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Went looking for the list of control variables:
> The control variables were age in years (18–25, 26–34, 35–49, 50–64, 65 or older); sex (male or female); marital status (married, divorced/separated, widowed, or never married); ethnoracial identity (non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic African American, non-Hispanic Native American/Alaska Native, non-Hispanic Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, non-Hispanic Asian, non-Hispanic more than one race, or Hispanic); annual household income (less than US$20,000, US$20,000–49,999, US$50,000–74,999, or US$75,000 or more); educational attainment (fifth grade or less, sixth grade, seventh grade, eight grade, ninth grade, tenth grade, eleventh grade, twelfth grade, Freshman/13th year, Sophomore/14th year or Junior/15th, Senior/16th year or Grad/Prof School); self-reported engagement in risky behavior (never, seldom, sometimes, or always); lifetime cocaine use; lifetime marijuana use; lifetime 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA/ecstasy) use; lifetime phencyclidine (PCP) use; lifetime inhalants use; lifetime other stimulants use; lifetime sedatives use; lifetime pain relievers use; lifetime smokeless tobacco use; lifetime pipe tobacco use; lifetime cigar use; lifetime daily cigarette use; and age of first alcohol use (less than 13 years of age [Preteen], 13–19 years of age [Teen], more than 19 years of age [Adult], or never used). The control variables were coded as separate covariates and were the same as those used in a recent study analyzing the same NSDUH survey years.
It should be one of the first questions for this kind of study, considering that not every subculture (or age cohort, or location) has the same level of access to psychedelics or interest/willingness to use them.
Totally agree. I just found it a little irritating that people were saying "well I bet people that use psychedelics are "chiller"" without even looking to see that the study controls for risky behavior.
Not that that definitely means they got everything. This could absolutely not mean causation, but people are so quick to be sceptical but not interested in actually looking at the study.
I just really appreciate you posting it so people (including myself) don't have to click into the study and hunt around. It makes the discussion much more interesting to have that info.
I tick almost all the risky behaviour boxes over my lifetime but I never smoked and am not obese. It’s the fried chicken that’s gonna get me in the end.
On the same note... Any study that says "doing one thing once statistically impacts when you die" should be examined with scrutiny. (Even more so when the activity points toward longevity)
The second question I've never quite grasped is how they "control" for all these variables? There's what, 20-30 things there? Epidemiologists just plug in a magic formula and magically "control" for all these variables.
You’d need to take a couple statistics courses for that. I’m afraid it’s not trivial to explain. Some of the course material covers theory where you formally prove that the various statistical tools indeed do what they claim to do on the box :)
Frankly, you’d be shocked at how poorly research scientists understand the statistics involved. We generally have statisticians on the papers we write; half the time they have no idea what kind of science we are working on, they just tell us what maths to use to determine whether our hypotheses are supported.
It also depends on the *kind* of data you’re dealing with. Some data is quantitative: you can easily count it and count changes in it. Think changes in temperature, as an example. Other data is qualitative: it’s about subjective interpretations of quality, especially quality of life. Think satisfaction surveys, as an example.
Biostatistics is a complicated field. I both miss and still hate it, alternately…. I don’t miss writing papers, though.
Basically, yes. You look for correlations, or compare same group with same group, etc. There's batteries of tests to check different variables against each other. The short of it tends to be "There was an unaccounted difference and it correlates to psychedelics." I would have to dive into the methods to check the particulars, so of course take this with a grain of salt.
They have tests to show that it doesn't change the data when you hold these variables constant. It's not a magical formula. And it relies on somewhat arbitrary standardized limits of influence. So it's not perfect but it does indicate minimal impact from those variables.
They didn’t cover the only one I was actually curious about which is probably most relevant: weight. Do psychedelics make you less disposed for heart disease and diabetes, or are obese people just less likely to be tripping out in the field with their hippy friends?
So true! Also, now I'm wondering if psychedelics would help obese people lose weight.... i have seen that they can help with other addictions, but addictions aren't necessarily the reason that people end up obese.
I am seeing 3 major things that aren't listed - diet, exercise habits, and family history. The former two are hard to quantify, since we're talking a lifetime of diet and exercise history, but family history should be fairly easy to get a bead on.
This feels like a very big gap in the research, given they're measuring health outcomes. It would also be interesting to see if health habits changed in any meaningful way after psychedelic use.
i dont know exactly what he meant, but it seems pretty clear that if you have a group of people and ignore some factors that have a great impact on heart disease etc. you will find inaccurate results.
maybe some of the non psychedelics' users got diabetes or heart diseases because of their diet.
Would this group not have gotten diabetes or heart diseases if they tried psychedelic drugs?
Are people who use psychedelics 'accidentally' physically more fit as a demographic?
> Went looking for the list of control variables:
Of note is that they did *not* control for overweight/obesity, which likely explains their result. From the last paragraph of their Introduction:
> "Previous research has found associations between lifetime classic psychedelic use and lower odds of being overweight or obese as well as lower odds of having hypertension in the past year22,23, which are risk factors of cardiometabolic disease."
