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@Critical-Tim
That has been a huge problem with all drugs. Especially drugs like Methamphetamine and heroin. There is a lot of just false information about those two drugs in particular. Drugs like ‘krokadil’ which isn’t a real drug, have also cause reporting from journalists on the topic just horrible and it spreads ignorance that leads to people dying and being out in prison.
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@Critical-Tim
The main issue seems to be that people don’t realize science must be taken one small step at a time. So when someone does psychedelics and they feel like they’re connecting to the spirits and shit, they don’t stop and say “what is the evidence for this?” Or “how do I know what I’m feeling really means anything” instead they immediately jump to assuming it is true then coming up with theories about what their assumption means. Even if that assumption has no evidence to support it.
I think the other reason is like I said they have to come up with some excuse to make their drug use seem reasonable to everyone and themselves. They’re not comfortable acknowledging they enjoy drugs, and would enjoy others. So they have separate the substances from being drugs into something else.
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@Critical-Tim
I believe the main reason people aren’t viewing this scientifically is because they don’t understand how science works. It’s like when someone begins ranting and raving about astrology acting like it’s a scientific topic. People just want to be involved with something they feel is ground breaking or ahead of the curve and right now that trend is that psychedelics are spiritual medicine.
They also tend to abuse the fact they’ve been used as thousands of years as a way of excusing their liking of the drug. I also think that’s a big role, their entire lives they’ve been told how bad drugs are. Now these people enjoy psychedelics and have to coke up some absurd excuse for their use of drugs.
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@Critical-Tim
I’ll be honest man, those articles are the ones I’m talking about when I say there’s this weird “holier than thou” type attitude. I’ll give examples.
“Researchers have uncovered the first scientific evidence of a 'higher' state of consciousness.”
A change in consciousness is not a ‘higher’ state of consciousness. They’d never say this about a drug like heroin or Methamphetamine even though their parameters for it are the same. The parameters of a high consciousness are supposedly just “In the study, neuroscientists observed a sustained increase in the diversity of brain signals of people under the influence of psychedelic drugs, compared with when they were in a normal ‘awake and aware’ state.”
That is all drugs’ effect on the brain… which is why people take them.
“This finding shows that the brain-on-psychedelics behaves very differently from normal,”
Well of course it is, that’s the point of taking the drugs. That isn’t new information, it’s no some surprise. A high dose of MDMA also makes the behave much differently than normal. They’re not claiming that drug causes the brain to exhibit a highe level of consciousness.
My pet peeve with this type of stuff is why even add all of this flowery stuff to it? Why not just talk about what exactly the brain is doing and say why it can be beneficial? It is true that the brain has more connectivity under the influence of psychedelics, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be presented in a way that makes it seem like these drugs are somehow more special than other drugs. They have their place in medicine, but this type of coverage has no place in science. If they’re trying to get more readers by noting more sensational with their coverage that is fine, but it just annoying because most of what they’re saying is applicable to most drugs, but they would never speak about other drugs in that way.
The reason I’m picking it apart is because this article presents nothing we don’t already know. they didn’t reveal any new information that helps us better understand the drugs mechanism. All it did was spread weird “psychedelics are the key to a higher level of consciousness” type stuff. That is useless to anyone who isn’t trying to make themselves feel better about using the drug in my opinion.
I could be wrong and I could be being too close minded on the topic, if you think so please let me know! I’ll never get upset or annoyed if you see it differently.
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@Critical-Tim
for actual input on the mystical experience study that isn't surprising at all. Given what we know about where these serotonin receptors are located in the brain. When those parts of the brain are hyper active it increases the feeling of importance and emotion attached to the experience. So it isn't surprising. However, it can be very important, especially if the experience helps people overcome their fear of death or over come depression. That perceived significance can be very important for people in certain situations. So just because it is expected doesn't mean it isn't very important and needed.
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@Critical-Tim
I could not find the second study would you mind providing a link?
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@Critical-Tim
I’m not seeing where the Rolland study says anything about increased cognitive function. I am familiar with that study but haven’t read it in it’s entirety in a long time. I’ll give it another read soon.
If you ever want to access journal articles that are pay walled, use a website called sci-hub you can access them for free. Doesn’t work well on A phone in my experience.
The main reason I’m skeptical of a lot of psychedelic stuff, is because most studies have shown that There isn’t much certainty as to exactly how some of the claims these people make are achieved. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are wrong. For example one of them was that it decreases the default mode network activity and that caused the users to be able to become less depressed and have less rumination. However other studies have shown the default mode network doesn’t play as big of a role in depression and anxiety as once thought. There is variability in the DMN and people with both under active and over active DMNs can have depression and anxiety.
the studies for a few mental disorders are very promising. However the same thing is happening with psychedelics as is happening with cannabis. The users feel the medical benefits are needed to excuse their use of the drug so they begin making a lot of claims that aren’t backed up by the data. Most studies outside of MDD and PTSD, the benefits and results are barely different than placebo. So it is important to make people realize that just because you do go on some websites that claim things about these drugs doesn’t mean they’re at all true or backed by evidence.
That also doesn’t necessarily mean the claims are completely false, because like I said if someone’s week is better and they’re enjoying their days more while under the influence of the drug, they will likely be seeing other benefits. that isn’t the same thing as a drug being useful for treating disorders at population wide scales. It just means that people enjoy using drugs that help them get through the day.
