[photochemsyn]

All psychedelics are at least as safe as alcohol, if consumed responsibly. We accept alcohol even though drinking too much at one sitting can kill you and drunk people routinely smash their cars into other cars, etc., so 'safety' is a relative concept. Caution is clearly the best approach.

However, the claim that 'hallucinogens can affect you forever, negatively and never stop' is unsupported. These drugs share a common receptor as the basis of their action, the 5-HTP receptor, which is involved with sensory perception at some low level in the brain. This can result in 'visions' or intensified color perception or numerous other effects (synthesia, etc.) Some people enjoy the experience, others do not. The most important rule for the neophyte experimentalist to follow is 'less is more'.

Personally I found psychedelics immensely therapeutic and a great aid to quitting alcohol, and also of great benefit to my 3D-visualization skills. I'd also note that consumer culture norms ('more is always better') can cause disasters when mixed with psychedelics.

However as I note in another comment, toads are a horrible source of 5-MeO-DMT due to the fact that toads of this type contain a variety of other toxins.

[pmoriarty]

"toads are a horrible source of 5-MeO-DMT due to the fact that toads of this type contain a variety of other toxins."

Not only that but these toads are at a risk of extinction due to the human demand for their venom.[1]

We also don't know if the toads are harmed by the venom milking process itself. Toads certainly try to get away from humans and don't seem to want to be touched. Squeezing on their glands might be painful for them, though we can't tell because they don't scream or talk, but they do try to get away.

It's ironic that so many people treat these substances as sacred, and yet the animal that has this substance in its body is so often treated without respect and without regard for its existence.

It's doubly sad because synthetic sources of 5-MeO exist, and they don't harm the toad.

[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/20/us/toad-venom-psychedelic...

[cwkoss]

> All psychedelics are at least as safe as alcohol

This is false. LSD and mushrooms are arguably as safe as or safer than alcohol. However...

There are hundreds other psychedelic compounds in existence, and some can acutely cause death, some even at doses close to recreational levels. Phenethylamines can all be deadly, and nboms cause extremely dangerous vasoconstriction. Some significantly lower seizure threshold.

I think the therapeutic potential for psychedelics is very promising, but there are definitely some psychedelics that are much more dangerous than alcohol.

[photochemsyn]

Just practically, 'psychedelics' can be broadly or narrowly defined. Hunger and thirst can induce hallucinations, for example. A wide variety of toxic and pharmacologically active compounds have similar side-effects. Hence, a narrow definition makes more sense, as compounds binding to the 5-HT2A serotonin receptor, which is a much smaller list:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33740877/

[cwkoss]

I think even the narrow definition includes drugs more dangerous than alcohol.

Chemicals like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/25I-NBOMe#Toxicity are among the most potent agonists of the 5-HT2A receptor, and are also extremely dangerous due to potency and their vasoconstrictive and cardiovascular effects.

(There are horrifying stories of people being sold "acid" and then their lips turn blue from vasoconstriction and subsequently need hospital intervention - see: https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_25INBOMe_Health_...)

A significant number of the deaths the nbom family has caused can probably be attributed to the difficulties of clandestine dosing in microgram amounts, but I think they may still be more dangerous than alcohol even when dosed accurately. It's certainly more dangerous for naive users without the proper equipment to measure and handle it.