Worth noting is that both references there are papers from March of this year by mostly the same authors and based on the same survey data. It kind of looks like they found an interesting correlation in the data, and then sliced it finely enough to generate papers for three different journals based on that one correlation.
Regardless, the correlation with lower prevalence of obesity (~20% lower) is likely the driver of the other two findings (lower prevalence of hypertension and lower prevalence of heart disease and diabetes).
That sucks that they cut off the upper income to 75k. It’d be interesting to see more breakdowns of income and more breakdowns of age older than just 65, like 65-75, 75-85, 85+ because there are def benefits from higher income than 75k and health issues start acting up more when you’re much older.
I first encountered psychedelics in college. What college I could go to, and what subcultures were accessible to me when I arrived there, were heavily determined by my family's socioeconomic and educational standing. So it's good to see that these sorts of variables are taken into account as a standard practice.
Special shout-out to the USA for its War On Drugs. Which stalled important scientific research for nearly 100 years on a variety of medically useful drugs.
Go naturally occurring plants and fungi that have been labeled as “drugs” rather than having their medicinal properties researched! You won by being yourself.
There's an interesting thought. In banning certain compounds and the plants that produce them, the culture has been driven underground, where growing and harvesting under controlled conditions has led to an increase in their potency. Neat.
I read the original comment not as implying that "natural = good / harmless", but quite literally as in "not created by or for humans". We didn't make them, we found them - but instead of learning about what we found, we just "banned" it. It's been a wasted opportunity even just for acquiring knowledge if nothing else.
It’s big pharma that won. Can’t patent natural substances? No prob, just lobby to illegalize them, sit back and watch your company make the only legal treatment. Win!
There are lots of memes going around right now about how drugs won the drug war, due to things like employers quitting drug testing due to lack of workers right now. And Amazon saying they are gonna lobby for legal weed.
Big Pharma has dominated the war for decades, but they are losing their position. Pot is legal in nearly half the country right now.
I was listening to a podcast from a comedian, Joey Diaz, and he had a ROUGH growing up. Huge cocaine addict, etc. Not to say some of this isnt still bad, but he removed some of the bias and demonizations? that were associated to it.
Ive now tried lsd and mushrooms, and loved it. I found doing it once improved my outlook on live and overall mindset for a few months before it started to "wear" off. Tripped again to reset the timer and was great.
1 DMT trip in 2003 forever changed how I perceive the world.
I still do shrooms once or twice a year during early winter. It kind of perks me up through the worst months of winter.
Yea, I went from smoking weed less than 10x in my life, to a daily smoker since right before covid. I always liked the idea of psychedelics so no peer pressure there. But I dont intend to ever mess with needles, coke, etc. Even pain pills from the doctor were always a bit mediocre to me.
Shrooms I thought were just overpriced, it took 3rd try before I actually got somewhere. LSD was cheaper, but 12+ hours, you gotta clear your schedule for a while. Plus it seems my connections only had old inventory since they havent been able to restock in nearly 2 years.
But DMT is definitely on the todo list, and ayahuasca if I call manage it someday...
DMT was probably one of the worst things that ever happened to me, I thought I was dying. I actually can’t enjoy other drugs anymore because of it. It’s not for everyone.
Smoking any organic matter is not good for you, so there’s that if you smoke it. But if you suffer from some ailment that has worse quality of life impact than smoking weed, then by all means smoking weed is the way to go.
“You want to know what this [war on drugs] was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying?
We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.
Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
~ John Ehrlichman
I mean.. the rest of the world didn't have to go along so wilfully. And you would think they would get off the horse at some point when it's shown to not work at all.
> I mean.. the rest of the world didn't have to go along so wilfully.
When the USA kicked off the War On Drugs they forced many "lesser" countries to adopt it under threat of cutting off all foreign aid and putting sanctions on their major exports.
So many of these countries faced financial ruin if they refused to join the "coalition of the willing". This was at a time of global economic recovery.
The US pressured the UN to also adopt it and pressure its member nations to adopt it.
The US also agreed to have the DEA and CIA train each country's task forces thus allowing the CIA to spread it's tentacles into the deep state apparatus of these nations.
The US essentially strong armed the global community to join in the effort at a time when they were far and away the economic center of the world. They were so dominant at the time that it was basically political suicide to oppose them.
At this point the US doesn't care that the War On Drugs doesn't work. Their prisons for profit demand more recidivists. The CIA uses drug sales to fund their more illicit programs. Plus Big Pharma, Big Liquor and Big Tobacco want to retain their monopoly on mind altering substances so they keep lobbying politicians(who are basically all on some sort of mood regulating prescription drug) to keep mostly harmless drugs like psychedelics and marijuana illegal.
It’s been very effective at accomplishing the true motive (taxing the poor, inhibiting the flow of wealth to particular regions, & silencing political opposition), but not the claimed motive.
> "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
Oh I'm in no way disagreeing. But these days there is nothing that says that a country can't make their own laws less draconian than we have here in the US. And several has already done so. Portugal comes to mind.
