Study Finds Magic Mushrooms Are the Safest Recreational Drug (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Mushrooms are the safest of all the drugs people take recreationally, according to this year's Global Drug Survey. Of the more than 12,000 people who reported taking psilocybin hallucinogenic mushrooms in 2016, just 0.2% of them said they needed emergency medical treatment -- a rate at least five times lower than that for MDMA, LSD and cocaine. Global Drug Survey 2017, with almost 120,000 participants in 50 countries, is the world's biggest annual drug survey, with questions that cover the types of substances people take, patterns of use and whether they experienced any negative effects. Overall, 28,000 people said they had taken magic mushrooms at some point in their lives, with 81.7% seeking a "moderate psychedelic experience" and the "enhancement of environment and social interactions."

Comments

cool

[Anonymous Coward]

cool, but you compared it with MDMA, LSD, and cocaine... how about marijuana?

Re:cool

[Austerity Empowers]

TFA shows it is safer even than pot, based upon users self-reporting medical situations to authorities.

Re:cool

[HornWumpus]

Also: Beer puts more than 0.2% of users in the hospital? (per use or per year?)

I bet beer and pot together are safer than shrooms. Beer, pot, rifles, 4x4s, woods and a few shrooms...now we're talking. I digress.

Re:cool

[dlleigh]

Ah, self-reporting. So there could be a huge selection bias if (for example) half of the shroomers died or became so incapacitated that they couldn't self-report their medical situation.

Re:cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Where does it mention marijuana anywhere? Synthetic cannabis != marijuana.

Re:cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, that's "woods". I read that wrong the first time. I was wondering what really happens between hunters.

Re:cool

[Anonymous Coward]

More like the potheads couldn't be bothered to report

Re:cool

[HornWumpus]

The last place you take someone having a bad reaction to psychedelics is the ER. About the only places worse would be jail or the loony bin. You take them someplace they feel safe...ask them.

So 'going to the ER' is the wrong criteria in the first place. % that needed 'babysitting' over freakout is the better question, could also apply to very drunk people.

How would you even categorize: 'Convincing your tripping friend that climbing a tower crane is a bad idea.'

Re:cool

[Kvasio]

exactly, the survivorship bias. Like https://xkcd.com/1827/

Re:cool

[Narcocide]

No, the truth is more that a semi-common hallucination for pot heads to have is thinking they're dying. A non-zero amount of these idiots will actually call emergency services while freaking out. The weed isn't significantly more dangerous physically if you exclude possible long-term lung damage, it's just a lot more likely to freak you out to the point your dumb ass calls the cops on yourself.

Re:cool

[Anonymous Coward]

TFA shows it is safer even than pot, based upon users self-reporting medical situations to authorities.

Marijuana has a history going back thousands of years, with essentially zero fatalities related to its use. I don't believe for one second that anything else is safer for you when it comes to recreational or medical use.

Regardless of that fact, it doesn't matter. Government is fighting legalization hard, due to the revenue created from shit that harms the fuck out of you. Tobacco and alcohol not only create deaths that are needed, but also generate billions in revenue related to medical treatments. Weed doesn't provide any of these benefits, proving just how fucked the reasons are for fighting legalization.

Re:cool

[HornWumpus]

Nobody does any hunting during the 'Second week of deer camp.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re: cool

[Type44Q]

You left out tequila, tits and tannerite.

Re:cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Also: Beer puts more than 0.2% of users in the hospital? (per use or per year?)

I bet beer and pot together are safer than shrooms. Beer, pot, rifles, 4x4s, woods and a few shrooms...now we're talking. I digress.

Beer is still in the category of alcohol, which easily creates a physical addiction, along with creating many victims related to alcohol abuse (physical abuse, hazing deaths, drunk driving, etc.). Weed doesn't create anywhere near the harm that "beer" does, so don't even think for one fucking second those two are somehow equal.

Re: cool

[HornWumpus]

You are invited.

Re:cool

[ErikTheRed]

Wish I had points to mod this up.

Re:cool

[ShanghaiBill]

Another problem is that they ignore the quality of the experience. A sugar pill is safe but it would be silly to say it is the "best" drug since it doesn't do anything.

Re:cool

[HornWumpus]

Beer is food.

Re:cool

[gweilo8888]

All that says is pot is more commonly consumed, which it unquestionably is, probably by an order of magnitude or more.

Re:cool

[bigfinger76]

a semi-common hallucination for pot heads to have is thinking they're dying

I think you mean 'cops'.

Re: cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Few people seem to realize just how dangerous alcohol is. 10% mortality rate when alcoholics try to quit woke me up.

Re:cool

[Vektuz]

There's always the 0.00x% of people who have the perfect DNA to break out in hives or be allergic or some random thing to just about every substance imaginable. Doubly so if its a substance that they have literally never encountered before because its contraband and its the first time.

Basically, you're right - The wrong stat was being tracked.

Its unclear FTA and the stat in question what that ratio was, since they were tracking those "seeking emergency intervention" as opposed to those actually Requiring emergency intervention but its likely that the latter is smaller than the former but not zero.

Re:cool

[Brett Buck]

The last place you take someone having a bad reaction to psychedelics is the ER. About the only places worse would be jail or the loony bin.

      Isn't jail the best place for them? It's still a crime. and they are definitely a danger to themselves and others.

Re:cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Where does it mention marijuana anywhere? Synthetic cannabis != marijuana.

It's in the Global Drug Survey that is linked to in the Slashdot summary.
SLASHDOT SUMMARY IS NOT THE ARTICLE!

Re:cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't jail the best place for them?

No

It's still a crime. and they are definitely a danger to themselves and others.

Silly troll. Take your reefer madness somewhere else.

Re: cool

[piojo]

Few people seem to realize just how dangerous alcohol is. 10% mortality rate when alcoholics try to quit woke me up.

That's a bad statistic, since it has already selected the most severe sufferers from alcohol. You would find similarly bad outcomes (though not the medically dangerous withdrawal specifically) when you look at the severest sufferers of most any drug addiction.

Re: cool

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been many fatalities related to marijuana use. Potheads aren't interested in facts so they seem to ignore them or make up stupid excuses but that doesn't change reality.

Re:cool

[clovis]

TFA shows it is safer even than pot, based upon users self-reporting medical situations to authorities.

The thing you need to read is not the article, but rather the Global Drug Survey https://www.globaldrugsurvey.c...
If you do read it, you'll see some problems.

Here's the one that bothers me the most, and it basically means the study and related articles are nonsense.

The report isn't based on the number of doses, it's based on the number of people who ever used the drug in the last year.
So you're probably comparing ten million of doses of natural cannabis products with a few ten thousand mushroom doses, if that many.
The report says the average cannabis users used it 134 days over the last year, but fails to mention how many days/doses for mushrooms.
I kind of doubt there are many people who take mushrooms 3-4 times a week, but the Average cannabis user (responding) does just that.

The numbers are similar for users of LSD, except there are more self-reported ER visits for LSD (1%).
Cocaine is reported at 1% have ER visits, amphetamines at 1.1% and cannabis at .6% ER visits.
Pretty close percentages No one thinks cocaine, amphetamines, LSD, and cannabis are that similar in danger, but this study does.
That's because they're looking at the wrong number.

Here's my favorite quote from the GDS study.

People who use psychedelics are generally very sensible and show some of the best preparation and adoption of harm reduction practices of any drug

Re: cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah there was a recent case in Thailand where 2 tourist had magic mushrooms and one of them decided he feel like flying asking the friend to join him, then proceeding to jump to his death following that.

Don't think just smoking marijuana can make you do something like that....

Re:cool

[MemeRot]

Mushrooms go back just as far, or farther. Mushrooms are recreational even for deer and the like, no need for fire or anything.

Weed's legal on the whole west coast? Gov's not fighting that hard any more

Re:cool

[Aighearach]

Also, marijuana is more accepted and people are more willing to report it.

Re: cool

[Maxo-Texas]

how many heavy pot users die trying to quit.

