[pault]

It's important to use precise language when talking about addiction. It sounds like you're interpreting "addiction" as "habit forming", whereas I believe GP means "physical dependency". I see a lot of people talking past each other in this thread.

[PragmaticPulp]

> It's important to use precise language when talking about addiction. It sounds like you're interpreting "addiction" as "habit forming", whereas I believe GP means "physical dependency". I see a lot of people talking past each other in this thread.

I directly quoted the part I disagreed with. They very specifically said:

> That said it's almost impossible to abuse mushrooms,

Trying to change the topic to specifically physical dependency is a straw-man argument. The topic was literally about "abuse".

[ggm]

I agree with this.

The canadian report into the misuse of drugs (a pelican book from the 70s) drew a distinction between addiction and habituation which I think has stood the test of time. Addictive things cause change in the bodies own processes, such as the replacement of ?dopamine? by opiod drugs, and a decline in the bodys own production due to homeostasis: this means the withdrawal is a real physiological effect, lack of dopamine until the body restarts production.

Some drugs (I mean drugs in the wider sense not recreational drugs) can cause PERMANENT change in the bodys own hormone cycle and so you cease production of a function entirely. Menopause is an instance of this but there are others I believe, the endocrine system is fantastically complex. I believe some bone anti-demineralisation drugs have this side effect and so deciding to take them has huge longterm consequences (again unsure I have the right background drug issue here)

Habituation is the mental binding of pleasure or some other desired state (numbing, dissociation) to the repeated effect (as I understand it) and is a different thing: It feels good because you've learned the response, might be the way to put it. This is NOT the same as a homeostatic change in body function.

[greyface-]

> It's important to use precise language when talking about addiction.

Agreed. Adding to this: GP characterized psilocybin's effects as "deliriant". This word has a specific meaning, and psilocybin doesn't fit -- it's a psychedelic, not a deliriant. There are some mushrooms that produce deliriants (e.g. Amanita muscaria / muscimol), but these are not typically consumed in the same context as psilocybin mushrooms.