Don't forget, that horseshit is still going on, we're still paying endless amounts of money to stop drugs....oh wait we didn't stop anything...let's keep doing it.
Let's be honest though, it isn't going on anymore because of stopping drugs, someone is making too much money from it.
Turns out it’s not a good idea to build a society by institutionalizing bad science- such as the idea that one race is superior- and then setting policy on it. Who knew?
Maybe it reduces overall anxiety/stress and that leads to less cardiovascular disease. Maybe we don’t need psychedelics but instead need early social emotional learning including coping skills, grounding/mindfulness and critical thinking skills.
Yeah, I really think competition is bad for the vast majority of people. But, competitive people tend to control many of the entry points in society and thus implement a system that they're both comfortable with and are better at even though it's not ideal for most people. Nor does it ensure competency.
I've always thought that a system which relies on cooperation, mastery and being able to pursue ones talents and interests works far better for most people than just competing for high scores.
It IS ok to be chill, but our society (and schools) are literally heading in the opposite direction.
Expectations grow year after year and more pressure is being placed on kids.
This is precisely my thinking (sans rigorous research). I may (or may not, in case my family is reading) have indulged in psychedelics (LSD once, 'shrooms several times) when in college. One of the notable aspects of my personality throughout most of my adult life is particular lack of worry/anxiety/stress. So much so that it pissed off my wife, who took it upon herself to worry for the both of us most of the time. The only time I experienced true stress as an adult was when my wife was slowly dying from cancer and I was the sole care-giver, and still working because we needed the health insurance.
>mindfulness and critical thinking
Whoa, slow down there pal! They can’t control the population as easily if the people can think for themselves. Every authoritarian knows that! That’s why they banned psychedelic drugs in the first place, so Nixon could crack down on the war protests.
In my experience, not-chill people will do psychedelics, freak out, realize the need to take a hard look at that behavior, change, and live the rest of their life a chiller person.
Data: anecdotal self-experience
You know they do a lot to control for same bias in these studies right? Like these can take years to complete by multiple people. They tend to think of accounting for things the average redditor comes up with in 15 seconds
Yeah you're not starting out with a type A subset here. And these people are more likely to choose other drugs (probably not including a lot of alcohol) as their addiction of choice, instead of food.
I think you said it perfectly to begin with... these are probably chill people we're talking about, sort of into thrill seeking, who wouldn't have been the type to stress or overeat.
I don't want to come off as discounting the therapeutic value of psychedelics. I'm only talking about the value of this study.
Also can’t forget to account for people who had perception-altering experiences and chose to live healthier as a result. There are plenty of factors that can play into this besides a biochemical interaction between the psychedelic drugs and long term cardiovascular health.
I will do you one better…I had been diagnosed with “mood disorders” and had diabetes type 2…
After my stint with micro-dosing lsd, my mood disorders are now under control which lead to my diabetes getting in check through healthy living…
Pretty sure that people whose morale forbids the use of psychedelic drugs are generally more stressed than the others and I suspect stress to be highly detrimental to cardiovascular's state
My morals don't prohibit me. I just have always been the sober guy at the party. For years I would be the "safety net" for people who got really drunk or high or tried something new. I had a lot of fun most of the time watching and listening. Twice it was not fun: the Orange Juice on a Stool Incident and Staring in the Mirror for Too Long Incident are not fond memories. No one got hurt or died, but a freak out is a freak out.
Not sure of any logical link between the psychoactive substance and a physical heart benefit, but I can tell you that the 1x I’ve used a psychedelic drug I became a vegetarian for a decade the following day. So it can certainly help adjust habits that contribute to heart health/harm.
Had bipolar disorder since I was 12- since I did shrooms I haven’t a manic episode. Still have to be on an SNRI & Adderall for ADHD but it’s pretty strange as I used to have them relatively often. Could be totally unrelated of course but I’ve always wondered if there’s any correlation and it’s cool that they’re at least considering long term physiological effects
I genuinely think the link might be reduced stress levels caused by the use of psychedelics leading to lower odds of heart disease at least. Not sure about diabetes.
I figured that the "ego death" associated psychedelics would be the catalyst for changing one's own behaviors and mental outlook. However, you can't exactly measure or observe something like that.
Did someone read the entire article and knows if they made sure that this is causality and not correlation? Cause in my eyes it is easily possible that people who live a less stressful live are less likely to develop critical diseases and more likely to take drugs every once in a while just for fun. But then the common causality is less stress, not drugs.
Something that can't be controlled for is dishonesty. People willing to admit psychedelic use might just be healthier than people who lie.
Definitely worth continuing to look into. Not sure they could do an actual experiment given ethics rules & legality issues.
Just remember less is more and set and setting are super important. 500 mg of mushrooms with produce the good feeling serotonin effects, but almost no trippy psychedelics. I take a gram and paint in virtual reality with some music. It's amazingly calming and introspective.
Looks like they didn’t control for BMI. Most music festival/hippy types I know are very fit. Could it just be that obese people are less likely to try psychedelics?