I'm unfamiliar with any Amy Winehouse type cases amongst pot users.

Re: cool

[piojo]

I don't know anybody that would self-select as being in the worst category of pot smoker, so I don't know what they're like. Unless you can gather some data on what the lives of these people are like, my point stands. It's practically a tautology: the worst among them (self selected) will most likely have pretty rotten lives.

Let me rephrase the above comment to be not so abusive of statistics:

Approximately 0% mortality rate when drinkers try to quit

Re: cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah the alcoholics one is massive. Those people have no chance if they start any sort of regular drinking. After they are very unlikely to ever lead a normal life, most will die from it all because of slight differnece in metabolism.

Re:cool

[Anonymous Coward]

So there could be a huge selection bias if (for example) half of the shroomers died or became so incapacitated that they couldn't self-report their medical situation.

Or there could be a huge selection bias if (for example) half of the shroomers thought it was so fantastic that they didn't everyone to know.

Re:cool

[Paradise Pete]

The last place you take someone having a bad reaction to psychedelics is the ER. About the only places worse would be jail or the loony bin.

So then the ER wouldn't be the last place. At best it would be the antepenultimate place you'd take someone.

Re: cool

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL potheads thinking they are cops...

Re: cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Simpel it is a feature. You cant get high from mushrooms every day. Resistance builds so quickly with mushrooms so you would need to double your dosage every day. And you would not have good trips.

Omce a month atmost if you want a good experince. So yeah i would say that feature alone makes it safer than weed

Re:cool

[TheRaven64]

Marijuana has a history going back thousands of years, with essentially zero fatalities related to its use. I don't believe for one second that anything else is safer for you when it comes to recreational or medical use.

Depends on how you're consuming the marijuana. If you're eating or drinking it, I might believe you, but the negative health impact of inhaling burning hydrocarbons is well documented, even ignoring the drug content.

Re:cool

[Big Hairy Ian]

Interesting that the report mentions synthetic cannabis but not organic cannabis

Re:cool

[DarkOx]

and the ones that mother gives you don't do anything at all...

Re:cool

[sudon't]

Ah, self-reporting. So there could be a huge selection bias if (for example) half of the shroomers died or became so incapacitated that they couldn't self-report their medical situation.

Yeah, except that no one has ever died from psilocybin mushrooms. You cannot overdose on mushrooms. And the people in the study who did call for medical assistance had been using alcohol as well. RTFA. This is almost always the case, just as the vast majority of “heroin overdoses” involve the use of alcohol, or other CNS depressants such as benzodiazepines. It’s rarely heroin alone.

Re:cool

[rgbatduke]

No, the truth is more that a semi-common hallucination for pot heads to have is thinking they're dying. A non-zero amount of these idiots will actually call emergency services while freaking out. The weed isn't significantly more dangerous physically if you exclude possible long-term lung damage, it's just a lot more likely to freak you out to the point your dumb ass calls the cops on yourself.

Really? Do you have any documentation of that? I can't recall ever having had that particular hallucination, nor do I know anybody that has (at least, that they've communicated with me. Indeed, I can't recall anybody at all ever -- ever -- seeking emergency medical treatment because they got high smoking pot. Some complete neophyte, smoking for the first time, maybe could freak out, or somebody who was fed brownies and didn't know that they were getting a huge dose of weed along with them, sure, but both of those are special cases and not "pot heads" calling EMS because they think they are dying.

Pot is one of the safest "mind altering/illegal" substances on the planet. There is no lethal dose -- you'd be dying of smoke inhalation, not from the effects of the drug, if you tried to kill yourself with it. There are no long term effects -- if you quit, it clears out of your system end of story. There isn't even a particularly solid link between weed and e.g. lung cancer, although it wouldn't surprise anybody if smoke of any sort is a factor in inflammation, which in turn is a factor in cancer. As pointed out above, the metric of "chose to visit the ER" is just plain silly, and the levels they are reporting for this are pretty absurd -- one in 200.

Did none of those 200 have, say, something to drink as well? Alcohol as a confounding factor would all by itself explain the difference. Is all of the pot that they were smoking JUST pot, or was some of it laced with opium, or cheap weed mixed with cheaper spice to simulate "good" weed? There are zero controls, they are relying on self-reported statistics about stuff everybody lies about (in an ER, are you going to admit that you just used a felonious schedule 1 substance that you might still be holding out in your car or house, or are you going to claim that your meth-induced DTs are due to smoking weed?), and whether or not you go to the ER, tripping balls on serious hallucinogens is a hell of a lot more dangerous than getting high on pot and listening to music while gaming with friends. Your odds of self-inflicted or accidental injury are (IMO) orders of magnitude higher once you have completely disassociated your head from reality with a hefty dose of a real hallucinogen, where it is difficult to ingest enough pot to get a hallucinogenic experience in the most common ways of using it (although if you eat a pile of hash brownies or pot chile you can manage it, sure). If you try it via smoking it you'll just fall asleep before you actually hallucinate, or more likely, stop smoking because you are as relaxed and high as you care to be.

Re:cool

[sudon't]

I bet beer and pot together are safer than shrooms.

That’d be a bad bet. Alcohol can kill you, psilocybin can’t. Alcohol causes liver, (and other organic), damage, psilocybin doesn’t. I would say pot and ‘shrooms are equally safe. No one has ever been known to overdose on either. Alcohol, not so much. But any recreational drug, including alcohol, if used in moderation is not going to cause you any harm. Few recreational drugs are as dangerous as, say, Tylenol, (acetaminophen), which is a liver toxin.

Re:cool

[Oswald McWeany]

Another problem is that they ignore the quality of the experience. A sugar pill is safe but it would be silly to say it is the "best" drug since it doesn't do anything.

They didn't say Shrooms were the "Best" drug, they said the safest. Two very different things. "Best" would surely be subjective.

Re:cool

[Oswald McWeany]

There are no long term effects -- if you quit, it clears out of your system end of story. There isn't even a particularly solid link between weed and e.g. lung cancer, although it wouldn't surprise anybody if smoke of any sort is a factor in inflammation, which in turn is a factor in cancer.

I can't remember the exact statistics, but, I think I recall the volume of carcinogens in Marijuana smoke (many being the same as in cigarettes) is somewhere around the 1000% that of an average tobacco cigarette. (I could be off a few hundred % there in one direction or the other- point being, its multiple times worse)

Now, that number is pretty misleading. Yeah, an individual smoke me be 10 times as *um* high, but no-one chain smokes Marijuana. (at least I hope not).

Your average cigarette smoker probably smokes way more than 10 times more frequently than your average pot-head. Cigarette smoker over their lifetime is going to get a lot more risk for lung cancer. Pot head is going to have a higher risk too but probably not in the range of a smoker.

Re: cool

[Zero__Kelvin]

They probably only included "drugs" where it is actually possible to use them and need medical attention afterwards.

Re: cool

[rgbatduke]

Documentation? Seriously, just spouting bullshit doesn't prove anything at all. And bullshit articles with completely fake graphs culled from the internet are no better. If you want facts, you can try reading actual medical journal articles:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

From the abstract: The LD50 for dogs is 3 grams of PURE THC per kilogram of body weight. I have a body mass a bit over 100 kg, so the likely LD50 for me would be roughly 300 grams. The most potent varieties of pot on the market are around 1/4 THC (reportedly, I still have a bit of a hard time believing that on a pure sanity check basis, but hey, let's go with it). That means I'd have to ingest 4x300 grams or 1.2 kilograms of not just any pot, but the very "best" (most unbelievably potent) pot on the planet in order to get a dose with a 50% chance of killing me. A person with a body mass of 50 kg would still need well over a pound of the very best pot, and would need to smoke it all (or eat it all) so quickly that the body couldn't metabolize it away before it depressed his/her CNS to a lethal degree.

If one directly eats concentrated THC or a product like "butter" that is half THC or better, one "could" ingest a lethal dose, but all in all, THC is slightly safer than caffeine. People die every year from caffeine overdoses, caused not by drinking coffee or tea but by taking large number of caffeine pills, which concentrates it to a far higher level than one can ever manage drinking a naturally caffeinated beverage.

