When it comes to the future of psilocybin I'm optimistic that there won't be widespread catastrophic downsides. I'm genuinely unsure how significant the upside will be—I could imagine many plausible futures.
There are specific psychiatric concerns too. Is it psychotogenic or otherwise severely destabilizing for certain people, and if so who and what do we do about it? To the extent it is used in psychiatric practice some day, what on earth will that even look like? How to deal with the growing hype machine? Like with meditation, it seems like psychedelics can attract people whose zeal can outweigh their prudence.
I'm hopeful all these things will work themselves out if people are allowed to make their own choices, hopefully made easier by not having unexpected wild shifts in public policy to which society has trouble adjusting.
Like with other mediations if we could identify the at risk population and tell them to steer clear we could prevent a lot of harm. I’m not sure it’s so easy to know though. My friend Ed has written about his really bad experiences with LSD flashbacks and I don’t think he had any strong reason to suspect he’d be uniquely vulnerable. Nevertheless he argues for a culture of more openness and honest around psychedelics rather than less. https://filtermag.org/acid-flashbacks-prohibition/
Agreed. MDMA is a more interesting one. I don’t know if repeated use has been studied much in terms of side effects but I have heard it can lower your ability to experience pleasure. Also more potential for abuse and problems while on it given it makes everything seem “cool”.
Sep 27, 2023·edited Sep 27, 2023Liked by Jonah Davids
If I had to wager right now, assuming it really does have enough therapeutic value to warrant mainstream medical use, I'd bet it would be a one-time or very rarely used thing. Otherwise you'll risk that, like with ketamine, people are really just using it to get high with questionable therapeutic benefit and lots of potential for abuse and perverse incentives. (among other potential side effects from the drug itself)
Wonderful conversation. Thnx!
Thanks for listening! Glad you enjoyed it
When it comes to the future of psilocybin I'm optimistic that there won't be widespread catastrophic downsides. I'm genuinely unsure how significant the upside will be—I could imagine many plausible futures.
There are specific psychiatric concerns too. Is it psychotogenic or otherwise severely destabilizing for certain people, and if so who and what do we do about it? To the extent it is used in psychiatric practice some day, what on earth will that even look like? How to deal with the growing hype machine? Like with meditation, it seems like psychedelics can attract people whose zeal can outweigh their prudence.
I'm hopeful all these things will work themselves out if people are allowed to make their own choices, hopefully made easier by not having unexpected wild shifts in public policy to which society has trouble adjusting.
Like with other mediations if we could identify the at risk population and tell them to steer clear we could prevent a lot of harm. I’m not sure it’s so easy to know though. My friend Ed has written about his really bad experiences with LSD flashbacks and I don’t think he had any strong reason to suspect he’d be uniquely vulnerable. Nevertheless he argues for a culture of more openness and honest around psychedelics rather than less. https://filtermag.org/acid-flashbacks-prohibition/
I think the case for widespread use of LSD is far weaker than for psilocybin for various reasons, this being one of them.
Agreed. MDMA is a more interesting one. I don’t know if repeated use has been studied much in terms of side effects but I have heard it can lower your ability to experience pleasure. Also more potential for abuse and problems while on it given it makes everything seem “cool”.
If I had to wager right now, assuming it really does have enough therapeutic value to warrant mainstream medical use, I'd bet it would be a one-time or very rarely used thing. Otherwise you'll risk that, like with ketamine, people are really just using it to get high with questionable therapeutic benefit and lots of potential for abuse and perverse incentives. (among other potential side effects from the drug itself)