Should LSD be classified as a hard drug or as a soft drug?

[Elven Warriorr]

It's a hard drug, there's no question about that. The fact that people are sent into mental institutions and psych wards for the rest of their lives proves that totally. There's no way in the world that I would classify this drug as some soft drug.

Just check out these people's stories in this video, and there's no denying that LSD is should be classified as a hard drug.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdh3Em-fAEo

Surely, if alcohol should be classified as a hard drug (which is a drug that can result in fatalities from the physical withdrawal symptoms), then LSD, which can send somebody in permanent trips (which happened to some people) and which can also screw up somebody's lives forever with psychosis or schizophrenia, should most certainly be classified as some hard drug.

 

[fixingahole]

That's settled then. Good.

 

[.:Holy::Toast:.]

A hard drug, I don't think a soft drug can send you into psychotic states for up to 10 hours, perhaps more

 

[fixingahole]

Once it's classified as a "hard drug" (which it is in my country), what then?

 

[RobotRipping]

yeah the whole permanent trips thing is a big issue. The majority of people i knew growing up are now stuck in permanent LSD trips, not to mention all the people from the 60s. It's a terrible epidemic that is ruining the world, one LSD user at a time. If people knew that LSD caused a permanent trip then i'm sure they wouldn't go near it. Even if you don't get the permanent trip, as holy toast points out, going into psychotic states for 10 hours is very dangerous to the public and the person themselves. I don't even want to get into the whole LSD in the spinal cord thing, taking all that into account, LSD is infinitely more dangerous than any drug known, except perhaps PCP.

The distinction between hard/soft drugs is absolutely stupid, it's a false dichotomy.

 

[freehugs]

yeah the whole permanent trips thing is a big issue. The majority of people i knew growing up are now stuck in permanent LSD trips, not to mention all the people from the 60s. It's a terrible epidemic that is ruining the world, one LSD user at a time. If people knew that LSD caused a permanent trip then i'm sure they wouldn't go near it. Even if you don't get the permanent trip, as holy toast points out, going into psychotic states for 10 hours is very dangerous to the public and the person themselves. I don't even want to get into the whole LSD in the spinal cord thing, taking all that into account, LSD is infinitely more dangerous than any drug known, except perhaps PCP.

The distinction between hard/soft drugs is absolutely stupid, it's a false dichotomy.

I'm having a very hard time deciphering if you're serious or not.

 

[fixingahole]

If you put a blotter into a milkshake, rather than eating it, it usually becomes a soft drug because of chemical softening of the blotter.

 

[cyberius]

yeah the whole permanent trips thing is a big issue. The majority of people i knew growing up are now stuck in permanent LSD trips, not to mention all the people from the 60s. It's a terrible epidemic that is ruining the world, one LSD user at a time. If people knew that LSD caused a permanent trip then i'm sure they wouldn't go near it. Even if you don't get the permanent trip, as holy toast points out, going into psychotic states for 10 hours is very dangerous to the public and the person themselves. I don't even want to get into the whole LSD in the spinal cord thing, taking all that into account, LSD is infinitely more dangerous than any drug known, except perhaps PCP.

The distinction between hard/soft drugs is absolutely stupid, it's a false dichotomy.

I think this is a result of ignorance rather the drug itself. LSD overdose is rarely fatal, but is very psychologically damaging, and people rarely realize this, and take 10 strips or 5 drops at a time.

I would call it a soft drug, as it is not addictive, has low potential for bad trips if you use it correctly, and does not cause permanent damage if used correctly.

 

[.:Holy::Toast:.]

If you put a blotter into a milkshake, rather than eating it, it usually becomes a soft drug because of chemical softening of the blotter.

Ohhhh god I lol'd haaaahaha

But as far as permanent LSD trips I've not heard much about that :/
Definitely HPPD and very very heavy binge users not quite being the same afterwards, short attention span, anger management problems, all that jazz.
Nothing I would classify as a permanent LSD trip and definitely not an epidemic.