So please -- no, there are not "many" fatalities related to marijuana use. There are pretty much zero fatalities from THC poisoning from marijuana use per se. I suppose there could be a fatality or three from people who chug a pint of melted concentrated marijuana butter, but that isn't marijuana "use", that is specifically ingesting THC as a drug in mind-numbingly stupid quantities, as stupid as downing a bottle of No-Doz to stay awake to study for a test the next day. If you want to argue that there are highway deaths or accidental deaths attributable to marijuana use, that isn't what this study is looking at and has nothing to do with LD50, but again it is difficult to get meaningful statistics (with controls for confounding factors) to support this with actual numbers. For example, in Washington state, which recently legalized pot, there has been a corresponding increase in the percentage of people involved in fatal accidents that have measurable THC in their systems. Specifically, authorities in Washington recorded 436 fatal crashes in 2013, and determined that drivers involved in 40 crashes tested positive for THC, the active chemical in marijuana, according to the study. In 2014 they found that of 462 fatal crashes, 85 drivers tested positive for THC.

BUT, correlation is not causality -- it is reasonable to assume that legal weed is smoked by more people than smoked illegal weed, more frequently, so that the number of people with detectable THC in their systems has increased (THC is detectable weeks after ingestion). The main question is, has the number of traffic fatalities itself increased since legalization, and the delta indicated in this study isn't even a statistically significant change. These numbers completely ignore confounding factors -- such as what percentage of the THC users had blood alcohol levels in excess of the legal limits, what the population of the state has done in the meantime, how the number of registered drivers has changed, changes in the available roadway, and "normal statistical variation" in the number of traffic fatalities. The number itself is nearly meaningless.

With that said, I don't doubt that there are some surplus deaths due to accidents caused by people being too high to drive and driving anyway, or using power tools while high, etc. But even there, pot is almost certainly far safer than alcohol and a long list of prescription or over the counter drugs.

Re:cool

[Dins]

Where does it mention marijuana anywhere? Synthetic cannabis != marijuana.

It's in the Global Drug Survey that is linked to in the Slashdot summary. SLASHDOT SUMMARY IS NOT THE ARTICLE!

BLASPHEMY!

Re:cool

[rgbatduke]

I've heard this argument, but it is difficult to back with actual statistics. Here's an article from 2008 that looks comparatively clean:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

It suggests that smoking pot regularly and heavily is associated with around a 5% increased incidence in lung cancer, but N in the study is pretty small for me to be happy with this number. Its an epidemiological study and hence has the usual problems with confounding -- lots of people smoke pot AND tobacco, use pot AND drink alcohol -- plus the usual difficulties of relying on self-reporting of use. In a sense the article is surprising -- in spite of nominally being more toxic, the bump in risk appears smaller than it is for tobacco, something I've read about in other research articles as well. Tobacco appears to be uniquely bad for you, worse than "just smoke" including pot smoke. It could be that pot has some anti-inflammatory activity (reported here and there as part of its possible "medical benefits") that partially offsets the smoke-related damage, since cancer, like most cardiovascular disease, appears to be associated with inflammatory response.

Re:cool

[Anonymous Coward]

then your problem is with the act of smoking not the actual drug. Thats like saying calcium is bad for because I IVed a pill of it into my vein and it caused problems.

Re:cool

[Oswald McWeany]

I've heard this argument, but it is difficult to back with actual statistics. Here's an article from 2008 that looks comparatively clean:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

It suggests that smoking pot regularly and heavily is associated with around a 5% increased incidence in lung cancer, but N in the study is pretty small for me to be happy with this number.

I don't remember the article that I'm "reciting" from, it was one of the popular science type magazines (probably from around the same timeframe as that article, and maybe partially based upon it). The article was actually talking about the relative safety of marijuana, but stated the smoke was "x time worse" (x being something around the 10 mark). I think it mentioned something about lack of filters, etc.

It might have been poorly researched, I don't remember the details.

From your article 5% increase in risk would indicate a "per-puff" more dangerous smoking product than tobacco when you consider people probably average less than 1 a day. I can't imagine many people use more than 5 a week.

That said, pot smokers are probably more likely to be tobacco smokers than non pot-smokers, so that 5% could be correlation not causation.

Re:cool

[GameboyRMH]

I wouldn't be surprised if shrooms are safer for your body than pot by some small margin, but I'm sure it's not safer for your mind. Taking shrooms too many times can turn you into a Gary Busey-style space cadet and you'll just think you're "enlightened." You have to smoke weed every day for years to even risk such mental effects from pot.

Re:cool

[Ol Olsoc]

Another problem is that they ignore the quality of the experience. A sugar pill is safe but it would be silly to say it is the "best" drug since it doesn't do anything.

Hold on there cowboy! If the sugar pill contains Fructose, it is a proven killer. Make certain your placebo pills are only of the safe and healthy sugar, Sucrose! Brought to you by the Sugar Cane Growers Association

Re:cool

[Ol Olsoc]

They didn't say Shrooms were the "Best" drug, they said the safest. Two very different things. "Best" would surely be subjective.

Where can I score some of this "subjective", dude?

Re:cool

[Ol Olsoc]

So then the ER wouldn't be the last place. At best it would be the antepenultimate place you'd take someone.

Bet you've been waiting for years to use antepenultimate in a sentence.

Re: cool

[Ol Olsoc]

Yeah there was a recent case in Thailand where 2 tourist had magic mushrooms and one of them decided he feel like flying asking the friend to join him, then proceeding to jump to his death following that.

Don't think just smoking marijuana can make you do something like that....

Just try throwing a bag of Cheetos on the sidewalk and see what the potheads will do.

Re:cool

[Anonymous Coward]

"I bet beer and pot together are safer than shrooms."

Maybe, but not if you accept this study's definition of "safety". Their metric is % of users who needed emergency medical treatment. There are thousands of people who go to the ER or call 911 after using marijuana and the # is way up since legalization. In the overwhelming majority of cases the people are just freaking out and the only treatment they really need is a valium to calm them down and time for the effects to wear off.

I sure as hell hope you don't mean beer, pot and rifles in that specific order. Do your shooting first & put the rifles away when you start drinking & smoking.

Re:cool

[xession]

Yeah, lets take someone with an unknown allergic reaction to hallucinogenic mushrooms to "some place safe" instead of the ER. I seriously doubt that 0.2% of folks were going to the ER because they were having a bad trip.

Re: cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Yo, Betty was bunk.

Re: cool

[Megol]

But it can trigger psychosis that leads to death. Marijuana addicts* can have other social and/or economical problems or even (though less common than for heavy drug users) become criminals in order to get more drugs.

(* yes one can get addicted to marijuana)

Re:cool

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Despite these quibbles with methodology, I'm personally miffed at the superstitious reference to "magic" mushrooms.

Can we agree, henceforward, to refer to these as "Science Mushrooms" ?

Signed,
A highly rational libertarian genius.

Re:cool

[omnichad]

Is it safer than ibuprofen? That's a drug and there's not a lot of recreational value there either.

Re:cool

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm making sure to post this anonymously....

I was that guy once. It was LSD and not mushrooms but I've done both and the effects while not exactly the same can be similar in many ways. I was doing fine until my roommate came home and started some shit. I didn't go to jail, but the cops did get involved and they did take me to the ER. They couldn't figure out what I was on and neither I nor my accomplices were admitting to taking LSD.

Anyway it was a really bad trip (actually, it was a great trip until my roommate showed up) and hauling me off to the hospital was the worst thing they could have done - I guess maybe jail would have been worse, but to this day I do not trust doctors. They decided I was suicidal even though I wasn't and locked me up for nearly 72 hours. They lied to me. They did not give me any medical treatment beyond the initial checks I got in the ER. They refused to tell me what was going on and even threatened me with involuntary commitment after I was released.

