Interesting that Nutt simply ignored or dismissed out of hand any downsides or risks associated with psychedelics. It’s no wonder that he struggles to get his case across if he doesn’t address peoples’ concerns.
He’s a strange blend of eccentric and fanatic, soft left I daresay, but by that very “softness” more lethal than the hard variety, since the gentle approach carries the same delusions more decisively into people’s thinking. And as you rightly observe, it involves the same process of ignoring and dismissing contrary evidence and countervailing considerations. The final recourse is to shout opposition down.
What are the downside risks that were ignored? His team went through a 3-year process just to get his controlled study off the ground. There are risks but these have been greatly distorted. His work is looking at whether these compounds have therapeutic uses. It’s not about taking them at a party!
He’s a strange blend of eccentric and fanatic, soft left I daresay, but by that very “softness” more lethal than the hard variety, since the gentle approach carries the same delusions more decisively into people’s thinking. And as you rightly observe, it involves the same process of ignoring and dismissing contrary evidence and countervailing considerations. The final recourse is to shout opposition down.
What are the downside risks that were ignored? His team went through a 3-year process just to get his controlled study off the ground. There are risks but these have been greatly distorted. His work is looking at whether these compounds have therapeutic uses. It’s not about taking them at a party!
Nick G
11 months ago
Interesting that Nutt simply ignored or dismissed out of hand any downsides or risks associated with psychedelics. It’s no wonder that he struggles to get his case across if he doesn’t address peoples’ concerns.
Steven Somsen
11 months ago
I have been exploring spiritual sort of paths practically since my 16th. And have used LSD in my home country (Netherlands) when I was 19/20 and ayahuasca etc (mostly in Brazil and Colombia) extensively when I was 50-56. My personal experience is not positive: it did not really add depth to my own path. I don’t advise it to anyone: I would say, do the work, no shortcuts.
What other experience can the individual have? And do you really regard Nutt’s eccentric case studies as sufficiently broad in scope to overturn the findings of legions of medics from decade to decade?
Prof Nutt works at Imperial College in the medical field. These are controlled studies not one-offs. All work on psychedelics stopped for decades. I don’t believe that there are studies setting out the harms. Remember that man has been using them for millennia – it doesn’t follow that they are necessarily good but it might indicate they ain’t that bad.
Anecdote is deeply inadequate way of getting at the truth. Unfortunately that’s pretty much all we have, as the puritans shut down research from the 1960’s on. There are also ‘no legions of medics’ over decades who warn against psychedelic experience. There are however legions of very smart people – philosophers, psychologists, scientists, writers who have found the experience to be amongst the most valuable of their lives. And, yes, there are still those who threw themselves out of windows in terror. That should also give you a clue as to why this class of drugs is nothing like a narcotic, feel good/numb drug – rather, like most valuable, powerful, effective things, there is cost as well as benefit, a risk of having the worlst most disturbing experience you’ve ever had – though if you are able to, like Sam Harris was, even this can form the basis of spiritual, psychological advances – if you do the work.
Prof Nutt works at Imperial College in the medical field. These are controlled studies not one-offs. All work on psychedelics stopped for decades. I don’t believe that there are studies setting out the harms. Remember that man has been using them for millennia – it doesn’t follow that they are necessarily good but it might indicate they ain’t that bad.
Anecdote is deeply inadequate way of getting at the truth. Unfortunately that’s pretty much all we have, as the puritans shut down research from the 1960’s on. There are also ‘no legions of medics’ over decades who warn against psychedelic experience. There are however legions of very smart people – philosophers, psychologists, scientists, writers who have found the experience to be amongst the most valuable of their lives. And, yes, there are still those who threw themselves out of windows in terror. That should also give you a clue as to why this class of drugs is nothing like a narcotic, feel good/numb drug – rather, like most valuable, powerful, effective things, there is cost as well as benefit, a risk of having the worlst most disturbing experience you’ve ever had – though if you are able to, like Sam Harris was, even this can form the basis of spiritual, psychological advances – if you do the work.
What other experience can the individual have? And do you really regard Nutt’s eccentric case studies as sufficiently broad in scope to overturn the findings of legions of medics from decade to decade?
I think it’s unwise of you to give unsolicited advice based on your negative, personal, experience.
Last edited 11 months ago by Clare Knight
Steven Somsen
11 months ago
I have been exploring spiritual sort of paths practically since my 16th. And have used LSD in my home country (Netherlands) when I was 19/20 and ayahuasca etc (mostly in Brazil and Colombia) extensively when I was 50-56. My personal experience is not positive: it did not really add depth to my own path. I don’t advise it to anyone: I would say, do the work, no shortcuts.
Last edited 11 months ago by Steven Somsen
Robert Hochbaum
11 months ago
“…but fundamentally it’s a biological experience, changing your psyche,”
Hmm. What could possibly go wrong?
Robert Hochbaum
11 months ago
“…but fundamentally it’s a biological experience, changing your psyche,”
Hmm. What could possibly go wrong?
Nick Hallam
11 months ago
“Luxury beliefs are ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class while inflicting costs on the lower classes.” – Rob Henderson.
Last edited 11 months ago by Nick Hallam
Nick Hallam
11 months ago
“Luxury beliefs are ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class while inflicting costs on the lower classes.” – Rob Henderson.
Last edited 11 months ago by Nick Hallam
Douglas Cumming
11 months ago
Personal experience is irrelevant here. Back in the ’70s, mine was positive, while other people I know were psychologically damaged. It is a powerful, mind-altering drug, and under controlled conditions could be just the tool trained therapists need. The concerning issue here is not the use of LSD per se but the refusal to consider its possible advantages in psychiatry. Thousands of suffering people need to have Professor Nutt taken seriously.
I’ve seen a couple of documentaries about the use of LSD, Mescaline, peyote and psilocybin being used theraputically and supervised, with positive outcomes. My own exeriences taking LSD, alone, have been intense – re-experiencing my birth – and, though positive, I can’t say they were life changing.However, I would jump at the opportunity to have a guided trip with a sage guide.
