Althouse: "There is still an understandable fear of LSD, and it is unlikely to migrate from Silicon Valley to America’s more conservative regions anytime soon."

September 10, 2017

"There is still an understandable fear of LSD, and it is unlikely to migrate from Silicon Valley to America’s more conservative regions anytime soon."

"But in a country which is awash with drugs, microdosing with an illicit substance may not seem so outlandish, particularly among the middle-classes. Already many Americans are happy to medicalise productivity. In 2011 3.5m children were prescribed drugs to treat attention disorders, up from 2.5m in 2003, and these drugs are widely used off prescription to enhance performance at work. By one estimate, 12% of the population takes an antidepressant. Americans also try to eliminate pain, mental or otherwise, by other means; the opioid epidemic has partly been caused by massive over-prescription of painkillers. Compared with these, LSD – which is almost impossible to overdose on – may no longer seem so threatening. It may help people tune in, but it no longer has the reputation of making them drop out."

From "TURN ON, TUNE IN, DROP BY THE OFFICE/The Silicon Valley avant-garde have turned to LSD in a bid to increase their productivity. Emma Hogan meets the people breakfasting on acid," by Emma Hogan (The Economist).

That reminds me: We've been watching the 6-part Amazon video series "Long Strange Trip," which is about (obviously) The Grateful Dead. I'm only halfway through it, but episode 1 — "It's Alive" — is very much about LSD. The filmmakers make it sound as though the whole idea of the band grows out of LSD, including the idea that it's not work. It's all fun.

34 comments:

rcocean said...: Usually these drug panaceas end up being bogus or harmful. So, I'll let everyone be a guinea pigs for a couple years before I join in.; 9/10/17, 11:14 AM
Michael K said...: When I was a senior in medical school, the Dean asked me what to do about half the second year class that was using LSD. I was student body president. There were medical students crawling around on all fours in the dorm barking like dogs.

Several did not graduate and one I know did not do his internship. It destroyed lives. That, of course, was the height of the drug era.; 9/10/17, 11:29 AM
Mr. Groovington said...: There's a microdosing page on Reddit that's informative for the curious.; 9/10/17, 11:54 AM
Psota said...: No one likes to say this out loud, but the Grateful Dead pretty much funded the first several years of their existence (in part) through drug dealing at their concerts.; 9/10/17, 11:54 AM
Fernandinande said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/10/17, 11:56 AM
Michael K said...: Fernannde whatever the fuck your name is, I have promised to avoid your comments.

I would appreciate you do likewise.

I know you won't and this obsession of yours seem to be the only pathology in your comments.

I assume this might have something to do with your LSD use.; 9/10/17, 11:59 AM
William said...: Life is trial and error. Someone had to be the first person to eat an oyster. Consumption of oysters is not harmful despite the contrary visible evidence. I'll wait for further evidence on the LSD front. There are pros and cons. I wouldn't want to take any drug that interfered with my ability to take an afternoon nap.; 9/10/17, 12:00 PM
Fernandinande said...: Michael K said...
When I was a senior in medical school,

Were you full of shit then, too? I'm pretty sure you were.

There were medical students crawling around on all fours in the dorm barking like dogs.

Wow! Were they supposed to bark like cats?

It destroyed lives.

Sure, it did, Mr. Worthless Anecdote.

"In large US survey, users of LSD and similar drugs were no more likely to have mental-health conditions than other respondents.
“This study assures us that there were not widespread ‘acid casualties’ in the 1960s,” says Charles Grob, a paediatric psychiatrist at the University of California, Los Angeles."

"21,967 respondents (13.4% weighted) reported lifetime psychedelic use. There were no significant associations between lifetime use of any psychedelics, lifetime use of specific psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, peyote), or past year use of LSD and increased rate of any of the mental health outcomes. Rather, in several cases psychedelic use was associated with lower rate of mental health problems.; 9/10/17, 12:01 PM
Michael said...: I lived in Silicon Valley for a decade and passed a guy every morning who stood on the curb laughing at the traffic. It was said that he had been on a bad trip for a decade. I called him "Good Value."; 9/10/17, 12:08 PM
LYNNDH said...: OH GOD! Now I know why thing go haywire with my electronics.; 9/10/17, 12:08 PM
Fernandinande said...: Michael K said...
Fernannde whatever the fuck your name is, I have promised to avoid your comments.

Now you broke your promise. Shocking.

I would appreciate you do likewise.

Too bad. If what you said was true you'd be able to show it was true; instead you just continue to lie and insult.

I know you won't and this obsession of yours seem to be the only pathology in your comments.

Occasionally commenting on your false statements in an obsession, and disagreeing with you is pathological - what an damned arrogant asshole you are. Seriously.