I can't really do this story justice without spending hours on it and I'm not going to do that, but that weekend in the psych ward was crazy. One of the other inmates said I should just confess to being on LSD and that would explain everything while another told me to never admit to doing drugs because then they'll think I have a drug problem.

And I say inmate because I definitely felt more like a prisoner than a patient.

      I was there from late Friday evening through Monday and I spent about 3 whole minutes with a doctor who seemed to be only interested in the fact that I was there and still breathing. There was one "group therapy" session too, but other than that it was pretty much like a scene out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but without Jack Nicholson or Nurse Ratched or that big Indian guy.

For good or for ill, the acid had worn off after a few hours so most of the time I spent there was drug free and just trying to figure out how to convince them to let me go.

Re:cool

[omnichad]

As they said:

Your average cigarette smoker probably smokes way more than 10 times more frequently than your average pot-head

And that alone gives your body time to recover. Having enough recovery time would mean a lower overall cancer risk - because it's not just accumulation of toxic substances, it's also inflammation. And inflammation that isn't continuous is much less dangerous to long-term health.

Re:cool

[Oswald McWeany]

Is it safer than ibuprofen? That's a drug and there's not a lot of recreational value there either.

Have you tried smokin' some profen? Ibuprofen brownies anyone?

Re:cool

[sl3xd]

Marketing is what it is:

Nobody wants to feel "scientific" when they take a recreational drug.

Feeling "magical," however, is another matter entirely.

Re:cool

[BigBuckHunter]

Really? Do you have any documentation of that? I can't recall ever having had that particular hallucination, nor do I know anybody that has (at least, that they've communicated with me.

Cop Eats Pot Brownies Calls 911
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re: cool

[bugs2squash]

This was self reported, presumably they did not report in after landing so weren't included in the stats.

Re: cool

[Maxo-Texas]

Not really.

Cases of people dying while trying to quit booze are common.

Name a case of a person dying trying to quit pot. (At the least, it's several orders of magnitude lower than the rate for alcohol drinkers.)

There don't appear to be any.

The two biggest risks of pot use are emphysema (only if you smoke it tho and increasingly edibles are the way to go) and increased risk of psychosis if you have a family history of psychosis (and it's possible the heavy pot use was an indicator that you were at a higher risk of psychosis and were self medicating).

Fewer people die from consuming pot than die from swimming, skiing, mountain climbing, smoking tobacco, drinking alcohol, eating peanuts, eating shellfish, hiking, and so on. And those activities are legal.

And we are destroying our police, judicial systems, and our civil liberties in our effort to keep pot illegal.

Re:cool

[greythax]

I support the legalization of weed, because I think it is at least as safe as alcohol. I do have to point out some factual errors in your post. THC, just like water, has a lethal dose. It is something between 6 and 12 times the lethal dose of caffeine, depending on which studies you believe. Secondly, it can have some very profound and lasting effects that won't just flush out eventually. The chief of which is, if you are schizophrenic, or at genetic risk of becoming schizophrenic, it can trigger the disease. Broadly speaking, this is true of just about any hallucinogen, and is very near and dear to me because it happened to a family member of mine. Now, does that make it worse than cigarettes or alcohol? Not even nearly. But we need to take pains to avoid this gift of Gaia characterization. It's not a vitamin, it's not good for you, we shouldn't pretend that it is.

Re: cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Man that is brutal. I'd imagine while tripping you were thinking "this can't be real, I pray this ain't real". Only to wake up to it being real.

The good thing is you remembered how you got there. If it had been Xanax you would have woken up like I did in a jail cell wondering how the hell I got here. Only to be told you made a scene at a store and broke a bunch of shit that didn't belong to you. Not remembering any of it.

Re: cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation needed on everything you wrote. Especially weed having a lethal dose.

Re:cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it safer than ibuprofen? That's a drug and there's not a lot of recreational value there either.

Yes? Ibuprofen can cause stomach bleeding and cardiovascular problem, both of which can be fatal.

Re:cool

[WrongMonkey]

We're all dying, man. Just at different speeds.

Re:cool

[WrongMonkey]

negative health impact of inhaling burning hydrocarbons is well documented

If its so well document, perhaps you can provide a citation or two? What are the exact health effects of inhaling the smoke from 1/2 gram of burning hydrocarbons without any drug content?

Re:cool

[HornWumpus]

No shooting while _shitfaced_. But just like practicing martial arts with a buzz...when are you most likely to get into a fight?

Re: cool

[Anonymous Coward]

If you handle firearms while under the influence, not only are you an idiot, you're a dangerous idiot.

Re: cool

[HornWumpus]

Firearms aren't more dangerous than cars, many tools etc etc.

Drunk, hell no. But 0.08 ISN'T DRUNK, 'under the influence' is a bunch of weasel words. You judgement goes to hell at 0.15.

If you sober enough to wheel (in the woods where cops are a non-issue) you are sober enough to take some target practice.

Re:cool

[shaitand]

"So 'going to the ER' is the wrong criteria in the first place. "

I think you are confusing a dangerous medical reaction with "a bad experience." You can have "a bad experience" on something literally every time you try it 10000 times in a row and it still be 100% safe.

Re:cool

[shaitand]

And that is emergency intervention, someone mentioned what you do in the event of a "bad reaction" but that reaction isn't a medical issue it is more akin to the cop who ate brownies, nothing wrong whatsoever just a guy freaking out and no more a medical situation than getting your spooked when alone after watching a horror movie.

Marijuana is still going to be the winner here with almost no acute negative medical incidences whereas shrooms cause vomiting and diarrhea in at least half the people who take them.

Re:cool

[shaitand]

"No, the truth is more that a semi-common hallucination for pot heads to have is thinking they're dying."

I think you are talking about a situation akin to getting yourself freaked out when alone in the house after watching a scary movie. That has very little to do with marijuana and a great deal to do with a cop who ate brownies and then freaked himself out with all the nonsense propaganda the DEA spreads... Marijuana does not trigger hallucinations. Hell, mushrooms barely trigger hallucinations.

I've consulted with dispensaries growing marijuana and producing over 99% pure THC extracts... THC does not cause hallucinations. What some would call soaring or flying is actually simple dizziness combined with euphoria. The light intoxication makes it easier to see low light hallucinations like a door moving/breathing in a dim room but you won't see anything you can't manage to see as a normal combination and freaking yourself out, mind playing tricks on you, or optical effect when perfectly sober.

Even LSD which is dramatically more hallucinogenic doesn't cause real honest to god hallucinations beyond optical effects that can easily be created with lenses. Textures on the wall slightly shifting and blurring together? Sure. People who aren't real? Nope. Voices. Nope. People who tell you otherwise are busting your chops or most likely just lying about having ever taken the stuff to begin with. I used to sell LSD in high school, trust me, it isn't a quantity thing at least not within the realm of a hundred hits or so. You don't take this stuff to actually go to wonderland, you take it because of the extreme euphoria that lasts 8-12hrs and leaves your face aching from smiling so hard for that long.

I've only encountered one thing that didn't induce a completely dreamlike (stationary, eyes closed or unseeing so everything is 100% imagination) experience that triggers full on hallucinations mixed with reality. I'm not going to spread what that is but is nothing you'd take for fun.

Re:cool

[shaitand]

It isn't really a fair comparison. At least 60% of those who take shrooms experience vomiting and diarrhea. Often they smoke marijuana alongside to treat the sides. Neither causes any sort of serious medical condition.

Re: cool

[piojo]

I agree with you, but none of that negates the abuse of statistics. You just don't say " of X is bad" where X is already selected to be the worst fraction of a group. It tells you nothing, unless you're conducting an analysis of X rather than the group. However, we're considering alcohol drinkers, pot smokers, heroin users. We are not specifically considering alcoholics, potheads who are stoned all the time, and heroin junkies.

Re:cool

[rgbatduke]

ROTFL. Yeah, like that.

