Why would the psychedelic use be occasional while the crack or heroin was used regularly?
That's apples and oranges man. But I can still clarify for you.
Heroin carries physical risk more than mental (notwithstanding addiction), and while crack can make you pretty weird while high, those oddities go away when you're sober. Psychedelics on the other hand, while generally much safer physically, can pretty easily radically alter personalities, and with heavy use, can lead to psychosis.
It is estimated that 23% of heroin users will at some point become dependent on it (
source / NIDA), while I doubt 23% of psychedelics users will get into such deep trouble. Of course we have to take into account the reasons to begin with either type of drug to begin with - recreational use of heroin can turn ugly while abusing it to numb yourself from the get go is of course asking for trouble.
Similarly we have to ask if people with wild ideas who want to explore their mental horizons on psychedelics have a relatively high chance of latent disorders to begin with. They probably do. Still it feels like hedonistic and escapist drugs are by definition more likely to wreck you than drugs that help with self-realization and self-actualization.
I'm having a bit of a hard time finding hard statistics on the percentage of suicides, psychiatrics hospitalizations and things like that from psychedelics but I think I read that the numbers are relatively low and not nearly as alarming as that 23%. If that were true, I would handle this entire thing differently in terms of recommendations. Oh here is some info:
Because of inadequate reporting and problems in interpreting symptoms and causes, it is hard to tell how common adverse reactions are. At Bellevue Hospital in New York from early 1965 to 1967, 200 patients appeared with complaints related to LSD—mostly panic reactions and flashbacks (Frosch, 1969). By 1969 Bellevue was seeing only one LSD reaction every 2 weeks, and most of these were thought to be borderline schizophrenics in whom the drug had precipitated a psychosis (Stern & Robbins, 1969). A 1971 Canadian government survey of the hospital records of 22,885 psychiatric patients found 67 cases (0.3 percent) where LSD was mentioned as a factor in the primary diagnosis; most of these patients had used many drugs, and the precise influence of LSD was often unclear (Final Report, 1973, p. 378 ).
(source)
In reality, I think I know of maybe one person who lost it due to psychedelics but the majority of heroin users and a worrisome number of coke/speed users I know are problematic or at least at times.
Admittedly, something like ketamine is something I previously glorified but I have discovered the risks and dark side of it. Yet after years of use by myself and people I know - psychedelics remain a positive, if sometimes unpredictable, force in my life and in my mind.
I know amphetamines, sedatives, opiates and other drugs all have their place in pharmacy but I don't think it is wise for healthy people to get involved with them, and if I do myself I acknoweledge that it is not good for my life.
Yet psychedelics have been investigated as therapeutic tools, for troubled people guided by a professional yes, but also for healthy people who can use therapy even if they are not sick or diagnosed to begin with. They too can benefit from psychedelics in ways I think are unique.
Yes in the end we try to compare apples and oranges but if the apples are of "different size or weight" we can still tell something by it.
Maybe the people I know do not represent an honest slice of the population: to take psychedelics you need to know yourself at least a bit, or you might be unable to make a proper decision about taking them and how to begin with. I can see this as a risk in places where people might be less educated and self-developed. There psychedelics could do a lot of damage. Especially exotic and new super potent psychedelics might be a disaster waiting to happen.
However the concluding point is probably that if some standards of self-reflection and mental stability are met psychedelics seem to rarely be damaging and instead often have great positive potential for things like life-affirmation.
Yet with euphoriant hard-drugs it seems to me that their way of rewarding is sneaky and beyond the immediate high I feel wrong about doing them.
Moderate use of stims or opiates can help in general everyday functioning but IMO they only cover up some apparent defecit like pain or unwanted thoughts or feelings that ask for quenching or a lack of energy that begs for boosting. Yes I depress and boost myself but I don't feel particularly *right* about it, while psychedelics can help me feel deeply myself and reminding me the importance of being alive and things like that... though if I am unable to trip for months, or a year, I can totally manage. Seems more healthy and beneficial to me.
Well yeah as long as we try to compromise things that cannot be compared without first attaching a certain (negative) value to addiction, insanity and other things... this discussion can continue endlessly.