Comments: Swiss Psychiatrist Using LSD With Terminally Ill Patients
and since when did that stop you?
Philip Dawdy responds: quite often.
Posted by grassleyrocks at July 27, 2009 02:30 PM
"The drug, he says, gave him a gentle push, an energy boost at a time when he felt miserable and listless."
I had this exact same reaction to LSD the two or three times I did it in my younger life. The effects of the drug provided me a completely unique perspective on my being-in-the-world, and it allowed me to put my mental health problems in a completely unique, larger context. I can imagine that for terminally ill patients such an experience might be beneficial. If you only have a short time to live, what do you have to lose by trying?
I'd like to see more research on LSD use in depression patients - not as a drug to rely on, but as a tool to jolt the mind a bit, offering a much needed new perspective from what, for some, has become a very stagnant, mundane world. It would be fascinating to see LSD therapy in conjunction with CBT, ie, the drug providing a push with the CBT teaching one how to re-imagine that drug-induced push and replicate its good manifestations without the drug. I suppose this is what yoga masters do with meditation.
Posted by The Skeptic at July 27, 2009 02:32 PM
I wrote a 2-part post on the development and use of LSD in the 1950s and 1960s. It's ban had more to do with politics then any actual evidence that LSD was harmful.
http://drvitelli.typepad.com/providentia/2008/02/tripping-out-pa.html
http://drvitelli.typepad.com/providentia/2008/02/tripping-out--1.html
Posted by Romeo Vitelli at July 27, 2009 04:01 PM
I would be very wary of it but a few days ago in looking up edible mushrooms the description I found of the effects of psychedelic mushrooms reminded me of a hebephrenic schizophrenic.
These things can provide insight into disease as well as avenues to treatment. However we need to remember as with the atypical antipsychotics and other drugs with CNS effects that they are never clean and their may be effects on the heart, muscles, pancreas, etc. that may only show up with long term use.
Natural products in plants and animals are typically there for a reason, either to kill or help them digest their prey, to prevent from being eaten (often by poisoning the attacker), or to kill their competition.
I really hate it when people try to push anything natural as safe. They're drugs and poisons too.
Posted by Salmon at July 27, 2009 04:52 PM
The effects of the drugs they forced on me when I was in hospital/jail could be described as LSD type. But then psychiatrists would claim that is my mental illness (first) not the effect of their drugs they forced on me.
I was unresponsive in the prison normal people call a hospital, happy in whatever place I was in my mind. Nurse says "he isnt eating" perhaps I was judged catatonic, the doctor prescribes something, I was injected, some time later I visually hallucinated and felt fear from the colorful visions I could not turn off , as they were in my mind, I cry/scream . I am forced out of my chosen mental purgatory.
Posted by mark p.s.2 at July 27, 2009 05:40 PM
CBT for depression?
I loved to read that before going to sleep!
LOL
It's funny.
Oops!
Funny for me but not for those who not are aware of what therapy really is.
CBT is good for fear of roaches. It works wonderfully for these cases. One day I'll do CBT to stop running away from the roach to get the insecticide bottle to spray on the poor insect.
They are also God's creatures and don't deserve such a tragic death.
I agree with Salmon when he says that natural stuffs can be harmful.
I didn't read the article about LSD and terminal patients.
Posted by Ana at July 27, 2009 06:32 PM
I loved the 'cid. On it, it's almost impossible (and unpleasnt) to conceptualize tomorrow. It requires you to be totally in the NOW.
Posted by Tony at July 27, 2009 09:14 PM
Salmon observed:
"These things can provide insight into disease [and mental illness] as well as avenues to treatment."
I think this is the best comment on this subject. Well said.
I think it's important to keep an open mind to scientific research of all kinds, especially the kind that challenges the psychiatric status quo.
Posted by The Skeptic at July 27, 2009 10:07 PM
I would not consider it as a psychiatric drug ever because there is no “off” switch . It could be torture. For this to be a medical treatment there has to be an near instant antidote, in case something goes wrong.
Posted by mark p.s.2 at July 28, 2009 03:55 AM
"These things can provide insight into disease as well as avenues to treatment. However we need to remember as with the atypical antipsychotics and other drugs with CNS effects that they are never clean and their may be effects on the heart, muscles, pancreas, etc. that may only show up with long term use."
That's what Salmon did say. Quotations must never be used without the whole context or we put words on other people's mouth opposed to what they really meant.
Posted by Ana at July 28, 2009 06:46 AM
It strikes me that we will do anything not to face the inevitability of death. Sad, really.
Posted by Marianne at July 28, 2009 07:51 AM
Ana, no need to split hairs. I'll just make my own quote so as to avoid any further confusion:
The type of research being undertaken by Udo Schulz (and the late Albert Hoffman) is of use to me as a mental health sufferer. LSD studies may be able to teach me something, but yes, anytime powerful, mind-altering agents are being used, caution should be used, by both researcher and subject. Which is precisely why I support these studies, rather than ad hoc use of street drugs. Controlled setting is vital.
As for long-term effects of stuff I put into my body, I'm much more concerned about the impact too many Big Mac's or deep fried fast foods have on my cholesterol level than I am about a single hit or two of LSD in a controlled setting. The number one killer in America is heart disease. LSD, pot, even psychiatric drugs, odious as their marketing and effects may be, ain't causing that. Drugs in and of themselves are not bad, and neither is drug research, especially the more interesting research that is on the cutting edge of the accepted psychiatric norm and outside the realm of big pharma.
Posted by The Skeptic at July 28, 2009 01:42 PM
Number 3 killer in America is iatrogenesis.
Vioxx was at american market till 2004 and it has cause some of these heart attacks.
You are concerned with your cholesterol and I'm concerned with drug-induced and violent behaviour because I know the difference between "real" suicidal ideation and drug induced suicide ideation because I have almost killed myself twice and was violent in a way I never was in my entire life by the time I was tapering off one of this drugs.
But it is anecdotal and the FDA don't care about the 4th phase of medicine's surveillance.
I'm also concerned with many other problems that these drugs are causing.
Don't forget to use 100 as normal LDL cholesterol level because 120 is no longer acceptable. You must know why. If yo don't it's to sell more drugs but they will tell you it's not.
What I don't understand why you are not at a heart disease blog instead if this is your main concern you should be advocating for your own cause. Go to a MacDonald and try to prevent people eating that stuff,
That's what this site is about and the reason most commenters are here:
we simply have suffered or saw other people suffering the hell and we cannot forget and don't want others to suffer the same.
Why do you think Philip has changed the course of his life and is dedicating his entire time to this issue?
Why do you think many who are here started a blog and are daily reporting their experience.
Please show some respect!
Posted by Ana at July 28, 2009 04:22 PM
Ana,
With respect, I used the Big Mac example for purposes of context, to illustrate that we ingest all sort of bad things into our bodies. Don't forget, Philip raised the issue of the LSD study, not me. Philip found the article "very interesting." So do I. And just because we find it interesting, or because I have an expressed open mind to unorthodox psychiatric research like this does not mean anything more than I keep an open mind on the topic.
You blasted me for allegedly quoting someone out of context. I attempted to clarify using my own words. You blast me even harder. Let's leave it at that. I think if you go back and re-read all the comments here, you will conclude it's much ado about nada.
Take care.
Posted by The Skeptic at July 28, 2009 10:38 PM
I have no opinion, in case anyone wondered, about LSD's use in therapeutic settings. It's one of those things I simply don't know enough about.
Philip,
I have already research a long time ago and didn't find too much.
I would love to know about researches with new treatments.
Posted by Ana at July 29, 2009 01:08 PM