Seriously, anybody who has never used pot and eats loaded brownies is going to feel highly "disoriented" and scared. One of many reasons it is highly unethical to put LSD into the punch at the school prom or set out a tray of pot brownies at a party without clearly warning people. Heck, it isn't terribly ethical to serve a vodka laced punch as "orange juice" to teetotalers, either.

But ASIDE FROM DRIVING or operating heavy machinery etc, individuals who eat a brownie by accident are not at any particular health risk -- from the brownie. If they just go have a good lie down and enjoy the spinning mandalas they'll wake up right as rain.

Re:cool

[rgbatduke]

Um, I actually said it had an LD50 dose. It's just so incredibly absurdly high that you can't possibly reach it unless you ingest chemically purified THC in massive quantities -- hundreds of grams. Pot is not pure THC, and you'd have to smoke or eat pounds of it to reach it. I won't say it can't be done -- one of my favorite Darwin awards is an idiot who killed himself with a 9 volt transistor radio battery doing exactly what his instructor told him not to do -- but I think you'd have to set out to deliberately try.

People DO die, OTOH, of caffeine poisoning because one CAN buy pure/concentrated caffeine over the counter and swallow a bottle of it. And eating a single cigarette is potentially lethal to a small child and will make a full grown adult cry like a baby as they projectile vomit and go into convulsions -- but hey, even thought nicotine is an insecticide convulsant poison, cigarettes and tobacco products are legal.

I do agree that pot is not a good idea for schizophrenics and bipolars as I have anecdotal experiences of my own where it has triggered psychotic breaks in acquaintances and relatives. I'm not sure they wouldn't have had their breaks eventually anyway, but some people should indeed go through life stone-cold sober as doing ANY mind-altering substance is likely to be bad and/or addictive to them. With that said, a lot of people use it to self-medicate for depression and anxiety, and in that context it probably works as well as a lot of much more expensive antidepressants (and with lower risks).

It's not a vitamin. Judging what is "good for you" is an individual choice, not a global moral statement -- salt isn't "good for me", but on the other hand, it is. Sugar ditto. It's all about balance. But it is, as you say, wrong to pretend that there are no downsides to pot or assert that we should all start our day with a nice fat brownie...:-)

Re:cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite these quibbles with methodology, I'm personally miffed at the superstitious reference to "magic" mushrooms.

Can we agree, henceforward, to refer to these as "Science Mushrooms" ?

Signed,
A highly rational libertarian genius.

lmfao,
ty

Re:cool

[Paradise Pete]

Bet you've been waiting for years to use antepenultimate in a sentence.

Ha! Actually I use it from time to time, almost always greeted by eyerolls :-)

ALL?

[turkeydance]

well, "hardly ever".

nothing is "safe"

[p51d007]

When you are intoxicated, be it booze or drugs, you can easily lose control and end up doing things you normally wouldn't do. Like: Drive an automobile, have unprotected sex, do crazy things that will follow you the rest of your life. (Employers check youtube/facebook).

Re:nothing is "safe"

[HornWumpus]

Never post anything on youtube/facebook, don't hang out with people that do. But party even harder...you're only young once.

Nothing worth doing is 'safe'.

Re: nothing is "safe"

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a conviniet lie at best. At some level you know what you are doing just silly courts rhat let people get away with the excuse.

Re:nothing is "safe"

[MemeRot]

I drive an automobile even when i'm not messed up. Is something wrong with me?

HIGHLY ILLEGAL

[Anonymous Coward]

So beware. Possession demands 10 years for first offense.

Support your local Republican
and Make America Great Again!

Re:HIGHLY ILLEGAL

[HornWumpus]

Illegal, ishmegal.

Re: HIGHLY ILLEGAL

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi. You seem like a drug dealer. Please respond.

Re: HIGHLY ILLEGAL

[Type44Q]

That's a derogatory, insensitive term that only privileged white males use; please refer to them from now on as "undocumented pharmacists."

Misleading

[al0ha]

Maybe the safest of the hallucinogens they were compared to, but to say they are the safest recreational drug likely means the researchers were themselves shrooming. :P

Re:Misleading

[sg_oneill]

Maybe the safest of the hallucinogens they were compared to, but to say they are the safest recreational drug likely means the researchers were themselves shrooming. :P

Yeah its an odd claim. To be honest, last tim I tried mushrooms, back in my university days, I ended up having an absolutely nasty anxiety attack that only seemed to pass when some tripping genius threw ABBA on (is it even possible not to smile at daft 70s disco?) . Sure my health wasn't threatened, but it was far from a fun experience.

Re:Misleading

[John.Banister]

I think people tending not to repeat the experience was part of what statistically contributed to the position of the mushrooms in the safety ranking. The less time you spend under the influence, the lower the odds are that you'll sustain an injury while in that condition.

Re:Misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

Psychedelics are such a crap shoot. I've never done them; but you remind me of this guy I used to room with. I got everything I felt like I needed to know vicariously through that guy. He said he'd never do acid again because it was too hard to get real acid that was dosed properly. He said he'd do peyote again in a heart beat if it was fresh. His story about a whole bunch of guys doing it on a ship during the Vietnam era was classic. IIRC, they were docked stateside when it happened. Odds are low, but maybe somebody here was on that ship. Thing is, it's different for everybody. I won't touch it.

Re:Misleading

[drinkypoo]

I ended up having an absolutely nasty anxiety attack that only seemed to pass when some tripping genius threw ABBA on (is it even possible not to smile at daft 70s disco?) .

Yes. Some of us begin projectile vomiting immediately. ABBA is by far the worst example of that kind of music.

Re:Misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

You learn to talk yourself down from those. Don't fight the trip. Go with the flow. Remind yourself you're on drugs.

I'm going with Alcohol

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, you don't see Shroom Pubs.

Re: I'm going with Alcohol

[Zero__Kelvin]

Alcohol is but far the most dangerous drug that isn't guaranteed to kill you if you ingest at at all.

Skewed Statistics?

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably the numbers are good, but did they filter out the people who died from eating the BAD toadstools? Amanita muscaria is a more obscure hallucinogen, but it's cousin amanita phalloides is known as the death cap and one of the world's most lethal.

People tend to diacard warnings because some reference materials classify the magic mushrioms as 'poisinous' so they migh experiment and eat a death cap thinking it's in the same category.

Re: Skewed Statistics?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know"magic mushrooms" are not really mushrooms right. They look like mushrooms, a little, after the compound did is how the name came to be.

Re: Skewed Statistics?

[Anonymous Coward]

Years ago, I knew some growers. So I know that 'shrooms are 'shrooms. Also that you can pick them out in the woods if you know where to look.

Re: Skewed Statistics?

[HornWumpus]

If you only know 'where to look' you are playing Russian roulette of sorts.

Re: Skewed Statistics?

[Cmdln Daco]

Definitely. Where to look, and a lot of experience identifying the species. There are only a few really lethal mushrooms, though. The Death Cap (amanita phalloides) is one of the clean nicer looking white mushrooms out there.

You don't start dying from it for awhile after you've eaten it, until it's deep within your system. And its a horrible death.

Re: Skewed Statistics?

[Type44Q]

and a lot of experience identifying the species.

You need knowledge rather than experience, as evidenced by the fact that nearly all experienced mushroom hunters forego the much-needed spore print...

Re: Skewed Statistics?

[koomba]

Bzzzt! Wrong, guess again. The by far most commonly consumed species most definitely is a mushroom, not sure where you came up with that: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... And while there is many other species with the active ingredient, they are all still mushrooms. *The more you know*

Re: Skewed Statistics?

[dbIII]

There are only a few really lethal mushrooms,

Unless you go to Australia where nearly every single variety of wild fungi that doesn't look weird is lethally poisonous if eaten.

Re: Skewed Statistics?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah it is the electronic firms that create the mushrooms. Where do you think the magic smoke in your cpu comes from

Re:Skewed Statistics?

[jandersen]

Amanita muscaria is a more obscure hallucinogen, but it's cousin amanita phalloides is known as the death cap and one of the world's most lethal.

