site banner
self_made_human  amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi  5mo ago (open.substack.com)   1534 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.

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.

"female plants that were triggered to produce buds"

That barely narrows down the range at all, so I don't think it's a good distinguisher from "roadside trash grass".

Also seconding @ArjinFerman. The classic version of this, in context of "relatively easy to make at home" and "I left some fruit (that I'm legally allowed to buy and have) in the cabinet for too long."... and, uh, the actual history of how things went down during prohibition, is wine.

That barely narrows down the range at all, so I don't think it's a good distinguisher from "roadside trash grass".

I dunno what to tell you man -- that's really all it takes. Start some seeds inside with your tomatoes in ~March, plant them, cull the males then throw a trash bag over the rest for a few hours a day in the fall and you will have pretty decent weed. The trash grass mostly comes from people skipping some of the above steps.

Sort of to repeat my question... where did you legally get those seeds? What potency are you expecting this product to have? Why do you reasonably expect said potency from those seeds?

You will be surprised to learn that people have been growing pot illegally for a long time -- you used to be able to buy seeds mail-order; I imagine you can get them on the internet these days without needing to go particularly dark. Or you get them from your pot growing friends. What I'm trying to say here is that the potency of marijuana doesn't depend as much as you seem to think on the strain.

Ok, so, like, not like buying fruit legally at the supermarket, as if it's just a regular Tuesday grocery day. There appear to be significant differences in the types of enforcement schemes that could conceivably be implemented.

What I'm trying to say here is that the potency of marijuana doesn't depend as much as you seem to think on the strain.

What does it depend on?

Ok, so, like, not like buying fruit legally at the supermarket, as if it's just a regular Tuesday grocery day.

No, more like putting the fruit in some sort of carboy, adding yeast, monitoring fermentation, etc -- do you really think it would not have been possible to charge somebody for doing this during prohibition based on the "I just like to store my fruit that way" defense?

What does it depend on?

Whether there are male plants present and whether flowering is correctly triggered before it gets too rainy (for outdoor growing) causing your weed to become mouldy. The proliferation of different strains these days is at least 80% hipsterism.

No, more like putting the fruit in some sort of carboy, adding yeast, monitoring fermentation, etc -- do you really think it would not have been possible to charge somebody for doing this during prohibition based on the "I just like to store my fruit that way" defense?

Yes? If nothing else, a reasonable suspicion that someone bought the seeds of an illegal plant make it much easier to get a search warrant, compared to "we saw him buying some fruit the other day". Is it yeast you want to control? The stuff is literally floating in the air. Is it jars and buckets you're planning to criminalize, or are you planning to catch them red-handed in the middle of the onerous task of "monitoring fermentation", also known as "not doing anything, and checking if the thing is still making bubbles after a couple days"?

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