[wutbrodo]

> Doesn't seem right to me to put coffee in the same group with mind-altering substances.

Not sure how to say this more bluntly, but this is nothing but your own ignorance talking. Literally look at the first sentce of the Wikipedia page for caffeine: it's a psychoactive drug. Complaining about people not adhering to your bizarre redefinition of an extremely well-defined term is very odd.

> Funny how you characterize hallucinations as "open minded"

There's that confident ignorance again... It seems obvious that GP is describing an effect of mushrooms other than hallucinations, not describing hallucinations themselves as open-mindedness. This complaint is about as nonsensical as someone describing that they unwind with a couple drinks and you saying "how do nausea and bloating relax you?"

[rofo1]

I am perhaps misusing the terms, it's not on purpose. I just think that based on common sense and things I see every single day around me, mixing coffee and heavy drugs in one group just makes no sense. Regardless of their clinical definitions or whatever.

Just based on the effects they produce, makes no sense.

Curious, aren't all effects they produce a hallucination of some kind? E.g. not living in objective reality?

It seems like this topic hit a nerve with you, so I will guess you are a user of these. If I am wrong, just ignore the questions.

What are these profound effects that you got from using them? Why did you need it in the first place?

[wutbrodo]

> It seems like this topic hit a nerve with you,

Ha, I'm fortunate enough to have spent my whole life in California, so the notion of drugs being unavailable or risky is pretty foreign to me. To the extent that your comment can be said to have struck a nerve, it's as an instance of a broader category of behavior that I think does a lot of damage to society.

There are very few truly evil people in the world, but there are legions of what Lenin called "useful idiots"[1]: people who blindly and brutally enforce the agenda of others because they can't be bothered to actually look into the things they regurgitate, no matter how much this carelessness costs others. It's a fairly strongly held belief ofone that people like this are largely to blame for many of the horrible things in the world (in the example here, the Drug War as applied to drugs far less dangerous than alcohol has destroyed countless lives, and I've yet to hear an argument for (eg) marijuana prohibition that doesn't rely on sheer ignorance and laziness). This is particularly unforgivable in the Internet age; if everybody would read a couple Wikipedia articles and spend sixty seconds thinking critically before having strong opinions on an issue, our political discourse would be dramatically elevated.

To the extent that your comment struck a nerve, it was as a pretty dramatic example of this tendency, confidently drawing conclusions based on claims about a drug that nobody who's used it would recognize as connected to reality (or indeed, no one who's done ten minutes of Googling about it).

> Curious, aren't all effects they produce a hallucination of some kind? E.g. not living in objective reality?

No, this isn't true of all, or even most, psychoactive drugs. It is true of hallucinogenics like shrooms or acid, at higher doses. I've taken plenty of acid but usually take below the amount required to get sensory hallucinations. For another example of how broken your model is, stimulants (incl caffeine) can cause hallucinations at high enough doses too. You might say "you can just take low doses", but that's entirely true of psychedelics too (eg microdosing).

> What are these profound effects that you got from using them? Why did you need it in the first place?

I'd push back on the premise that them being _needed_ is relevant to the conversation. That being said, there's information all over this thread about the use of psychedelics for treatment of PTSD, depression, etc, medical Marijuana has long been established as useful (with less side effects than many competing pharmaceuticals), and at some level, recreational use of healthier drugs displaces use of incredibly unhealthy ones like alcohol. Given that psychological problems aren't binary, the therapeutic effects of these drugs are available to

I don't want this to come across as a blanket endorsement of unfettered drug use. I'd put many drugs in the same category of junk food: not especially dangerous, perhaps even salutary in moderation, but best to minimize use of. But there are situations in which drugs really help people and lead to healthier and more enriching lives. Your approach of twisting the definition of "drug" to privilege the drugs you like, avoid thinking about the ones you don't, _and then enforce this idiocy violently upon everyone else_ does immense harm.

> [1] attributed to Lenin, but perhaps apocryphal. Also, I apologize for the connotation, but it's a fairly widely used term in political science.

[rofo1]

Our views differ so much, that I really think you are living in another reality. So this would be my last reply as there's simply no point discussing further.

At least you talk from experience as a heavy acid user, I guess that's something.

I am not trying to offend you, but if you keep insisting that coffee is the same as acid/lsd or they can cause hallucinations or whatever, without fail everyone will consider there is something wrong with you behind your back. You can be 100% sure of that.

Stop thinking about definitions and start looking at reality and consequences.

> Your approach of twisting the definition of "drug" to privilege the drugs you like, avoid thinking about the ones you don't, _and then enforce this idiocy violently upon everyone else_ does immense harm.

Remarkable use of "violently". It's like an assembly line of PC terms 2020. Curious whether this is the new thing that's being served? "Plz do drugs otherwise you are violent/bigot/nazi/Not pr0GresSiVe". Sometimes it's OK being not progressive :) I am actually impressed by the level of propaganda being served, tbh. Must be a world record of some kind.

I don't like any drugs. Coffee might be technically grouped based on some arbitrary definition with some other "drugs", but it's far away from anything like the rest of them (lsd, shrooms, heroin, coke, alcohol whatever) in reality. Just because you've found a grouping of some things doesn't mean they are equal when used. It's just non sense to compare coffee and LSD. And "high enough doses" of bread can kill you, too. Just eat 40 pounds of it today and we'll see if you wake up tomorrow.

You didn't reply what are these profound effects that people like me cannot understand. Enlighten us, please. Because to me, people under the influence (be it heavily drunk or on lsd) are close to insane. That's a fact, in the strictest definition of the word insane.

If all you have to offer while under the influence is being insane, thank you - I'll pass and you can call me "not progressive enough", it's fine.

[pmoriarty]

"what are these profound effects that people like me cannot understand. Enlighten us, please"

If you sincerely want to know, I urge you to watch these three videos of people discussing what MDMA and psilocybin have done for them: [1] [2] [3]

The first is of a woman with alcohol dependency treated with psilocybin.

The second is a report by a man with Aspergers Syndrome about what a single experience with MDMA did for him.

The third is of a woman with terminal cancer treated with psilocybin.

There are countless stories like this, including of veterans with severe, treatment-resistant PTSD being successfully treated with MDMA. Phase-3 trials of MDMA are under way as we speak, and it is likely that the FDA will approve MDMA as a treatment for PTSD as early as 2021.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc-SOGZPPpg

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJgWKl_vss0

[3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRn_HD7nH8g