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4th February 2023, 06:48 PM | #1 |
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MDMA and Psilocybin approved as psychiatric medication/Australia approves this first
From Australia: "MDMA, the active ingredient in party drugs such as ecstasy, will be able to be prescribed to some patients experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
"Psilocybin, a compound found in psychotropic "magic" mushrooms, will be listed as medicine for for treatment-resistant depression. "All other uses of psilocybin and MDMA will remain prohibited." 'TGA psychedelics decision met with relief, cautious optimism and 'serious reservations': https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-...onse/101931618 Do other countries do this? Is it premature to do this without long term clinical trials? Or is it worth a try in those situations? |
4th February 2023, 08:02 PM | #2 |
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Thanks for starting this thread. I'm very interested in seeing how the discussion goes ---- not that I myself have much to contribute to it beyond my interest, but still.
It's funny, just yesterday I had this longish discussion with someone who'd actually done "heroic doses", and was full of how ayahuasca's gentle embrace (in some cases not-so-gentle) is something everyone should experience, as a means to putting the dysfunctional world in order. Now that kind of POV might be over-the-top hyperbole, but I think this is one rabbit hole that might be well worth exploring. Not necessarily the ingesting of it, I mean, but the detailed exploring of what the thing is and does. |
5th February 2023, 10:05 AM | #3 |
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I remember there was a guy that did TED talks about taking shrooms and how it changed his life and outlook for the better.
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5th February 2023, 02:46 PM | #4 |
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One thought I had was that I'm surprised they don't prescribe the MDMA for depression, since it allegedly makes people happy.
Also... If they're prescribing psylocibin for depression, wouldn't that have more of a risk of psychosis and/or paranoia? |
5th February 2023, 05:08 PM | #5 |
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Short-term, yes. But that is generally followed by a few days of comedown symptoms such as listlessness, anxiety and depression.
My assumption with most mind-bending drugs, based on second-hand sources as well as personal anecdotal experience, is that there are some fairly predictable short-term highs and lows and some generally unpredictable long-term mood or perspective changes. Of course, I have no medical expertise on this, and maybe those that do have discovered the best dosage and way to administer MDMA or mushrooms, but I would be extremely reticent about recommending them to shake people out of depression. |
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5th February 2023, 07:14 PM | #6 |
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9th February 2023, 05:46 AM | #7 |
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Oregon has an interesting mushroom measure
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/h...ms-oregon.html |
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9th February 2023, 08:59 AM | #8 |
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The period of hours after MDMA has worn off we referred to as "The serotonin sadness." listlessness, anxiety, indecisiveness, flat affect etc.
Other psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, DMT) all seemed to have the opposite after effects. Left feeling very positive, refreshed, alert with a renewed mental clarity...real or perceived. |
9th February 2023, 09:32 AM | #9 |
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"Suffering from PTSD? How about you just get high like everyone else?"
Seems less than medically sound. |
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9th February 2023, 10:47 AM | #10 |
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9th February 2023, 11:25 AM | #11 |
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9th February 2023, 02:13 PM | #12 |
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9th February 2023, 02:45 PM | #13 |
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I believe they use "micro-dosing" with these. You don't trip out on the 'shrooms because you don't take very much at all.
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9th February 2023, 02:53 PM | #14 |
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NZ does, and clinical trials date back to the 1960s, before some moron decided drugs were all bad and must be stopped. New trials have been ongoing in NZ and UK for several years, all with excellent early results.
A Kiwi doctor led the world in the 1960s, and his reins have been picked up by another Kiwi more recently. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/hea...t-his-research As mgidm noted, the doses aren't to get high, they're small doses used to change the way the brain operates. It's the best thing to happen to psychiatry in the past half century and will lead to massive improvements in mental health around the world. In an industry which still relies heavily on ECT, a "treatment" almost 100 years old, the use of psychedelics is a giant step forward. |
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9th February 2023, 03:36 PM | #15 |
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9th February 2023, 04:55 PM | #16 |
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The dosage may, of course, be important here, but my own experiments on shrooms did not lead to very positive, refreshed after effects. Not at all. And there are definitely plenty of people who seem to have reported "bad trips" that appear to have had lingering effects.
