Psychedelics As a Failed Experiment?

[perpetualdawn]

Caffeine has already succeeded with inserting itself into the morning meal and turning ordinary men and women into tireless wage earners, what more do you require?

Haha yeah I see what you mean. I would agree that caffeine has a big effect on how the world works.

But nobody expected cups of tea to bring world peace or bring us some kind of new social order.

 

[pmoseman]

They did... in Boston! (jk) I think it is the drug and I feel at least you get the same sort of overconfidence when you drink. Nothing brings people into the same frame of mind like being drunk.

Prior to getting into a fight perhaps.

Only with psychedelics the impulse is different, like being liquored up emboldens the sense for our carnal desires (id), psychedelics embolden another aspect of our subconscious (ego ideal).

 

[JBrandon]

It always pains me when these threads derail into glorification of psychs. We need to assess their value as objectively as possible to avoid being as discredited as the anti-drug propagandists. Part of that is acknowledging that these drugs are not a panacea.

Think about all the Jim Jones types that advocated the importance and value of acid but were just as egoist and vile as anyone they rebelled against.

With that said, i believe even asking the question the OP did is a case of expecting too much from these drugs. They aren't going to unlock anything that a person isn't capable of without them. They can just catalyze that experience.

As medicine it is important to realize that a key tenant of most successful medication is predictability. MDMA is a viable candidate because it generally catalyzes the same type of experience. LSD and psilocybin are considerably more unpredictable. When you're dealing with mental health issues and unstable people, there is considerable risk of adverse outcomes. That is always going to be an issue.

 

[swilow]

^I'm not sure that there has been that much glorification within this thread, but I guess the existence of this very forum indicates that this element is very much present. I've certainly come to a more healthily sceptical viewpoint of psychedelics. I feel that they can catalyse positive changes within individuals but I also feel that those positive changes are possibilities (and perhaps desires) for all humans, tripping or not. The idea of peacefulness and gentleness has existed for millennia before the use of drugs and are surely inherent aims in many humans. It seems to be almost an indictment on our current civilisation that we feel that those ideas are revolutionary.

 

[Tranced]

Psychedelics have had far more subtle and wide-ranging effects on humanity than one can easily quantify.
To call something a failure...first you have to define the parameters of its purpose to begin with.

As far as I'm concerned, 50-odd years is an insignificant amount of time in social and medical history. If the military and intelligence institutions of the west hasn't considered psychedelics a weapon first and foremost (leading to all kinds of horrendous incidents) we might have not lost half a century in proper research.
As for the social effects...they are still reverberating today.
Sure, some idealists might feel that a bunch of utopian ideals did not come about like magic - but a 'side effect' of using psychedelics can be deluded or distorted thinking.
Psychedelic drugs have been a huge catalyst for social change, even if "world peace" has not eventuated.

This.

Psychedelics were no failure.

It's just that their opponent was unimaginably large and dark.

They are working, slowly.

 

[max_freakout]

This thread seems to assume that psychedelic drugs are a new thing, that people have only been using recently in history, that's exactly the mistake that the sixties generation made, before everyone realised that psychedelics are ancient

The idea of peacefulness and gentleness has existed for millennia before the use of drugs

there is no such thing as "millennia before the use of drugs" - drugs have been used since the dawn of humanity (see Mckenna's stoned ape theory)

 

[lovepsychadelics]

^I think the OP is referring to the period of legal psychedelic use during the late 50'/60's as an informal 'social experiment'.

People may put too much faith in the ability of psychedelics to spontaneously enact change within an individual. This effect is hard to define because it may be non-existent. From there, it follows that widespread change initiated by psychedelics occurring across society in general is even more unlikely. All the stuff that was happening in the sixties only featured drug use as a small component; the rest was a result of World War II (baby boom leading to an increase in young middle class people) accompanied by sexual liberation, reliable birth control, civil rights and a global culture related to technological progression (cheap airflight, radio, television, electronic audio reproduction, etc.). In truth, the idea of a psychedelic society has not failed because it has barely been attempted.

You mean when LSD was legal? Before it was banned in the USA in the mid 60's (was it the mid 60's???)? Meth was legal at that time as well... Then along came the fun police when the hippy movement loomed. It was ok for the beatniks to do it though! Nah social experiment it was not. Not enough people were dosed with it. Was the entire globe dosed? Besides some interesting experiments on elephants (200 odd mg's injected) which also caused the elephant to die horribly no real social experiment... unless you include San Fran...

IDK maybe I'm just a nut bag walking textbook definition of polysubstance abuse disorder clothed in skin? Possibly... more than likely.