I think the "War On Drugs" is counterproductive and a major human rights issue based on lies, and fools like you who continue to spread lies are ... "evil" is a pretty good word for it, I think, maybe a little bit melodramatic.; 9/10/17, 12:11 PM
Michael K said...: Ritmo II seems to be hallucinating. I left him (it) alone until severely provoked.; 9/10/17, 12:17 PM
steve uhr said...: Michael K -- Why do so many people leave their boats docked right where the hurricane is coming? Seems with a few days notice they would be able to get them to a safe place in the ocean far from harm?

(I know this may seem off topic but you might disagree after a few micro-doses.); 9/10/17, 12:44 PM
FullMoon said...: Several did not graduate and one I know did not do his internship. It destroyed lives. That, of course, was the height of the drug era.
9/10/17, 11:29 AM

How many in that same class did not take LSD, and did not graduate or do internship?; 9/10/17, 12:48 PM
bagoh20 said...: OK, where do I get some?; 9/10/17, 1:09 PM
heyboom said...: Ferdinande, you're not coming across as the sympathetic one in your feud with Dr. K.. Let it go, man.; 9/10/17, 1:14 PM
Michael K said...: About half. The Dean said he had one kid in to interview and the kid told him he would go down to the ocean, take LSD and the waves would "talk to him." The Dean said he mentioned that hallucinations could be powerful but the student replied that it was not a hallucination. "They really talked to me."

I also knew Sid Cohen who was the commanding officer of my army reserve unit and one of the first to study LSD,

Not all were enthusiastic about its use.

There is a bit about Sid here.

In 1962 Sidney Cohen presented the medical community with its first warning about the dangers of the drug LSD. LSD had arrived in the United States in 1949 and was originally perceived as a psychotomimetic capable of producing a model psychosis. But in the mid 1950s intellectuals in Southern California redefined LSD as a psychedelic capable of producing mystical enlightenment. Though LSD was an investigational drug, authorized only for experimental use, by the late 1950s psychiatrists and psychologists were administering it to cure neuroses and alcoholism and to enhance creativity. Cohen's 1960 study of LSD effects concluded that the drug was safe if given in a supervised medical setting, but by 1962 his concern about popularization, nonmedical use, black market LSD, and patients harmed by the drug led him to warn that the spread of LSD was dangerous.

I know. All anecdote. Some of us knew people whose lives were ruined.; 9/10/17, 1:16 PM
Etienne said...: Since you only have one brain, abusing it is not in your best interest.

Getting treatment for brain injuries is expensive, and not very successful.

People who abuse their brain are everywhere now.

It makes it easy to get ahead.; 9/10/17, 1:21 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Is LSD more dangerous than other drugs in the illicit market? Maybe more than most. But I knew a lot of kids in college who took psychedelics, and they all seem to have moved on, gone to graduate school, and otherwise had productive lives. Except for maybe one guy from HS. It seems that a much higher percentage of the ones doing pot were unable to do so. But then, by the late 1960s and early 1970s, the LSD available on the market was likely much more adulterated (with speed and other psychedelics) than what Dr K's fellow med students encountered. I would also suggest that med students, at least by the time I knew them in pre-med, may have tended to have personalities that didn't lend themselves to psychedelic use - my theory is that "control freak" personalities don't do well with the loss of control over your mind that goes along with "tripping" on LSD. Which is why I told my partner, being such a control freak, that it was probably good that she never did such.; 9/10/17, 1:40 PM
Michael K said...: Sid Cohen himself took LSD hundreds of times. He would probably qualify as a "control freak" given that he was an Army Colonel in addition to a psychiatrist.

I knew of one kid in college who jumped out a hotel window when hallucinating.

I'm sure others did use it, maybe in smaller doses, and are fine.

Just anecdotes, I guess.; 9/10/17, 1:44 PM
FullMoon said...: On the other hand:

Fact: At least 36 school shootings and/or school-related acts of violence have been committed by those taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs resulting in 172 wounded and 80 killed (in other school shootings, information about their drug use was never made public—neither confirming or refuting if they were under the influence of prescribed drugs). The most important fact about this list, is that these are only cases where the information about their psychiatric drug use was made public. (See full list below)

The below list includes individuals documented to have been under the influence of psychiatric drugs and not only includes mass shootings, but the use of knives, swords and bombs. 27 international drug regulatory agency warnings cite side effects including mania, violence, psychosis and even homicidal ideation.

https://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/; 9/10/17, 1:50 PM
heyboom said...: Hey Dr. K., what do you know about the use of Tecentriq as a therapy for bladder cancer? My dad was just diagnosed and that's how they're treating his. I understand it is a TB vaccine that was just approved for cancer therapy in April.; 9/10/17, 1:56 PM
Fabi said...: The ubiquitous drug harmfulness graphic shows LSD to be in the lower third of all recreational drugs. I was never a big fan, having only done it three or four times. I never barked like a dog but probably didn't have any of that good Owsley blotter.

