The type of person who is arrogant enough to read some trip reports on the internet and look at a couple gifs and thinks "yeah I totally get this" is exactly the type of person a trip will benefit the most.
The problem with the whole "tripping has made me wiser and more kind and loving" type stuff is that it's self-serving and doesn't really stand up to Occam's Razor. It's a bit like that xkcd post on homeopathy: If it actually worked at scale, health insurers would be doing it.
Experience has taught me to be wary of identity-conferring stuff that's easy and not hard to do. Taking drugs is not difficult.
> MDMA has limited approved medical uses in a small number of countries,[32] but is illegal in most jurisdictions.[33] MDMA-assisted psychotherapy is a promising and generally safe treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder when administered in controlled therapeutic settings.[34][35] In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given MDMA breakthrough therapy status (though there no current clinical indications in the US).[36] Canada has allowed limited distribution of MDMA upon application to and approval by Health Canada.[37] In Australia, it may be prescribed in the treatment of PTSD by specifically authorised psychiatrists.[38]
If you don't think an acid trip can be a difficult experience you really don't know what you're taking about. I guess you would think therapy isn't difficult either because you're just sitting on a couch.
That could be down to the fact that homeopathic treatments have largely been legal. The studies have been done and showed that a lot of it doesn't work so it isn't offered in traditional medicine. There were a lot of promising studies into the effects of LSD and Psilocybin before they were made illegal. Now with the loosening of restrictions we are able to get more research into the potential uses of psychedelics and there have been a lot of positive results. The research into MDMA for PTSD is really exciting, as well as Ketamine, LSD, and Psilocybin for different forms of depression for example.
They will never be a solution for every problem like some people evangelize but where they work, they give people with these conditions another avenue to try when other "legal" drugs have failed.
> more research into the potential uses of psychedelics and there have been a lot of positive results
You'd have to agree, the types of people who choose to research psychedelics professionally, are the types of people who want to see, and demonstrate, positive results. These aren't unbiased research outcomes.
I don't use drugs, but the LSD situation is crazy: is well down in any rank of harm (both to user and to others). The alleged harm has been proved fabricated (people getting blind for staring at the sun) or incredibly overstated (suicides while tripping). Is way less dangerous than tobacco or alcohol, and has next to zero addiction. Their users praise the experience, and some studies show potential medical use. Yet is furiously prohibited, deviled and prosecuted.
We were having a debate among friends when a couple of people said they took MDMA once, and some of the most obviously alcoholics (drunk twice a week) went to their yugular calling them junkies and "irresponsible" because drugs fry your brain.
MDMA fries your teeth. Gave in to 1/5th of a dose with people I was partying with, received one year of tooth-grinding. Never again.
Classic dental study: 89% of ecstasy users reported clenching or grinding; 60% had tooth wear into dentine vs 11% of non-users. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10403088/
ChatGPT: “One pill, one year of grinding” – biologically plausible as a trigger, but not a universal rule.
"I think that MDMA, unlike other drugs, is potentially much more neurotoxic and dangerous than any drug that has comparable effects, like hallucinogens for example, for which we haven't shown long-term alterations. MDMA is therefore a special case. It's difficult to give recommendations for use. It's better not to take it regularly, and if someone asks me, in my opinion, I would say it's better to keep your distance from this drug so as not to run any risks."
Are you telling me you've never met an old LSD abuser whose brain was fried like an egg? LSD can also trigger legitimate lifelong psychotic states in some people.
There is a big difference between 'generally not harmful in very small singular doses' and 'all harm is fabricated'.
Ive seen people with fried brains from copious amounts of drug abuse taking everything under the sun that will also sometimes take LSD. Ive never seen someone who only takes psychodelics like LSD and mushrooms, even heroic amounts, have any cognitive problems from it.
> Are you telling me you've never met an old LSD abuser whose brain was fried like an egg?
I’ve known old LSD abusers with fried brains but never seen a LSD abuser go from non-fried to fried brains. Correlation is not causation, but it could be.
> LSD can also trigger legitimate lifelong psychotic states in some people.
These statements should be accompanied by the necessary caveat that just about anything can trigger psychotic states in people prone to psychosis.