Anyway, of course this is anecdotal and almost certainly dose-dependent among other factors that could be controlled. |
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9th February 2023, 09:13 PM | #17 |
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10th February 2023, 02:24 AM | #18 |
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10th February 2023, 10:31 AM | #19 |
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Much about the "set and setting" with psychedelics.
What seems to have popped under the radar around me are lots of clinics offering ketamine therapy for depression and several other "mood disorders." Seems like a solution looking for a problem kinda thing, but admittedly I haven't had need or desire to look much into it. |
10th February 2023, 11:21 AM | #20 |
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Ketamine is possibly the best of them all - the small amount of work done shows it has an amazingly high chance of benefiting people with severe forms of depression - who are universally high-risk for suicide.
Rather than a solution looking for a problem, it's an intractable problem that costs hundreds of thousands of lives a year desperately screaming for a solution. Suicide kills 750k people a year worldwide, and we could probably halve that number by action as simple as teaching doctors how to prescribe psychedelics. And best of all as far as treatment goes - all psychiatric drugs come with side effects, most of which are truly awful, which is one reason so many stop taking them. Psychedelics in small doses don't have any pyschotropic effect, have no unpleasant side effects, aren't addictive, and appear to last beyond active treatment. |
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10th February 2023, 12:38 PM | #21 |
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That's great news about the ketamine therapeutic use! I had some friends that could certainly have used that in crisis or otherwise as they lost hope with the traditional medications and therapies...and medication compliance due to sides.
Have a close friend with bi-polar w/mania. Her last psychotic episode, ECT was the only thing to bring her around. That did last for quite a while as well. Unfortunately she is also therapy/medication non-compliant and self-managed as she thinks they can just "zap" her again if needed. She is curious about psychedelics, but I've been dissuading since I fear it could trigger another manic/psychotic episode. Nothing to back that up though. All I know is the psychosis was terrifying for her and crisis resources available to us trying to help were limited to the police or general hospital emergency room. Emergency hospital was the obvious choice there. |
13th February 2023, 02:06 AM | #22 |
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13th February 2023, 02:18 AM | #23 |
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This reminds me. I think I was listening to a podcast recently and an ad came on for a service to connect you with a doctor who would prescribe ketamine (supposedly for depression if I recall correctly)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketamine Now I'm thinking of a surgery I had on my legs about a year ago. I was awake during the surgery, but drugged up. I don't know what they gave me. They didn't tell me. But the effect described in the Wiki article sounds about like what I experienced. Anyway, the service struck me as a veiled offer to sell a legal way to obtain a recreational drug. Of course, I'm reading between the lines, but they basically told you everything that you would need to tell the doctor to get a prescription, and I'm sure that the doctor they would put you in touch with knows why you are coming and what you want. |
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13th February 2023, 09:46 AM | #24 |
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14th February 2023, 01:10 AM | #25 |
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14th February 2023, 01:37 AM | #26 |
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1st July 2023, 03:16 AM | #27 |
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MDMA: Australia begins world-first psychedelic therapy
The decision will see psilocybin, found in magic mushrooms, used for treatment-resistant depression. It will also allow MDMA, known as ecstasy in tablet form, for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The changes come into effect on Saturday, making Australia the first country to classify psychedelics as medicines at a national level. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-66049989 |
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1st July 2023, 06:57 AM | #28 |
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This is very cool. I've heard lots of accounts of how psilocybin use results in long-term changing of perspective. And these changes are always for the better, else indifferent; I've never heard of any that went wrong, long term. So yeah, very cool.
(Personal, anecdotal accounts, these, that I've heard myself. I'm in no position to claim that thing's objectively good. But it does seem that way, from all that one has seen and heard.) ...It should be very interesting, how this thing pans out. |
1st July 2023, 07:00 AM | #29 |
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There was a good piece on BBC news channel a month or so ago about the problems labs and researchers have getting hold of even tiny amounts of the drugs for testing and study.