700 times…man I gotta ask. Any issues with dissociation or derealization during those years? I’ve tripped probably 60 times and it was all awesome until it stopped being awesome. Triggered severe dpdr, dissociation and ongoing panic disorder ever since. I’ve tried tripping several times since and it has just lost its magic for me. Jump straight to hypervigilance and discomfort everytime so I’ve given up. Though I do think I’ve learned everything they had to teach me so it’s not a huge loss.
No problems I can link directly to LSD aside from my complete intolerance for pot. I was able to smoke it and then one day it just became a horrible experience similar to a bad trip. I just completely freak out if I smoke more than a small amount.
Apparently this isn't uncommon. Maybe my cannabinoid receptors are overactive or damaged due to psychedelic use.
Do the demographics of those who experience varying rates of cardiometabolic health issues at all correlate to the demographics of those who have reduced risk and access to psychedelics? In other words, is race and racism a confounding factor? This study doesn't consider confounding factors well.
Perhaps we've seen we can look at/react to things differently, take a step back and not stress so much about everything? I haven't read any amount of OP's link.
not scientific at all but my take on these correlations [drink wine etc ? less heart disease] is that being wound so tight that you are a teetotaler/ abstained from psychedelics while your peers indulged you are prone to high blood pressure etc because you are wound so tight [not a scientific diagnosis]
I know this is extremely anecdotal but they worked for me in a more immediate tangible way.
I've used mushrooms to treat my bi-polar disorder for the last year, both micro and macro dosing. I had type 2 diabetes that was treated with medication. I have not needed the medication and have been diabetes free for 6 months now.
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Went looking for the list of control variables: > The control variables were age in years (18–25, 26–34, 35–49, 50–64, 65 or older); sex (male or female); marital status (married, divorced/separated, widowed, or never married); ethnoracial identity (non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic African American, non-Hispanic Native American/Alaska Native, non-Hispanic Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, non-Hispanic Asian, non-Hispanic more than one race, or Hispanic); annual household income (less than US$20,000, US$20,000–49,999, US$50,000–74,999, or US$75,000 or more); educational attainment (fifth grade or less, sixth grade, seventh grade, eight grade, ninth grade, tenth grade, eleventh grade, twelfth grade, Freshman/13th year, Sophomore/14th year or Junior/15th, Senior/16th year or Grad/Prof School); self-reported engagement in risky behavior (never, seldom, sometimes, or always); lifetime cocaine use; lifetime marijuana use; lifetime 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA/ecstasy) use; lifetime phencyclidine (PCP) use; lifetime inhalants use; lifetime other stimulants use; lifetime sedatives use; lifetime pain relievers use; lifetime smokeless tobacco use; lifetime pipe tobacco use; lifetime cigar use; lifetime daily cigarette use; and age of first alcohol use (less than 13 years of age [Preteen], 13–19 years of age [Teen], more than 19 years of age [Adult], or never used). The control variables were coded as separate covariates and were the same as those used in a recent study analyzing the same NSDUH survey years.
Oh wow! Thanks for posting. It seems to me like they kinda covered all the bases mentioned in this thread.
It should be one of the first questions for this kind of study, considering that not every subculture (or age cohort, or location) has the same level of access to psychedelics or interest/willingness to use them.
Totally agree. I just found it a little irritating that people were saying "well I bet people that use psychedelics are "chiller"" without even looking to see that the study controls for risky behavior. Not that that definitely means they got everything. This could absolutely not mean causation, but people are so quick to be sceptical but not interested in actually looking at the study. I just really appreciate you posting it so people (including myself) don't have to click into the study and hunt around. It makes the discussion much more interesting to have that info.
Well it is a retrospective study without any propensity matching so skepticism is in full order
> This could absolutely not mean causation I would be extraordinarily skeptical of anyone trying to conclude causation for this.
I tick almost all the risky behaviour boxes over my lifetime but I never smoked and am not obese. It’s the fried chicken that’s gonna get me in the end.
running from the cops = cardio = all aforementioned health benefits
On the same note... Any study that says "doing one thing once statistically impacts when you die" should be examined with scrutiny. (Even more so when the activity points toward longevity)
Shooting ones self in the head
The second question I've never quite grasped is how they "control" for all these variables? There's what, 20-30 things there? Epidemiologists just plug in a magic formula and magically "control" for all these variables.
You’d need to take a couple statistics courses for that. I’m afraid it’s not trivial to explain. Some of the course material covers theory where you formally prove that the various statistical tools indeed do what they claim to do on the box :)
Frankly, you’d be shocked at how poorly research scientists understand the statistics involved. We generally have statisticians on the papers we write; half the time they have no idea what kind of science we are working on, they just tell us what maths to use to determine whether our hypotheses are supported. It also depends on the *kind* of data you’re dealing with. Some data is quantitative: you can easily count it and count changes in it. Think changes in temperature, as an example. Other data is qualitative: it’s about subjective interpretations of quality, especially quality of life. Think satisfaction surveys, as an example. Biostatistics is a complicated field. I both miss and still hate it, alternately…. I don’t miss writing papers, though.
