site banner
self_made_human  C'est la vie  8d ago (open.substack.com)   1100 thread views

A Depressed Shrink Tries Shrooms

open.substack.com

This is a first-person account from a psychiatry resident (me) enrolling in a clinical trial of psilocybin. Somewhere between a trip report, an overview of the pharmacology of psilocybin, and a review of the clinical evidence suggesting pronounced benefits for depression.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Cannabis is even easier tho...

It's pretty hard to beat, "I left some fruit (that I'm legally allowed to buy and have) in the cabinet for too long."

"I dropped some seeds in the bush someplace" isn't bad...

It's much harder to explain how you legally acquired said seeds. Especially with the effort that it takes to get the kind of cannabis people want (not talking any bullshit about roadside trash grass).

"Roadside trash grass" is about the equivalent of the Jungle Juice you are talking about -- making any kind of decent alcohol at home takes a lot more effort than growing good weed -- which is basically just gardening with extra steps.

Please elaborate on what you mean by "decent alcohol" and "good weed". I think there are some shenanigans with quality/potency/etc.

"Decent alcohol" == "doesn't taste like rotten fruit"; "good weed" == "female plants that were triggered to produce buds", more or less? Not a really high standard, although if you wanted to up the ante I'd think that something like "good whiskey that you might find in a store" would be much, much harder to make at home than marijuana of reasonable potency.

(given that I know lots of people who I'd consider connoiseurs who do the latter basically for fun; you can have like five plants for personal use here, which is way more than anyone could reasonably smoke by themselves -- and these guys smoke a lot!)

I do actually also know a guy who bought some kind of still kit and made some harsh high potency moonshine (if you are into that sort of thing) and a kind of cherry liqueur that was... OK? He's sort of bored of it now because (get this!) it's too much work -- whereas the dope-growing guys just trade clones amongst themselves and put them in the backyard.

Not a really high standard, although if you wanted to up the ante I'd think that something like "good whiskey that you might find in a store" would be much, much harder to make at home than marijuana of reasonable potency.

Why whiskey and not wine? Homemade tends to be superior to the stuff you get in a store. Why aim for potency? If you just want to get shitfaced you go for moonshine.

You're not banning it unless you're planning to commit a genocide.

Homemade tends to be superior to the stuff you get in a store.

Homemade wine tends to be superior to the stuff you get in the store? That is... not true at all in my experience. And in the cases where it is, a tonne of work goes into it. Anything plausibly resembling "I left some fruit in a cabinet" is likely to be barely drinkable by desperate college students (I should know), nevermind better than what you get in a store.

You're not banning it unless you're planning to commit a genocide.

Ah yes, the great genocide of 1920 -- how could I have forgotten?

More comments

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats