I basically, and for most cases as it regards practical decision making, agree with what you're saying, though in the interest of accuracy I'll add that drug-induced alterations in gene expression might supply a source of longer term harm that extends significantly beyond damage induced during a drug's presence in the body. Of course, even the FDA doesn't necessarily know about or even suspect such mechanisms when it approves many new drugs, so the point is just a factual one and not anything that can reliably inform RC users habits (beyond avoiding ANY new drug whatsoever, psychoactive or not -- though I do think it wise to avoid adding drugs of uncertain or muddled utility to any frequent regimen because of unknown risks).
Yes, you bring up a good point. And this is what I'm talking about: though we do both agree, you have added a quite-sensible caveat by *postulating an actual mechanism by which 'long-term effects' could be made manifest*. And so it goes, because I am perfectly willing to listen to anybody's concerns without trying to knock those concerns down, but you better have actual ideas to back your shit up with. Saying 'but but but long-term effects!' is a gross generalization even if it were true, and I am not tolerant of bold statements of opinion based on completely unsupported conjecture that are disguised as a statement of fact.
Accordingly, though I find the chances that this – or any mechanism for 'long-twrm harm' – is unlikely in paychedelic RCs, I will elaborate further on your idea of possible genetic factors at play that we are currently unaware of, and could potentially remain unaware of until either negative effects from such genetic mishaps become apparent in our old age or our children are fucked up if the damage extends to germ-line tissue. My addition to this idea is that it may not even be necessary that the DNA itself is altered, because it is becoming more and more apparent that epigenetic factors – that is to say patterns of methylation and acetylation and other -ations that alter the *level of expression* of genes – are every bit as important as genetic factors in determining overall fitness, developmental pathways, phenotype, etc on and on.
This idea of epigenetics as equally important compared to the genes themselves is fascinating for any number of reasons. One such reason that stands out is that in some cases – like morbid obesity (in rats at least) – a parent can actually pass on environmentally- and behaviorally-based traits to their offspring. Put another way, the behavior of an individual, such as grossly overeating, can create changes in the patterns of gene expression. In this case those changes modify the homeostatic state of the animal in question so that it becomes much harder for the animal to shed those extra pounds.
The kicker that makes this pretty mindblowing is that epigenetics changes are actually heritable: the obese mother rat can have offspring who are *predisposed* to obesity themselves – even on a comparably normal diet – because genes that promote fitness are expressed less than in rats born to healthy mothers. Just making up a hypothetical mechanism, this could take the form of a protein or hormone that increases the resting metabolic rate, burning more calories, so partially inhibiting expression of this gene makes the metabolism of the child rat lower than normal, ensuring more calories get stored as adipose tissue (fat).
So in effect you have a genuinely Lamarckian evolutionary mechanism where a trait that *develops during an animals life* instead of existing from birth can be passed to offspring! The catch as far as the totally traditional Lamarckian theory is that these changes are not encoded in the genetic material. But they are heritable nonetheless!
So anyway, ignoring that huge digression, it is possible that certain drugs could modify the patterns of DNA methylation or another similar method of controlling the level of expression of a gene. This wouldn't *necessarily* be as damning as actual changes to the genetic code, because while epigenetic information *can* be heritable it is not *for sure* heritable. On the other hand while this would seem to mitigate some of the danger to our potential offspring should we have used that drug enough to produce such an effect, epigenetics changes are far more easy to induce than genetic changes, and so while the epigenetic changes themselves may or may not be passed on to offspring there would likely be a lot more of them, so probably some of them would get through to any potential children.
Obviously it goes without saying that such mistaken epigenetic changes would likely be harmful to the individual, not just potentially to their kids, but it is important to make the distinction that while it could be very bad for you at least your children would have some level of potential protection, since damaging alterations in gene expression could potentially not manifest strongly until old age, by which time it would be too late to worry about whether you'd pass them on to your kids.
I've brought up shorter versions of the same point you're making in conversations with people that trot out the "but you don't know the long-term harms" nonsense. As soon as I do they try to change the subject or otherwise dismiss it as soon as possible, presumably because they're embarrassed at having their attempt to overextend the influence of what they clearly know nothing about exposed. I think they're just parroting what they've heard other people say without thinking it through. We're all guilty of that in some context or others, but I think we're still right to call someone on their bullshit if they intend that bullshit to be prescriptive or normative (to substantially alter the behavior of others in ways that aren't obviously in their interests).
Yeah you hit it on the head. It is the preaching, the righteousness, and the disingenuous substitution of unsupported, biased opinion as fact that gets my goat. That's why I included the caveat in my post that there were likely people on Bluelight who could potentially worry about 'long-term effects' in earnest good faith. The individual spouting the nonsense in this thread is not one of them however.