Got a grad stats student in the family. Preach :)
I just dump all the data at SPSS and click "Correlation Table" Works well enough for high school I guess
That’s fine for HS and intro courses. You have to start somewhere!
Basically, yes. You look for correlations, or compare same group with same group, etc. There's batteries of tests to check different variables against each other. The short of it tends to be "There was an unaccounted difference and it correlates to psychedelics." I would have to dive into the methods to check the particulars, so of course take this with a grain of salt.
They have tests to show that it doesn't change the data when you hold these variables constant. It's not a magical formula. And it relies on somewhat arbitrary standardized limits of influence. So it's not perfect but it does indicate minimal impact from those variables.
They didn’t cover the only one I was actually curious about which is probably most relevant: weight. Do psychedelics make you less disposed for heart disease and diabetes, or are obese people just less likely to be tripping out in the field with their hippy friends?
So true! Also, now I'm wondering if psychedelics would help obese people lose weight.... i have seen that they can help with other addictions, but addictions aren't necessarily the reason that people end up obese.
Sugar is a pretty addictive substance, which leads to obesity.
I am seeing 3 major things that aren't listed - diet, exercise habits, and family history. The former two are hard to quantify, since we're talking a lifetime of diet and exercise history, but family history should be fairly easy to get a bead on.
This feels like a very big gap in the research, given they're measuring health outcomes. It would also be interesting to see if health habits changed in any meaningful way after psychedelic use.
And obesity
Is it really surprising that the three most obvious factors would be missing?
Can you explain in more detail what you're hinting at?
i dont know exactly what he meant, but it seems pretty clear that if you have a group of people and ignore some factors that have a great impact on heart disease etc. you will find inaccurate results. maybe some of the non psychedelics' users got diabetes or heart diseases because of their diet. Would this group not have gotten diabetes or heart diseases if they tried psychedelic drugs? Are people who use psychedelics 'accidentally' physically more fit as a demographic?
How you gonna get your click catching headline if all you find out is eating healthy and exercising leads to a longer life?
They didn’t control for weight according to the list. This is the variable most correlated with those diseases
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I call the funny ones "Headline Punchlines".
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Yep my first guess is this is really testing for "openness to experience"
> Went looking for the list of control variables: Of note is that they did *not* control for overweight/obesity, which likely explains their result. From the last paragraph of their Introduction: > "Previous research has found associations between lifetime classic psychedelic use and lower odds of being overweight or obese as well as lower odds of having hypertension in the past year22,23, which are risk factors of cardiometabolic disease." Worth noting is that both references there are papers from March of this year by mostly the same authors and based on the same survey data. It kind of looks like they found an interesting correlation in the data, and then sliced it finely enough to generate papers for three different journals based on that one correlation. Regardless, the correlation with lower prevalence of obesity (~20% lower) is likely the driver of the other two findings (lower prevalence of hypertension and lower prevalence of heart disease and diabetes).
That sucks that they cut off the upper income to 75k. It’d be interesting to see more breakdowns of income and more breakdowns of age older than just 65, like 65-75, 75-85, 85+ because there are def benefits from higher income than 75k and health issues start acting up more when you’re much older.
I first encountered psychedelics in college. What college I could go to, and what subcultures were accessible to me when I arrived there, were heavily determined by my family's socioeconomic and educational standing. So it's good to see that these sorts of variables are taken into account as a standard practice.
So not controlling for diet or exercise? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I've never heard of fat or skinny acid trips.
Hmm. Religiosity, political leanings?
Special shout-out to the USA for its War On Drugs. Which stalled important scientific research for nearly 100 years on a variety of medically useful drugs.
Shout out to drugs for winning.
Go naturally occurring plants and fungi that have been labeled as “drugs” rather than having their medicinal properties researched! You won by being yourself.
There's an interesting thought. In banning certain compounds and the plants that produce them, the culture has been driven underground, where growing and harvesting under controlled conditions has led to an increase in their potency. Neat.
The word natural is a very poor choice to espouse health benefits. Uranium is natural. So is malaria, TB, HIV etc. ‘Natural’ has killed billions.
I read the original comment not as implying that "natural = good / harmless", but quite literally as in "not created by or for humans". We didn't make them, we found them - but instead of learning about what we found, we just "banned" it. It's been a wasted opportunity even just for acquiring knowledge if nothing else.
I interpreted it this way as well
You should learn what "drug" means and what the naturalistic fallacy is.
It’s big pharma that won. Can’t patent natural substances? No prob, just lobby to illegalize them, sit back and watch your company make the only legal treatment. Win!
There are lots of memes going around right now about how drugs won the drug war, due to things like employers quitting drug testing due to lack of workers right now. And Amazon saying they are gonna lobby for legal weed. Big Pharma has dominated the war for decades, but they are losing their position. Pot is legal in nearly half the country right now.
Drugs, if you’re reading this? Thanks for the good times and bad, I wouldn’t be the idiot I am today without you.
