Every time issues of consent come up on the playa or in the regional Burner community, “date rape” drugs such as GHB are inevitably mentioned. To help people make smart choices both about what they do personally and what substances they want at their events, I spoke to Dr. Joseph Palamar at NYU, widely quoted expert on substance abuse & recreational drug use, to make sure the readers of Burners.me got the best information available about the drug. If y’all like this, let me know, and I’ll try to bring on more experts for these harm reduction posts.
GHB has largely become a boogeyman in the drug world. Even though it is the literal best case practice treatment for narcolepsy, it’s become associated with irresponsible choices & shady characters over the years. While many Burners enjoy it recreationally, the label of date rape drug has stuck and there’s a large gap in a lot of drug education and messaging surrounding it. Just because it’s assumed that the majority of the people using it are using it “on” other people doesn’t necessarily make it true. For everyone who isn’t trying to violate the consent of people on & off playa, here’s a quick set of frank tips that should serve you well if you’re trying to hang with Xyrem.
Since we’re not getting any younger, cardiovascular issues will continue affect the Burner population in increasing numbers. Considering Burners also party like rockstars, in one of the harshest climates on earth, I wanted to take this time to go over some of the research associated with drugs & your heart. As a disclaimer, once again, many popular recreational drugs are specifically contra-indicated for people with anywhere from mild to major heart issues, but if you listened to your doctor, you probably wouldn’t be going to Burning Man with your minor CV distresses. As 30% of this country has High Blood pressure, and quadruple & quintuple bypass are now commonplace, these issues aren’t esoteric, so let’s meet them head on.
Since the interview with MAPS went over so well, I figured I’d keep the hype train about psychedelics research going. Over the last couple of years, really great thing have happened surrounding MDMA & Magic Mushrooms, but for some of us, LSD is the Holy Grail of psychedelics research.
To provide some history, back in the 50’s & 60’s, there was a significant amount of research surrounding LSD. Everything from autism to homosexuality to childhood schizophrenia was treated with LSD in places like the Silver Spring Maryland Hospital. Dozens of studies were performed, and LSD was seen as a promising psychomimetic (insanity mimicking) and later as a “psychedelic” (mind-manifesting). But we all know what happened next. Manson used a bunch of it to trick girls into killing people and horror stories about hippies & kids going insane and never coming back pervaded the landscape. Oh yea, and Nixon shit all over it.
However, over the last decade or so, we’ve seen a resurgence in research associated with those very same psychedelics. While MDMA for PTSD & Psilocybin for terminal cancer anxiety has stolen the spotlight, LSD has quietly been examined by a number of research groups, with some encouraging results. LSD has been shown to be effective for anxiety surrounding terminal cancer as well, as the recently completed Phase II clinical trial sponsored by MAPS has shown. If you’re interested in bypassing the hype and getting directly to the full text pdf, here it is.Two other avenues of LSD research have been making steady progress during this psychedelics renaissance.
Alcoholism treatment with LSD was evaluated by two researchers in the Dept. of Neuroscience at the Norwegian University of Science & Technology. A meta-analysis of the current research findings surrounding LSD & alcoholism were evaluated, and the findings were very encouraging. From the paper’s abstract:
A single dose of LSD, in the context of various alcoholism treatment programs, is associated with a decrease in alcohol misuse. ~Krebs & Johansen, 2012
This isn’t surprising to some of you, who have commented about how psychedelics have helped cope with addiction & addictive tendencies. But for the effect to be verified academically, is very important.
The second area of research that is getting some LSD-infused love is cluster headaches, also known as suicide headaches. A study published in the Journal of Neurology 7 of 8 LSD users stated they saw a termination of cluster headache attacks. MAPS has also published on this phenomena. Cluster headaches have very few treatments and they paralyze those who experience them, so researchers are very excited at the potential for LSD & LSD analogues to help.
Another aspect of LSD consumption that deserves more study is microdosing. After I was critical of the loose reporting surrounding this practice, I had a number of interesting conversations with burners who reached out to discuss their anecdotal use of LSD to improve their life. Some microdose daily, others told me about habits where they’d microdose one week on 2-3 weeks off, and back and forth. There’s a giant uncontrolled experiment going on out there, and instead of trying to generate page views by claiming executives are dropping tabs in the office, I agree with Forbes (a phrase I don’t use often) that we need to evaluate this in a much more sophisticated & systematic way.
If you’re really hankering for some LSD & don’t want to break the law, head to Dr. Peter Gasser in Switzerland. VICE did a great little round up of how and why this psychiatrist is able to prescribe LSD to his patients. It’s a nice little story, and continues to back up my claim that Switzerland isn’t a real place. It’s totally the future with Alps & chocolate.
So much more work to be done, but hope you found a couple of reasons to celebrate how far we’ve come as you’ve read this.