Alternatively you might think about what’s missing from your real life experience that makes you want to take the lazy route to a different mental state. For as long as it lasts, then it’s back to reality.
I should say that I’d defend to the last your right to fill yourself up with this stuff if you want. I’m actually very much in favour of choice, from an evolutionary point of view it’s great for the species.
Alternatively you might think about what’s missing from your real life experience that makes you want to take the lazy route to a different mental state. For as long as it lasts, then it’s back to reality.
I should say that I’d defend to the last your right to fill yourself up with this stuff if you want. I’m actually very much in favour of choice, from an evolutionary point of view it’s great for the species.
Nutt does the most unscientific things possible: he fails to counter the opposing research, he doesn’t properly acknowledge his partiality and commercial interest, and he appeals to his authority as a world renowned scientist. He has stopped being a scientist and is now a paid advocate.
Partly because of the infinite ways to engineer patentable variations of synthetic drugs, there is already keen interest in this area. The universal problem is that producing systematic treatments using therapeutic doses has proven impossible. It shouldn’t be, and currently isn’t possible to approve a medical intervention that has such unpredictable, often negative effects or zero and most often unmeasurable long term improvement in the condition supposedly being treated.
I’ve seen a couple of documentaries about the use of LSD, Mescaline, peyote and psilocybin being used theraputically and supervised, with positive outcomes. My own exeriences taking LSD, alone, have been intense – re-experiencing my birth – and, though positive, I can’t say they were life changing.However, I would jump at the opportunity to have a guided trip with a sage guide.
Nutt does the most unscientific things possible: he fails to counter the opposing research, he doesn’t properly acknowledge his partiality and commercial interest, and he appeals to his authority as a world renowned scientist. He has stopped being a scientist and is now a paid advocate.
Partly because of the infinite ways to engineer patentable variations of synthetic drugs, there is already keen interest in this area. The universal problem is that producing systematic treatments using therapeutic doses has proven impossible. It shouldn’t be, and currently isn’t possible to approve a medical intervention that has such unpredictable, often negative effects or zero and most often unmeasurable long term improvement in the condition supposedly being treated.
Douglas Cumming
11 months ago
Personal experience is irrelevant here. Back in the ’70s, mine was positive, while other people I know were psychologically damaged. It is a powerful, mind-altering drug, and under controlled conditions could be just the tool trained therapists need. The concerning issue here is not the use of LSD per se but the refusal to consider its possible advantages in psychiatry. Thousands of suffering people need to have Professor Nutt taken seriously.
Last edited 11 months ago by Douglas Cumming
Suzanne C.
11 months ago
Since people can barely get an appointment with a mental health care professional of mediocre talents how is something as labor intensive as medically supervised and therapeutic tripping, supposing such a thing actually exists, going to happen?
it will only be the very privileged who are able to take advantage of this compared to the many who will be fobbed off with an unsupervised acid trip instead of unsupervised antidepressants and little to no actual therapy.
Since people can barely get an appointment with a mental health care professional of mediocre talents how is something as labor intensive as medically supervised and therapeutic tripping, supposing such a thing actually exists, going to happen?
it will only be the very privileged who are able to take advantage of this compared to the many who will be fobbed off with an unsupervised acid trip instead of unsupervised antidepressants and little to no actual therapy.
Chris Milburn
11 months ago
I find the discussion around psychedelics very odd. My patients (I’m a doc) who benefit from ANY antidepressant, or therapy, or who just get better with time all feel “more connected” once they are better.
Without expounding at length, I’ll just say that I find the idea that the solution to existential angst can be found at the bottom of an empty pill bottle – be those pills SSRI’s promoted by Pfizer, or psychedelics promoted by new-agey wizards of woo – problematic. The idea that we are bags of chemicals, and happiness and meaning are to be found in tweaking those chemicals, is facile.
Chris Milburn
11 months ago
I find the discussion around psychedelics very odd. My patients (I’m a doc) who benefit from ANY antidepressant, or therapy, or who just get better with time all feel “more connected” once they are better.
Without expounding at length, I’ll just say that I find the idea that the solution to existential angst can be found at the bottom of an empty pill bottle – be those pills SSRI’s promoted by Pfizer, or psychedelics promoted by new-agey wizards of woo – problematic. The idea that we are bags of chemicals, and happiness and meaning are to be found in tweaking those chemicals, is facile.
Charles Stanhope
11 months ago
Ernst Jünger* (1895-1998.)was a great fan of LSD, and he should know.
(* Author of THE book on the Great War: “ Storm of Steel”.)
Charles Stanhope
11 months ago
Ernst Jünger* (1895-1998.)was a great fan of LSD, and he should know.
(* Author of THE book on the Great War: “ Storm of Steel”.)
Putting chemicals into your body to alter your mental state is bad. Social use of any drug – and I very much include alcohol and gambling here – is just a stupid short-cut to attaining a mood that (i) fades really quickly so you need to repeat, (ii) builds dependency, but most importantly of all, (iii) suggests that you don’t address the real World causes of your discontent.
I stopped drinking 18 years ago. I wasn’t an alcoholic in any way but I drank too much, for bad reasons, and dumping it just on a whim for good is the best thing I ever did. My mind became more positive as I took ownership of the responsibility to change real things to give me satisfaction. Life is still challenging – breaking news, it just is – but it’s my life, my things to fix, and a mind altering drug is a handicap.
Until people get this simple principle there’ll never be a fix to this. I’m a hard-core atheist but my biggest beef with religions is that they took incredible wisdom and to get people to obey it they packaged it up in bull**** of supernatural beings threatening eternal punishment. The seven deadly sins are truly terrible sins …… but they’re against YOURSELF. My complaint is that by bundling this wisdom under a fiction they set the scene for the baby to go out with the bathwater once people worked out there wasn’t a God.
The availability of drugs isn’t the issue, it’s the utter lack of realisation that we’re here a short time and what we get out of the experience depends on what we put in. Trying to cheat the system by putting chemicals in to alter the mental state undermines this, it’s a terrible mistake..
Cary Grant, for one, was greatly helped in managing his alcoholism by taking LSD. There is a huge difference between drugs; and in one’s ability to take them healthily.