 

[Elven Warriorr]

yeah the whole permanent trips thing is a big issue. The majority of people i knew growing up are now stuck in permanent LSD trips, not to mention all the people from the 60s. It's a terrible epidemic that is ruining the world, one LSD user at a time. If people knew that LSD caused a permanent trip then i'm sure they wouldn't go near it. Even if you don't get the permanent trip, as holy toast points out, going into psychotic states for 10 hours is very dangerous to the public and the person themselves. I don't even want to get into the whole LSD in the spinal cord thing, taking all that into account, LSD is infinitely more dangerous than any drug known, except perhaps PCP.

The distinction between hard/soft drugs is absolutely stupid, it's a false dichotomy.

Which is nothing more than some stupid myth.

And, as this article states.

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_myth1.shtml

"Myth Debunking
LSD Does Not Stay in your Body Forever
by Erowid
v2.2 - May 2006
Citation: Last J. "LSD Does Not Stay in your Body Forever". Erowid.org. May 2006; erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_myth1.shtml
There is an often circulated myth that once you have taken LSD, it remains in your body forever. One thing that keeps these rumors circulating the is fact that some people (though very few) experience "flashbacks" (generally within a few months after a hallucinogenic experience). It is universally accepted, however, that these flashbacks are not the result of LSD remaining in the system.

LSD is almost entirely metabolized within a day after ingestion. Since the half-life of LSD is only a few hours, only a very small amount of LSD remains even at the end of the trip, and this is excreted in the urine. All traces are undetectable after several days and are certainly gone entirely within a couple of weeks. As detection technology improves and thresholds drop (it is now possible to detect picograms reliably), the time that incredibly small amounts of it could be detected will extend.

It has long been reported that LSD is fully metabolized almost immediately after ingestion. This was based on research done in the 50's and 60s which used instruments not sensitive enough to detect the extremely small amounts of the chemical.

Occasionally, people claim that LSD has been found in spinal fluid years after the last time LSD was taken. There is no support for this claim. If anyone knows of a research article that has looked at spinal fluid of LSD users for LSD, please let us know.

Although research in the 1960s found the half-life of LSD was around 3 hours, more recent research shows that LSD's metabolism takes several hours and its peak plasma levels occur at around 3-5 hours after ingestion. It is important to note that such research is highly dependent on the individuals who were used for the research, with metabolism of many drugs varying by up to 2-3 times, larger numbers of research subjects reduces the likelihood of having a skewed range."

 

[Solipsis]

A hard drug, I don't think a soft drug can send you into psychotic states for up to 10 hours, perhaps more

Cannabis is one if not 'the' soft drug and GHB was once considered one, but both can induce psychotic states in people who have latent mental illness.

With people who are sent to a psychiatric ward after LSD use it is hard to say whether they would eventually be sent there anyway because they were already sick. I don't believe there are many medical professionals who think that LSD can cause a mental illness out of the blue.

Whether something is a hard drug or not depends on the legal standpoint and the harm standpoint. By that I mean that often people look at how a drug is scheduled to decide on that, because it is believed that the legislation is based on how much harm a drug is thought to do. Unfortunately people with alternative agenda's and people who know jackshit about these drugs make legislation so it is hard to trust that. LSD does not cause physical addiction and is non-toxic to the body, psychological addiction happens only rarely. Yes, people need to be screened for mental instability before taking psychedelics, and those offering psychedelics to others should keep this in mind. This just doesn't always happen, but it is far too easy to blame it 100% on the drug. Mental destabilization happens because of a combination of factors.
LSD should not be used by people who have reason to believe they are not very mentally stable just like alcohol should not be used by people who know they will be sitting behind the wheel of a car.

And if you want to argue something, please don't provide a link to a Scientology video. They are probably among the last people I would trust to have sound judgement.

