Why science needs to speak for psychedelics

[burnt]

We have discussed ways to end the drug war. We have discussed how to change the public perception about psychedelic drugs. I want to summarize how I think this process can realistically happen in our lifetimes.

I am going to start with the example of medical marijuana. There is now a huge amount of scientific data explaining how marijuana has therapeutic potential for a number of diseases These include multiple sclerosis, AIDS wasting syndrome, cancer chemotherapy induced nausea, cancer itself, and neurodegenerative disorders. More and more data is being generated all the time. Its impossible to ignore this objective scientific data. As a result of this 14 states in the U.S. have legalized medical marijuana and more will follow. Cannabis and or cannabinoid based drugs are being used clinically or are undergoing clinical trails in many parts of the world. In California outright legalization bills are in the legislature and are being seriously discussed. In the marijuana world things are changing big time.

What do we have to thank for this change in attitude? I think we have science to thank. Without science and its objective methodology no one could verify the claim that marijuana had medical value. Sure there was anecdotal and traditional medicine reports that it worked but that kind of evidence does not count in our medical system. We are not going to change the western medical system overnight nor should we. Western medicine is the most successful and truthful medical system in history. Now that the public sees more and more that medical marijuana works they are no longer as afraid as marijuana. When people do not fear something they don't fear when more and more people use it. This leads to the change in attitude we are now seeing. Its not just taking place in the courts and medical institutions but its taking place in the public sphere and in the media.

I think that the same thing can happen with other psychedelic drugs if scientists take the stand and the gurus sit down.

If psychedelic drugs can be shown to have clinically significant effects on any disease whether mental of physical (or both) I think a similar pattern like that of marijuana will follow.

For example MAPS is following the classic clinical trial path to get MDMA approved as a drug to treat PTSD. MAPS has also funded research into other psychedelic drugs for treatment of anxiety in terminally ill patients. Other researchers have shown that psychedelic drugs like psilocybin can treat obsessive compulsive disorder. In Switzerland research is going on with LSD again.

Again we have science to thank for these changes. If there was ever a time for the psychedelic community to stand up and support science that time is now. Unfortunately there is still a host of gurus who won't shut up about what they think psychedelic drugs are good for. There messages are often a mixed blessing. While they inspire a small percentage of the population to use psychedelic drugs they also spread misinformation and create a division between users of psychedelic drugs and other parts of society. There are also many scientists who cross the line of doing serious research and instead turn to spiritualism to sell books and probably make more money then when they were just doing research. Telling a medical board that you think LSD should be legal because it heals the "spiritual crisis" of western civilization is not a legit claim. Telling a medical board that you want to use LSD to try and cure a condition like obsessive compulsive disorder or alcoholism and you do it properly following all the standard protocols you can make a real difference.

I think its time the psychedelic community started supporting science and not magic. Then we might see real change. Until then you are fighting a futile battle trying to convert people into a belief system that is more religious then scientific.

 

[polytrip]

I agree with this for 99%.
The 'magic' though, is usefull for personal and recreational purposes.
We talk about entities and other dimensions on this site a lot. I like that, but i would never talk about those things in an academic setting.
As long as this site doesn't claim to be some sort of scientific knowledge hub, i also see no harm in the 'magic'.
'Magic' is an intristic part of the psychedelic experience. Especially with real powerfull psychedelics as DMT.
I have often experienced being in the presence of god, but i would never make claims about this publicly, except on this site where we share experiences.
In the public debate about the legality of substances, it can only play a role when it aplies to the freedom of religion, like with ayahuasca, peyote, san-pedro and DPT.

 

[burnt]

I think that studying the 'magic' is also possible and would yield great insight into the mind and consciousness. But this involves a change in attitude of those doing the research. If you direct your research to prove that its magic and beyond science you are doing the entire field a disservice.

So I think the discussion about entities is a legit discussion both in public discussion and in private. But if you claim you know everything and these entities are telling you about conscious shift on 2012 then you are not allowing serious discourse but just randomly speculating. Its important that such a distinction is made in a public discussion. T McKenna never did this and confused a lot of people for example.

 

[jamie]

"Western medicine is the most successful and truthful medical system in history"

Well, not really. Thats a bit of a cop out concidering all the lies and bullshit therapy people put up with. I have seen this first hand with relatives who died of cancer. I think it's a bit naive to say that.

