• Members of the previous forum can retrieve their temporary password here, (login and check your PM).

Is DMT REALLY safe?

Migrated topic.
SWIM agrees with soulfood. the same aggressive, ego-based opining is at the heart of the "dark spirit" manifestations these people are warning of. SWIM has made contact TWICE now with insect-entities and the love and warmth he experienced defies description. DMT is in everything. it IS everything. it is a mirror to everything. be in love and gratitude before you try to go into this sacred dimension. your fear and ego (one and the same) ARE these "dark spirits" you warn about.

meet all with love and there is only ever one outcome.
 
soulfood said:
I'd say looking at a lot of these replies (didn't read them all but I got the hunch) that many peoples opinions are clouded by the respect of the substance. Me too. I know that this drug has not been safety tested to the limit something should be to proclaim it safe.
Click to expand...
Yes, while the substance has helped me SWIM lot so far, he's also a little concerned about the potential for groupthink/delusion in the DMT community. I'd be really interested to hear about and see links of medical studies on the safety of freebase DMT.
 
Can you people learn how to correctly quote one another please. Damnit Jim! You guys suck.:)


ps: That was directed at the geniuses on the first few pages. I mean shit, how hard can it be to
someone????
Click to expand...
 
lowjackal said:
Can you people learn how to correctly quote one another please. Damnit Jim! You guys suck.:)


ps: That was directed at the geniuses on the first few pages. I mean shit, how hard can it be to
someone????
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Those first few pages are from a conversion from other forum-software. So please be kind to those misquotes, it's not their fault.
 
why was lame ass thread even brought back up I mean this was started in 07 the OP doesnt even post here anymore must the brain cancer from the DMT
 
Terence McKenna died of glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive form of brain cancer. He abused marijuana on a daily basis, used mushrooms and DMT. He speculated that it could have been his drug use that caused the cancer.

Well, how did he get his DMT? Who extracted it for him? Was there maybe benzene trapped in the DMT crystals? Benzene is a known carcinogen. What about chloroform? Lots of people used that to extract DMT. It’s said to be a carcinogen. Maybe he breathed in too many of the solvents while extracting the DMT himself?

I would be most worried about the impurities of extracted DMT, than the DMT itself. But who really knows? No one has done extensive tests on the long term effects of smoking large doses of DMT. Likewise, such human studies for LSD also do not exist.

Terence McKenna died of brain cancer after Timothy Leary died of prostate cancer. That's a little weird isn't it? Two of the most outspoken psychedelic users of our time both die of cancer! Makes you wonder.

Albert Hofmann lived a very long and healthy life. He died at the age of 102. This guy was an expert chemist and probably took all the necessary precautions to make sure the LSD he ingested was pure. Timothy Leary, on the other hand, likely ingested lots of dirty and badly made LSD.

None of the psychedelics have been tested for long term safety. The natural ones (peyote, certain psilocybes, ayahuasca, etc.) that have been in use for hundreds of years seem to have some level of long term safety (there long term users are NOT dropping like flies), but even then, we don’t really know.

It’s not likely that any such study will ever be done in the near future considering modern society’s negative view on these substances.
 
Cancer is a very peculiar disease, and it might have to do with many things including emotional issues, and the place where the cancer shows up might have to do with these things.

the fact that mckenna and leary had cancer might have absolutely nothing to do with psychedelics.. Mckenna also took datura in his india days, and it seems he had very bad eating habbits, eating all sorts of junk food..

There is also a podcast from the psychedelic salon where bruce damer, which was a friend of mckenna, talks about mckenna's cancer and the possible reasons for it.. mckenna was a word person, he was very gifted with words. he was always reading and talking and so on, but he was too much into it and not enough into the action. He somehow hid behind his intellect. Damer talks about how it took a cancer in mckenna's brain to dissolve his intellectual defenses. In the end of his life he said: 'you know, I was never really a love bug but.. now I realise.. its all about love'.. So maybe in a way that was what he needed, to finally break free from his brain and realise it ..

leary had prostate cancer, but he had also been in prison, kidnapped, all sorts of emotional troubles, and so on.. this all might also have to do with it.

I dont know, its all just suppositions.. Im just saying it might not necessarily be about the psychedelics.
 
It's a little difficult to read some of these posts when people don't seperate their thoughts into seperate paragraphs and their is one huge post based on a train of thought.

I was guilty of this aswell but was kindly notified that it does block threads and people tend to skip them, so please...some of you,try and be more conscious of it.

I think there are a lot of valid points to each side of this "debate".