Indeed, but you would be hard pressed to mistake them for each other, I think. The first one is bright red, normally with white 'dots' all over, very recognisable - you don't need to eat it to see something psychedelic - whereas the second one is a dull, brownish-green colour and looks a bit like something you might find in the supermarket.

Re: Skewed Statistics?

[RuffMasterD]

Everything is lethal in Australia. Snakes, jellyfish, crocodiles, spiders, sharks, stingrays. Even birds will freakin disembowel people. I'm surprised anyone even lives past 16 over there.

Re: Skewed Statistics?

[Zero__Kelvin]

You do know that you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, and that they are mushrooms that happen to have the organic chemical psilocybin in them, right?

Re: Skewed Statistics?

[Anonymous Coward]

This. I routinely go Pan. Subb. Hunting in my neighborhood around this time of year. I am familiar with what they look like and where they grow. I always take a spore print. pan subbs look just like regular brown lawn mushrooms, the different is their gills are grayish with a deep black spore print, while the common brown lawn shroom has a purple/brown spore print.

Re: Skewed Statistics?

[shaitand]

Where to look is in the humidity dome in your closet. The spores are perfectly legal and outside of making sure things are nice and sterile extremely easy to cultivate.

Re: Skewed Statistics?

[shaitand]

Agreed. Also, the death cap wouldn't trick anyone who had handled the real thing fresh. One scrap of the fingernail on that white flesh would reveal it wasn't the real thing and you'd have a pretty good idea when it was that pristine white in the first place.

Re: Skewed Statistics?

[dbIII]

Everything is lethal in Australia

Not quite.
We didn't have any poisonous amphibians so a state government decide to import some in the 1930s and their population exploded (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toads_in_Australia).

Shroom users however, were 1999 times more likely

[Anonymous Coward]

To be hospitalized for the spiders eating their brains.

F that

[edx93]

Last time I saw someone hallucinate on that (back in college), she thought I was the devil. It was really weird.

Re:F that

[whoozwah]

goombas do that man. they make you deal with your shit.

Re:F that

[HornWumpus]

Did you bang her? You'd think her believing you were the dark lord would give you a leg up?

I'd have thought Satan would have a lower ID (or post as AC).

Re:F that

[edx93]

Hell no

Re: F that

[Type44Q]

I had the pleasure of introducing a bunch of friends to Quake (summer '96) when they were on mushrooms... good times; never gotten so much amusement from peoples' facial expressions in my life.

Re:F that

[Anonymous Coward]

I do post as AC.

Re:F that

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true. Comes from IPv4 address 666.666.666.666

/. admin

Re:F that

[Cmdln Daco]

That's an octal IP datagram, correct??

I've tried all of the above

[Anonymous Coward]

I've tried all of the above and shrooms gave me the largest side effect. An hour or so after consumption I would get extremely nauseous, and very emotional at times. A day after consumption my kidneys would hurt, apparently they go into overdrive to get the toxins out of your body. But I would gladly try them again. I knew these were the likely side effects before consumption. I see how LSD could give some people nasty hallucinations, I have seen people getting freaked out due to these. It's hard to stop them once they have begun. MDMA is one my of favorites, but I have seen people with side effects, especially extreme nausea. DISCLAIMER: Like all drugs, understand what you taking, know that consumption comes with risks and potential side effects. Make sure you get the real deal. AND MOST OF ALL take them in a safe environment and a sound state of mind.

Re: I've tried all of the above

[Type44Q]

understand what you taking

Therein lies the rub: if they're black market, you're not likely to ever know for sure...

Re: I've tried all of the above

[Anonymous Coward]

Make your dealer do whatever you take with you first !

Re: I've tried all of the above

[Anonymous Coward]

These mushrooms sure look like they're just white powder. Well I guess I'll take them anyway.

Re: I've tried all of the above

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not really selling me on this drug thing.

Safer than alcohol?

[Trogre]

Safer than society's favourite OH group?

safe vs safest

[Anonymous Coward]

'the safest recreational drug' is like saying 'the safest car for a pedestrian to be hit by'. Still something to be avoided.

Re:safe vs safest

[OrangeTide]

That's a false analogy. More like safest rollercoaster. Because you're not guaranteed to be injured riding a rollercoaster, it's unlikely to result in an injury even if you ride it hundreds of times.

Different Kinds Of Poop

[Anonymous Coward]

Poops all over the world are of different types. We all experience them at some point in our lives. How many have you flushed ?

Loose Your Belly Poop : You poop so much you lose 5 kilos.

Wish Poop : You sit there all cramped up and fart a few times, but no poop!

Mathematical poop : So hard you have to work it out with a pencil! (Think about it)

Ghost Poop : You know you’ve pooped. There’s poop on the toilet paper, but no poop in the bowl.

A-Bomb Poop : This one shoots straight down at close to the speed of sound, resulting in a mushroom cloud of water that soaks your cheeks, the backs of your thighs, and (if you’re unlucky) your trousers.

Gooey Poop : This has the consistency of hot tar. You wipe your butt 12 times and it still doesn’t come clean. You end up putting toilet paper in your underwear so you don’t stain it. This poop leaves permanent skid marks in the toilet.

Second Thought Poop (Encore poop /second wave poop or déjà poo): You’re all done wiping your butt and you’re about to stand up when you realize ityou’ve got some more.

Pop a Vein in Your Forehead Poop : This kind is the kind of poop that killed Elvis. It doesn’t come until you’re all sweaty, trembling and purple from straining so hard.

The Shitty Shitty Bang Bang : The kind of poop that hits you when you’re trapped in your car in a traffic jam.

Right Now Poop : You better be within 10 seconds of a toilet. Usually it has its head out before you get your pants down.

King Kong or Commode Choker Poop : This poop is so big that you know it won’t go down the toilet unless you break it into smaller chunks. A coat hanger works well. This kind of poop usually happens at someone else’s house.

Wet Cheeks Poop : This poop hits the water sideways and makes a BIG splash that gets your butt wet.

Cement Block or Oh God Poop : You wish you’d gotten a spinal block before you poop.

Snake Poop : This poop is fairly soft and about as big around as your thumb and at least three feet long.

Teflon Coated Poop : Comes out so slick, clean and easy that you don’t feel it. No traces of poop on the toilet paper. You have to look in the toilet bowl to be sure you did it!

Cork Poop (Also Known as Floater Poop) : Even after the third flush, it’s still floating in there. My god! How do I get rid of it? This poop usually happens at someone else’s house.

Mexican Food Poop (also called Screamers) : You’ll know it’s alright to eat again when your butthole stops burning.

NASA poop : This poor poop gets delayed for hours or even days due to unfavorable weather, computer problems, unforeseen budget shortfalls, incompetent management, etc. The more it gets delayed, the more frantic you get. Until ultimately you panic, try to fire it off prematurely, and blow out your o-ring – exploding spectacularly.

The Frightened Turtle : The kind of poop that just pokes its head out then quickly goes back in.

The Bungee Poop : The kind of poop that just hangs off your butt before it falls into the water.

The Ring of Fire Poop : The kind of poop where you eat really spicy food and your butthole feels like the inside of a cigarette lighter.

The Crippler : The kind of poop where you have to sit on the toilet so long your legs go numb from the waist down.

The Big Bobber : The kind of poop that no matter how many times you flush it always floats back to the surface.

Salvador Dali poop : Comes out in strange, surrealistic colors. A strong indication that you took at least one too many ‘shrooms last night.

The Incredible Hulk Poop : The king of poop that sits in the toilet overnight and mysteriously expands to twice it’s normal size.

Jack the Ripper Poop : The kind of poop that yanks out your butt hair as it pushes its way out.

The Party Pooper : The giant poop you take at a party. And when you

Read the article.

[JThundley]

I jumped at reading the article to validate my existing beliefs, but the article rates mushrooms as safe by the amount of people admitted to the hospital as a result. I don't think that's a great measure to use. Just because you aren't immediately and seriously injured or disruptive doesn't mean it's not bad for your mind or body.