Does that make sense?
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@Critical-Tim
Give this study a read.
It’s pretty long. But it’s clear that there is not many clear benefits across the board for psilocin microdosing, compared to placebo.
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@Critical-Tim
Microdosing kind of lies on the fringes of neuroscience and psychopharmacology and I’m not a fan of that type of stuff most of the time. Usually because there’s always big claims made with little evidence, like it treats OCD, ADHD, improves cognitive ability etc. it may help someone with OCD function better and that’s ok but that does necessarily mean it’ll be effective as a large scale treatment. Also just because some feels like their cognitive function is increased doesn’t necessarily mean they are.
If you don’t mind, could you attempt to find the study Jordan was talking about? I’d like to see a study with those conclusions, not saying it doesn’t exist, just curious if you can find it. I’d like to see how it was conducted.
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@Critical-Tim
There haven’t been any convincing studies about improving cognitive ability long terms with microdosing psychedelics. Self reported studies with thousands of people haven’t shown any significant medical benefit with using the drugs in this way.
One of the problems is that there isn’t a standard dosage for microdosing. It ranges widely. However this is something I try to point out with all drugs. Even though there may not be a concrete medical application for something doesn’t mean it can’t improve someone’s quality of life. If someone is microdosing LSD 3-4 times a week and they’re in a better mood, feel more creative, etc. then it will be inherently beneficial for them to keep doing so. That doesn’t mean it would be a reliable treatment for depression or any illness, but if it makes someone feel better then that will help them.
I also haven’t seen any serious side effects from microdosing, again no one has a real definition of what that is, but if you taking small sun psychedelic doses I haven’t seen anything to be worried about. I have micro doses a few times and it is a nice feeling but not something I enjoy more than an opioid for example. So to me microdosing isn’t something that will be a medical break through or anything, just something that helps people get through the week like caffeine or any other drug is.
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@zedvictor4
“For sure the effects of smoking are variable relative to individual smoking behavior.”
This is true in some sense but also not. Nicotine will raise your blood pressure no matter how it is ingested. Benzene will always be released when tobacco is lit on fire. There a certain health risks that are unavoidable no matter how nicotine is consumed. However not inhaling the drug deep into your lungs will prevent the really detrimental health effects. Making just puffing on the smoke and holding it in your mouth safer than deep inhalation.
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@Platypi
Cigars and pipes are the safest way of smoking tobacco, especially if you’re not inhaling the smoke. Some of them taste amazing I love enjoying a cigar on the back porch or a pipe full of sweet Virginia tobacco. Inhaling the plant is really where the problems begin.
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@Platypi
One more thing. Studies have shown that even avid smokers can fully recover lung health in a matter of years if they stop smoking before 42. Granted this is if you don’t already develop lunch cancer which statistically isn’t very likely. So even if you do go off the rails with cigarettes don’t think it’s all over. Do deep breathing exercises, regularly cough as violently as possibly. I know that sounds stupid but coughing can really help clear some shit out of your lungs. Get off the cigs if you get too comfortable smoking them and you’ll recover that full length capacity pretty quickly especially if you are young.
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@Platypi
Hey man good question. The only form of tobacco that can be regularly used with very little health side effects is snus, actual snus.
However oral tobacco has a lower cancer rate than smoked tobacco but you’re talking about smoking.
The cancer rate from smoking tobacco isn’t the only health concern. It also raises blood pressure, scars lung tissue, deposits tar in the lungs etc. to minimize the risks of that 1-3 cigarettes a day will pose minimal health risks to the user, relative to people who smoke more.
Pipe tobacco is “less dangerous” than cigarettes for sure. It’s usually higher quality tobacco and in most situations burns and smokes at a slightly lower temperature which will decrease lung scarring and the amount of tar deposited. A lot of pipe tobacco also has more nicotine which is what we are all ultimately after.
I would recommend using a vape, sadly there aren’t many other plants that contain nicotine, and the ones that do contain very very little quantities of it. If your set on smoking tobacco and inhaling the tobacco pipe tobacco would be your least deadly way of ingesting the drug. If you’re not set on inhaling it, smoke a cigar here and there, even the small ones contain a ton of nicotine that will soak in through the tissue in your mouth. You can also use snus if you don’t want to smoke. You can even swallow your spit so you don’t have to constantly be spitting. Vaping is the safest way to consume nicotine through inhalation, make sure it’s a regulated product so you’re not inhaling anything dangerous like Vitamin E acetate which was the main culprit behind all of the vaping scare stories. Make sure the vape product is a mixture of propylene Glycol and vegetable glycerin. These two substances are the “vehicles” used in asthma inhalers and pose no significant health risk to the user.
Nicotine is actually good for you, in most cases. If you don’t have high blood pressure. It prevents type 2 diabetes, prevents dementia and Alzheimer’s and improves cognition both acutely and chronically. So don’t be afraid to use nicotine. If you smoke cigarettes keep the amount low, that can be difficult to do but not impossible. Vaping will destroy your nicotine tolerance. I have smoked 2 packs of cigarettes in a day while camping with my other friend who is an absolute animal with nicotine like I am. So if you want to keep it reasonable, keep the usage low. If it starts getting out of hand don’t smoke a pack a day, move to the vape, it’ll improve your health dramatically.