69ron brought up a good point of safe chem. but as far as the spiritual implications that is something i have questioned myself.

I do believe in the spirit realm there are benevolent beings and malevolent beings and everyone that uses dmt as a TOOL to access the realm of spirit needs to procced w/ caution.

Anything can be abused and turn into an unsafe situation....food for example.

I do believe "intent" of what you want from this substance is a major thing and if one is not abusing it and using it as a recreationl "kick" and uses caution...is probably going to not put themselves in a situation where there are long term negative psychological,spiritual,emotional and physical harm but that is simply speculation.

I think most psychonauts (but i can only speak for myself) are willing to take on a certain amount of risk inorder to explore the depths of the human mind and the "cosmos"....if you will.

I don't beleive this drug should be bashed and claimed as evil....there are many other drugs that have much worse long term physical consiquences.... and we don't even know if this one has consequences, in that regard as of yet.

Ultimately, we don't know....Heck, there is no proof that hyperspace is real.

I just don't beleive that writing of this substance is evil is backed with any serious validation....mabey the person that claims it's evil has some demons w/in him or herself that is being confronted and is causing them to have a biased outlook.

With all this being said....swim plans on continuing his travels and proceed w/ caution and care.
 
69ron said:
Terence McKenna died of brain cancer after Timothy Leary died of prostate cancer. That's a little weird isn't it? Two of the most outspoken psychedelic users of our time both die of cancer! Makes you wonder.
Click to expand...
An article I read in the press a few years ago said that 30% of people get cancer nowadays, and they're expecting this to rise to 50% as we start living longer. As for prostate cancer, I heard that almost every man gets that anyway, as long as they live long enough for it to develop... autopsies of old men almost always show them to have prostate cancer as well as whatever actually killed them. Leary was 75 so no surprise really. So this sample of 2 isn't very worrying really, especially when they were doing allsorts.

We should start to compile a survey of known DMT smokers(/IVers), how long they lived and what they died of...

DMT SMOKERS/IV
Terrence McKenna- 53- brain cancer- mainly smoked DMT?- (and 'a longtime sufferer of migraines'... did this precede his introduction to anadenanthera in 1971?)
Alexander Shulgin- alive currently 83- 100s of drugs inc. DMT (IV?)

DID THESE PEOPLE SMOKE/INJECT DMT?
Dr. Rick Strassman- alive currently 57- DMT & psylocybin?
Raja Ram from Shpongle- alive currently 68
Dennis Mckenna- alive currently 58
Timothy Leary- 75- prostate cancer- LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, DMT
William S. Burroughs- 83- heart attack- heroin, ayawaska?, chloral hydrate, etc
Allen Ginsberg- died age 70- liver cancer with hepatitis complications- LSD, weed, ayawaska
Albert Hoffman- 102- natural causes- psylocybin, LSA, salvia d, LSD
Bill Hicks- 32- pancreatic cancer- tobacco, 'LSD, psilocybin, cocaine, MDMA, poppy tea, diazepam, Quaaludes, methamphetamine'
David E. Nichols ?
Johnathan Ott ?
JC Callaway ?
Gonçalves de Lima ?
Richard Manske ?
Wallach ?
Jeremy Narby ?
Graham Hancock ? currently 58
Ralph Metzner ? currently 72
Riane Eisler ?
Tom Robbins ? currently 72
Roland L. Fisher ?
Wade Davis ? currently 55
Richard Evans Schultes ? died age 86
Alejo Carpentier- died age 75- cancer

(this is all just off Wikipedia!) Please chip in if you know of others...
Pff hasn't someone already done this?! You'd've thought?
 
I agree with ohayoco. We should be focussing on what we can do.

Also I would very much like to know if any of you has found a way to have use of psychedelics really affect your sober life and development as a person in a positive way, apart from discovering the inner universe and creative side of your minds.

I have found that smoking small doses of dmt irregularly (once every 3 days or so) and doing aya occasionally (once every month or so) makes me more able to cope with the stress of life and makes me a more responsible person.

In the past I had long times of being off my path playing all kinds of ego games, not observing my ego and not developing my true wisdom of life and knowledge of self.
It's as if the occasional smoke keeps me more on the path of spiritual development/acquiring wisdom and enables me to cope with my emotions and frustrations in a more mature way.

Though this is speculation and the use of dmt and this development of my character do not nescesarily have to have anything to do with eachother of course. But that's only pure scientifically. I have to be correct. I myself, by intuition, am pretty sure it's directly connected though.

