Add in the fact that what was sold as “acid” in the old days sometimes did not contain much actual LSD.
But sometimes it did.
(Don’t know what Kids These Days are up to.)
Yeah, you’re right. I don’t think that’s even remotely possible – if there was some mechanism for long term storage of psychoactive substances in even remotely meaningful amounts in the human body the pharmaceutical industry would be all over it.
I’m partial to this theory. I was with three people, all tripping, all watching the same cloud formations. One saw fractal patterns, he’s now a statistical analyst. One saw letters swirling around, he’s now an author. The third saw faces, he was the most social of them.
I believe it’s much like dreams. Your neurons aren’t firing randomly of course, but they aren’t tied to reality the same way as usual, and your brain does it’s best to make something sensible out of it. For the most part it succeeds in “decoding” whats coming through correctly, but it makes some bad guesses also, and then you get weird sensory experiences.
Yeah, take a look around the experience vaults. If you don’t die from poisoning on an accidental overdose, you’ll just lose your mind, get arrested, and not remember a thing. There really is no upside to this one.
Well, this is IMHO, but 3 years ago I talked to two 20-year-old stoners in Akron.
Apparently genuine LSD was impossible to find in the young white lower-case doper kid circles they ran in, but little pieces of colored paper that cost tons and contained poisons, other drugs, or just cellulose were plentiful.
There was a 60 Minutes piece where they interviewed several people who had dropped acid and claimed to have suffered permanent psychological damage, and I believe at least one of them suffered this effect on his very first time using the drug. One example I remember was that one man said his perception of sound had been permanently altered so that he perceived a person talking in a normal tone of voice as shouting. So I guess it depends on whether you believe the accounts of people making these claims. I suppose one could argue that the LSD triggered an innate mental illness in these people, but that seems rather close to a “No True Scotsman” fallacy.
But I think you’re right in that the number 6 has absolutely nothing to do with anything. My understanding is that one could cause brain damage on ones first trip or ones 500th trip. There’s no way to know.
It’s a really hard experience to explain to someone who has never tried it. Some answers in this thread do a pretty good job. I think that Terry Gilliam did a great job in Fear and Loathing. That is, in the hotel scene, when the carpet pattern starts shifting. Very accurate. But it’s still a visual thing. The actual experience involves all five senses, plus a few. Things become DEEP, and deeply connected. Music can become like a long, slow orgasm. Colors have a distinctive taste. And that knock knock joke from your childhood is suddenly the funniest thing in the world.
I think a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy is more likely to be in play. “My hearing is going. I did acid once. It must be the acid that’s causing my hearing to go.” What clinical evidence did any of these people have that their alleged damage had anything to do with the acid. Unless they can demonstrate any causal relationship at between the LSD and the later symptoms, then all we have is anecdotes and anecdotal evidence is worthless. It is not necessary that the LSD had any role at in producing the symptoms any more than the eggs they ate for breakfast that morning.
The last time I did acid was 25 years ago, and ever since that time it’s caused hair loss and other signs of aging.
Coincidence? I think not!
But we’re never going to have clinical evidence, since it would be unethical to experiment with LSD on humans. Like I said, one can dismiss every single claim of permanent changes in brain function as coincidence, but that rather seems like the same reasoning as those who claim HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. I understand where you’re going with this, but eating eggs has no correlation to changes in sensory perception, not even anecdotally, so I don’t think it’s a fair example.
Also, I think you’re trivializing the example. The man suffered from a vivid hallucination that normal sounds were ear-splittingly loud. He didn’t say, “My hearing is going”.
Not that I want to drag this into GD territory, but – would it? Experiments have been done. And the APA has long held that LSD is a perfectly safe drug when administered in controlled conditions. In fact, it was often used in therapy sessions. Same with ecstacy. IIRC, it was general drug panic that removed it from the realm of clinical use.
I’d be very interested in seeing a cite for that.
My understanding is that ecstasy can cause brain injury as well.
Hmmm…what is the evidence that the decision was based on “panic” rather than sound reasoning?
I highly recommend a book called Acid Dreams, which discusses the 60’s counter-culture and the sociology surrounding LSD (the first chapter is a fascinating discussion of the CIA’s MK-ULTRA program).
IIRC, the problem with LSD was that it’s proponents, who were using it in clinical settings (RFK’s wife was one who used LSD in this fashion) could not clearly identify its effects; LSD experiences were, and remain, subjective. Thus, it flied in the face of “hard science”, which wanted predictable results from its use. Another problem resulted from the fact that researchers (including Dr. Timothy Leary, a Harvard psychologist) felt that the best way to guide someone through an LSD trip was to trip with them. Again, this flied in the face of traditional research methodologies.
I realize, of course, that I am not providing reliable websites (sorry…couldn’t find them in a quick google search), and I’m recalling a book I read 7 years ago. Still…food for thought.
I was ready to link my first google hit, figuring it would be easy to find. It’s not! But you can start here. I have no idea how accurate the linked articles are. But my original source for this was the rock-solid and unimpeachable Discovery Channel. I was dubious so I asked my then-girlfriend, who is a psychologist (non-clinical, but well-versed in the history of the practice). She confirmed it. Perhaps if we could lure Hentor or Shoshana into this thread, they can provide something more solid.
I’m sure that with prolonged irresponsible recreational use, that’s true. But in controlled dosages once or twice? Under a therapists supervision? They probably thought the risks were acceptable.
I don’t remember much detail about this, unfortunately. I do remember that the thinking was that if therapists could get their hands on MDMA, then recreational users could, too. The result was a blanket ban.
Sorry, that’s all I’ve got.
A lot of extreme experiences can cause very permanent changes in the brain function. Being raped as a child, finding Jesus, fighting a war, surviving a car crash and, yes, staring down the repeated hopelessness and futility of your meager existence while tripping on LSD. Saying LSD causes brain damage is a very strong statement and is probably true, just like saying “penetration causes increase in diaper sales” is probably true. Otherwise it’s entirely scientifically unsupported.
In other words, we know that HIV can cause AIDS, asphyxiation can cause brain damage, LSD can cause you to freak out.
I don’t do blind links to entire webpages. But if you find anything specifically from the APA saying LSD is perfectly safe, I’d be very interested in seeing it, and I would happily admit that I’m wrong.
No, I never heard that claim. The accounts of permanent damage after only one usage are with LSD, not with ecstasy. The long-term effects of ecstasy were after repeated usage, I believe.
That may have been the case with marijuana, but I don’t believe the risk of adverse effects from LSD is just hype. People have experimented with all sorts of drugs - cocaine used to be an over-the-counter pharmaceutical. That doesn’t mean they’re benign.
There isn’t any evidence one way or the other. You are in effect making a default assumption that it is impossible for hallucinogens to make permanent changes in the brain.
There’s evidence in the sense that there’s literally millions of people who have taken LSD with no long term effects. If you are postulating long term effects it’s up to you to prove them using something else but a few anecdotal reports with no explanation for a causal relationship.
You’re arguing that because many people haven’t had long-term effects, that it is therefore impossible? That doesn’t make sense. The drug appears to affect everyone differently, and can even affect the same person differently at different times.