Don’t use disposable vapes, they’ve been found to contain unsafe amounts of heavy metals by many studies. Use a refillable vape and buy a regulated vape juice product that I mentioned earlier.
Hope this helped clarify I Know I tend to over explain so if you want a more clear answer let me know and I’ll try to keep it short and sweet.
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@Critical-Tim
One thing that is genuinely incredible about them besides the power of the experience is how safe they are toxicologically. High doses lose almost no risk what so ever to the body. The only risks high doses of tryptamine psychedelics pose are mental issues.
For example I gave myself full blown PTSD from LSD. A guy sold me some and didn’t tell me he was told they have 4.5x the amount of acid that a normal tab of acid does. And I took three. So I thought I was taking a normal dose for a fun night 300-330 micro grams, but actually took 1300 micro grams. It was the most traumatic experience of my life. I still can’t tell people about the details of it without having anxiety attacks. I had nightmares for months about taking LSD and had to talk with my therapist about it for a while before I recovered.
That isn’t to scare people from taking LSD, that had nothing to do with the drug and everything to do with my abuse of the drug. After this experience I dedicated my life to understanding pharmacology and the psychology of drug abuse and addiction. I have never used LSD since and I never will again because it’s like getting food poisoning from a restaurant. I have used Psilocybin since and had a perfectly normal time. Prohibition also had a role to play in my traumatic experience, if would’ve been able to purchase LSD with clear dosages i would’ve either taken half of one of those tabs or not bought it at all. But I had to purchase it off the street at an unknown dosage. And LSD is impossible to weigh unless you have a multi hundred dollar scale, which I don’t.
So again this isn’t meant to be a scare story, just a realistic risk of LSD use. I have fully recovered from that experience and work a high paying job at an environmental health firm and am a responsible tax paying citizen, so it’s not like it destroyed my life. But it fucked with me for a few months fornsure and that is a real possibility with high doses of those drugs.
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@Critical-Tim
So the science behind the hallucinations is still a little vague. I’ll break it down best I can.
The receptors these drugs agonize, or activate, are called the serotonin2a receptors. Ima call them 5-ht2a from here on out, (serotonin is 5-hydroxytryptamine) hence 5-ht. These receptors are most densely located all throughout the CNS. However they are most densely located in serotonergic terminal rich areas. This means that where the serotonergic cortex’s are, where these terminals connect to other terminals are where the highest density of these receptors are. There are also 5-ht receptors in the stomach which is why some of these drugs cause nausea. The serotonin system plays an incredibly important role in our consciousness it controls mood memory function, it controls nerves, it controls a lot in our body.
So when these receptors are activated by very powerful drugs like LSD and psilocin (active metabolite of psilocybin, psilocybin is a prodrug and isn’t what gets you high) it is essentially putting these highly complex consciousness powering cortexes into over drive. The cortexes it puts into overdrive are mainly prefrontal, parietal, and somatosensory cortex. These cortexes have been shown to have incredibly important roles in our consciousness. Just to show how important let’s look at what happens when the pre frontal cortex isn’t working properly.
“A person with damage to the prefrontal cortex might have blunted emotional responses, for instance. They might even become more aggressive and irritable, and struggle to initiate activities. Finally, they might perform poorly on tasks that require long-term planning and impulse inhibition”
So we can see right here that when that cortex is over drive there will be a more emotional response. That explains why there is so much “spirituality” or religious type experiences when taking psychedelics. The experience and hallucinations feel very real, and since that part of the brain is highly active it also feels incredible emotional and important to the person. I have a lot of experience with these drugs and the experience feels incredibly real and important and as if you’re connected to something higher than yourself. That doesn’t mean you are and I don’t believe you are. I just think this is what happens when we stimulate these highly complex and important parts of the brain.
The hallucinations are not yet mechanistically explained perfectly. These are mysterious drugs in that sense. But we can see that people with schizophrenia have over active 5-ht2a receptors, among other things, like issues with the NMDA receptors and adrenergic receptors. So it doesn’t mean you’re experiencing schizophrenia when you take these drugs, it just means you’re potentially experiencing a part of it without a lot of the negative side effects.
One reason they are researched very often is how well they’ve done treating mental illnesses. From depression to OCD. One drug called ibogaine has effectively treated opioid addiction, and has the mechanisms to theoretically treat Parkinson’s syndrome, addiction, depression, and anxiety. They’re also potentially important tools for understanding consciousness, because most of these molecules are very similar structurally to serotonin and cause such intense and profound effects. They have helped us map the serotonin system which is also important for brain injuries and research into that.
the pharmacology is relatively simple but still a little vague as to why exactly activating these receptors cause such experiences. I personally believe it’s as simple as saying “this is what happens when you put these cortexes into over drive” but the spiritual hippy crowd refuses to use science and always has to bring in some untestable hypothesis about connecting with spirits and seeing other worlds. Then treat that as if it is a given and then use that to ride a high horse over other drug users by calling it holy medicine and all that bullshit.
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@Critical-Tim
And I’m not against going over all of that if you’d like.
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@Critical-Tim
ok cool.
