5 Harmful Myths We Need to Stop Telling About LSD

5 Harmful Myths We Need to Stop Telling About LSD

 

Image Credit: Getty Images

 

By Tom McKay

First synthesized by chemist Albert Hofmann in 1938, lysergic acid diethlamide, commonly known as LSD, remains one of the most spectacularly sensationalized and popularly misunderstood drugs.

Capable of inducing intense sensory hallucinations and provoking overpowering (and sometimes unpleasant) reflections about the nature of reality, this powerful drug has only recently won recognition for its potential role in psychotherapy and medicine.

And yet, the substance carries with it a large stigma of dangerous outcomes, unwanted flashbacks and medical shortcomings. But what's true and what isn't? Some of these commonly held ideas are inspired by misunderstandings of how drugs work in the body, while others are relics of drug-war propaganda first circulated decades ago. But all of these misconceptions unfairly relegate a substance which has profound effects on the human psyche to the margins of society and science.

 

1. LSD is extremely dangerous for you and for society.

 

Source: Mic/Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs

The widespread perception of LSD as a uniquely destructive narcotic has to do with the drug's ability to cause impressive and deeply affecting hallucinations and changes of perception. But compared to legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco, LSD is a blip in the radar and actually one of the least harmful common drugs.

According to a 2010 study that attempted to quantify the social harm posed by each commonly used psychoactive drug in the U.K., compared to the much more common drugs like alcohol heroin, cocaine and even cannabis, LSD is not very harmful to either the user or others. The study's lead researcher, David Nutt, was dismissed in 2009 from a senior U.K. advisory position for advocating reform to drug laws.

The results make intuitive sense — someone who drinks regularly is probably more likely to get in a preventable accident than the occasional tripper who pays attention to set and setting — but they also align with recent research by Norwegian researchers Pål-Ørjan Johansen and Teri Suzanne Krebs that found psychedelics "induce profound experiences while at the same time having a safety profile comparable to many activities of daily life, such as riding a bicycle or playing soccer."

 

2. You'll experience intense "acid flashbacks" years later.

 

 

 

Source: Mic/YouTube @ https://youtu.be/v9ULdvk2I5c

Taking a single hit of LSD probably won't set you up for terrifying repeat trips for the rest of your life. According to io9, the myth of flashbacks may date back to a 1991 Drug Enforcement Agency meeting in which a speaker "allegedly tied the number of homeless in San Francisco to the use of LSD in the 1960s and the Summer of Love."

The kinds of flashbacks popularized by drug-war panic don't actually happen, and those that do are usually brief and mild. A small minority of users, however, may experience hallucinogen persisting perception disorder, which manifests itself in audiovisual and sensory distortions like flashing colors, visual illusion and visions of fractals and other trippy phenomena long after the LSD has left the body. 

HPPD is poorly understood, but probably very rare. In 2002, psychiatrist John Halpern concluded previous studies on the condition hadn't properly established whether the reported symptoms could be linked to factors like other drug use or neurological and psychological disorders.

"I think the majority of people could trip relatively safely, but there's a discrete percentage. ... Maybe one person in 20 will develop serious, continuous problems related to the hallucinogenic experience," psychiatrist Henry David Abraham told Popular Science in 2013. "But that's true for virtually any drug."

 

3. It will drive you insane.

 

Source: Flickr / Hubert Yu

 

Earlier this year, Johansen and Krebs, the Norwegian researchers, published a large-scale study positing no evidence of a link between LSD and mental health problems. A similar American study of more than 190,000 people's health records even found some evidence that classic psychedelic use was associated with lower lifetime rates of suicidal thoughts and actions.

University of California, Los Angeles, pediatric psychologist Charles Grob told Nature that Krebs and Johansen's study "assures us that there were not widespread 'acid casualties' in the 1960s," although he cautioned that in isolated cases symptoms like HPPD can and do occur.

"We are not claiming that no individuals have ever been harmed by psychedelics," Johns Hopkins University behavioral pharmacology researcher Matthew Johnson, who worked on the American study, told Nature. "Anecdotes about acid casualties can be very powerful — but these instances are rare."

 

4. LSD has no medicinal benefits whatsoever.

 

  

Source: Keystone-France/Getty Images

Psychedelic drugs may be able to help terminally ill patients come to terms with their mortality and avoid much of the suffering that comes with death anxiety. In one Swiss study, 12 fatally ill patients were administered varying doses of LSD as a complement to traditional psychotherapy. The eight patients given larger doses of the drug improved, while the four others got worse.