Re:Read the article.

[sl3xd]

The article only considers the dangers of the drug's interaction with the body...

I'm sure there are a lot of drugs which are pretty safe, provided you're in a situation where you can't injure yourself.

The danger happens when you can do things like walk into a busy street, or up a flight of stairs, believe you can fly...

Re:Read the article.

[JThundley]

Right. By this logic if you're camping out alone in the woods and manage to make it home safely afterward, every and any drug you take is equally safe.

Depends on your definition of safety

[MetricT]

It's not physically possible for someone to injest a lethal dose of THC from marijuana. Marijuana has higher hospital admissions than mushrooms, partly due to the influx of people trying it for the first time (it's easier to both acquire and show up at a hospital if it's legal), or due to not understanding you need to wait 1-2 hours for an edible to kick in, or because someone spiked a unsuspecting person's food/drink with cannabis.

Re:Depends on your definition of safety

[GuB-42]

LSD poisoning is also almost unheard of. While it is technically possible to take a lethal dose, it don't think it has ever happened. You need thousands of doses for this.
Those who seek emergency medical attention usually just went into a trip that is too much for them to handle. Same situation as with cannabis.

One reason shrooms have less problems is that inexperienced people tend to take it in small doses. With LSD and cannabis it is common for people to take way more than they can handle. With LSD, you are never sure about the dosage, and cannabis (a "soft" drug) tends not to be taken seriously.

Re:Depends on your definition of safety

[RazorSharp]

While I think the statistics here are pretty dubious, if we take them at face value I think another likely reason shrooms would have less hospitalizations is because you'll throw up if you take too many. Really, though, the difference between shrooms and acid is barely discernible and neurologically they do pretty much the same thing (serotonin/dopamine agonists).

Concerning pot, I knew someone who was allergic to it and it made his throat swell up the first and only time he smoked it. He had to go to the ER. That could contribute to some hospitalizations, but I'm sure most are, as you suggest, people who took a large dose and got scared.

Re:Depends on your definition of safety

[Maxo-Texas]

The LD 50 rating for marijuana appears to be about 1 unstrapped tons in the back of your car. That's one of the few documented deaths clearly due to marijuana. The guy (who was not stoned) was crushed when he had a car accident.

When I started drinking at 33, I had some nasty hangovers. When people start smoking pot- they don't know how to handle it and can end up going to the emergency room because they are freaking out and overdid it.

Personally- I would prefer the high cannibinoid pot available over seas (and MAYBE in colorado) over high THC pot. I like the silly giggly shit vs simply being stoned.

But pot is much healthier for almost everyone than booze is (which is why booze makers donate to anti-pot legislation).

Re:Depends on your definition of safety

[swb]

I think the distinction not being spoken of here is acute physical reactions vs. acute psychological reactions.

Most of your hallucinogens are pretty difficult to achieve acute physical reactions with, but I think hallucinogens can be the source of acute psychological reactions, especially among inexperienced people and at common recreational doses.

I would also say especially with LSD and mushrooms because they are pretty strong to begin with, and even cannabis in inexperienced users or at high potency levels.

Re:Depends on your definition of safety

[i.r.id10t]

The biggest safety issue around mushrooms for fun are related to properly identifying the "edible" ones, not getting stomped by a pissed off bull or cow, and not getting shot by Farmer Brown.

Re:Depends on your definition of safety

[Anonymous Coward]

"So much for taking half a hit" said a friend of mine after I took my first dose. He was an experienced tripper, I obviously wasn't.

It was blotter straight from the parking lot of a Grateful Dead show. I probably should have only taken half a hit.

But you never can tell how "good" it will be until you're familiar with your source. For a while a friend of a friend had some really, really weak acid. I mean I'm not even sure if it was LSD, but I was beginning to wonder if I had built up a tolerance to it. Rest assured, that acid was just bullshit. I found out I had not developed any kind of tolerance when I was given two hits of liquid acid dropped in my beer. Seriously, I actually told him to only put one drop in but he was already tripping and was being generous. That bastard!

Maybe this is a good place to ask. If you put a drop of liquid LSD into a beer does it sink to the bottom or float on the top or just mix equally throughout?

I pondered that question after that LSD was dropped in my beer and by the time I finished it I had this permanent grin on my face and I'm sure I was radiating some sort of glow around me.

Re:Depends on your definition of safety

[Dread_ed]

Another reason that mushrooms are less dangerous could be attributed to the fact that psilocybin is a prodrug, meaning specifically that it is not psychoactive until it is processed by the digestive system into psilocin. This creates a (variable) bottleneck to high levels of exposure based on how the drug is prepared, how it is consumed, and the digestive state of the individual who takes it.

Consuming raw caps and stems in large quantities will lead to a considerable amount of the drug leaving through the digestive tract, unprocessed and not absorbed. This is akin to a designed in fail safe mode for the drug. In essence your gut can only process so much of the psilocybin into psilocin at a time.

Some individuals, through serendipitous co-consumption as well as reasoned chemical forethought, have found ways to defeat the fail safes of psilocybin through ingesting certain items along with it to increase processing, as well as methods of externally pre-processing psilocybin into psilocin before consumption. This practice can be highly intoxicating and is contraindicated in inexperienced users, those with previous emotional or psychological issues, psychotics, and fucking normies.

Re:Depends on your definition of safety

[Anonymous Coward]

LSD dissolves in water and ethanol so given enough time it will mix equally within your beer.
Now before that I say it depends on the how your drop is made of. If it is alcohol based, it will most likely stay on top for a little while.

Re:Depends on your definition of safety

[Anonymous Coward]

While it is technically possible to take a lethal dose, it don't think it has ever happened. You need thousands of doses for this.

It actually has happened, murder most foul, but good guess; about 1000 times a typical recreational dose for a human according to Wikipedia.

297 mg injection and an hour and forty-five minute later Tusko the elephant has shuffled off this mortal coil, Oklahoma, 1962.

Naturally

[Anonymous Coward]

"Magic Mushrooms Best, Safest Drug Ever," concludes man who has been wolfing them down for years and has lost all touch with reality.

no thanks, dont want fungus

[FudRucker]

i would rather drink a beer or two and smoke a little 100% natural marijuana of the cannabis indica family, if this redneck state dont legalize it soon i am moving to a legal weed state

Re:no thanks, dont want fungus

[Anonymous Coward]

You know that mushrooms are just as "100% natural" as marijuana, right?

Re:no thanks, dont want fungus

[Anonymous Coward]

And beer is 100% natural fermented sugar and bacterial yeast?

Re:no thanks, dont want fungus

[Anonymous Coward]

i would rather drink a beer or two

Your beer is fermented with fungus, so you've got that going for you, which is nice.

Re:no thanks, dont want fungus

[Anonymous Coward]

that's right . . . 100% "bacterial yeast" . . .

Very narrow definition of "safe"

[GuB-42]

By safe they speak only about emergency medical treatment.
It doesn't include long term damage (non-emergencies) and severity.
You can get to the hospital just because you got into a situation you couldn't control, or because someone else panicked, but you were never in danger to begin with.

Tobacco is probably really safe by this metric. Cancer usually won't get you in an emergency room...
Still interesting, and the results make sense, just know it is not all there is to drug safety.

Re:Very narrow definition of "safe"

[drinkypoo]

Tobacco is probably really safe by this metric.

Probably, although ER visitors are twice as likely to be smokers as the general population. Correlation v causation, sure, but it's still interesting.

Re:Very narrow definition of "safe"

[Anonymous Coward]

In my experience, smokers are people who don't give a fuck about risks. You kind of have to be to treat your own body like that.

Re:Very narrow definition of "safe"

[Anonymous Coward]

Tobacco is probably really safe by this metric.

But, but how many soldiers have wounded or lost their lives from sniper fire or revealed their squad's position because their didn't stump the roll in time!!!?? I guess we are all still waiting for that Kinsey report on recreational drug use..