Owsley "Bear" Stanley being the soundman and acid synthesizer for the Grateful Dead -- and the inspiration for their marching bears logo. His exploits are also documented in Steely Dan's "Kid Charlemagne" -- he once ran out of gas in his car trying to evade the police.; 9/10/17, 2:01 PM
Michael K said...: It sounds like it's used on metastases, which is a tough situation.

My brother in law has been getting BCG for localized bladder cancer.

It seems like that is limited to superficial cancers.

I hadn't heard of that drug which is another recombinant immune modulator drug. I thought may be it was a name for BCG which is 100 years old.

Good luck with it.; 9/10/17, 2:06 PM
Michael K said...: "How many in that same class did not take LSD, and did not graduate or do internship?"

I misread your comment. Half of that class took LSD by some estimates, out of 66. As far as I know all that did not went on as normal.

Of the ones that took LSD, maybe six or so screwed up their lives. I knew one (another anecdote) who got married and had a kid that developed pyloric stenosis which is cured with surgery. They would not have the surgery and the kid starved although it may have eventually survived. He never did an internship as long as I knew of him. I don't know what finally happened.

A couple dropped out. Several went on and probably did OK.; 9/10/17, 2:12 PM
heyboom said...: @Dr. K.:

Damn, thanks for that. He's in STL, so I flew out here to stay with him because we haven't been able to get any clear answers from my stepmom. We don't even know what stage it is. He tells me the doctors are confident they can shrink the tumor, and he seems to be in good spirits with no pain. But he is so skinny. I've never seen him that thin before. It's jarring. He wasn't a candidate for chemo because his kidneys are too weak.

Thanks again for the info.; 9/10/17, 2:35 PM
Robert Cook said...: "I wouldn't want to take any drug that interfered with my ability to take an afternoon nap."

Then you wouldn't want to take LSD early in the day.; 9/10/17, 2:35 PM
Rae said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/10/17, 3:09 PM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: Widespread microdosing of psychoactive drugs would be an alternative explanation for the precipitate decline in quality of newspaper writing.; 9/10/17, 4:48 PM
Fernandinande said...: heyboom said...
Ferdinande, you're not coming across as the sympathetic

Oh gosh, the feelz, dude.

one in your feud with Dr. K.. Let it go, man.

Why? The jerk is lying about an important issue. People go to prison over this crap because of lies from people like him.

Fabi said...
I never barked like a dog

Heh. Neither did anyone else.; 9/10/17, 5:07 PM
The Godfather said...: I have no idea whether acid or any other mind-altering drug may be medically useful under certain circumstances. So far, my doctor hasn't prescribed one for me. That leaves two reasons one might use such drugs: (1) job performance, and (2) recreation. My career was as a lawyer, not a rock musician. I'm pretty confidant that use of mind-altering drugs does not improve lawyers' job performance. Bar associations have programs to wean lawyers off dependence on drugs of various kinds. If you tell me that drugs make people better at being rock musicians, I have no basis to argue with you. If you tell me that Silicon Valley depends on LSD, I begin to worry that Damore may have missed the big story.

As for recreation, I enjoyed a couple of youthful experiences with pot, and it probably did me no more harm than my recreational use of alcohol during the same period of my life; perhaps less. But since I became a man I have put away childish things. What have I missed?; 9/10/17, 5:27 PM
Mountain Maven said...: Drugs have devastated this country and abject fools are trying to re-glorify one of the most damaging poisons of 50 years ago. May they all do serious hard time.; 9/10/17, 6:33 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: One must be mentally and emotionally stable enough to take LSD. At a minimum one must be able to wait it out if the trip goes bad. The successful tripper will keep in mind that acid is like a train, and once your on, the ride is going to last twelve hours or so. Ride it out! On the other hand, some experience physiological events that can impede a good trip, like an asthma attack or hyperventilation. In that case one must resort to strategies that ameliorate the physical problems, like breathing, and then address the heightened nerves by judicious use of alcohol and marijuana (assuming one is not operating a motor vehicle). Unfortunately a "bad trip" is not something that can be forecast. Best to avoid hallucinogens altogether if you have doubts.; 9/10/17, 6:48 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Of course, what I wrote above has NOTHING to do with micro dosing, which is more akin to pharmaceutical speed like Dexedrine than it is "tripping" in any meaningful sense.; 9/10/17, 6:50 PM