Halpern, who runs McLean Hospital's Laboratory for Integrative Psychiatry, ran a series of experiments with psilocybin with similar results. He told the New York Times that psychedelics cause experiences in which people feel:

"... something you are a part of, something else is out there that's bigger than you, that there is a dazzling unity you belong to, that love is possible and all these realizations are imbued with deep meaning ... [it] gives you, just when you're on the edge of death, hope for something more."

Halpern's research has also found acid may help treat patients suffering from dreaded cluster headaches, chronic and excruciating migraines that can often be debilitating.

"One patient had cluster headaches for 27 years. He had debilitating three-month long cycles, and wasn't responding to meds. He was devastated. He was getting 40 cluster headaches a week," Halpern told the Daily Beast, adding that it seems to send patients into "remission. It's astounding."

Other research has indicated that psychedelic substances like LSD and psilocybin could be also remarkably effective aids for people looking to quit smoking or ditch their alcoholism for good.

 

5. The government would never lie to us about LSD.

  

Source: SAUL LOEB/Getty Images

Years before President Richard Nixon started the war on drugs, the U.S. government and CIA ran the MK-ULTRA program from 1953 to 1964. The project used LSD on Americans to determine whether the drug could aid hypnosis and indoctrination or simply be used as an instrument of terror against the agency's enemies. CIA agents also initially believed that acid might be useful as a truth serum, using it during interrogations.

Time magazine wrote that since the tests were "completely uncontrolled" they ultimately proved "useless in providing useful data." Additionally, since this was years before very much was known about LSD and its effects, the CIA could have wildly endangered hundreds of unknowing persons. Safe administration of LSD relies on crucial elements like consent, preparation and mood, none of which could be found in the CIA experiments.

One former deputy U.S. marshal told SF Weekly that, while high on an unsafe dose of LSD during the MK-ULTRA experiments in 1957, he stole two service pistols and used them in a botched robbery attempt under the influence of the drug. A 1951 outbreak of mass hallucinations in the French village of Pont-Saint-Esprit officially blamed on ergot poisoning has been widely speculated to be linked to MK-ULTRA.

Today, the Drug Enforcement Administration keeps LSD classified as a Schedule I drug, labeling it one of the "most dangerous drugs" with "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse." A growing body of scientific research, however, may ultimately prove that the blanket prohibition on LSD is based on another set of lies.

Correction: June 9, 2015
An earlier version of this article attributed an article titled "The Legacy of the CIA's Secret LSD Experiments on America" to the New York Times. The piece was published in Time magazine.

Tom McKay is a staff writer at Mic who covers national politics, media, policing and the war on drugs. He has previously written for The Daily Banter, Wonkette and MTV News.

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From Science.Mic @ http://mic.com/articles/118716/5-harmful-myths-we-need-to-stop-telling-about-lsd

Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out

(58:28) @ https://youtu.be/78WvMFKc4hM

For more information about LSD see http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/lsd

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Cannabis and the Pineal Gland: Turn On theThird Eye

Cannabis and the Pineal Gland:

Turn On theThird Eye

,

by Cosmic ૐ ☯neness

The Pineal Gland or the 'Seat of the Soul' as described by Rene Descartes, is the focal point of our spiritual guiding system which makes us go beyond the five senses of rationality and become multisensory, tuned into and aware of higher dimensions of consciousness within a holographic cosmos. Cannabis or Marijuana among other psychedelics facilitates the activation of the pineal gland and helps turn on the third eye or the mind's eye directing our spiritual evolution to wholeness.

Here is an article by Chris Bennett on Cannabis & the Power of the Pineal Gland ...

Pineal Power

((( The Pineal Gland is the Key to Psychedelic Enlightenment )))

The pineal gland, located in the centre of the brain, is about a quarter of an inch in size, reddish-gray, and weighs about one-tenth of a gram. Unlike other parts of the brain which come in pairs, the pineal gland is singular. Its location in the center of the brain and presence in other species indicates it is an older part of humanity's evolutionary brain system.

The pineal gland is present in all lower vertebrae. In other species, like birds, reptiles and frogs, the pineal gland is called the parietal eye or "third-eye" as its functions closely resemble that of an actual eye. In these other species, the pineal gland has components of an actual eye, with a cornea, rod and cone. It is considered to be the vestige of a functional sense organ of early primitive vertebrates.

Directly affected by the light taken in through the eyes, the pineal regulates sleep, menstrual cycles, mating seasons, hibernation, seasonal flight patterns and many other "instinctual" behaviors.