As they are classed as having no medical use they are prohibited even for medical research in the UK |
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1st July 2023, 03:11 PM | #30 |
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Canada started doing this from a couple of years ago.
See, for instance: May 15, 2021 Clinics in Canada Offering Psychedelic Therapy (Lots more info if you Google.) |
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1st July 2023, 04:37 PM | #31 |
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Unless I'm mistaken, it's legal, with qualifications, in a few states in the US. Oregon, I think? (I could be mistaken, haven't looked it up.)
Although how Oz is doing it makes it very expensive, but I like how insistent they are about support. They're not just pushing the drug out, they're introducing a full-on therapy. Personally, I think psilocybin has great potential in all three categories: for depression etc; for safe recreational use; and also, and (very) arguably, for changing people's general perspective into something saner and more sustainable than the usual grab-what-you-can-and-the-rest-be-damned mode most of us humans operate in. But it still needs research, a great deal. Far from a done deal, IMV. I'm fascinated with its potential, but personally I wouldn't touch it, not without a great deal more research. And you can't have the mass of data unless it's made legal, and available, so chicken and egg? Good to have a thread here to discuss this thing. Although this one's specifically about this Australia thing. As far as that, I applaud their introducing it, and their insistence on rounded therapy, but this needs to be subsidized, if it is to yield meaningful data that can be built on. |
1st July 2023, 05:31 PM | #32 |
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I consumed an awful lot of psilocybin, and a non-zero quantity of mdma in days of yore.
I can't say whether it had a positive or a negative effect on my PTSD, however, because I was also regularly partaking of the LSD, the speed, and the hashish. Also, I don't suffer from PTSD. It was fun though, and I turned just out fine. |
1st July 2023, 05:46 PM | #33 |
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Spent several autumns in the fields of the Fraser Valley picking our own mushrooms. A nice relaxing high with none of the peaks and valleys of street acid. MDMA became popular after my use of psychedelics had dwindled to practically zero and my contacts had moved on. Always curious but never encountered the drug.
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1st July 2023, 06:22 PM | #34 |
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In my experience, it was ok. I prefered mushrooms and/or acid (with a soupçon of speed if peer-pressured into clubbing).
I can highly recommend trying to play Sonic for the first time whilst utterly spannered on mushrooms and speed. I can, but I won't, because there are risks involved in doing these things. I got lucky. I found non-platform games before it was too late. |
2nd July 2023, 07:56 AM | #35 |
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2nd July 2023, 11:45 AM | #36 |
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2nd July 2023, 07:14 PM | #37 |
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My understanding, anecdotal, and second-hand, from accounts of people I've spoken with, is that psilocybin, unlike other drugs, does not have the peak-valley thing that is inevitable with regular use of any drug, even everyday stuff like beer and coffee. Not so ayahuasca, apparently. Also, its after-effects are (apparently) long-term, permanent maybe. And invariably good, the after-effects of it, a saner personality. ([eta] Nor addictive, apparently. [/eta]). This is really cool ****, if the anecdotal personal accounts I've heard are representative. This is something so easily available, or can be, it's crazy that it hasn't been mainstreamed. (Mainstreamed, following full-on research validating the anecdotal, obviously.). ...Well, it seems to be picking up some momentum, wider awareness about this thing. ------ If anyone's aware of (personal) accounts of this thing having gone seriously wrong --- not just the puking while ingesting, that sometimes happens, I mean after --- then perhaps you could post it here. Even if it isn't backed up, even lacking the where's-your-evidence ****. Even simply friends you've spoken to, which is all my own sample amounts to.. I'm curious if the accounts I've personally heard, about the invariably beneficient (else neutral) after-effects of this thing, are actually representative. |
2nd July 2023, 07:29 PM | #38 |
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For those who are interested in perusing a career in Psychedelic Therapy:
Guide: How to Become a Psychedelic Therapist in Canada |
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2nd July 2023, 07:40 PM | #39 |
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2nd July 2023, 08:19 PM | #40 |
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