As the old Irish joke goes, when asking for directions out of his mess maybe the advice to him would have been “well I wouldn’t be starting from here”.
I didn’t know that fact about him but he had already fallen for the con that a mind altering drug was a good idea. I guess if one countered the other then whatever, but the point stands.
As the old Irish joke goes, when asking for directions out of his mess maybe the advice to him would have been “well I wouldn’t be starting from here”.
I didn’t know that fact about him but he had already fallen for the con that a mind altering drug was a good idea. I guess if one countered the other then whatever, but the point stands.
What works for you has worked for you, well done. However, one size doesn’t fit all. The rest of us aren’t the same as you, and we all find out own paths for many different reasons. You’ve made the mistake of wanting to control other people and project onto them, two really big problems that you have yet to address on your path to healing.
I haven’t been on a “path to healing” (such bull again distracts from the simple principles), I just recognise that if I want to feel better about things then I have to take action in the real World. The idea that solutions to fulfilment lies in a pill is facile, probably self-serving.
Pushing onto others seems to be the habit of those saying mind-altering chemicals do the trick. Still, you stick to your fix and I’ll stick to changing my situations, I just wish that young people could learn what will really make them fulfilled and not fail into becoming varying levels of drug addicts.
I haven’t been on a “path to healing” (such bull again distracts from the simple principles), I just recognise that if I want to feel better about things then I have to take action in the real World. The idea that solutions to fulfilment lies in a pill is facile, probably self-serving.
Pushing onto others seems to be the habit of those saying mind-altering chemicals do the trick. Still, you stick to your fix and I’ll stick to changing my situations, I just wish that young people could learn what will really make them fulfilled and not fail into becoming varying levels of drug addicts.
Cary Grant, for one, was greatly helped in managing his alcoholism by taking LSD. There is a huge difference between drugs; and in one’s ability to take them healthily.
What works for you has worked for you, well done. However, one size doesn’t fit all. The rest of us aren’t the same as you, and we all find out own paths for many different reasons. You’ve made the mistake of wanting to control other people and project onto them, two really big problems that you have yet to address on your path to healing.
Phil Mac
11 months ago
Putting chemicals into your body to alter your mental state is bad. Social use of any drug – and I very much include alcohol and gambling here – is just a stupid short-cut to attaining a mood that (i) fades really quickly so you need to repeat, (ii) builds dependency, but most importantly of all, (iii) suggests that you don’t address the real World causes of your discontent.
I stopped drinking 18 years ago. I wasn’t an alcoholic in any way but I drank too much, for bad reasons, and dumping it just on a whim for good is the best thing I ever did. My mind became more positive as I took ownership of the responsibility to change real things to give me satisfaction. Life is still challenging – breaking news, it just is – but it’s my life, my things to fix, and a mind altering drug is a handicap.
Until people get this simple principle there’ll never be a fix to this. I’m a hard-core atheist but my biggest beef with religions is that they took incredible wisdom and to get people to obey it they packaged it up in bull**** of supernatural beings threatening eternal punishment. The seven deadly sins are truly terrible sins …… but they’re against YOURSELF. My complaint is that by bundling this wisdom under a fiction they set the scene for the baby to go out with the bathwater once people worked out there wasn’t a God.
The availability of drugs isn’t the issue, it’s the utter lack of realisation that we’re here a short time and what we get out of the experience depends on what we put in. Trying to cheat the system by putting chemicals in to alter the mental state undermines this, it’s a terrible mistake..
Last edited 11 months ago by Phil Mac
UnHerd Reader
11 months ago
I could not listen to this cra* – as someone who has done enough drugs to OD a couple Battalions of Marines, and lived down with the street fringe and the stoners and addicts and crazies and damaged and broken people and the criminals and lost people out there on the streets and road – at their level for years…..I can answer that……
No – the answer to the question of if psychedelics can help cure anyone of anything – the answer is no. Same as the answer to the question of ‘Does Marijuana have a role in medical treatments? That answer is No too
Very much like the question of ‘Does MDMA, or ecstasy, have a medicinal value? Because that answer is NO too.
I could elaborate a great amount – but I think I summed it up pretty well.
‘‘When I was on the Isle of Skye 30 years ago, there was a wonderful tale there about how they used to treat depression. They used to take depressed people to the blacksmith and put their head down on the anvil and the blacksmith would take out his massive hammer and bring it down right next to their head,”
hahahaaa
Man – they were dic*ing with you there, messing with the Sassenach’s head… my guess is it was in some pub after hours and they were drunk and having fun….(Did they tell you of the Silkies taking off the young men into the Sea Loch and all that was ever seen of him again were a set of lites floating on the shore?) (a kind of mermaid crypto-zoological spirit which lured the men to life under the waters with them – and as the young man no longer would need their lungs (lites) they would leave those behind so the boy could never return to his life on land, haha, they are loaded with this stuff – I lived on the Hebrides and Orkney a lot – being a distant cousin of Trump’s Mother) (I believe the silkie story a lot more than the anvil one)
Well said. You only have to heed the usual tropes of leftist nonsense popping up throughout the interview – “the establishment” not wanting people to “think differently”, “old white men like me”, “Vietnam” – not to mention the discredited Freudianism lurking in the stuff about “buried memories” etcetera, and the essential Utopianism which underlies the lot, to realise that here – as in so much of our spavined society – is an obnoxious sixties throwback.
Tell that to the chronically severely depressed who do NOT react to anti-depressants/CBT, the standard 50 yr-old samo samo psychiatric treatment for depression. That’s a third of all patients. If you were suffering from a life-threatening condition, you would try anything, especially if the alternatives to traditional medicine have been studied, clinically trialled and proven to alleviate/cure suffering. And I know, from personal experience, what I am talking about. So you stop being… obnoxious.
Like all quacks he is playing upon understandable desperation; and like many dupes you are falling for it.
As for not being obnoxious, do you not regard your dismissive response to Steven Somsen’s witness statement concerning the well named Nutt’s drugs of choice as worse than obnoxious?
