Shrooms

[TDub]

that conspiracy has been around a long time

Yes, the same as the apocryphal 100 mpg carburetor.

I’m reminded of a comment my retina-surgeon made about 10 years ago. He’s around my age and a really fun guy to talk to. We always shoot the breeze after my appointment, which is, for that reason the last one of the day.

This was when California had passed medical marijuana and one could get it with a prescription. I have a propensity for high intraocular pressure thus putting me at risk of glaucoma, something smoking pot likely relieved. Various drugs and psychedelics came up in conversation. His point really resonated with me, especially as someone who works in the pharmaceutical industry. He said he’ll give me a prescription for marijuana if I wanted to smoke it, but don’t ask him to do it for therapeutic reasons. He said that are much more reliable, long lasting and effective medicines for lowering eye pressure. I’ve been on drops for more than a decade with lasting success.

Pharmaceuticals have been optimized to deliver effective doses at safe levels, a condition for approval.

you're harshin his mellow bro..


(I do think there is value in the natural vs chemical argument, but, not to the Bob Marley extreme)

[ousdahl]

I recently talked to my doctor at my physical.

On the questionnaire of all the possible conditions they can examine for you, I checked the one that says, "depression."

a big part of that convo was discussing/offering anti-depressant sorts of drugs - Prozac and such, and SSRIs vs MAOIs and whatever. Doc suggested I ask my brother what sorts of those drugs may have helped him, as relatives will often experience similar effects for similar drugs or whatever.

Point being, the "more reliable, long lasting and effective" can vary from person to person, depending on the condition and the drug and such.

But yes, the whole "lemme give you a medical recommendation for a controlled substance you can then choose to ingest pretty much whatever amount you'd like via whatever means you'd like" was and is kinda silly.

I suppose the matter then becomes, whether something like cannabis could be better prescribed if properly...well, prescribed...figure out the "effective dosages at safe levels" and such like we do with every other drug. But I think part of the reason that hasn't happened is cuz of the Schedule 1 status?

Same thing with psychedelics. Maybe if they weren't legally illicit, they'd be treated less as recreationally illicit too. Or something.

And at the end of the day, all drugs, whether recreational or pharmaceutical or legal or not, are just poisons with desired side effects.

and I'm hippie enough to appreciate TDub's natural vs. chemical argument. But at the same time, we consume/are exposed to SO many chemicals that it's like, what difference does it really make. And also, I mean, hemlock is natural, but that doesn't mean it's good for you. Prob better off just eating fake plastic trees.

Also RIP guitar rock Radiohead

[zsn]

Most of the “natural chemicals” in plants evolved as some form of a defense agent. That they have some human physiological effect is but a coincidence. They are by no means optimized for humans. As an example, we have optimized pepper plants to have OUR desired levels of capsaicin. We can (and probably have) create(d) analogues which burn more. Same for psychedelic drugs. We can design chemical agents which are more specific, longer acting and with fewer undesirable effects.

But one of the difficulties dealing with “soft symptoms” like pain, depression etc is very very difficult. The average (not median!) placebo effect in a pain trial is roughly 65%.

[ousdahl]

for the sake of keeping the thread on point...maybe we should optimize shrooms to have our desired levels of effect.

and maybe they'd be better optimized if we could get actual professional experts working on it, rather than some white dood with dreadlocks growing them in his closet.