So I love dmt. But I'm not saying it's safe. I haven't researched it. I have heard of a research though where the brains of frequent ayahuasca users from the amazone regions were scanned and compared to none-users living in the same way in the same region. The brains of the ayahuasca users showed more activity in certain regions of the brain such as where concentration and memory were located. They were also said to be more responsible people, though this is subjective and can therefor not be used as reliable research data.
Anyone heard of this research also? I can't remember where I found it. I'll post a link when I find it's source.

Of course smoking large doses is far more exciting and adventurous then a slight (ehrm) change of consciousness you get from smoking a small dose, but I myself have found it can sometimes confuse me when I do this a lot and it is not beneficial to my mental health when done frequently.

I have seen one story where someone said he had a remaining physical sensation in his body after an insect from the spirit world bit him there.. that's fucked up. I would like to know if anyone had more ill effects in the past. Such as (persisting) weird sensations in the head or vision, (slight) headaches after or the day after having smoked (a) big dose(s)? Anyone noticed any decreases in cognitive function or anything? I'm not trying to scare anyone here. I take the risk myself. Until we find out more, thats what it is. A risk that we choose to take.

I'd like to see if we can find out more together though!
 
burnt said:
These psychedelic substances can't cause cancer. To cause cancer they need to be able to mutate DNA or consistently/permentantly turn on or off genes related to cancer. They don't. At least I haven't seen any evidence that they do.
Click to expand...

People didn't think cigarettes caused cancer for a long time either because no evidence existed showing that they did. It wasn't until lots of studies where done on them that their carcinogenicity became apparent. Same was true for benzene and chloroform.

No such extensive studies exist for psychedelics. Do you know how long it took before benzene was found to cause cancer? Chloroform was considered a safe non cancer causing alternative to benzene after benzene was discovered to cause cancer. But then chloroform was later found to cause cancer too. Then DCM was considered a safe alternative to chloroform, and guess what? Now DCM is showing possible carcinogenicity too! These solvents have been studied maybe thousands of times more than any psychedelic drugs were ever studied because they are used all the time all around the world.

Think about that. The lack of evidence could just be from the lack of studies done.

Until they are studied as extensively as chloroform, benzene, and tobacco, I wouldn’t say that “psychedelic substances can't cause cancer” because YOU DON’T KNOW. It's unknown and will remain unknown until all possible carcinogenicity tests are done on them, which is probably not going to happen any time soon.
 
Well they once thought LSD could cause chromosome damage and that was proven to not be true.

However yes you are right a specific study would need to be done. The reason benzene and the chloronated solvents were never shown to be carcinogenic until recently is because they were never examined in detail. Once DNA based assays became avialable and animal data confirmed their carcinogenic potential then they were considered carcinogens.

I am not going to get into the tobacco and cancer issue because that was really the tobacco companies trying to deny that cigg's caused cancer.

But for me mechanistically I don't see how these small tryptamines can mutate DNA. For compounds like benzene and chloroform these reactions are known. Thats where I am coming at this from.

This paper describes how depending on assay conditions tryptamine can be pro mutagenic or anti mutagenic.


This paper suggests that 5-MEO-tryptamine (not 5-meo-dmt note) can create metabolites that are carcinogenic

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

[Carcinogenic action of 5-methoxytryptamine related to its transformation into 5-methoxyindolyl-3-acetic acid] - PubMed

A considerable blastomogenic effect of metabolite serotonin 5-methoxytryptamine (5-MOT) subcutaneously administered for a long time to C57BL/6 mice was established. This effect was decreased noticeably if the further metabolism of 5-MOT into 5-methoxyindolyl-3-acetic acid (5-MIAA) was blocked by...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

This paper points out that impurties in synthesized impurities have carcinogenic potential. This paper specifically talks about skatole which is naturally found in human shit :)


"Skatole itself is considered to be a pneumotoxin
that exerts its toxic effects via cytochrome P450-mediated
bioactivation, potentially resulting in carcinogenic activity"

This paper talks about how the positive psychological effects of psychedelics can potentially prevent psychological conditions that are condusize to cancer and stress:


Basically what I am gathering is that certain biogenic amines even completely natural ones can be metabolized into N-nitrosamines which are potentially carcinogenic.

But look beta carbolines have anti mutagenic properties:

mutage.oxfordjournals.org

Antioxidant properties of β-carboline alkaloids are related to their antimutagenic and antigenotoxic activities

Abstract. The β-carboline alkaloids found in medical plants and in a variety of foods, beverages and cigarette smoke have a range of action in various biol
mutage.oxfordjournals.org mutage.oxfordjournals.org

See there are so many factors to consider. Basically when you eat foods with biogenic amines you could be potentially ingesting precursors to carcinogens. Tons of food contains these compounds. In other words its not really necessary to worry about. If they were really dangerous I think someone would have noticed.