Oh, so it’s “nasty” to express a contrary point of view, is it? And what do you call the immediate recourse to moral condemnation? As it appears to be your own habit, I daresay you maintain a diplomatic silence on the subject. How typically left wing.
Oh, so it’s “nasty” to express a contrary point of view, is it? And what do you call the immediate recourse to moral condemnation? As it appears to be your own habit, I daresay you maintain a diplomatic silence on the subject. How typically left wing.
Like all quacks he is playing upon understandable desperation; and like many dupes you are falling for it.
As for not being obnoxious, do you not regard your dismissive response to Steven Somsen’s witness statement concerning the well named Nutt’s drugs of choice as worse than obnoxious?
I think we should also note that the use of psilocybin was an integral part of the Manson family’s nightly rituals. I don’t know if the “family” members recovered from their own traumas, but some of them inflicted enormous suffering and damage on others!
For me, the question raised by so much of this interview was…why do so many people “need” drugs (or alcohol, etc.) just to get through their daily lives? Perhaps we should be looking at our culture with this in mind, with the aim of finding a possible solution that doesn’t have as many downsides as drugs.
Lucky, yes. In the sense that they have somehow come across the intelligent route to personal fulfilment rather than the stupid one of imbibing chemicals to fake it.
Why would you need to sound so superior and nasty if you’ve become enlightened? Some of us have used many different modalities to heal what ails us from the human condition, and societal abuse.
Why would you need to sound so superior and nasty if you’ve become enlightened? Some of us have used many different modalities to heal what ails us from the human condition, and societal abuse.
Lucky, yes. In the sense that they have somehow come across the intelligent route to personal fulfilment rather than the stupid one of imbibing chemicals to fake it.
Tell that to the chronically severely depressed who do NOT react to anti-depressants/CBT, the standard 50 yr-old samo samo psychiatric treatment for depression. That’s a third of all patients. If you were suffering from a life-threatening condition, you would try anything, especially if the alternatives to traditional medicine have been studied, clinically trialled and proven to alleviate/cure suffering. And I know, from personal experience, what I am talking about. So you stop being… obnoxious.
I think we should also note that the use of psilocybin was an integral part of the Manson family’s nightly rituals. I don’t know if the “family” members recovered from their own traumas, but some of them inflicted enormous suffering and damage on others!
For me, the question raised by so much of this interview was…why do so many people “need” drugs (or alcohol, etc.) just to get through their daily lives? Perhaps we should be looking at our culture with this in mind, with the aim of finding a possible solution that doesn’t have as many downsides as drugs.
You did, sum it up: no when these drugs are used for recreational purposes (which is obviously your case), but YES when they are used therapeutically in a controlled environment. I would be curious to know your credentials, apart from being a professional stoner.
Credentials are neither here nor there. Conscience is what matters and if your antagonist is writing sincerely there is no occasion to “pull rank” on him. Argue the point, not the CV.
Credentials are neither here nor there. Conscience is what matters and if your antagonist is writing sincerely there is no occasion to “pull rank” on him. Argue the point, not the CV.
‘‘When I was on the Isle of Skye 30 years ago, there was a wonderful tale there about how they used to treat depression. They used to take depressed people to the blacksmith and put their head down on the anvil and the blacksmith would take out his massive hammer and bring it down right next to their head,”
hahahaaa
Man – they were dic*ing with you there, messing with the Sassenach’s head… my guess is it was in some pub after hours and they were drunk and having fun….(Did they tell you of the Silkies taking off the young men into the Sea Loch and all that was ever seen of him again were a set of lites floating on the shore?) (a kind of mermaid crypto-zoological spirit which lured the men to life under the waters with them – and as the young man no longer would need their lungs (lites) they would leave those behind so the boy could never return to his life on land, haha, they are loaded with this stuff – I lived on the Hebrides and Orkney a lot – being a distant cousin of Trump’s Mother) (I believe the silkie story a lot more than the anvil one)
Well said. You only have to heed the usual tropes of leftist nonsense popping up throughout the interview – “the establishment” not wanting people to “think differently”, “old white men like me”, “Vietnam” – not to mention the discredited Freudianism lurking in the stuff about “buried memories” etcetera, and the essential Utopianism which underlies the lot, to realise that here – as in so much of our spavined society – is an obnoxious sixties throwback.
You did, sum it up: no when these drugs are used for recreational purposes (which is obviously your case), but YES when they are used therapeutically in a controlled environment. I would be curious to know your credentials, apart from being a professional stoner.
I could not listen to this cra* – as someone who has done enough drugs to OD a couple Battalions of Marines, and lived down with the street fringe and the stoners and addicts and crazies and damaged and broken people and the criminals and lost people out there on the streets and road – at their level for years…..I can answer that……
No – the answer to the question of if psychedelics can help cure anyone of anything – the answer is no. Same as the answer to the question of ‘Does Marijuana have a role in medical treatments? That answer is No too
Very much like the question of ‘Does MDMA, or ecstasy, have a medicinal value? Because that answer is NO too.
I could elaborate a great amount – but I think I summed it up pretty well.
Interesting that Nutt simply ignored or dismissed out of hand any downsides or risks associated with psychedelics. It’s no wonder that he struggles to get his case across if he doesn’t address peoples’ concerns.
He’s a strange blend of eccentric and fanatic, soft left I daresay, but by that very “softness” more lethal than the hard variety, since the gentle approach carries the same delusions more decisively into people’s thinking. And as you rightly observe, it involves the same process of ignoring and dismissing contrary evidence and countervailing considerations. The final recourse is to shout opposition down.
What are the downside risks that were ignored? His team went through a 3-year process just to get his controlled study off the ground. There are risks but these have been greatly distorted. His work is looking at whether these compounds have therapeutic uses. It’s not about taking them at a party!
He’s a strange blend of eccentric and fanatic, soft left I daresay, but by that very “softness” more lethal than the hard variety, since the gentle approach carries the same delusions more decisively into people’s thinking. And as you rightly observe, it involves the same process of ignoring and dismissing contrary evidence and countervailing considerations. The final recourse is to shout opposition down.
