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Eat Mushrooms.
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| R!CH |
| quote: | Study finds long benefit in illegal mushroom drug
June 30, 2008 - wsbt. com
NEW YORK (AP) — In 2002, at a Johns Hopkins University laboratory, a business consultant named Dede Osborn took a psychedelic drug as part of a research project.
She felt like she was taking off. She saw colors. Then it felt like her heart was ripping open.
But she called the experience joyful as well as painful, and says that it has helped her to this day.
"I feel more centered in who I am and what I'm doing," said Osborn, now 66, of Providence, R.I. "I don't seem to have those self-doubts like I used to have. I feel much more grounded (and feel that) we are all connected."
Scientists reported Tuesday that when they surveyed volunteers 14 months after they took the drug, most said they were still feeling and behaving better because of the experience.
Two-thirds of them also said the drug had produced one of the five most spiritually significant experiences they'd ever had.
The drug, psilocybin, is found in so-called "magic mushrooms." It's illegal, but it has been used in religious ceremonies for centuries.
The study involved 36 men and women during an eight-hour lab visit. It's one of the few such studies of a hallucinogen in the past 40 years, since research was largely shut down after widespread recreational abuse of such drugs in the 1960s.
The project made headlines in 2006 when researchers reported on the volunteers just two months after they got the drug.
Experts emphasize that people should not try psilocybin on their own because it could be harmful. Even in the controlled setting of the laboratory, nearly a third of participants felt significant fear under the effects of the drug. Without proper supervision, someone could be harmed, researchers said.
Osborn, in a telephone interview, recalled a powerful feeling of being out of control during her lab experience. "It was ... like taking off, I'm being lifted up," she said. Then came "brilliant colors and beautiful patterns, just stunningly gorgeous, more intense than normal reality."
And then, the sensation that her heart was tearing open.
"It would come in waves," she recalled. "I found myself doing Lamaze-type breathing as the pain came on."
Yet "it was a joyful, ecstatic thing at the same time, like the joy of being alive," she said. She compared it to birthing pains. "There was this sense of relief and joy and ecstasy when my heart was opened."
With further research, psilocybin (pronounced SILL-oh-SY-bin) may prove useful in helping to treat alcoholism and drug dependence, and in aiding seriously ill patients as they deal with psychological distress, said study lead author Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins.
Griffiths also said that despite the spiritual characteristics reported for the drug experiences, the study says nothing about whether God exists.
"Is this God in a pill? Absolutely not," he said.
The experiment was funded in part by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The results were published online Tuesday by the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
Fourteen months after taking the drug, 64 percent of the volunteers said they still felt at least a moderate increase in well-being or life satisfaction, in terms of things like feeling more creative, self-confident, flexible and optimistic. And 61 percent reported at least a moderate behavior change in what they considered positive ways.
That second question didn't ask for details, but elsewhere the questionnaire answers indicated lasting gains in traits like being more sensitive, tolerant, loving and compassionate.
Researchers didn't try to corroborate what the participants said about their own behavior. But in the earlier analysis at two months after the drug was given, researchers said family and friends backed up what those in the study said about behavior changes. Griffiths said he has no reason to doubt the answers at 14 months.
Dr. Charles Grob, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, called the new work an important follow-up to the first study.
He said it is helping to reopen formal study of psychedelic drugs. Grob is on the board of the Heffter Research Institute, which promotes studies of psychedelic substances and helped pay for the new work. |
do it. |
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| JoNMiTz |
| for every article or study that supports this you can find ten that do not. |
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| R!CH |
| quote: | Originally posted by JoNMiTz
for every article or study that supports this you can find ten that do not. |
so post your top 5. preferably ones from a top-ranking medical research school such as johns hopkins. thanks in advance! |
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| JoNMiTz |
| quote: | Originally posted by R!CH
so post your top 5. preferably ones from a top-ranking medical research school such as johns hopkins. thanks in advance! |
sure thing, here they are: |
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| DaveT |
| quote: | Originally posted by JoNMiTz
for every article or study that supports this you can find ten that do not. |
Reports are known to be twisted and spun by the government and research groups all the time.... the research groups need funding so they are so hard to trust because they will make things look worse so they can get money for more research
Another one (not drug related) is with Astma....you go by the government, media, etc....and you'd think pollution would be rising as it's the most common blame for the rapid rise of peeps with Astma. Yet (source later), compared to 30-40 years ago, the pollution we release now is less than 20% of what it was then...yes, we cause over 80% less polution than we did then...but astma is sky rocketing.
On top of that, when air quality outside is poor, there is actually a significant reduction of astma attacks, emergency room visits due to astma issues, less doctor appointments made due to people having issues. I forget the number, but I want to say like 40% less for each thing.
So who did the study? Kaiser of all groups. And it was done of a long numbers of years...
The interesting part about this? The government (I think) released a report based on the Kaiser findings and left all this info out and twisted things around in the final report and basically came out saying that astma is on the rise because of pollution...the opposite of what this part of the report said.
Now, I'm not saying pollution is OK...it obviously isn't for other reasons like global warming & other effects it can have on your body like increase the risk of cancer...but blaming it for the massive rise of Astma, even when using the simplest statistic of all (it's both somewhat common knowledge that astma is going up while pollution is declining...but you don't really hear that in the same convo, do you?), it doesn't make sense if you think about it. I'll admit that I've always thought the two were related just because I always hear it from the media/government, but when I heard about this report it all kinda made sense...if pollution is declining so much and so fast, how come astma isn't...why is it not only rising, but it's rising very fast....their reasoning is in direct contrast to the statistics...but as long as the public doesn't really question them or the media reports or anyone else and feels like all that can be done is being done, things will just keep on being reported the same as it is now...I imagine things will have to get very bad before the public starts raising questions...
Note I heard this all on the radio like a month ago when my car radio broke and was stuck on some AM station talk Show, hehe. |
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| gypsygirl |
see i knew it ;)
thanks for spreading the word rich, nothing better than heading down the rabbit hole |
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| Miss Julia |
| I'm scared to try it. If I can't handle alcohol or weed... I dunno if I can handle this stuff. |
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| Nerologic |
| quote: | Originally posted by Miss Julia
I'm scared to try it. If I can't handle alcohol or weed... I dunno if I can handle this stuff. |
Take with someone sober to supervise you.
I had to be there for a few friends when then wanted to try "salvia." |
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| LYNDSAYwhaaat? |
| quote: | Originally posted by Nerologic
I had to be there for a few friends when then wanted to try "salvia." |
dude, Salvia is no joke... :stongue: :nervous: :stongue: |
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| rizo |
| quote: | Originally posted by gypsygirl
see i knew it ;)
thanks for spreading the word rich, nothing better than heading down the rabbit hole |
OH YES!!! lets do it together!! =) i love psychedelics!! |
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| sf_addict |
| is there a condensed version for people who have no attention span to read all that? |
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