certainly seen the true nature of things. Maybe they have. But there's an even more provably and equally odd reality in those textbooks. Speaking as someone who has eaten a half ounce of mushrooms, sold thousands of trips worth of spores and read those books. It's not what you see on a trip, the lesson is to question things. Not assume.

Remember that unless you're in a crazy hospital and hurting yourself, it's your choice to eat things on the shelves or ask for them from the doctor. Don't be a pussy and try shifting the blame to the companies who make it. People at Mc Donalds and call centers rely on that mentality. Every annoying prick in a company who passes you on does it. The religious do it and pass the blame to god for making them fallible, and then excuse themselves because they've said sorry to god, rather than just say it to the person they've hurt. Children are the only people with an excuse.

I am making VERY sweeping statements when I say 'trippers' and refer to pharma or other things like that. Generalizing, however, that I see being played out on a notably frequent basis compared to the commonly held opinions of how things are. I don't know everything and I'm not an expert in a certain field. I have eaten a lot more mushrooms than most people will ever touch (the shroomery study says so) and I have read books on how the world works at the invisible level, books most people would put down after the first page.

I think it'd be good to mention a TV program I saw in which a Muslim guy had a deformed child he wanted help with. She was going to die very soon. Not having a lot of money, but with his child having quite a rare condition, she was taken to an advanced medical institution to be MRI scanned and treated. On leaving, her farther was shouting "Praise Allah!", as opposed to "Thank you for living your heavenless lives developing this MRI scanner and treating my child for free!". Christians, catholics, protestants, jews, hippies, the general (scarily lazy and uninformed) public, they all do it and with lots of different things, like the hatred of gm / artificial fertilizers and the love of green (unrealistic) energy. Of course you need to be careful with things like that. But picking out the bad apples and ignoring the brilliance of the harvest is an old trend.

A huge number of people now drink bottled water. It's literally thousands of times more expensive than tap water, which has the same minerals in it. Better yet, the plastic (not easy to recycle) bottles are leaking hormone mimicking compounds into the water. They want to save the guys in Africa, then drink bottled water; spending their money on branding rather than donating it. They want the fields in Africa irrigated, then give their money to wind turbines instead of fusion research. I swear to any god out there, I have seen a guy at a dinner party serve tap water in a fancy bottle and people have said it was special. I've seen another guy fill unbranded white cups with tap water, hand them out on the street, had people say it tasted special, then offer to pay a few dollars a bottle for it. "Down with petrochemicals, go biodiesel!". Great, where does the biodiesel come from? Land that's supposed to be used for food crops. "Hybrids release less CO2!". Where's the electricity from? Power stations. I was having this discussion with a family member just now. If you look back through history, the level of intelligence in humanity and what it's capable of are related to energy production; down to every minute detail of the things around you, the paint on the walls, the pixels on your screen, the clothes you're wearing, the heat in your home, the temperature of your dinner, the water coming out the tap, the bricks the house is made from, the glass in the windows, the carpet, the timber. And fusion is the unheard of, publicly unacceptable, inherently clean, safe, resource friendly and high yielding nuclear answer to that demand. The hippy idea that we should regress to low power wind turbines and "use less power" is a complete joke. Unless someone's a Buddhist monk living with nothing (one of the few religious views I can deal with), they can shut up with their uninformed criticisms of money, technology and companies. That's the unreality I'm getting at. It's remarkable how opinions change once a technology is proven and someone requires it's results. They are children who can't use their most basic senses, assess and balance things or stand up for what their senses and brain might be suggesting is the truth (it's tap water), and they do need lying to to make them "choose" in some informed manner; because they're happy to pass the work onto someone else and form insanely skewed opinions on things, to the point that they can genuinely convince themselves that they're true (a brand name must be better, because it costs more and looks good). Or to simply have the choice taken away from them. You can put the information right in front of them and they still won't bother to read it or make an attempt to understand what's happening. Even scientists will do it, refuse to writeup negative results or attempt to skew them. I could swear endlessly, but it's gone beyond that to pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

 

[ophiuchus]

you seem to think that, because im not bashing them with you, that i claim to be a hippie... i hope you dont think that. all that i have said or mean to say about hippies is that they are pretty much extinct, not that i idolize them in any way..

"they spend more of it on advertising than they do R&D"

THAT in itself does it for me... if they had a quality product, it would speak for itself. and the good ones do. but they dont push the good ones, they push the new ones, and when they aren't spending SHIT on research and developement for them because all of that money's in advertising, then WHAT THE FUCK...

But to say they've banned healthier alternatives and replaced them with toxic drugs that they then force you to take kind of suggests you haven't read into this enough or have a somewhat skewed view of reality."

dont exaggerate what im saying and then it's not skewed reality. it's not necessary to "read into" anything for that point of mine. one example that i already gave you is, poppy plants are illegal to grow. people used to make tea and things like that from poppy plants to cure ailments in the same way painkillers do. when they prescribe opiates to you, they are either 90% aspirin with (added binding agents, pill coatings etc), and/or unnecessarily potent. they've made innumerable other plants unavailable as well for home remedies in a similar fashion. there's no disputing that.

you seem to think that i am against science as well as medical advancement as well just because i dont agree with the way pharmaceutical companies push their shitty side-effect ridden products; judging by your response about the deformed child. well, seeing as how i dont label myself your view of a hippy, you shouldn't preconceive your notions just yet. i am actually a big proponent of science. its just like i said though, when they turn that sort of thing into an ad campaign, a fucking popularity contest, spending billions on advertising, i become suspect. i dont allow the wool to be pulled over on me easily and i am offended when i recognize their false advertising..

i dont know what sort of separate stance you are picking from me, but i dont fit into a catagory that you've provided thus far, so dont throw out classical stereotypes at me, dont assume what i haven't said please.