What are the downside risks that were ignored? His team went through a 3-year process just to get his controlled study off the ground. There are risks but these have been greatly distorted. His work is looking at whether these compounds have therapeutic uses. It’s not about taking them at a party!
Interesting that Nutt simply ignored or dismissed out of hand any downsides or risks associated with psychedelics. It’s no wonder that he struggles to get his case across if he doesn’t address peoples’ concerns.
I have been exploring spiritual sort of paths practically since my 16th. And have used LSD in my home country (Netherlands) when I was 19/20 and ayahuasca etc (mostly in Brazil and Colombia) extensively when I was 50-56. My personal experience is not positive: it did not really add depth to my own path. I don’t advise it to anyone: I would say, do the work, no shortcuts.
You said it: PERSONAL experience…
What other experience can the individual have? And do you really regard Nutt’s eccentric case studies as sufficiently broad in scope to overturn the findings of legions of medics from decade to decade?
Prof Nutt works at Imperial College in the medical field. These are controlled studies not one-offs. All work on psychedelics stopped for decades. I don’t believe that there are studies setting out the harms. Remember that man has been using them for millennia – it doesn’t follow that they are necessarily good but it might indicate they ain’t that bad.
Anecdote is deeply inadequate way of getting at the truth. Unfortunately that’s pretty much all we have, as the puritans shut down research from the 1960’s on. There are also ‘no legions of medics’ over decades who warn against psychedelic experience. There are however legions of very smart people – philosophers, psychologists, scientists, writers who have found the experience to be amongst the most valuable of their lives. And, yes, there are still those who threw themselves out of windows in terror. That should also give you a clue as to why this class of drugs is nothing like a narcotic, feel good/numb drug – rather, like most valuable, powerful, effective things, there is cost as well as benefit, a risk of having the worlst most disturbing experience you’ve ever had – though if you are able to, like Sam Harris was, even this can form the basis of spiritual, psychological advances – if you do the work.
Prof Nutt works at Imperial College in the medical field. These are controlled studies not one-offs. All work on psychedelics stopped for decades. I don’t believe that there are studies setting out the harms. Remember that man has been using them for millennia – it doesn’t follow that they are necessarily good but it might indicate they ain’t that bad.
Anecdote is deeply inadequate way of getting at the truth. Unfortunately that’s pretty much all we have, as the puritans shut down research from the 1960’s on. There are also ‘no legions of medics’ over decades who warn against psychedelic experience. There are however legions of very smart people – philosophers, psychologists, scientists, writers who have found the experience to be amongst the most valuable of their lives. And, yes, there are still those who threw themselves out of windows in terror. That should also give you a clue as to why this class of drugs is nothing like a narcotic, feel good/numb drug – rather, like most valuable, powerful, effective things, there is cost as well as benefit, a risk of having the worlst most disturbing experience you’ve ever had – though if you are able to, like Sam Harris was, even this can form the basis of spiritual, psychological advances – if you do the work.
What other experience can the individual have? And do you really regard Nutt’s eccentric case studies as sufficiently broad in scope to overturn the findings of legions of medics from decade to decade?
“Beware unearned wisdom.”
Thanks.
I think it’s unwise of you to give unsolicited advice based on your negative, personal, experience.
I think you’re very much mistaken to think putting that garbage into your brain is anything other than destructive.
Thank you for your concern but I’m doing very well as a wise, old crone.
I’m really not concerned.
‘Self praise is NO recommendation.’
Self evaluation.
Self evaluation.
I’m really not concerned.
‘Self praise is NO recommendation.’
Thank you for your concern but I’m doing very well as a wise, old crone.
I think you’re very much mistaken to think putting that garbage into your brain is anything other than destructive.
You said it: PERSONAL experience…
“Beware unearned wisdom.”
Thanks.
I think it’s unwise of you to give unsolicited advice based on your negative, personal, experience.
I have been exploring spiritual sort of paths practically since my 16th. And have used LSD in my home country (Netherlands) when I was 19/20 and ayahuasca etc (mostly in Brazil and Colombia) extensively when I was 50-56. My personal experience is not positive: it did not really add depth to my own path. I don’t advise it to anyone: I would say, do the work, no shortcuts.
“…but fundamentally it’s a biological experience, changing your psyche,”
Hmm. What could possibly go wrong?
“…but fundamentally it’s a biological experience, changing your psyche,”
Hmm. What could possibly go wrong?
“Luxury beliefs are ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class while inflicting costs on the lower classes.” – Rob Henderson.
“Luxury beliefs are ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class while inflicting costs on the lower classes.” – Rob Henderson.
Personal experience is irrelevant here. Back in the ’70s, mine was positive, while other people I know were psychologically damaged. It is a powerful, mind-altering drug, and under controlled conditions could be just the tool trained therapists need. The concerning issue here is not the use of LSD per se but the refusal to consider its possible advantages in psychiatry. Thousands of suffering people need to have Professor Nutt taken seriously.
I’ve seen a couple of documentaries about the use of LSD, Mescaline, peyote and psilocybin being used theraputically and supervised, with positive outcomes. My own exeriences taking LSD, alone, have been intense – re-experiencing my birth – and, though positive, I can’t say they were life changing.However, I would jump at the opportunity to have a guided trip with a sage guide.
Yeah, I bet you would.
Alternatively you might think about what’s missing from your real life experience that makes you want to take the lazy route to a different mental state. For as long as it lasts, then it’s back to reality.
I should say that I’d defend to the last your right to fill yourself up with this stuff if you want. I’m actually very much in favour of choice, from an evolutionary point of view it’s great for the species.
Thanks for the chuckle, Phil.
Hey, happy to help you find some satisfaction other than from your pills and chemicals.
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Hey, happy to help you find some satisfaction other than from your pills and chemicals.
Thanks for the chuckle, Phil.
Yeah, I bet you would.
Alternatively you might think about what’s missing from your real life experience that makes you want to take the lazy route to a different mental state. For as long as it lasts, then it’s back to reality.
I should say that I’d defend to the last your right to fill yourself up with this stuff if you want. I’m actually very much in favour of choice, from an evolutionary point of view it’s great for the species.