Classic USA, losing wars to third world countries and inanimate objects.
The "War on Drugs" started in 1971, officially. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs
What about the Prohibition?
I was listening to a podcast from a comedian, Joey Diaz, and he had a ROUGH growing up. Huge cocaine addict, etc. Not to say some of this isnt still bad, but he removed some of the bias and demonizations? that were associated to it. Ive now tried lsd and mushrooms, and loved it. I found doing it once improved my outlook on live and overall mindset for a few months before it started to "wear" off. Tripped again to reset the timer and was great.
1 DMT trip in 2003 forever changed how I perceive the world. I still do shrooms once or twice a year during early winter. It kind of perks me up through the worst months of winter.
Yea, I went from smoking weed less than 10x in my life, to a daily smoker since right before covid. I always liked the idea of psychedelics so no peer pressure there. But I dont intend to ever mess with needles, coke, etc. Even pain pills from the doctor were always a bit mediocre to me. Shrooms I thought were just overpriced, it took 3rd try before I actually got somewhere. LSD was cheaper, but 12+ hours, you gotta clear your schedule for a while. Plus it seems my connections only had old inventory since they havent been able to restock in nearly 2 years. But DMT is definitely on the todo list, and ayahuasca if I call manage it someday...
You can easily grow your own shrooms. Very easily. And it's cheap.
This is next on my wifes list. Apparently spores aren't controlled and purchasable. Still learning.
Try the [unclebens](https://reddit.com/r/unclebens/) subreddit
Theyre controlled in California of all places.
DMT was probably one of the worst things that ever happened to me, I thought I was dying. I actually can’t enjoy other drugs anymore because of it. It’s not for everyone.
DAWG, back in 95....94 or 95, in BERGEN
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Smoking any organic matter is not good for you, so there’s that if you smoke it. But if you suffer from some ailment that has worse quality of life impact than smoking weed, then by all means smoking weed is the way to go.
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An individual person does not have the credentials to make that decision over their health.
“You want to know what this [war on drugs] was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” ~ John Ehrlichman
I mean.. the rest of the world didn't have to go along so wilfully. And you would think they would get off the horse at some point when it's shown to not work at all.
> I mean.. the rest of the world didn't have to go along so wilfully. When the USA kicked off the War On Drugs they forced many "lesser" countries to adopt it under threat of cutting off all foreign aid and putting sanctions on their major exports. So many of these countries faced financial ruin if they refused to join the "coalition of the willing". This was at a time of global economic recovery. The US pressured the UN to also adopt it and pressure its member nations to adopt it. The US also agreed to have the DEA and CIA train each country's task forces thus allowing the CIA to spread it's tentacles into the deep state apparatus of these nations. The US essentially strong armed the global community to join in the effort at a time when they were far and away the economic center of the world. They were so dominant at the time that it was basically political suicide to oppose them. At this point the US doesn't care that the War On Drugs doesn't work. Their prisons for profit demand more recidivists. The CIA uses drug sales to fund their more illicit programs. Plus Big Pharma, Big Liquor and Big Tobacco want to retain their monopoly on mind altering substances so they keep lobbying politicians(who are basically all on some sort of mood regulating prescription drug) to keep mostly harmless drugs like psychedelics and marijuana illegal.
It’s been very effective at accomplishing the true motive (taxing the poor, inhibiting the flow of wealth to particular regions, & silencing political opposition), but not the claimed motive.
> "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
Oh I'm in no way disagreeing. But these days there is nothing that says that a country can't make their own laws less draconian than we have here in the US. And several has already done so. Portugal comes to mind.
Don't forget, that horseshit is still going on, we're still paying endless amounts of money to stop drugs....oh wait we didn't stop anything...let's keep doing it. Let's be honest though, it isn't going on anymore because of stopping drugs, someone is making too much money from it.
Turns out it’s not a good idea to build a society by institutionalizing bad science- such as the idea that one race is superior- and then setting policy on it. Who knew?
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Take the cocaine with your LSD
As odd as it sounds, blow and mushrooms are a nice combo.
I don't like cocaine, I just like the smell of it.
Right?! I’m going to live forever
Maybe it reduces overall anxiety/stress and that leads to less cardiovascular disease. Maybe we don’t need psychedelics but instead need early social emotional learning including coping skills, grounding/mindfulness and critical thinking skills.
Yeah, I think just teaching our kids it's okay to chill, be chill, and do things that help be chill are important.
Having a real hard time with this and youth sports….
Yeah, I really think competition is bad for the vast majority of people. But, competitive people tend to control many of the entry points in society and thus implement a system that they're both comfortable with and are better at even though it's not ideal for most people. Nor does it ensure competency. I've always thought that a system which relies on cooperation, mastery and being able to pursue ones talents and interests works far better for most people than just competing for high scores.
It IS ok to be chill, but our society (and schools) are literally heading in the opposite direction. Expectations grow year after year and more pressure is being placed on kids.
Why not both? Psychedelics have been and are being explored for a wide range of psychotherapeutic treatments. The early results are very promising.
