I believe you will find this interesting

[joedirt]

A recent PLOS ONE paper was published HERE:

21,967 respondents (13.4% weighted) reported lifetime psychedelic use. There were no significant associations between lifetime use of any psychedelics, lifetime use of specific psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, peyote), or past year use of LSD and increased rate of any of the mental health outcomes. Rather, in several cases psychedelic use was associated with lower rate of mental health problems.

Enjoy

 

[3rdI]

Nice one, joe

 

[Kenota]

I was literally just coming here to post this. The paper is interesting, though I think it is a shame that given the nature of the data no causative link could be drawn. Hopefully that is the next step down this path of research.

 

[universecannon]

good find :thumb_up:

 

[Vodsel]

Thanks!!

 

[Nathanial.Dread]

Good news

 

[SpaceSeek]

Very interesting find.

More research paving the way to a positive future for these compounds.

:roll:

 

[InMotion]

I figured this would be an expected result, it's cool to see some statistics.

I think this is an important piece to this article

We cannot exclude the possibility that use of psychedelics might have a negative effect on mental health for some individuals or groups, perhaps counterbalanced at a population level by a positive effect on mental health in others. We did not adjust for multiple comparisons, so some of the associations with weak statistical significance are likely due to chance.

The evidence presented in this study suggests that there is no increase in mental health problems amongst life-time psychedelic users. It does not mention the many studies done previously where psychedelics have been shown to exacerbate underlying conditions. There may be no net increase but some people are still predisposed to mental illnesses. Which I suppose it shouldn't as it isn't exactly relevant to the study, but I felt I should mention it here.

The only thing I don't understand is why ignore prisons and hospitals? That is of course were you would find a large amount of mentally ill people. Sure, it may only account for 2% of the total population but that's a pretty big chunk of people highly relevant to this study in my opinion. So I think a title more like "people who live in a home and have used psychedelics are as likely to be mentally ill as anyone else living at home not using psychedelics". It seems like they did their best to use good comparisons and data here aside from that. The randomized data removal and the removal of 'incomplete' questionaires is a bit skeptical. Then again maybe that's common for sociological studies.

 

[nen888]

..great find joedirt..thanks..!

InMotion wrote:

It does not mention the many studies done previously where psychedelics have been shown to exacerbate underlying conditions.

..can you give examples..?
most, if not all, studies i've seen that claim this do not take into account use of other drugs, particularly cannabis or amphetamines..

really a control group who only take psychedelics would be what needs to be tested..
the Nexus is probably one of the few places people like would exist..

 

[expandaneum]

He interesting paper

The one question that rises is ?
Are lifetime psychedelic users not already a a self selecting group eg people who experience serious mental problems caused by psychedelics are less likely to become lifetime users.

Also the selection and exclusion of data raises some questions.

al in al nice to read

take care

 

[InMotion]

..can you give examples..? most, if not all, studies I've seen that claim this do not take into account use of other drugs, particularly cannabis or amphetamines..

really a control group who only take psychedelics would be what needs to be tested..
the Nexus is probably one of the few places people like would exist..

Well using the nexus as a control group for such a study doesn't really work out. At least not how you have expressed the conditions. I would assume a majority of the members on here also smoke cannabis and dabble in other drugs especially cannabis. I recall a time when House(the member) on a random day decided to have a 'smokeathon' I forget how many pages of people we had posting that they had smoked a bowl (myself included). It was significant however.

Also many members on here have or do use amphetamines of some kind. Especially MDMA.

The real major blunder I see is this. How many mentally ill people are going to access their computer and come on here. Very few, same goes for schizophreniform illness message boards, forums, and chat-rooms. Even though 1% of the total population has schizophrenia, keep that in mind... We have had members experience psychotic episodes it's probably not as discussed as much as on the forum but I can recall at least 5 in the chat-room. I don't mean a bad trip or whatever I mean hospitilization, drugs, the whole deal. Also, what I had stated in my post (and expandaneum reiterated), how likely is a person who has already been using psychedelics for a number of years to all of a sudden exacerbate a pre-existing condition that was not already set off by other substances? Not likely at all... Likely those people do not have such pre-existing conditions and thus take psychedelics for years.

My point isn't too associate psychedelics with mental illness, I just don't think your statement is really being very fair to the work that has been done there. There are a lot of misconceptions about mental illness. I recall a survey stating that 50% of the general public believed it was the people with mental illnesses fault for having them. That's another thing to take to mind.

Back on topic for example in this paper published about 'LSD psychosis' they review geneology, family history, disease progression, with normal schizophrenia and whaddya know correlation. To turn around and then say "it could have been the cannabis or the amphetamine", I don't think is entirely fair. It would perhaps be more fair to say that they were likely to end up schizophrenic anyways just a matter of what instigated their first episode.

LSD Psychosis or LSD-Induced Schizophrenia?A Multimethod Inquiry
Michael M. Vardy, PhD; Stanley R. Kay, PhD
Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1983;40(8):877-883. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1983.01790070067008

http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=493118

There are dozens of articles like this this one just one of the first I pulled off of the pile. I do not see why a psychedelic could not exacerbate a pre-existing condition. The burden of proof really isn't there.

For example someone's wife can have a child and they can end up, or someone can have a miscarraige, get into a car crash, lose a girlfriend, get hung up on a problem, and end up with a form of chronic psychosis etc. These are all 'triggers' (tons of unlisted ones obviously) that can progress people from prodormal schizophrenia to an episode. Give me one good reason why a heavy psychedelic experience couldn't do the same and maybe I'll listen. Schizophrenics are not even supposed to eat chocolate, ingest caffiene, or drink alcohol because of their biological effects.

Cannabis has been linked to psychosis as well but its unclear whether people who are psychotic smoke it to relieve symptoms or whether it. Unless someone has anything more substantial on that that is all I have heard. I have read decent reports of cannabidiol working as an antipsychotic for acute schizophrenia and bipolar disorders. So the self-medication theory stands in my opinion.

Most people who do obtain a state of psychosis from amphetamine use find it is temporary and not chronic (iirc). Similarly for psychedelics. Unless they were pre-exposed to a schizophreniform disease. Same argument as psychedelics.

I could keep going but I think that's enough to think about for now.

 

[Global]

InMo, if you read nen's statement again, he didn't say "the Nexus" would be a control group. He said that this would be one of the likely places where people who meet the criteria can be found i.e. not everybody at the Nexus, but a selection.

 

[joedirt]

Did you guys/gals notice the comment section?

At least one commentator raised what he considers to be methodological concerns with the paper HERE

Personally I thought the research was relatively balanced. They didn't claim that psychedelics helped mental illness cases or in any way protected people from mental illness. What they actually claimed in the conclusions was:

We did not find use of psychedelics to be an independent risk factor for mental health problems.

They also noted that in a few cases it actually seemed to help people, which I don't think would be to much of a shock to people here. No one is claiming that just dropping acid is gonna lead to a happy life. These drugs demand more than simple clinical trials. They require a set and setting that is unique to the individual. They are mirrors to our inner minds and they are not something that should be expected to perform well in double blind studies IMHO. These aren't drugs in the normal sense of the word...at least not to me.

Consider that native americas have used them for centuries as medicine. Shamanic cultures as well. If there we serious risk factors associated with increased risk these cultures likely would have abandoned them long ago and more than likely would have never adopted them.

Just my rambling two cents.