Party Vibe

interesting article but (like many others from a “hipster tech” background) is written in a way that conflates the UK, EU and USA regulatory procedures for pharmaceutical research, and like many others glosses over the not insignificant facts that it was to some extent rampant diversion of legal LSD by first generation US hipsters when it was legal in USA that led to psychedelics being restricted over there (in spite of them having obvious value in legitimate treatment).

Also truffels are only “legal” in NL in the same way that NPS/”legal highs” were legal in Britain until a month ago – the Dutch govt only specified mushrooms in the law and forgot to include them (I think it has to specify the exact biological type of what they are to be a valid law).

As the Psychedelic Society seem to be composed of intelligent middle class youths they do appear to be taking some precautions their experiments are unlikely to lead to trouble but all psilocybin mushrooms were uncontrolled in UK and NL until 2005 (UK) and 2008 (NL) until greedy vendors ended up selling them in UK to teenagers still in school and in NL to drugstourists who are already in unfamiliar surroundings; predictably also leading to high profile unpleasant incidents and subsequent clampdowns.

I fully agree with greater levels of research into these substances which are most likely far better for mental health patients than those nasty SSRIs and the other similar stuff that turns patients into zombies; but at the same time have concerns that unless diversion and recreational use was “tolerated” (in the Dutch sense perhaps rather than open acceptance) or the patients were admitted to secure environments (which has other human right and treatment cost implications) that especially young patients would be at risk of bullying/robbery if their meds were worth nicking. (You don’t hear of troubled youths being robbed for seroxat!) This shouldn’t of course be any reason to limit effective treatments but how many UK taxpayers would be willing to pay for the extra costs?

@tryptameanie 985150 wrote:

From my understanding GL, LSD was banned in part due to the government perceiving LSD use as causing non-conformity among younger generations and fueling opposition to the Vietnam war. [/quote]

that was certainly true for the USA; but my Professor friend sent me a few years ago this magazine one of his friends wrote about the 1960s music and counterculture scene in Cambridge UK (not at all dissimilar to the rave scenes of our generation!) and told me a load of stuff which went on in Europe and the UK around that time; in our continent the problems were caused more through poly drug use (both diverted pharms and psychedelics) by young middle class people causing extra burdens on public health services and similar moral panics to what we have recently seen with NPS which coincided with pressure from Washington to “clean up” global society.

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Also, whether vendors sold magic mushrooms or not, they are to this day available freely to everyone who can be bothered to pick thyem. I actually think that being able to buy magic mushrooms is FAR safer than stupid kids who obviously wanted to take them anyway from going and picking a death cap rather than a liberty cap.

These mushrooms grew on my high school fields and similar fields in SE England and were widely consumed by us during the 80s/90s – I never heard of young people getting poisoned through ingesting poison mushrooms (some picked other species and got ill but nothing fatal) – what did and does still happen more often is non drug seeking older adults (often in middle age) misidentifying horse mushrooms/champignons (the ones you might normally eat) and the death cap (which does look similar).

Gardener dies after making soup with deadly mushrooms – Telegraph

In Southern England (judging by archive posts on here) psilocybin mushrooms appeared to have already become scarcer in the early 2000s (before the commercial sales) due to poor harvesting methods that wrecked the mycelium below the field and more aggressive grounds management using harsh chemicals to kill all “nuisance mushrooms and other weeds”. I am unsure as to whether paranoia over a Council being pulled up for “facilitating drugs use / safeguarding youths” has maybe led to increased use of these chemicals since 2005 in the UK on such places as school fields and Council parks – (next time I see a hippy friend who is a park ranger I might ask him) – I hope this has not happened as such chemicals that also directly attack the mycelium and other stuff below ground which is beneficial for a lot of plant species is clearly bad for the environment as a whole.

I do remember older hippies often warning us that greedy methods of harvesting and/or selling them led to “bad karma” (the last would have also risked arrest for selling class A even during the time when there was a loophole about fresh mushrooms)

I am not a botany expert but remember also reading somewhere that USA variants of psilocybin mushrooms are physically larger and more likely to be confused with some deadly poisonous species found in the region; there does appear to be a toxic mushroom more commonly found in Northern England that might be more likely to be confused with European varieties but to me it also looks a fair bit larger than a “European” psilocybin mushroom.

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Also, as far as I know, no tests have actually used mushrooms in experiments, they have used man made 4-PO-DMT.

I think Professor Nutts research paper is open so it would be interesting to see what they used although its not unlikely they used a synthesised version of the chemicals to ensure a standard strength.

@tryptameanie 985152 wrote:

Thanks GL, some interesting things in there. Professor Nutts research definitely used 4-PO-DMT, it was actually shown on a BBC documentary with Micheal Mosley, there’s a clip of it here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5S1cR_LGuA

WHAT DID HE SAID AT 1:16 ,Was it : <> ???

AND Is it allowed to make such experiment in UK?

THINK I HAVE TO GO TO AN EAR DOCTOR, I HEARD CLEARLY DIED

Is that legal to make such experiments in UK???