Maybe I should rephrase. The potential metabolites of tryptamines may be carcinogenic. Thats a lot of maybes.
 
I'm not saying they cause cancer or don't. I can't say either way, and nor can anyone at this point in time. There are many ways things can cause cancer. Animal studies are not always conclusive when it comes to what's carcinogenic in human beings. Look at all the studies done on saccharine for example. Even today there are a lot of conflicting studies about its ability to cause cancer with not a single case of a human known to develop cancer from it's use for over 100 years.

When it comes to psychedelics, there are a lot of changes that are triggered in human beings. Not all of them are reproducible in all animals.

It’s known that a single dose of psilocybin can block cluster headaches for many months after it’s use. That indicates a change occurring that’s far longer than the normal duration of the drug. There could be other changes occurring in the body that lead to carcinogenic tendencies.

The beta-carbolines continue to be studied because they are legal in most places. However, they are not in the same class of drugs as DMT, LSD, psilocybin, etc.

DMT could have anti-carcinogenic effects or cause cancer, or do nothing of the sort. As it is right now we JUST DO NOT KNOW.

DMT occurs in humans naturally. When people take DMT, they take many times the amount that occurs naturally in the human body. It might be unhealthy, or might be just fine. No one knows. Acetone occurs in the human body too, but you wouldn't drink a cup of acetone would you? Just because something occurs in the human body doesn’t mean it's safe in large amounts.
 
The fact that it occurs naturally in the body makes it seem less of a cancer worry... SWIM'd be more worried about some kind of brain damage from the massive dose than cancer.

I suspect that smoking DMT would be bad for you if done daily, but not so much in moderation, say, weekly. One thing's for sure, it doesn't FEEL unhealthy (compared withother illegal drugs,and legal ones too!)... no hangover, no detrimental psychological effects in SWIM's case... just throat irritation for those who overdo it...

The food we eat contains natural carcinogens... as well as many things that counteract these like antioxidants. The packaging could be carcinogenic too, such as softening chems in plastic... have 3 cups of green tea a day if you're worried! Our homes, furniture, furnishings and products are full of carcinogens too... I can't stand the smell of flat-pack furniture, I'm convinced it's the formaldehyde I can smell, I even start feeling rubbish if I stay inside too long! Even sunshine is carcinogenic... but essential at the same time... hope DMT doesn't work like that! :shock:

But yes, studies needed to be dug up, or done... surely someone out there needs an interesting subject like this for their PHD?!
 
Good points made by all. I do think overall we can say dmt is reasonably safe.

Ron is right that there are so many conflicting studies and really truly proving something is carcinogenic is really difficult. Even if its carcinogenic doesn't mean it will cause cancer. So overall the best thing is to be healthy otherwise. The other important thing is to not abuse drugs excessively. SWIM smokes herb and maybe thats not so good but whatever f-it SWIM accepts resonsibility for what SWIM does.

However, like anything in life, there is another side to DMT which I dont think has been mentioned enough in this forum. The Goddess. The Eternal Love.
Click to expand...

I don't really believe in this goddess spirit stuff but I think you are right that one should go into this experience with good intentions. Those intentions vary between individuals but there is a clear difference between someone using a drug for recreation or psychological benefits compared with someone using a drug to escape from their life or reality.
 
Like 69ron mentioned, beta-carbolines are likely to prevent cancer. Ayahuasca wich contains these powerfull antioxidants is therefore likely to prevent cancer and it is also likely to prevent many other diseasses like parkinson. Nevertheless, i find it not unlikely that excessive use of any substance, even substances that would normally rather prevent it, could causse cancer; taking a whole gram of vitamin E on a daily basis is probably unhealthy just as well.
Each substance has it's own specifics. You can never conclude that becausse one substance is found save, another very simillar substance must be save as well. However, it is likely that health effects of psychedelic tryptamines with the same recetor affinity are simillar. This is ofcourse contradicted by the fact that there are some psychedelic tryptamines that are known to be extremely unsafe, like AMT, but there are always exceptions to the rule.
Anyway, if 5-HT2 agonists in general would be damaging, this would be known already, since authoroties are only to eager to prove the use of LSD or shrooms to be damaging. The fact that they never succeeded in doing so is an argument to their relative safety.
 
Back
Top Bottom