: Tryptamine Trippiness :

Psychedelic researcher Dr Rick Strassman has explained how the pineal gland "is quite active in synthesizing compounds related to serotonin, an important neurotransmitter in the brain. Neurotransmitters are the chemical messengers allowing communication among individual nerve cells. Most typical psychedelic drugs, such as LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, and DMT are active in brain sites which are also affected by serotonin. In addition, most of these drugs are similar in their chemical structure to serotonin."

Strassman states that most of the above substances belong to the "tryptamine" class of drugs, and proposed that the pineal gland produces "one or two endogenous tryptamines found in human blood and cerebrospinal fluid. This latter fluid continually bathes the brain, and compounds found in it most likely affect brain function." Strassman also explains how "psychedelic drugs, meditational states, spontaneous near-death experiences and other phenomena which may induce stereotypic death/rebirth and paradisal/hellish states act via the pineal gland.

Lyttle points to the universal mystic vision of God as an all-consuming white light, and postulates that on a physiological level, this experience is produced from chemical reactions in the pineal gland which is extremely light sensitive. "Light, the eyes and the 'third eye' or pineal gland form a triad which directly controls and regulates normal or altered consciousness and many bodily functions? these three factors are also directly related to, or implicated in, mystical states and the 'psychedelic' experience."

Visions of white light are not only associated with mysticism and psychedelic explorations, but are also a prevalent image recorded by those who experience the near-death state. A reason for this recurring theme in near-death states may be found with Dr Strassman, who suggests that after death, as the pineal gland shuts down, some of the chemical present in it may turn into "psychedelic" drugs!

According to Dr Strassman, the pineal gland may not only play an important role in death, but also in birth, possibly even in rebirth... The pineal gland first becomes visible in the human fetus at the same time as does the clear differentiation of the fetus into female or male gender. The time for both of these events is 49 days, the period of time that, according to several Buddhist texts, the life force of a deceased individual coalesces around its next corporeal existence. If the life force does indeed enter through the pineal, the manifestation of this coming and going would be the release of psychedelic tryptamines, which would mediate the visionary experiences associated with near-death, and near-birth states.

: Spiritual Traditions :

Certain initiatory cults, such as Tantrism, Kundalini and Gnosticism, acknowledged the role of the pineal gland in the spiritual process. The spiritual/instinctual life force was seen as a serpent, due to its physical structure extending from the genitals, through the spine and up into its single all-seeing eye in the pineal gland. These spiritual systems focussed around the raising of this primordial serpentine energy, based in the genitals and at the core of the pro-creative process.

Through certain yogic practices this energy can be reversed and forced to travel up the spine into the brain, where it is reputed to cause "enlightenment". In the Kundalini system, which has seven distinct energy centers, the pineal gland has been variously identified with the "Ajna Chakra" and alternatively the "Sahasrara Chakra". Both pre-Christian Mithraic and second century Gnostic texts also distinctly refer to the pineal gland in relation to seven distinct energy centers and this serpentine energy.

Not surprisingly, a common experience of those who have successfully raised their kundalini is the vision of all-consuming white light. More importantly, the devotee who successfully raises the kundalini experiences a radical switch in consciousness, obliterating the sense of individuation, and enters Nirvana. Another potential reference to this curious little gland may occur at the end of the New Testament book of Revelation, where we find that the elect will know God intimately, "his name will be in their foreheads," which is where the pineal deeply lies. 

 Noting the gland's strong connection with light, the rest of the passage is interesting: "There will be no more night; they will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light." Likewise in the Qabalistic tradition, the primordial archetypical man, Adam Kadmon, shines forth with a light from his forehead that was rich in complex patterns and linguistic symbols.

Similar imagery occurs in the Persian tradition of the light-like sacred fluid, the "vivifying and spermatic" xvarenah. "Ahura Mazda is preeminently the possessor of xvarenah, but this 'flame' also springs from the forehead of Mithra and like a solar light emanates from the heads of sovereigns." This mind-light from the forehead is also identical with the 3rd Eye of Shiva, which when opened in the individual burns away the concept of ego-bound consciousness, and when opened collectively has the potential to burn away the ties and fetters of the Old World Order.

Perhaps if enough modern psychonauts achieve the pineal experience we can push this new frame of mind onto the rest of ego-bound humanity. Here at the turning of the millennia, in the apocalyptic year of 1999, never has the potential for the state of mind which has been the goal of yogic sages, and psychedelic voyagers alike been so possible to attain for humanity as a whole.

Source : Cannabis Culture via Psychedelic Adventure @ http://www.psychedelicadventure.net/2009/08/cannabis-pineal-gland-turn-on-third-eye.html

For more information about entheogens and psychedelics see http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/entheogens
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