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Comment by spiritplumber | Hacker News Reader

Wasn't this tested 50 years ago and then sort of left dormant?

Psychedelic psychotherapy was left as a casualty to the war on drugs.

There is also an argument to be made that Timothy Leary made a real mess of things and at minimum, certainly didn't help the situation any.

I've helped scan and archive Timothy Leary's stuff (I was dating his testamentary executor for a while). He certainly had an interesting life! I don't see how he made a mess of things.

First and foremost, thank you for your work! And I would certainly say you're likely considerably more versed than I. From my research, I felt like his escapades at Millbrook and also his shenanigans with harvard did 2 things: On Millbrook, pushed away from his work as serious work and more towards play, that rubbed people the wrong way. On Harvard, I don't think the universities were as open to ideas in that direction after he caused a ruckus. I did quite a bit of research, but it was years ago, if you wanna drop me an email I'll see if I can rustle up the things that lead me down that thought path and send them over, it was mostly from interviews of others around that time.

? The war on drugs didn't prevent a massive rise in opioid medication

The major difference is that opioids had been used for pain treatment in modern medicine decades before the war on drugs, so legal prohibitions on recreational opioids didn’t affect basic research nor the development of new treatments, nor did it affect the legitimacy of opioid treatments in the eyes of the US medical establishment. (perhaps it should have!)

By contrast, psychedelics have not been used in medicine and were/are not considered “legitimate” by the medical establishment. So with legal prohibitions on actually obtaining and administering psychedelics, the War on Drugs actually did hinder psychedelics medical research.

You’re correct and parent is correct. War on Drugs started as a combined anti-black anti-counterculture initiative in response to Vietnam War. Psychedelics were threatening the power structure. It was never really about drugs.

Opioid medication isn't psychedelic psychotherapy, nor has it ever had strong associations with anti-establishment movements.

Are opioids psychoactive?

> Are opioids psychoactive?

Yes, obviously.

But the idea that psychoactivity is a (or the?) determining characteristic of a compound in determining whether it is prohibited is silly on its face.

Yes, but not hallucinogenic or psychedelic. (Whichever word you prefer.)

What does that have to do with psychedelic psychotherapy?

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