We can start with LSD and Psilocybin. It is highly annoying the spiritual mystical stuff you’re talking about. There is also this incredibly annoying elitism those people are employing as well. They always talk about their drugs as medicine or that they’re good drugs while shitting on other drugs. I hate it.
Anyway what specifically are you wanting to know? Mechanisms for the experience? What the studies are showing? Dosages to take? Effects and side effects? Toxicity?
Let me know what exactly you’re hoping to learn and I’ll break it down. If I tried to cover all of that it would take 3 10,000 character posts lol.
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@Critical-Tim
What other drugs are you interested in learning about?
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@Critical-Tim
I don’t disagree with some of what of you said.
There are way too many examples of journalists spreading complete nonsense about drugs that I’ve heard people repeat so I usually just tell people to stay away from journalists on this topic. Read peer reviewed studies, look at the data, look up words you don’t know until you can read an article and understand all of it.
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@Critical-Tim
Something else I would like to point out, especially if you aren’t scientifically minded (not saying you aren’t just in general you seem intelligent enough) not all peer reviewed studies are created equally. The methods and results section of the studies need to be analyzed very closely. Don’t turn to journalism for anything related to drugs, or anything else scientific for that matter because they’re not capable of understanding the data being presented to them 9/10 times. I can show so many examples of poorly conducted studies, like the rat addiction model from the 70’s that journalists latch onto because they don’t have the ability to weed out the bullshit studies.
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@Critical-Tim
And let me be very clear about something. Before I began studying pharmacology, psychology of addiction, psychopharmacology etc. I had two bouts with addiction. One with alcohol and one with LSD. These addictions formed at very hard times of my life, go figure. I didn’t know anything about either drug and I abused them to help me cope with the severe falling out I went through with my closest friends, that has since been mended, severe depression, undiagnosed OCD, etc. so that again is proof in the pudding it has nothing to do with either of those drugs, because I still use alcohol to this day in a very responsible and reasonable way. It is also proof that actually educating people, who are willing to learn, is extremely effective.
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@Critical-Tim
“Nearly everyone in America is dependent on caffeine, and I don't believe dependency is necessarily negative, as long as it has more positive than negative consequences.”
There you go man, that statement right there makes you more educated and aware of what addiction is than 75% of people in our country, if you’re American.
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@Critical-Tim
So, if I understand correctly, you're saying that the article is unfair to blame the drug because those who claim to be giving their best effort to quit are actually voluntarily giving in to the drug, thus making a conscious surrender to their physiological self. In this way, although it may seem like they are unable to control themselves, they are doing so willingly. Is that correct?”
No necessarily so remember how I said that the development of addiction can be physiological? It’s a mixture of both. Mainly it does tend to be the choice to use the drug repeatedly to the point where they develop addiction. I’d also be very hesitant to say nicotine use or dependance is bad unless the form they are ingesting is tobacco. Nicotine has a lot of benefits people don’t speak about. In the vast majority of cases it is the users making a conscious Decision to ingest the drug in unhealthy and unreasonable amounts. That is what leads to addiction. It also has something to do with very poor education on drugs as well. Physiological aspects of drug use play a part in addiction but are not the determining factor or everyone who uses drugs would be addicts due to those effects. Since 80-90% of drug users are not addicts, the evidence to support what that article is claiming is weak at best
Anyway, the reason nicotine isn’t a drug that can cause dependance pretty quickly is because it has a very short duration and blocks dopamine transport. So dopamine is on the dopamine receptors longer giving peopl a sense of pleasure, no euphoria because it isn’t active enough at releasing dopamine. So there is a physiological aspect sometimes in the development of addiction, but not addiction itself. Addiction is a mental diagnosis not a physical one. Physiological aspects can certainly drive the person to use drugs more often, but those physiological aspects are more ‘addictive’ for the lack of a better term, to people who have those pre existing conditions of life I mentioned earlier.
I would say it’s very unfair of that article to claim nicotine is inherently harmful because that simply isn’t true. Tobacco is pretty harmful in some forms. But not all, snus for example is a form of processed tobacco the Swedish formed and the cancer rates with that form of tobacco are extremely low.
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@Critical-Tim
So, if someone is taking a drug but it is not negatively affecting their life and they do not have the compulsive desire to continue using it, they may not be considered addicted even if they have physical dependence and withdrawal symptoms.”
You absolutely nailed it right on the head on there. I don’t know if you have ever heard of a plant drug called Kratom or not. It contains an opioid drug that has a pretty complex pharmacology I can break down if you’re interested. However, I use this drug daily, I’m on it right now. I have two herniated discs in my lower back sustained from kick boxing, I live a certain amount of pain, so to get through these 13 hour days I do for my environmental health job I need something to combat that. It also helps with a good mood boost, I get mildly euphoric and it makes me a better worker, parent, son, partner, etc. it has never impacted my life negatively, but it is fair to assume I am likely dependent on this drug. That shouldn’t be a bad thing in my opinion. People are dependent on all types of things to get through the day and drug use shouldn’t be considered any different.
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@Critical-Tim
And you’re basic assumption of what causes addiction to form was pretty damn close. At least in very general terms. About wanting to relax and feel good right now. The thing I was mainly trying to point out is that there are reasons only 10-20% of drug users feel that need and develop addiction, and that is the determining factors I laid out. Addiction ultimately has nothing to do with drugs, it’s a misattributed problem. The reason drugs like heroin are only associated with addicts is be Ayse many people who use the drug but are successful, which is a very high number are very hesitant to admit to that. So the only people admitting to it, are the addicts and it gives a very skewed profile of drugs of that nature.