Nutt does the most unscientific things possible: he fails to counter the opposing research, he doesn’t properly acknowledge his partiality and commercial interest, and he appeals to his authority as a world renowned scientist. He has stopped being a scientist and is now a paid advocate.
Partly because of the infinite ways to engineer patentable variations of synthetic drugs, there is already keen interest in this area. The universal problem is that producing systematic treatments using therapeutic doses has proven impossible. It shouldn’t be, and currently isn’t possible to approve a medical intervention that has such unpredictable, often negative effects or zero and most often unmeasurable long term improvement in the condition supposedly being treated.
I’ve seen a couple of documentaries about the use of LSD, Mescaline, peyote and psilocybin being used theraputically and supervised, with positive outcomes. My own exeriences taking LSD, alone, have been intense – re-experiencing my birth – and, though positive, I can’t say they were life changing.However, I would jump at the opportunity to have a guided trip with a sage guide.
Nutt does the most unscientific things possible: he fails to counter the opposing research, he doesn’t properly acknowledge his partiality and commercial interest, and he appeals to his authority as a world renowned scientist. He has stopped being a scientist and is now a paid advocate.
Partly because of the infinite ways to engineer patentable variations of synthetic drugs, there is already keen interest in this area. The universal problem is that producing systematic treatments using therapeutic doses has proven impossible. It shouldn’t be, and currently isn’t possible to approve a medical intervention that has such unpredictable, often negative effects or zero and most often unmeasurable long term improvement in the condition supposedly being treated.
Personal experience is irrelevant here. Back in the ’70s, mine was positive, while other people I know were psychologically damaged. It is a powerful, mind-altering drug, and under controlled conditions could be just the tool trained therapists need. The concerning issue here is not the use of LSD per se but the refusal to consider its possible advantages in psychiatry. Thousands of suffering people need to have Professor Nutt taken seriously.
Since people can barely get an appointment with a mental health care professional of mediocre talents how is something as labor intensive as medically supervised and therapeutic tripping, supposing such a thing actually exists, going to happen?
it will only be the very privileged who are able to take advantage of this compared to the many who will be fobbed off with an unsupervised acid trip instead of unsupervised antidepressants and little to no actual therapy.
So true.
So true.
Since people can barely get an appointment with a mental health care professional of mediocre talents how is something as labor intensive as medically supervised and therapeutic tripping, supposing such a thing actually exists, going to happen?
it will only be the very privileged who are able to take advantage of this compared to the many who will be fobbed off with an unsupervised acid trip instead of unsupervised antidepressants and little to no actual therapy.
I find the discussion around psychedelics very odd. My patients (I’m a doc) who benefit from ANY antidepressant, or therapy, or who just get better with time all feel “more connected” once they are better.
Without expounding at length, I’ll just say that I find the idea that the solution to existential angst can be found at the bottom of an empty pill bottle – be those pills SSRI’s promoted by Pfizer, or psychedelics promoted by new-agey wizards of woo – problematic. The idea that we are bags of chemicals, and happiness and meaning are to be found in tweaking those chemicals, is facile.
I find the discussion around psychedelics very odd. My patients (I’m a doc) who benefit from ANY antidepressant, or therapy, or who just get better with time all feel “more connected” once they are better.
Without expounding at length, I’ll just say that I find the idea that the solution to existential angst can be found at the bottom of an empty pill bottle – be those pills SSRI’s promoted by Pfizer, or psychedelics promoted by new-agey wizards of woo – problematic. The idea that we are bags of chemicals, and happiness and meaning are to be found in tweaking those chemicals, is facile.
Ernst Jünger* (1895-1998.)was a great fan of LSD, and he should know.
(* Author of THE book on the Great War: “ Storm of Steel”.)
Ernst Jünger* (1895-1998.)was a great fan of LSD, and he should know.
(* Author of THE book on the Great War: “ Storm of Steel”.)
testing
_____
___
.
It’s legitimate to feel unhappy about traumatic events – money, health, relationships etc.
Politicising this, labelling it “depression” and prescribing drugs for it, is despicable.
Can you not see how you’re being exploited?
As with the ADHD myth, there is no such thing as depression.
Read Dr. Thomas Szasz’s book, “The Myth of Mental Illness” and wise up.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17326328.mental-health-conditions-schizophrenia-even-depression-myth-according-leading-experts-mind/
It’s legitimate to feel unhappy about traumatic events – money, health, relationships etc.
Politicising this, labelling it “depression” and prescribing drugs for it, is despicable.
Can you not see how you’re being exploited?
As with the ADHD myth, there is no such thing as depression.
Read Dr. Thomas Szasz’s book, “The Myth of Mental Illness” and wise up.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17326328.mental-health-conditions-schizophrenia-even-depression-myth-according-leading-experts-mind/
Putting chemicals into your body to alter your mental state is bad. Social use of any drug – and I very much include alcohol and gambling here – is just a stupid short-cut to attaining a mood that (i) fades really quickly so you need to repeat, (ii) builds dependency, but most importantly of all, (iii) suggests that you don’t address the real World causes of your discontent.
I stopped drinking 18 years ago. I wasn’t an alcoholic in any way but I drank too much, for bad reasons, and dumping it just on a whim for good is the best thing I ever did. My mind became more positive as I took ownership of the responsibility to change real things to give me satisfaction. Life is still challenging – breaking news, it just is – but it’s my life, my things to fix, and a mind altering drug is a handicap.
Until people get this simple principle there’ll never be a fix to this. I’m a hard-core atheist but my biggest beef with religions is that they took incredible wisdom and to get people to obey it they packaged it up in bull**** of supernatural beings threatening eternal punishment. The seven deadly sins are truly terrible sins …… but they’re against YOURSELF. My complaint is that by bundling this wisdom under a fiction they set the scene for the baby to go out with the bathwater once people worked out there wasn’t a God.
The availability of drugs isn’t the issue, it’s the utter lack of realisation that we’re here a short time and what we get out of the experience depends on what we put in. Trying to cheat the system by putting chemicals in to alter the mental state undermines this, it’s a terrible mistake..