 

[lalle]

poppy plants are illegal to grow. people used to make tea and things like that from poppy plants to cure ailments in the same way painkillers do. when they prescribe opiates to you, they are either 90% aspirin with (added binding agents, pill coatings etc), and/or unnecessarily potent.

Wait, what? Do you realize your claims are absolute bullshit?

First of all, poppy tea is just a mix of opiates. Nothing more, nothing less. What pharmaceutical companies do is that they offer you are refined version of the opiates. No worries about mold, no worries about drinking that absolutely foul tasting liquid, no more having an aching back, drinking some pod tea before work but accidentally getting a more potent pod than average and nodding out.

When you are prescribed OPIATES, you get OPIATES. Opiates are not mixed with aspirin, instead they're usually combined with APAP (paracetamol) for oxycodone, hydrocodone and codeine or ibuprofen for codeine. More potent opiates (hydromorphone, oxymorphone, heroin, fentanyl and the like) are mostly always pure opiates with binders.

The "plants" you so much seem to worship are no better than synthetic medication. In fact, chances are they're a lot less reliable and potent, not to mention harder to produce for the masses.

 

[spice]

Lalle, have you just put yourself in the position of defending modern pharmaceuticals?

Did you do this unwittingly?


" poppy plants are illegal to grow. people used to make tea and things like that from poppy plants to cure ailments in the same way painkillers do. when they prescribe opiates to you, they are either 90% aspirin with (added binding agents, pill coatings etc), and/or unnecessarily potent.

Wait, what? Do you realize your claims are absolute bullshit?"


It's not, really......see, you adressed the part of what he said about the aspirin.....but not this:

"unnecessarily potent"

address that, if you can.

Please.

 

[IJesusChrist]

Pharma wants to treat you, not cure you.

Pharma manufactures drugs to treat the general population - good for profits, bad for those with irregular DNA.

Pharma has made it illegal to have anything natural claim to cure anything. I.E. "Does cheerios need to be regulated?" -google it.

Pharma has made very interesting and useful compounds, but no one person on the face of the planet is intelligent enough to know every biomechanism a drug can make before it enters the human body. Therefore, I argue that every good drug has been a lucky find, as we can see how many bad ones there are. "Have you taken YAZ recently and died!? Call us!"

Pharma is for money, people are the market - the ones that are desperate. The best market.

Beyond, Peach, how the fuck do you think we will transition to wind power & solar if people just put off buying an electric vehicle because its powered by coal? You buy an electric car, you shut off your computer, unplug your TV, microwave, laptop for the night, VOILA your car is charged for 'free'.

Nothing enrages me more than the obstacles placed in front of free-energy. The sun.

Now going to natural substances, most have evolved parallel to human evolution. We eat the ones that are poisonous and die. We eat the ones that help us and pass it on for centuries.

Yet, to counter everything I have said I take piracetam & ritalin & a low blood pressure med (one of the good ones! it cured me).

 

[spice]

'Don't be a pussy and try shifting the blame to the companies who make it. '


So, peach, let's delineate between "shifting the blame" and "telling the truth"



When a company falsely advertises its products, that IN ITSELF is reason enough to denigrate them, but when they have a track record of lying and profiteering like big pharma does, then it's just fine to burn them in effigy, in my mind. Pharma in collusion with government does many things that neither of you are addressing here.


why have you both taken the position that they have ANYTHING that can outdo what nature already provides?



Where do you think they got the ideas for aspirin, pennicillin, or heroin from?


The hippies were more 'right' than the prevailing mentality in all our cultures this day and age;

spend, hoard, spend, spend.....dose self.....spend...TV...spend....must get new toy.....hoard....have beer.......spend......dont think......vote.....spend....spend

 

[spice]

IJC- I dont know if you saw this;

post-38746.html?f=12


"Green Cars could run on carbon dioxide and water"


Its about the sun....

 

[lalle]

Lalle, have you just put yourself in the position of defending modern pharmaceuticals?

Did you do this unwittingly?



"unnecessarily potent"

address that, if you can.

Please.

Yes indeed, I find nothing wrong with modern pharmaceuticals. It is possibly because I major in organic chem and biology, hence my knowledge of the subject is far better than yours.

The potency of painkillers depends wholly on what substance you're prescribed and the amount of which you are prescribed. People who have studied their field for years are better prepared to assess the necessary dosage and potency of a painkiller than you are, after trying hallucinogens. There is a wild spectrum of potencies when it comes to opiates, and an even wider spectrum when it comes to painkillers as a whole.

why have you both taken the position that they have ANYTHING that can outdo what nature already provides?

Obviously because nature is imperfect and chaotic. Why use something sub-bar when you can produce something clean, pure and dose it precisely to cure whichever ailment it has been made for. Bullshit like "baww, it's synthetic, therefore baad" has nothing to do with objective observation, it lacks proof of any kind and is as good an argument like "judeo-christian god is real because the bible says so".

 

[spice]

 

[spice]

You are either REAL DUMB or that's just a great troll job, Mr. Agent......

 

[IJesusChrist]

lalle, get the hell outta here with "my knowledge is far greater than yours"

I also major in chemistry and biochemistry with plans in medicinal chemistry, yet ironically I know the faults of big pharma...

You're just blinded by the books the big pharma made! :wink: