Ever since Nixon started the War on Drugs, people have really been freaking out over the danger of illicit drugs, particularly psychedelics. Whilst a lot has changed, the far majority of people in this modern day society do not approve of psychedelic use.
We get told that taking LSD will make you crazy and cause a host of mental health issues, and that it can even induce psychosis and really screw up your life. But what they don't tell you is that psychedelics have a wide array of medicinal and therapeutic properties.
I'm not here to promote the use of psychedelics, nor am I here to preach that it's for everybody. I'm just sick of this bullshit stigmatized close-minded & outdated view on the use of these incredible tools. I mean lets face it, the only argument against psychedelics is their link to mental health issues. And I'm am glad to announce that this argument has been debunked over and over again.
There was an article published in the Journal of Psycho-pharmacology that studied the link between psychedelic drugs and mental health problems. They concluded that there was a lack of evidence that psychedelics increase the rate of mental health problems on a population level, and admitted that the danger of psychedelic drugs was greatly exaggerated, particularly LSD, at least if they were to judge on the basis of drug laws.
A longitude study found that people who had used ayahuasca 360 times each in legally-protected religious ceremonies scored significantly lower on all psychopathology measures compared to people who regularly participated in non-psychedelic religious groups, both t baseline and at a one year follow-up.
Similar longitude studies were conducted on Native Americans with their regular use of peyote, and people in Netherlands and their use of psilocybin mushrooms. Not only was there no increase in mental health issues but the study found that there was an increase in overall mental health! Crazy right?
Only 1 per 70,000 occasions of peyote use produced an adverse psychiatric reaction. 1 in 70,000. And what's even more crazy, is that those 1 in 70,000 included people with schizophrenia or other mental illness. Did you know that a horse rider suffers a serious injury every 350 hours. that might seem like a really random example, but I'm trying to illustrate the absurdity behind the so-called "dangers" of psychedelics when compared to perfectly normal activities.
The whole idea of psychedelics often causing lasting mental health problems or being labelled as "extremely dangerous" are all based on case reports, rumors, and "worst-case scenarios," politics, cultural biases, and outdated theories. There is no, and never was any scientific or empirical evidence to suggest that psychedelic substances often cause mental health issues.
Even the old studies from the 60s that had 3 patients have prolonged exaggeration of schizophrenic symptoms after LSD, had no control group and were expected to worsen regardless of LSD(Fink et al., 1966).
In the Netherlands, where psychedelic psilocybin mushrooms are legally sold in shops, the rate of ambulance calls leading to hospitalization for acute psilocybin-related psychiatric problems or injury has been estimated at one hospitalization per 50,000 servings of psilocybin mushrooms sold (most cases involved alcohol and other drugs) (CAM, 2007).
So as you can see, what society has been telling us about the dangers of psychedelic substances being dangerous is all complete bs. Whilst it can be dangerous to a very small percentage of the population, if you treat these drugs with respect and do them in an optimal set & setting, these substances can have very profound therapeutic effects.
Like always, do your own research before making any sudden conclusions, especially when all your data is given by the government.
References:
CAM (Coördinatiepunt Assessment en Monitoring nieuwe drugs) (2007) Aanvullende informatie paddoincidenten in Amsterdam. Bilthoven: Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu.
The link between use of psychedelic drugs and mental health problems Ragnar Nesvåg1, Jørgen G Bramness2 and Eivind Ystrom1,3Journal of Psychopharmacology 2015, Vol. 29(9) 1035–1040
Fink M, Simeon J, Haque W, et al. (1966) Prolonged adverse reactions to LSD in psychotic subjects. Arch Gen Psychiatry 15:450–454.