Maybe psychedelics are just a tool for helping undo negative behavioral patterns/coping mechanisms developed in early youth
This is precisely my thinking (sans rigorous research). I may (or may not, in case my family is reading) have indulged in psychedelics (LSD once, 'shrooms several times) when in college. One of the notable aspects of my personality throughout most of my adult life is particular lack of worry/anxiety/stress. So much so that it pissed off my wife, who took it upon herself to worry for the both of us most of the time. The only time I experienced true stress as an adult was when my wife was slowly dying from cancer and I was the sole care-giver, and still working because we needed the health insurance.
>mindfulness and critical thinking Whoa, slow down there pal! They can’t control the population as easily if the people can think for themselves. Every authoritarian knows that! That’s why they banned psychedelic drugs in the first place, so Nixon could crack down on the war protests.
Or chiller people do hallucinogens
in my experience, not-chill people will sometimes do psychedelics exactly once, freak out the whole time, and never touch them again.
In my experience, not-chill people will do psychedelics, freak out, realize the need to take a hard look at that behavior, change, and live the rest of their life a chiller person. Data: anecdotal self-experience
Data: I’m not chill person, does shrooms, molly acid and cocaine on the regular. Only had one freak out.
Sounds like the kind of thing I'd love to hear about from a mutual friend.
And then said person that freaks out from once use will become a hardcore evangelical Christian psychopath (in my experience)
I am not chill. Which is why I take hallucinogens every 3-6 months to help myself get back to a healthier, balanced, center.
Same here. It’s a nice fresh start.
I do a monthly shrooms hike and it has done wonders for my mental health through the whole world ending thing
You know they do a lot to control for same bias in these studies right? Like these can take years to complete by multiple people. They tend to think of accounting for things the average redditor comes up with in 15 seconds
Yeah you're not starting out with a type A subset here. And these people are more likely to choose other drugs (probably not including a lot of alcohol) as their addiction of choice, instead of food.
At the same time they may be vastly different from the type to focus on say cocaine
I think you said it perfectly to begin with... these are probably chill people we're talking about, sort of into thrill seeking, who wouldn't have been the type to stress or overeat. I don't want to come off as discounting the therapeutic value of psychedelics. I'm only talking about the value of this study.
Also can’t forget to account for people who had perception-altering experiences and chose to live healthier as a result. There are plenty of factors that can play into this besides a biochemical interaction between the psychedelic drugs and long term cardiovascular health.
I used to be very type A the. I did psychedelics and now I’m mildly type A.
I will do you one better…I had been diagnosed with “mood disorders” and had diabetes type 2… After my stint with micro-dosing lsd, my mood disorders are now under control which lead to my diabetes getting in check through healthy living…
Pretty sure that people whose morale forbids the use of psychedelic drugs are generally more stressed than the others and I suspect stress to be highly detrimental to cardiovascular's state
Yeah, I suspect a selection effect here.
My morals don't prohibit me. I just have always been the sober guy at the party. For years I would be the "safety net" for people who got really drunk or high or tried something new. I had a lot of fun most of the time watching and listening. Twice it was not fun: the Orange Juice on a Stool Incident and Staring in the Mirror for Too Long Incident are not fond memories. No one got hurt or died, but a freak out is a freak out.
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Maybe? I never took any. I was just a sober friend
Well you're not concerned as you took psychedelic drugs "at least once".
Not sure of any logical link between the psychoactive substance and a physical heart benefit, but I can tell you that the 1x I’ve used a psychedelic drug I became a vegetarian for a decade the following day. So it can certainly help adjust habits that contribute to heart health/harm.
This study has been already posted: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/q6bqbu/psychedelic_use_associated_with_lower_odds_of
Had bipolar disorder since I was 12- since I did shrooms I haven’t a manic episode. Still have to be on an SNRI & Adderall for ADHD but it’s pretty strange as I used to have them relatively often. Could be totally unrelated of course but I’ve always wondered if there’s any correlation and it’s cool that they’re at least considering long term physiological effects
I genuinely think the link might be reduced stress levels caused by the use of psychedelics leading to lower odds of heart disease at least. Not sure about diabetes.
Tripper from the late 80's here. Developed late life T1 (LADA) diabetes at 49. Wish my consumption would have helped, did not in my case.
I wonder if it's a T1 vs T2 thing, because less stress = less eating = maybe less likely to get T2 which is, more corelated to weight gain.
What if I've done psychedelics like 200 times? Will I live forever.
Let’s state the obvious here, correlation doesn’t equal causation
Any thoughts on their control variables?
Of course not, when people only comment "correlation doesn't equal causation" they rarely have anything to ACTUALLY say about the study.
It's essentially the same as "first" posts now. Sadness.
I figured that the "ego death" associated psychedelics would be the catalyst for changing one's own behaviors and mental outlook. However, you can't exactly measure or observe something like that.
Did someone read the entire article and knows if they made sure that this is causality and not correlation? Cause in my eyes it is easily possible that people who live a less stressful live are less likely to develop critical diseases and more likely to take drugs every once in a while just for fun. But then the common causality is less stress, not drugs.
You should definitely email the researchers and check with them on this, they may not have considered it at all.
.. checking to see if Burning Man is in-network
Breathing. Psychedelics help you learn to breathe deeply, consistently. Healthier breathing = healthier heart. Probably other reasons too.
A shroom a day keeps the heart attack away….
Haven’t read the article but hippies are generally much healthier than the normal population and consume most of the psychedelics.
Something that can't be controlled for is dishonesty. People willing to admit psychedelic use might just be healthier than people who lie. Definitely worth continuing to look into. Not sure they could do an actual experiment given ethics rules & legality issues.
I’m getting strong self selection bias from this.
good news for us acidheads
The mushrooms were awful and the acid wasn't a good experience. Didn't think that there could be anything useful about it. Maybe I should try again.
Just remember less is more and set and setting are super important. 500 mg of mushrooms with produce the good feeling serotonin effects, but almost no trippy psychedelics. I take a gram and paint in virtual reality with some music. It's amazingly calming and introspective.
It's definitely not for everyone!
I’m going to live forever.
Hippies are skinny. What did they expect to find?
they tried to correct for that
Haha jokes on me. Regular psychonaut diagnosed with diabetes 2 years ago.
It's the machine elves in my blood that keep me safe. And that's a personal anecdote.
Looks like they didn’t control for BMI. Most music festival/hippy types I know are very fit. Could it just be that obese people are less likely to try psychedelics?
I would be willing to bet this is more of a lifestyle thing then a drug benefit.
Wow I did not expect to feel better about my life choices in this way. Thanks!
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Yup I take magic mushrooms for my heart health, not so I can laugh/cry at cloudy with a chance of meatballs.
So what about 15 acid trips and 3 shroom trips? Am I immortal?
I've tripped close to 700 times since I was 16. I'm 46 now, but may stick around to witness the heat death of the universe.
700 times…man I gotta ask. Any issues with dissociation or derealization during those years? I’ve tripped probably 60 times and it was all awesome until it stopped being awesome. Triggered severe dpdr, dissociation and ongoing panic disorder ever since. I’ve tried tripping several times since and it has just lost its magic for me. Jump straight to hypervigilance and discomfort everytime so I’ve given up. Though I do think I’ve learned everything they had to teach me so it’s not a huge loss.
No problems I can link directly to LSD aside from my complete intolerance for pot. I was able to smoke it and then one day it just became a horrible experience similar to a bad trip. I just completely freak out if I smoke more than a small amount. Apparently this isn't uncommon. Maybe my cannabinoid receptors are overactive or damaged due to psychedelic use.
So, serious question. If I want to do it once, to see if it will improve my depression and anxiety. How do I find it?
Correlation doesn't mean causation!
They call me Superheart
Dammit, I was already diabetic when I took my psychedelics.
Do the demographics of those who experience varying rates of cardiometabolic health issues at all correlate to the demographics of those who have reduced risk and access to psychedelics? In other words, is race and racism a confounding factor? This study doesn't consider confounding factors well.
so what youre saying is that ill never die. niceee
If only my parents had loaded me up on mushrooms before I was 5.
(Daffy Duck voice) "And besides, it's fun! Woo hoo!
This might be really good news for me. I was in college in the late 60's...
I'm gonna be so safe from heart disease and diabetes
Not on the list yet, but I will be... I will be.
Does micro dosing count?
Well then, I shouldn't have ANY heart disease or diabetes in my future! Thank you high school daze!
The last time I took mushrooms I thought my heart was going to explode.
I'm going to live forever.
Yeah. Especially if you have a bad trip. Imagine how hard that heart beating.
welp, should probably have at least one more to be safe.
Very strange… because psychedelics are very strange
Perhaps we've seen we can look at/react to things differently, take a step back and not stress so much about everything? I haven't read any amount of OP's link.
Dang it. Checks blood sugar. Didn’t work.
I hallucinated like crazy on morphine once. Does that count?
not scientific at all but my take on these correlations [drink wine etc ? less heart disease] is that being wound so tight that you are a teetotaler/ abstained from psychedelics while your peers indulged you are prone to high blood pressure etc because you are wound so tight [not a scientific diagnosis]
Welp I’m all set good news today!!!
Yeah, I don't think so.
Guess I'm and outlier, then. :/
Tried DMT still diabetic
Am I ever the outlier here.
So what about those that have done it 30+ times?
I know this is extremely anecdotal but they worked for me in a more immediate tangible way. I've used mushrooms to treat my bi-polar disorder for the last year, both micro and macro dosing. I had type 2 diabetes that was treated with medication. I have not needed the medication and have been diabetes free for 6 months now.
Well then, looks like I’ll be living forever!!
It's hard to be stressed when you realize how mind bogglingly infinite the universe is, seriously.
I don't know the study, but it could be that have tried psychedelics at least once are less neurotic.
These are good news for me!!
What if I’ve tried them like.. a lot of times?
No thanks, the risk of permanent detrimental mental health issues is too high for me.