I agree with you in part..but I think it would be helpful to seperate REAL SCIENCE from certain parts of western medicine...western medicinal practices have hurt alot of people.

I think that alot of the western medicinak system is based on making money..not everything in western medicine is based on science..yet they would like us to think it is...it's not that these people are stupid it's that they are evil bastards. I think in a lot of the cases the science is there, like it has been with medicinal marijuana for over 20 years...there are lots of lies and coverups still within western medicinal practice..western medicine in a lot of ways in very untruthful.

I watched the doctors here almost kill my uncle from a morphene overdose after they finished burning him with chemotherapy...He could have used cannabis and been better off..but noone mentioned it to him..until I did and then his doctors gave him the usual BS about..He could have had a much better quality of life for the time he was still around and been able to deal with the nausea and pain better and spent better time with my cousin. It's good they are getting it about cannabis finally..but we still have a long way to go.

There are lots of indiginous peoples that have very useful and strong medicines and healing practices that can all be verified by science..and in some of these cases I think that these people are far far far more honest that the retards we call "doctors" in western medicine.

It's not that i dont think science is good and can tell us alot, it's that I dont think western medicine always takes scientific data into account...it's $$$ first and then the scientific data.

The way things are you cannot fully associate western medicinal practice with scientific truth.

 

[endlessness]

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, burnt. But the issue I see with this line of argument is that it legitimizes a specific use/control of psychedelics... How does this attitude affect in the long term the more common non-professional psychedelic user that needs freedom for his own experiemts? Does it end up turning into general acceptance of his rights, or does it end up being just one more 'class of priests' that will be deciding whats right or wrong, suffocating the 'creative' aspect of these substances?

Does giving science the power of being the 'spokesperson' of the psychedelic community, trully represents what psychonauts are really about? Does it lead to balanced development, or to a mere 'classificatory/descriptive' accummulation of information that is useless without well-intended and well-developed people helping making sense of all of this?

To me, science is very important (and its being very positively contributive with all the psychedelic researches lately) but it has its limits.. We need to recognize it, but in the case of our psychedelic-community discussion, rather have the lead role being shared by balanced reasoned people of all orientations, accepting that there is a diversity here. We cant say Rick Strassman Or Rick Doblin are more important to the community or more representative than Stan Grof or Christian Raetsch (or Alex Grey or Ralph Abraham or...). Its good to know about the receptors and so on, but its also good to know what subjectively such and such people feel about this experience and how it relates to their life and context, the historical aspects, the self experimentations, the trip reports and hypothesis of each individual, qualitative analysis of this whole psychedelic phenomenon, etc...

 

[jamie]

double post.

 

[jamie]

I think that studying the 'magic' is also possible and would yield great insight into the mind and consciousness. But this involves a change in attitude of those doing the research. If you direct your research to prove that its magic and beyond science you are doing the entire field a disservice.

So I think the discussion about entities is a legit discussion both in public discussion and in private. But if you claim you know everything and these entities are telling you about conscious shift on 2012 then you are not allowing serious discourse but just randomly speculating. Its important that such a distinction is made in a public discussion. T McKenna never did this and confused a lot of people for example.

Yea I agree with that.

 

[jamie]

Also why should scientists be the ONLY ones to speak for psychedelics? Not EVERYTHING is about scinece..what about the poets, artisits, visionaries etc..the people who make things interesting? Keeps the world colorful, you know?

Well actaully there have been people who I think embody all of those traits..like Einstein. It would have been interesting to see what he would have though of psychedelics.

Some scientisits are boring and make everything sound drab and unspecial. Then there is the complete opposite as well. So I think there would still be the Mckenna's, and the leary's etc no matter how involved science gets..

It would help if science did get more involved though. Stuff like the John Hopkins studies with psilocybin are great becasue people can't deny this stuff anymore, and if they do, you just need to show them the proof..people will still deny it though.

 

[burnt]

"Western medicine is the most successful and truthful medical system in history"

Well, not really. Thats a bit of a cop out concidering all the lies and bullshit therapy people put up with. I have seen this first hand with relatives who died of cancer. I think it's a bit naive to say that.

I agree with you in part..but I think it would be helpful to seperate REAL SCIENCE from certain parts of western medicine...western medicinal practices have hurt alot of people.

I should clarify. I mean its the best system but not a perfect system. Its a system that inherently allows for improvement via the scientific method. Its far from perfect and bad drugs hit the market all the time and more drugs fail then succeed. But its not always all about drugs too there are other aspects of health and healthcare in general that always can be improved.