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@Critical-Tim
The reason I made the clear distinction between the mechanism for developing addiction and the diagnosis of addiction itself is because there isn’t a concrete physiological change that will have someone be diagnosed with addiction. Which is why I also brought up the fact we don’t call people who rely on anti-depressants or any anxiety medications addicts, because addiction is a psychological diagnosis. The development of addiction is both psychological and physiological, I hope I made that clear enough.
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@Critical-Tim
Before I go into the studies I’m going to make a point. It is true that there are more heroin addicts than oxycodone addicts. However that is not an indication that heroin is more addictive than oxycodone. They have the same mechanism in the brain, the brain can not tell the difference between these two drugs. The reason we see higher rates of addiction with heroin users is because heroin is more available, cheaper, and more potent. Potency does not determine addiction potential at all, it only determines the weight at which pharmacological activity begins. There are other metrics for it, like at comparable weights which one causes more pharmacological activity, but neither of those have an effect on addiction. Rates of addiction can differ between drugs but there is no evidence any drug is more addictive than any other drug. There’s also no evidence that some drugs “help people escape” more than others. Now to the breakdown of some studies about addiction.
The idea that everyone who uses cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine, must become addicts who throw their lives away comes from very flawed studies done on rats in the 1970’s. These studies took stressed out test rats, put them into small cages, and gave them two options. The first option was to drink water out of a bowl. The second option was to drink water that was infused with cocaine or heroin. The rats chose the drug infused bowl every time. They developed an addiction to the drug infused water, and drank it until they died. Every single one of them in the study did this. This study was then extrapolated to human behavior, and that is fair enough in my opinion. We use rats to test all drugs before they are able to enter human trials. This particular study, in a sense, is still being used to power anti-drug rhetoric in the US. This study is why the average American believes anyone who uses heroin is an addict and will be led to a premature death due to their drug use. Even if the people spouting these opinions are unaware of the specific study. Popular culture also has a huge role to play in this phenomenon as well, but it can be argued that media and political figures used the results of this study to power that side of pop culture back in the 70’s.
However, many studies have been conducted since then. These included putting the rats in large rooms, not cages, with many other rats, sexually active mates, sugary treats, and then the clean and drug infused water. The results were astounding. Every rat tried the drug infused water, likely because they had no way of knowing the water had drugs in it, or were just curious as to why there were two bowls. Throughout the study, after they tried the special water, they all began to choose the sugary treat and socialization with other rats over the drug infused water. In fact when these attractive alternatives were offered, they began only drinking the clean water as opposed to the drug infused water. Essentially this study mimicked what the average human experiences, and it showed mammals chose socialization and sex over drugs.
Many more studies of this nature were published after these initial results reached science journals. All of the studies showed the same results. They were all done by different people that were all independent of each other. This pattern caught the attention of Dr. Carl Hart, a chairman of the National Institute of Health and professor of pharmacology and psychology at the Ivy league school Cambridge. He began conducting similar experiments, but with human test subjects. He gathered crack cocaine and methamphetamine addicts from New York City and gave them two options. The two options they were offered were a sum of money or a hit of their drug of choice worth more than that sun of money. When the sun of money was $5 most addicts chose the drug. When he raised the money up to $20 Everyone except one person in the study took the money instead of the drug they were addicted to. These studies show, very clearly, that if offered attractive alternatives, even addicts won’t choose the drug.
Admittedly this does not tell the whole story. There are many aspects to drug addiction that need to be considered. With methamphetamine users in particular paranoia is a major aspect of taking high doses of that drug. It is possible that some of those people were afraid this was a trap of some sort. However this would not explain the addicts choosing the drug over the $5 in the first iteration of the study. All studies will have some sort of implicit bias, no study can cover all aspects of human behavior. However, that alone is not reason to discount the findings of the studies. We can also look at how many people have used drugs in the last reported year and how many people were diagnosed with substance abuse disorder. Well over 200,000,000 people reported using drugs of some sort in 2019. That accounts for drugs from alcohol to PCP. only 20,000,000 people had a diagnosis for SUD at that time. These studies and statistics have shown that 80-90% of drug users do not become addicted to the substance they chose to use.
The talk of addiction always leads to a particular conversation. People who use drugs like cannabis refuse to believe that cannabis is addictive. They take a lazy high road of claiming their drug use should be acceptable due to one reason or another. While simultaneously talking down on other drugs and other drug users. We could find many people who have their lives disrupted by their cannabis use. Whether that is failing drug tests, gaining weight, losing discipline, lowered motivation, etc. Anything that changes a human’s state of mind is addictive and can lead to addiction. That does not mean cannabis should be illegal. All it means is that we as a population need to be honest and clear about what the risks are to using any drug.
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@Critical-Tim
This is a good question. You’re close. First we need to define what addiction is.
Substance use disorder is the actual diagnosis term for addiction and three main things need to be happening in unison. 1: the person has tried to quit, and can’t. 2: the person faces withdrawal when they attempt to quit. 3: the drug use must be negatively impacting their life. Meaning they’re missing work to use the drug, not taking care of their kids, or other relationships due to the drug use.
The reason all three of these things need to be happening together is simple. For example I take OCD medication called Buspirone, if I were to quit this medication, I would face withdrawal and have trouble quitting, but I wouldn’t be called an addict simply because of this. It improved my quality of life dramatically and helps me get through the day. This can also be the case with other illicit substances, many people take amphetamines or opioids to just get their jobs done. To get through their long days and painful work. Even people who use oxycodone, heroin, or Methamphetamine wouldn’t be considered addicts if they drug use isn’t negatively impacting their life in a substantial way.
So you start this by saying what causes it in some substances but not others. This is a misconception. We can all find some people who fit that description above for substance use disorder for any psychoactive substance. From cannabis to meth. People can become addicted to anything. The main determining factors for addiction are: emotional crises, Job loss, poverty, trauma, and unrealistic expectations placed on people. When these determining factors are removed, addiction rates are extremely low in those populations, but drug use remains about the same. There is more complexity than that. For example if someone struggle with insomnia, severe pain, or anxiety. They are more likely to develop dependance and possibly addiction on drugs like opioids. If someone has problems staying awake, struggle with chronic fatigue, etc. they’re more likely to experience that with amphetamines.
So basically put addiction has very little to do with the drug itself. However the actual mechanism for developing addiction is a mixture of psychological mediation and physiological changes. Addiction itself, the diagnosis, is only focused on the effects of drugs on the persons psychological state and the state of their life in relation to the drug use. When drugs are used often, there is always a reason. So let’s take anxiety for example. If someone is using drugs to combat their anxiety, that alone isn’t a problem. The problem that eventually can lead to addiction is that they do not develop Healthy coping mechanisms for their anxiety while they are self medicating or even being medicated by a professional with drugs. So when they become anxious, instead of having ways to calm themselves down, whether it be focusing on breathing, exercising, reading, etc. their brain turns to the only coping mechanism they have which is ingesting the drug. if they are using a substance like alcohol or Xanax for treatment, these drugs slow the electrical currents in the brain and cause a sedating feeling. This is the physiological aspect of addiction. When they are not ingesting the substance the brain’s electrical currents are compensating for the time slowed and can be over reactive which causes more anxiety. This only tends to happen after a long period of use. These drugs, called benzodiazepines that agonize the GABAs receptors, are the only drugs that can kill you from quitting cold turkey after long periods of use. That is another physiological aspect.
Now to go into the assumption you made, that is very common, about how some drugs cause addiction more than others I’m gonna talk about some studies. I’m going to post this now and complete the rest in another post.
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I will admit that cannabinoids are the drugs I am least interested in. The pharmacology is pretty simple and it’s just not very interesting to me. Most of my time studying has been dedicated to amphetamines, opioids, psychedelics, NMDA antagonists like PCP and ketamine. I can still give some good information on cannabinoids but they’re just slightly outside of my interest.
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@Critical-Tim
We can also talk about addiction, the misconceptions surrounding drugs like heroin, crack, meth, etc. and can hopefully give you a reason to start questioning a lot of bs that’s spread about drugs. At some point, the questioning will turn to the laws surrounding drugs and it becomes clear prohibition harms society as a whole far more than drugs do.
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@Critical-Tim
Cannabis has some good benefits for the users. I’m not going to speak on things like tax revenues or anything like that. Cannabis causes please through dopamine release, it causes euphoria, it causes changes in pain perception to make some types of pain better, it causes an increased appetite, and it can be a helpful way to decompress after stressful days.
The negative side effects of cannabis particularly in users with a low tolerance to the drug can be unenjoyable. If new users invest too much of the substance they can face significant anxiety and paranoia, drying out of the mouth, increased heart rate, negative impacts on cognition while under the influence of the substance, increased prevalence of psychosis symptoms not the development of the mental disorder itself, and an overlooked issue is the feeling of guilt from ingesting the drug.
All of this is mediated by the agonism of the CB1 and CB2 receptors. Agonism means activation. The CB1 receptor and cannabinoid receptors in general are located in many places throughout the body and are much higher in number than most other receptors. These receptors act as a sort of Moderator for the release of most neurotransmitters. When these receptors are activated, even by endogenous substances like anandamide, they suppress the speed of signals through out the central nervous system, which is why most users report a feeling of relaxation. It also causes the release of dopamine and serotonin in the brain. THC also has affinity for the serotonin 2a receptor, which is the “psychedelic receptor” that LSD, psilocybin, DMT, etc all activate. THC actually blocks this receptor from activating. This also causes sedation effects. One thing I often bring up is that drugs aren’t necessarily what’s causing the effects. Our brain can already do all of this stuff. Which is why these receptors exist. There are already substances in our brain that can cause these effects under certain pretenses, drugs are just a short cut to these effects.
There are also more serious risks than just subjective effects while under the influence. Such as inflammation of the arteries surrounding the heart, which increases the risk for heart failure. It also causes misfiring of the CB1 receptor when abused for long periods of time and this is something that has been linked to obesity even in people who have never smoked cannabis. Then the more controversial one is addiction. All drugs are addictive. Even cannabis. It does cause physical withdrawal symptoms when the substance is used heavily for long periods of time and the use is abruptly stopped.