Cary Grant, for one, was greatly helped in managing his alcoholism by taking LSD. There is a huge difference between drugs; and in one’s ability to take them healthily.
As the old Irish joke goes, when asking for directions out of his mess maybe the advice to him would have been “well I wouldn’t be starting from here”.
I didn’t know that fact about him but he had already fallen for the con that a mind altering drug was a good idea. I guess if one countered the other then whatever, but the point stands.
As the old Irish joke goes, when asking for directions out of his mess maybe the advice to him would have been “well I wouldn’t be starting from here”.
I didn’t know that fact about him but he had already fallen for the con that a mind altering drug was a good idea. I guess if one countered the other then whatever, but the point stands.
What works for you has worked for you, well done. However, one size doesn’t fit all. The rest of us aren’t the same as you, and we all find out own paths for many different reasons. You’ve made the mistake of wanting to control other people and project onto them, two really big problems that you have yet to address on your path to healing.
I haven’t been on a “path to healing” (such bull again distracts from the simple principles), I just recognise that if I want to feel better about things then I have to take action in the real World. The idea that solutions to fulfilment lies in a pill is facile, probably self-serving.
Pushing onto others seems to be the habit of those saying mind-altering chemicals do the trick. Still, you stick to your fix and I’ll stick to changing my situations, I just wish that young people could learn what will really make them fulfilled and not fail into becoming varying levels of drug addicts.
You profoundly misunderstand the difference between psychedelics and narcotics. That’s all I take from your comments.
You profoundly misunderstand the difference between psychedelics and narcotics. That’s all I take from your comments.
I haven’t been on a “path to healing” (such bull again distracts from the simple principles), I just recognise that if I want to feel better about things then I have to take action in the real World. The idea that solutions to fulfilment lies in a pill is facile, probably self-serving.
Pushing onto others seems to be the habit of those saying mind-altering chemicals do the trick. Still, you stick to your fix and I’ll stick to changing my situations, I just wish that young people could learn what will really make them fulfilled and not fail into becoming varying levels of drug addicts.
Cary Grant, for one, was greatly helped in managing his alcoholism by taking LSD. There is a huge difference between drugs; and in one’s ability to take them healthily.
What works for you has worked for you, well done. However, one size doesn’t fit all. The rest of us aren’t the same as you, and we all find out own paths for many different reasons. You’ve made the mistake of wanting to control other people and project onto them, two really big problems that you have yet to address on your path to healing.
Putting chemicals into your body to alter your mental state is bad. Social use of any drug – and I very much include alcohol and gambling here – is just a stupid short-cut to attaining a mood that (i) fades really quickly so you need to repeat, (ii) builds dependency, but most importantly of all, (iii) suggests that you don’t address the real World causes of your discontent.
I stopped drinking 18 years ago. I wasn’t an alcoholic in any way but I drank too much, for bad reasons, and dumping it just on a whim for good is the best thing I ever did. My mind became more positive as I took ownership of the responsibility to change real things to give me satisfaction. Life is still challenging – breaking news, it just is – but it’s my life, my things to fix, and a mind altering drug is a handicap.
Until people get this simple principle there’ll never be a fix to this. I’m a hard-core atheist but my biggest beef with religions is that they took incredible wisdom and to get people to obey it they packaged it up in bull**** of supernatural beings threatening eternal punishment. The seven deadly sins are truly terrible sins …… but they’re against YOURSELF. My complaint is that by bundling this wisdom under a fiction they set the scene for the baby to go out with the bathwater once people worked out there wasn’t a God.
The availability of drugs isn’t the issue, it’s the utter lack of realisation that we’re here a short time and what we get out of the experience depends on what we put in. Trying to cheat the system by putting chemicals in to alter the mental state undermines this, it’s a terrible mistake..
I could not listen to this cra* – as someone who has done enough drugs to OD a couple Battalions of Marines, and lived down with the street fringe and the stoners and addicts and crazies and damaged and broken people and the criminals and lost people out there on the streets and road – at their level for years…..I can answer that……
No – the answer to the question of if psychedelics can help cure anyone of anything – the answer is no. Same as the answer to the question of ‘Does Marijuana have a role in medical treatments? That answer is No too
Very much like the question of ‘Does MDMA, or ecstasy, have a medicinal value? Because that answer is NO too.
I could elaborate a great amount – but I think I summed it up pretty well.
FFS!
‘‘When I was on the Isle of Skye 30 years ago, there was a wonderful tale there about how they used to treat depression. They used to take depressed people to the blacksmith and put their head down on the anvil and the blacksmith would take out his massive hammer and bring it down right next to their head,”
hahahaaa
Man – they were dic*ing with you there, messing with the Sassenach’s head… my guess is it was in some pub after hours and they were drunk and having fun….(Did they tell you of the Silkies taking off the young men into the Sea Loch and all that was ever seen of him again were a set of lites floating on the shore?) (a kind of mermaid crypto-zoological spirit which lured the men to life under the waters with them – and as the young man no longer would need their lungs (lites) they would leave those behind so the boy could never return to his life on land, haha, they are loaded with this stuff – I lived on the Hebrides and Orkney a lot – being a distant cousin of Trump’s Mother) (I believe the silkie story a lot more than the anvil one)
Well said. You only have to heed the usual tropes of leftist nonsense popping up throughout the interview – “the establishment” not wanting people to “think differently”, “old white men like me”, “Vietnam” – not to mention the discredited Freudianism lurking in the stuff about “buried memories” etcetera, and the essential Utopianism which underlies the lot, to realise that here – as in so much of our spavined society – is an obnoxious sixties throwback.
Tell that to the chronically severely depressed who do NOT react to anti-depressants/CBT, the standard 50 yr-old samo samo psychiatric treatment for depression. That’s a third of all patients. If you were suffering from a life-threatening condition, you would try anything, especially if the alternatives to traditional medicine have been studied, clinically trialled and proven to alleviate/cure suffering. And I know, from personal experience, what I am talking about. So you stop being… obnoxious.
Like all quacks he is playing upon understandable desperation; and like many dupes you are falling for it.