I think that alot of the western medicinak system is based on making money..not everything in western medicine is based on science..yet they would like us to think it is...it's not that these people are stupid it's that they are evil bastards. I think in a lot of the cases the science is there, like it has been with medicinal marijuana for over 20 years...there are lots of lies and coverups still within western medicinal practice..western medicine in a lot of ways in very untruthful.

In some ways the pharmaceutical industry has some dubious practices. I feel but its also a problem with the public as well as the medical boards not just pharm companies. In modern medicine we do not like to accept risk. Part of not accepting risk makes drug development very expensive. For this reason the pharmaceutical industry needs to invest billions before it can get a drug approved not knowing at the end of the day if it will succeed. Thats why there is such an incentive to keep a drug from failing is that its a huge loss. As an executive of a pharm corporation you must constantly be juggling between share holders and science and its very difficult. The industry can be improved in many ways but it involves the public being more informed not just the industry changing through legislation.

I watched the doctors here almost kill my uncle from a morphene overdose after they finished burning him with chemotherapy...He could have used cannabis and been better off..but noone mentioned it to him..until I did and then his doctors gave him the usual BS about..He could have had a much better quality of life for the time he was still around and been able to deal with the nausea and pain better and spent better time with my cousin. It's good they are getting it about cannabis finally..but we still have a long way to go.

The only way they are getting it is because of science. I guess thats the entire point of my argument is that science proved it can work and can be used safely. There is still a long way to go your right but we are making huge strides. I am more hopeful for the future of this change then ever before and not without reason. We may hear more about the losses then the wins in the media but the wins are happening all the time in the scientific literature and in the courts.

I also sympathize with what you went through as this kind of thing has happened with people I love too.

There are lots of indiginous peoples that have very useful and strong medicines and healing practices that can all be verified by science..and in some of these cases I think that these people are far far far more honest that the retards we call "doctors" in western medicine.

Thats not always true. Some traditional healers are outright frauds and some know it. Also the nutritional supplement / complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) industry is guilty of many of the same things you are saying the pharmaceutical industry is guilty of. Deception. But that doesn't mean its all bad just like the pharmaceutical industry. Both have faults.

But you are right there are many traditional ways of doing things that do work and should be studied more closely. This is another complex issue however. Biopiracy laws messed a lot of this field up and I blame that again not just on lawmakers but on an uninformed public. We can discuss more if you like?

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, burnt. But the issue I see with this line of argument is that it legitimizes a specific use/control of psychedelics... How does this attitude affect in the long term the more common non-professional psychedelic user that needs freedom for his own experiemts? Does it end up turning into general acceptance of his rights, or does it end up being just one more 'class of priests' that will be deciding whats right or wrong, suffocating the 'creative' aspect of these substances?

Well I definitely don't think these kinds of substances should only exist locked away in the halls of a university away from the lay person. Not at all. But the only way we will get to the point where the rest of the public feels comfortable with psychedelics being more available to people is if science can change their minds. It will start with medical conditions as it did with medical marijuana. But I think that will shift into a more general acceptance because not only the tone of the discussion will change but people will be more informed about psychedelics in general. We have to remember that most people don't know LSD was used in psychiatry research before it was used by hippies.

Does giving science the power of being the 'spokesperson' of the psychedelic community, trully represents what psychonauts are really about? Does it lead to balanced development, or to a mere 'classificatory/descriptive' accummulation of information that is useless without well-intended and well-developed people helping making sense of all of this?

I don't mean that scientists need to represent the psychedelic community. I mean that science is the way to change the public's perception. The psychedelic subculture is even to diverse to classify and the last thing I would want is to be classified into a certain group that may or may not represent my beliefs.

To me, science is very important (and its being very positively contributive with all the psychedelic researches lately) but it has its limits.. We need to recognize it, but in the case of our psychedelic-community discussion, rather have the lead role being shared by balanced reasoned people of all orientations, accepting that there is a diversity here. We cant say Rick Strassman Or Rick Doblin are more important to the community or more representative than Stan Grof or Christian Raetsch (or Alex Grey or Ralph Abraham or...). Its good to know about the receptors and so on, but its also good to know what subjectively such and such people feel about this experience and how it relates to their life and context, the historical aspects, the self experimentations, the trip reports and hypothesis of each individual, qualitative analysis of this whole psychedelic phenomenon, etc...