Those side effects tend to come from long periods of heavy use, the majority of cannabis users minimize the potential for these risks because most of them do not smoke cannabis in that way.
Overall cannabis is just another drug, it has some medical applicability that I didn’t speak about because that wasn’t the scope of the question. There’s nothing very special about cannabis, it does have risks when abused, and has benefits when used responsibly. It doesn’t have a realistic lethal dose with users, but that doesn’t mean people can’t die in relation to the effects of cannabis. With alcohol we consider drunk driving accidents alcohol deaths, we are starting to do the same with cannabis. There will be a certain number of associated cannabis deaths.
If the argument is about legalization the safety profile of a drug ultimately doesn’t matter, which is why alcohol and tobacco are legal. But the risks and benefits of drugs need to be clearly discussed with people hoping to ingest the drug. For new users it is important to stick to very low doses because THC is a pretty potent substance and can cause an unenjoyable experience if taken in over dose. So stick with low doses, enjoy the drug sporadically as possible to minimize any risks from long term use, and most of the people who use it will enjoy the cannabis experience and face little to no side effects
If you would like to dive deeper into the pharmacology we can do that. Let me know what else you’d like to know or talk about.
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If there is anyone on this site who uses drugs. I want them to be able to do it safely. If they want to know how the drug works, if they want to know how to minimize the potential risks of drug use, etc. I can help with all of that. This isn’t a recommendation to do drugs, this isn’t a recommendation to buy drugs off the street. I want to help keep people safe as much as I possibly can. Nothing I say in this forum or to anyone who asks questions should be received as me trying to convince them to use drugs. I just want to answer questions and help give proper drug education.
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@Critical-Tim
Here you go man, you said you wanted to learn more about the topic. What do you want to know?
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I have studied pharmacology for 5 years. I’d like to help people use drugs more safely, I’m currently working on a book in this topic. I’m making this forum for one person specifically on this site, but if anyone has any questions about drugs, how to use them safely, how they work, how to prevent addiction, how to lower the risks, etc. please ask.
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@Sir.Lancelot
It’s funny he thinks we need to earn our relevance to him as if it matters. He’s just some weird guy on the internet who tries to act philosophical when he really isn’t.
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@Sir.Lancelot
I’m not really a fan of claiming I’ve been bullied. Personally I think Rational is a pussy ass insecure little bitch to put it bluntly. He reports votes, sure you can argue that’s his right, but that’s insecurity 101 to me. If you’re confident in your beliefs you don’t have to report votes because winning a debate on a debate website ultimately means nothing because if you’re right, and you know you’re right, one of two things happened. 1: you insufficiently argued your point (your fault). 2: the voters had preconceived ignorant opinions on the topic they weren’t able to over come. So you’re either not able to admit you failed in presenting your argument in an efficient way, or you’re not able to accept that some people simply aren’t intellectually capable of changing their mind, which isn’t up to you. Either way, to report a vote is a sign of insecurity. If you have to block someone for giving you shit for reporting a vote, you’re a bitch. Simple as that.
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@Sir.Lancelot
Ask if he will get the debate started and I’ll try and remember to come back and accept it.
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I’ll have to be pro drug legalization for this debate
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For Wylted: won’t let me tag you for some reason.
If the drugs were active in his system, it certainly played a roll in his death. Being pinned in the ground also would’ve played a major roll in his death as hell. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Which is why I think it’s irresponsible to say drugs and drugs alone killed him.
I agree that racism likely had nothing to do with this. However, disproving that, doesn’t prove that drugs are the only thing that killed him. You can’t prove the drugs were active at the time of arrest. You can’t prove how much of either drug he took just before the arrest. You also can’t put any weight on post mortem drug concentrations in blood.
“Quantitative analysis is subject to error in itself, and because post-mortem concentrations vary in largely unpredictable ways with the site and time of sampling, as a result of the phenomenon of post-mortem redistribution. Consequently, compilations of ‘lethal concentrations’ are misleading. There is a lack of adequate studies of the true relationship between fatal events and the concentrations that can be measured subsequently, but without such studies, clinical pharmacologists and others should be wary of interpreting post-mortem measurements.”
There are many reasons for this. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2561112/
I don’t have a problem saying the officer isn’t the only reason he died, if you can prove the drugs were active in his system, and that he didn’t die from Covid symptoms being exacerbated by what was happening to him. Many people who are in this field of study, call it appeal to authority if you’d like, but it’s a fact that most people who study this type of stuff think he was killed largely because of the officer kneeling on his back. Im not saying it’s true because they say it, but they’re likely saying it for a reason.
Even CNN says the drugs could've played a roll. Which is fine with me to say. We can’t just ignore what the officer did, especially if it is more widely accepted that George Floyd died from his actions. Again it being more widely accepted doesn’t mean it’s 100% accurate, I understand that. However there’s a reason they’re saying it, and I’m skeptical of the brain washed liberal idea.
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@Sir.Lancelot
@TWS1405_2
You know what else. I don’t care if you believe I have failed at this debate. You’re a piece of shit human, you can say whatever you want. I can’t concern myself with the opinion and misinterpretations of fools. I also don’t give any weight to a bad person saying they beat me at something.