As for not being obnoxious, do you not regard your dismissive response to Steven Somsen’s witness statement concerning the well named Nutt’s drugs of choice as worse than obnoxious?
Well said Danielle. Unfortunately there are some nasty commenters here.
Oh, so it’s “nasty” to express a contrary point of view, is it? And what do you call the immediate recourse to moral condemnation? As it appears to be your own habit, I daresay you maintain a diplomatic silence on the subject. How typically left wing.
Oh, so it’s “nasty” to express a contrary point of view, is it? And what do you call the immediate recourse to moral condemnation? As it appears to be your own habit, I daresay you maintain a diplomatic silence on the subject. How typically left wing.
Like all quacks he is playing upon understandable desperation; and like many dupes you are falling for it.
As for not being obnoxious, do you not regard your dismissive response to Steven Somsen’s witness statement concerning the well named Nutt’s drugs of choice as worse than obnoxious?
Well said Danielle. Unfortunately there are some nasty commenters here.
I think we should also note that the use of psilocybin was an integral part of the Manson family’s nightly rituals. I don’t know if the “family” members recovered from their own traumas, but some of them inflicted enormous suffering and damage on others!
For me, the question raised by so much of this interview was…why do so many people “need” drugs (or alcohol, etc.) just to get through their daily lives? Perhaps we should be looking at our culture with this in mind, with the aim of finding a possible solution that doesn’t have as many downsides as drugs.
Well aren’t you the lucky one that you need to ask why the rest of us might need a bit of help.
Lucky, yes. In the sense that they have somehow come across the intelligent route to personal fulfilment rather than the stupid one of imbibing chemicals to fake it.
Why would you need to sound so superior and nasty if you’ve become enlightened? Some of us have used many different modalities to heal what ails us from the human condition, and societal abuse.
Why would you need to sound so superior and nasty if you’ve become enlightened? Some of us have used many different modalities to heal what ails us from the human condition, and societal abuse.
Lucky, yes. In the sense that they have somehow come across the intelligent route to personal fulfilment rather than the stupid one of imbibing chemicals to fake it.
Well aren’t you the lucky one that you need to ask why the rest of us might need a bit of help.
Tell that to the chronically severely depressed who do NOT react to anti-depressants/CBT, the standard 50 yr-old samo samo psychiatric treatment for depression. That’s a third of all patients. If you were suffering from a life-threatening condition, you would try anything, especially if the alternatives to traditional medicine have been studied, clinically trialled and proven to alleviate/cure suffering. And I know, from personal experience, what I am talking about. So you stop being… obnoxious.
I think we should also note that the use of psilocybin was an integral part of the Manson family’s nightly rituals. I don’t know if the “family” members recovered from their own traumas, but some of them inflicted enormous suffering and damage on others!
For me, the question raised by so much of this interview was…why do so many people “need” drugs (or alcohol, etc.) just to get through their daily lives? Perhaps we should be looking at our culture with this in mind, with the aim of finding a possible solution that doesn’t have as many downsides as drugs.
You did, sum it up: no when these drugs are used for recreational purposes (which is obviously your case), but YES when they are used therapeutically in a controlled environment. I would be curious to know your credentials, apart from being a professional stoner.
Credentials are neither here nor there. Conscience is what matters and if your antagonist is writing sincerely there is no occasion to “pull rank” on him. Argue the point, not the CV.
I didn’t sense that Danielle was “pulling rank”. Perhaps a projection on your part.
Of course she was – denying her opponent the right to speak on the grounds that he or she is not an “expert”.
Of course she was – denying her opponent the right to speak on the grounds that he or she is not an “expert”.
I didn’t sense that Danielle was “pulling rank”. Perhaps a projection on your part.
That was worth a chuckle, thanks
Well said and good for a chuckle.
Credentials are neither here nor there. Conscience is what matters and if your antagonist is writing sincerely there is no occasion to “pull rank” on him. Argue the point, not the CV.
That was worth a chuckle, thanks
Well said and good for a chuckle.
Well that explains a lot.
FFS!
‘‘When I was on the Isle of Skye 30 years ago, there was a wonderful tale there about how they used to treat depression. They used to take depressed people to the blacksmith and put their head down on the anvil and the blacksmith would take out his massive hammer and bring it down right next to their head,”
hahahaaa
Man – they were dic*ing with you there, messing with the Sassenach’s head… my guess is it was in some pub after hours and they were drunk and having fun….(Did they tell you of the Silkies taking off the young men into the Sea Loch and all that was ever seen of him again were a set of lites floating on the shore?) (a kind of mermaid crypto-zoological spirit which lured the men to life under the waters with them – and as the young man no longer would need their lungs (lites) they would leave those behind so the boy could never return to his life on land, haha, they are loaded with this stuff – I lived on the Hebrides and Orkney a lot – being a distant cousin of Trump’s Mother) (I believe the silkie story a lot more than the anvil one)
Well said. You only have to heed the usual tropes of leftist nonsense popping up throughout the interview – “the establishment” not wanting people to “think differently”, “old white men like me”, “Vietnam” – not to mention the discredited Freudianism lurking in the stuff about “buried memories” etcetera, and the essential Utopianism which underlies the lot, to realise that here – as in so much of our spavined society – is an obnoxious sixties throwback.
You did, sum it up: no when these drugs are used for recreational purposes (which is obviously your case), but YES when they are used therapeutically in a controlled environment. I would be curious to know your credentials, apart from being a professional stoner.
Well that explains a lot.
I could not listen to this cra* – as someone who has done enough drugs to OD a couple Battalions of Marines, and lived down with the street fringe and the stoners and addicts and crazies and damaged and broken people and the criminals and lost people out there on the streets and road – at their level for years…..I can answer that……
No – the answer to the question of if psychedelics can help cure anyone of anything – the answer is no. Same as the answer to the question of ‘Does Marijuana have a role in medical treatments? That answer is No too
Very much like the question of ‘Does MDMA, or ecstasy, have a medicinal value? Because that answer is NO too.
I could elaborate a great amount – but I think I summed it up pretty well.