 

[Zalo]

I can't tell if this is a serious thread or not lol

 

[Solipsis]

There's some major bullshit on my barometer, that's for sure..

 

[Morphling]

There's some major bullshit on my barometer, that's for sure..

*nods*

Doesn't fucking matter one bit. What a bunch of shit this thread is.

 

[fixingahole]

Is a small dose of a hard drug still harder than a large dose of a soft drug? Maybe if I cancel the '1/hard' terms on both sides I'll get the answer?

 

[Solipsis]

Consider that this is about the potential of a drug, which is not so much about the things it probably doesn't do if you dose low and are responsible with it but rather what it could do if you are not careful to stick to some 'unwritten rules', and what it could do even if you did your best to be careful.

Only 1 in a couple thousand people has an LSD incident if I remember some old numbers. Again, note that most people who make those statistics aren't the ones dosing low, who are 'right in the head'.
Nobody dies exclusively from the effects of the drug by itself.
And good luck finding an LSD addict.

So even though I feel for those rare cases who do trigger an episode with the drug, I don't see how those 'numbers' ^ could ever hold up making LSD into a categorized hard drug.
Putting the exceptions in the spotlight is not a fair way to argue this. Old school demonising anti-drug propaganda and generally incident politics today work that way. Don't be fooled.

 

[Elven Warriorr]

Consider that this is about the potential of a drug, which is not so much about the things it probably doesn't do if you dose low and are responsible with it but rather what it could do if you are not careful to stick to some 'unwritten rules', and what it could do even if you did your best to be careful.

Only 1 in a couple thousand people has an LSD incident if I remember some old numbers. Again, note that most people who make those statistics aren't the ones dosing low, who are 'right in the head'.
Nobody dies exclusively from the effects of the drug by itself.
And good luck finding an LSD addict.

So even though I feel for those rare cases who do trigger an episode with the drug, I don't see how those 'numbers' ^ could ever hold up making LSD into a categorized hard drug.
Putting the exceptions in the spotlight is not a fair way to argue this. Old school demonising anti-drug propaganda and generally incident politics today work that way. Don't be fooled.

Even low doses of LSD can result in some bad trips.

 

[hebb22]

Hard through and through

 

[Solipsis]

The term bad trip is controversial: yes there certainly exist bad trips that are not learning experiences but for example just sensory overload, but they typically do not happen at low to moderate doses in a safe and controlled environment. The term seems to be used a lot by beginning trippers and those who have never tripped at all.
In my experience, after people have tripped a number of times with varying results they start to put negative experiences into perspective. They can actually be therapeutic because they confront you with difficult things, stuff in your life you apparently need to work out. If you are confronted with something like that, you can try to run away from it or deal with it. Trying to avoid it almost always fails, especially with beginners, because they are fighting and denying themselves and are not as much in control yet of altered states of consciousness.
You can minimize the risk of badly guided first trips by having an experienced trip-sitter present who is familiar with the quirks of getting to know psychedelics.

So yes, taking that into account, if you don't know what you're doing you can have a bad time running away from thoughts you don't like, but truthfully that can happen even when sober. If you use such an opportunity to honestly and openly try to work on stuff, trying to change what you might and to accept what you cannot... I think experiences that are still horrible happening, especially at low doses would be rare.

Read the last portion of that other post of mine again: the possibility of a negative experience does not automatically make it a hard drug. Well at least that is my opinion, who is qualifying these things anyway?

Hazards of tripping can be minimized by appropriate use, I think the problem with real harddrugs such as crack cocaine is that it is hard or impossible to minimize certain risks such as cardiotoxicity.
In other words: if you can use a drug appropriately but don't, how is that fair towards the drug?

 

[ParappaTheRapper]

I disagree with the wbole distinction altogether. in sone places heroin is given out and clinics amd its theorized that some people need it similar to insulin
cocaine has medical amd theraputic uses in smaller doses, same with alcochol. A bottle of advil might kill you, but an mg of acid wont.