You’re evidence did not convince me, I don’t owe you a response at this point. You can say you won all you want it no longer matters to me. Because you are a piece of shit, and someone who doesn’t deserve anyones respect, nor interaction with people.
Go fuck yourself, say whatever you please, I will never respond to you, and not break a sweat about anything you claim. At least Sir Lancelot gave me his condolences and understood. You just brushed it off like it doesn’t matter to anyone. People like you don’t deserve friends or people in their lives, and I have a feeling that’s the exact boat you are in. If not it’s because you turn into a different person on the internet because you’re a coward and have to funnel their aggression onto the screen while they can hide behind the safety on anonymity. Fuck you.
Lancelot, thank you for being friendly and understanding, this guy you were siding with isn’t a good person and doesn’t deserve respect from a person like you.
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@TWS1405_2
“Wow. That's right up there with "my dog ate my homework."
You know what man. Fuck you
Here’s 5 fucking links to the story of my friends dying you piece of shit.
Go fuck yourself. Idc if you were military, I was too 11B in the Army. Fuck you, you’re a sack of shit.
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@TWS1405_2
Actually this will be the last thing I’ll say. You’re a fucking hypocrite dude. Talking shit to everyone else for using the “appeal to authority fallacy 🤓” while you do it yourself.
That’s the last thing I’ll say before I get a serious response back to you after everything that happened today passes over.
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@TWS1405_2
Look man I’m enjoying the debate, but I just got news that my company’s plane went down and killed everyone on board, lost a buddy so I’m prolly not gonna continue this much longer.
There is still one thing I’d like to say. “I mean really, all my years of experience in law enforcement, the criminal justice system, and academic background just leaves me so deficient in the ability "to interpret evidence." LOL!”
You’re back ground and law enforcement and criminal justice has nothing to do with pharmacology and doesn’t mean that alone is gonna make you able to interpret evidence properly when it comes to that specific subject.
That’s all, I probably won’t respond for a while? But I will eventually.
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@YouFound_Lxam
2 mg has killed people but that is very different from saying 2mg will always kill people. There’s usually a lot of factors from a dose that low killing people, usually it is mixing other substances.
Fentanyl can be deadly, if used improperly, that doesn’t mean anyone who uses fentanyl is going to die from it.
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@YouFound_Lxam
This is an improper way of viewing lethal doses, as I have pointed out a few times. That lethal dose can’t be extrapolated to anything. The lethal dosages for drugs are always measured in the form of an LX50 mg/kg meaning the lethal dose will increase as weight increases. It’ll also increase as tolerance increases. I have calculated what the LD50 would be for Floyd above. Even my calculation will likely be lower then it would have been for Floyd, because I used the LD50 for IV fentanyl. The bioavailability will increase when using IV drugs, this will lower the LD50, when compared to other routes of administration. The evidence is that he took it orally, which has lower bioavailability which will increase the LD50. It’s not as simple as saying 2mg has killed people because there are lot’s of explanations. Like being a small person, a baby, being allergic to the substance. Etc.
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@YouFound_Lxam
I agree with most of what you said, however as far as I can tell only one pill was found, and it was a half pill. My main concern is 1: you can’t prove it was active in his system. 2: he wasn’t appearing to be in his way to death when the officers arrived.
Just because fentanyl has these side effects when overdosed doesn’t necessarily mean that George Floyd overdosed. He was understandably panicked, which makes it hard to breath and stresses your heart, he also had Covid. Which does the same thing. I’m also convinced that coroners ruled his cause of death with something to do with his heart I’m at work or I’d tell you exactly what it was.
There are so many experts in this field who know the subject better than anyone, including myself who do not see the drug overdose as likely as him dying from the officer kneeling on his neck. That doesn’t mean they didn’t contribute, just means it’s hard to nail down the drugs as the sole cause.
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@YouFound_Lxam
Drugs could’ve easily played a role, but that’s not the best course of an argument.
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@YouFound_Lxam
Yes of course fentanyl can cause those issues. All opioids can. So can Covid though, especially if your airway isn’t fully open. Do you have any evidence fentanyl was active in his system at the time of arrest? You also can’t look at post mortem drug concentrations with any degree of certainty.
“Quantitative analysis is subject to error in itself, and because post-mortem concentrations vary in largely unpredictable ways with the site and time of sampling, as a result of the phenomenon of post-mortem redistribution. Consequently, compilations of ‘lethal concentrations’ are misleading. There is a lack of adequate studies of the true relationship between fatal events and the concentrations that can be measured subsequently, but without such studies, clinical pharmacologists and others should be wary of interpreting post-mortem measurements.”
it’s not that the officer completely cut off his blood supply. It’s that he was inhibiting it enough to cause problems because he did it for so long.
He was not really showing any behavior that is indicative of a high dose of opioids. He was more fidgety, speaking quickly, and stimulated. People usually do not act that way.
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@YouFound_Lxam
If I had to guess it would be: the choke wasn’t tight enough to make him go unconscious quickly, but still was right enough to cut off circulation. Like a tight tuner band around your leg would do.
I’m not an expert in the way chokes can kill people, but I also understand enough that life threatening injuries don’t have to be observed for a choke to kill somebody. And that cutting blood circulation doesn’t always make the person go unconscious before damage is done. Blood clots work this a lot of the time.
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