Well there is definitely a role for individuals to bridge the gap between science and the public as well as try and put it all together and make sense of it all. Those kind of individuals are essential. My problem is when some of the current or past spokepersons of the psychedelic movement who start from the assumption that either spiritual beliefs are true or that psychedelics proved their spiritual beliefs are now true and then explain the entire benefit and purpose of psychedelics based on that asssumption. Its not how a good discourse into discovering the truth works. I think in many cases some individuals have done more harm then good. Although its a mixed blessing. They spread the word but its often a very confusing and sometimes completely incoherant message.

 

[ibeing897]

I have a lot of sympathy with this viewpoint, but I'm not sure where I stand on the approach, because it will work well for medical purposes but I'm more interested/concerned about the use of drugs for things outside the medical realm, spirituality (whatever your flavor), recreation, fun, whatever.... I've spent some time reading about food and drug regulations and I realised that in most cases the government can never make most drugs legal because of safety, the same rules apply to food in most countries, in our democracy we have elected to have the government [attempt to] protect us from irresponsible people selling goods that are unsafe, and the problem with most drugs is that they tend to have either unpredictable effects or if they do have predictable effects then they're probably addictive... that's a different debate for a different thing, but I hope you see my point... I think decriminalising and giving back some responsiblity to the consumer is the way to go, because the whole debate gets very sticky if I take something, end up in the emergency room where a potential tax payer has to foot the bill for it. Also I would like to see a research market (like the RC one) where products are rigirousless tested for effeciecy as well as safety, I'd also like to see places like smoke shops but for other substances.... if you think about it you could get very far out and have systems where by people could take things recreationally but sign up for testing at the same time so that science can get a better handle on safety.... that gets me on to the health debate in general, there should be more advanced systems for personal science tests where we can work together to ensure better health all round.. but we need a dramatic shift in attitude towards chemicals and their true place in the human experience, before than can happen.

 

[burnt]

Also why should scientists be the ONLY ones to speak for psychedelics? Not EVERYTHING is about scinece..what about the poets, artisits, visionaries etc..the people who make things interesting? Keeps the world colorful, you know?

Well actaully there have been people who I think embody all of those traits..like Einstein. It would have been interesting to see what he would have though of psychedelics.

Some scientisits are boring and make everything sound drab and unspecial. Then there is the complete opposite as well. So I think there would still be the Mckenna's, and the leary's etc no matter how involved science gets..

It would help if science did get more involved though. Stuff like the John Hopkins studies with psilocybin are great becasue people can't deny this stuff anymore, and if they do, you just need to show them the proof..people will still deny it though.

I do not think only scientists should speak for the psychedelic community. I am saying that only science can really provide the necessary evidence that this stuff can work. A visionary or artist can't do that. They can't prove safety or efficacy. I don't mean to sound cold about this but honestly we should not be naive. Its a difficult thing to convince the FDA or DEA or public to change their minds but it is possible and we see it happening right now. Poets aren't capable of making those forces change their minds. Science is.

There is still a role for all of what you mention but it must not be confused with how to change the status of these substances. If you want to change the legal of status of these drugs and start it on the right road towards acceptance you need science.



Ibeing I see what your saying and I agree that more responsibility needs to be on the individual to make informed choices. But this again ties into what I was saying about risk and how many people do not want to accept risk in the medical industry. Thats a policy issue. Regardless I also should add personally I am most interested in recreational or personal use too but I do not think that would happen anytime soon without it first being accepted in medicine. Part of this will involved changing what we consider medicine and how we conduct clinical trials. Doing LSD in a psychiatrists office isn't always the best way to use it for medical benefit. But this language of this discourse can only be changed by applying the methods of science. With science we can ask the question what are the best conditions for gaining some mental benefit from a psychedelic drug. The answer will vary on the person the drug and the purpose of course but with science we can ask these questions and find answers.

 

[ohayoco]

I think that perception of psychedelics would benefit from study by medical scientists, psychlogists, philosophers and artists, with each discipline not exceeding the boundaries of their field.

I include art because it shows the world very emotively a benefit of psychedelic use. So much great music was inspired by psychedelics, and this only improves their image.

I agree that many 'gurus' discredit psychedelics by feeding people unfounded BS. They need to act like scientific philosophers and physicists instead of priests, because then they're more likely to seek truth instead of spouting dogma.