Re:Very narrow definition of "safe"

[gosand]

Not to mention that plenty of people overdose and DIE from all kinds of drugs. Guess what - they don't admit those people to the hospital.
And people who are on some drugs like LSD may do crazy things and end up getting arrested, hurt, or killed - technically not directly attributed to the drug but what they did because of the drug.

This story is kind of silly.

Re:Very narrow definition of "safe"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Not to mention that plenty of people overdose and DIE from all kinds of drugs. "

Could you point to an example of someone who overdosed and died from cannabis, psilocybin, or LSD?

Re:Very narrow definition of "safe"

[gosand]

Perhaps you don't understand the phrase "all kinds of drugs"... this article mentions cocaine, and the title is misleading. Lots of very unsafe drugs are taken recreationally. So NO, I wasn't referring to any of those specifically. Pretty much a lot of other drugs, including prescription.

One user experience: homicidal rage

[Anonymous Coward]

Were the study authors aware of the case of Jarrod Wyatt? After drinking hallucinogenic mushroom tea, Wyatt became convinced that his friend was "possessed by the devil". Wyatt used a knife to remove his friend's heart while he was still alive. He then threw the heart into a fire to "silence the devil".

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1282647/US-cage-fighter-Jarrod-Wyatt-rips-training-partner-Taylor-Powells-heart.html

Of course, the mushrooms were perfectly safe for Wyatt!

Re:One user experience: homicidal rage

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, the mushrooms were perfectly safe for Wyatt!

Much safer than they were for Powell...

Caffeine is Missing

[gymbrown]

I was disappointed that caffeine was missing of the list of recreational drugs. Although Global Drug Survey has it listed, the ER statistics for caffeine is not in any of the articles. When we have a party, or go to one we have a can of pop or more. Is caffeine as safe as magic mushroom? Should we take it instead of pop? I am worried about my pop drinking as I have started to go to the hard stuff. I used to be able to get wired from DR Pepper(25mg) but now I sometimes have to drink Mountain Dew(55mg). I don’t want to wind up in the ER after drinking Red Bull if magic mushrooms are the safest reactional drug.

Fractions. They are a good thing. Use them

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck does 5 times lower (than 0.2%) mean? Negative 0.8%? I'm fed up with mass media abusing multiples to mean fractions and the dumbing down continues unabated. Say "one fifth of" or "20% of", not "five times lower" for a quantity that cannot be negative. Fractions, morons. They are a good thing. Use them.

Re:Fractions. They are a good thing. Use them

[wkwilley2]

Five times lower than 0.2% would mean 0.04%. Or as an expression 0.002/5 = 0.0004.

Math truly is a wonderful thing.

Re: Fractions. They are a good thing. Use them

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot.

Five times lower means five times as much as .2 which is 1. 1 lower than .2 is -.8 .

Math and reading comprehension are wonderful things. Hence why all pedantic nerds hate X times less.

Should name the mushroom because ...

[dbIII]

Should name the mushroom because some varieties are incredibly deadly.
Those aren't the ones used for tripping though, more like the ones you read about in the news where yet another family cooked up some wild mushrooms they couldn't recognise and died.

Hmmm pesticides

[future assassin]

How do you love smoking Eagel 20/Nova, Avid, Shuttle, Pylon, Meltatox, Floramite and many other for ornamental only pesticides with long residual 1/2 life thats on your weed?

Re:Hmmm pesticides

[Anonymous Coward]

A copper wire and aphids work just as well as those pesticides.

Re:Hmmm pesticides

[Anonymous Coward]

You're both idiots... Shrooms are fucking awesome and why would you spray pesticides in an aeroponic grow op?

Re: Hmmm pesticides

[Anonymous Coward]

Ain't none of that shit on mine.

Self reporting as idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

No freaking way you could ever get a mal-tripping shroomer to go to an ER. Might as well expect a pot user to remember what the question was.

Least dangerous, not safest

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't do drugs. There are no safe drugs. If it has an effect, it has side effects.

Re:Least dangerous, not safest

[Anonymous Coward]

So you'll be stopping oxygen immediately, we hope.

Re:Least dangerous, not safest

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, druggies are impossible to argue with. The drugs reduce them to the mental age of a child: Want, want, want, don't get in the way.

Re: Least dangerous, not safest

[Anonymous Coward]

Different take. There are no safe anythings. Do drugs. They're a good experience to have under your belt. And mostly they're fine.

Re: Least dangerous, not safest

[Anonymous Coward]

Many drugs can cause lasting detrimental effects on the first try. Trying them once is too often. Addiction (not just to substances, but that's the kind of addiction that's easiest to avoid) is a terrible thing, not a good experience.

Whats the chance that you pick the wrong shroom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they take into account that miss identifying the wrong mushroom may result in death?

First rule of drug use

[Anonymous Coward]

You can always add more, you cant take it away.

fake news again

[Anonymous Coward]

"mushrooms"? "safest"? what kind of scientific precision is that?

You just keep swallowing that MADD juice

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll keep enjoying my pints.

Re:You just keep swallowing that MADD juice

[Zero__Kelvin]

Nobody suggested you shouldn't. I said it was the most dangerous, not that it should be outlawed. Drug laws are absurd.

Re:You just keep swallowing that MADD juice

[bugs2squash]

Not all drug laws are absurd, Meth for example is a menace. I think the problem is that drug laws are abused to crack down on $peopleIwishToDiscriminateAgainst rather than being targeted to minimize the burden drugs place on communities.

Re:You just keep swallowing that MADD juice

[Zero__Kelvin]

Methamphetamine is legal if prescribed by a doctor. Doctor's don't generally prescribe alcohol, though they concede that a single glass of red wine with dinner can be beneficial. The danger with meth comes from them being illegal, and the fact that the home cooked product is impure, as well as being dangerous to produce by amateurs.

Re:You just keep swallowing that MADD juice

[bugs2squash]

I just can't see it being a good idea to make meth legal and available in the same way as alcohol or, now, weed. If the arguments about legalizing drugs are valid, then we should start seeing a drop in demand for meth now that weed is less illegal right ?

Re: You just keep swallowing that MADD juice

[Zero__Kelvin]

No. That is a straw man. Nobody argued that people who like uppers would switch to a drug that relaxes you. That would be a stupid argument.

Re: You just keep swallowing that MADD juice

[bugs2squash]

The dangers posed by illegal labs are a problem that might be addressed by legalization, but I mostly associate meth use with addiction and people fucking up their lives and the lives of those around them by running their health into the ground and turning to crime to fund their habit.

I know the same could be said for some other drugs, maybe even alcohol though I doubt in such a high proportion of users.

What would you say has to be legalized to make meth and other highly addictive drugs an insignificant problem ?

Re: You just keep swallowing that MADD juice

[Zero__Kelvin]

First let me say that there is no solution that will create a scenario where drugs do not ruin people's health and cause difficulties both in the life of others and the drug user. The whole reason the "war on drugs" is and always be a failure is because the proponents think there is a solution, legal or otherwise, that will eliminate the problem. The problem with laws against drugs is that they don't just fail to acheive that impossible goal, they actually exacerbate the situation.

" I mostly associate meth use with addiction and people fucking up their lives and the lives of those around them by running their health into the ground and turning to crime to fund their habit."

The reason legalization actually reduces the problem is manifold, but let's start with the bit about turning to crime to fund their habit. Alcohol is one of the worst drugs on the planet both from a health persective and a danger to others persepctive, but as you may have noticed, there isn't a rash of people committing crimes to fund their alcohol habit. Why? Because alcohol is inexpensive and readily available. When people do get out of control with it we tend to send them to detox and rehab, imprisoning them only when their use results in significant danger to others caused by intoxication, such as multiple DUIs or crimes committed because they have lost their faculties and killed someone or beat them, etc.

Again, you won't eliminate crime through legalization. You can only minimize it. The Heroin addict or Meth addict that can beg for change on a street corner to fund his habit will not take the risk of breaking and entering to fund his habit. Furthermore, legalization allows taxation, which means we can afford to build more detoxes and rehabs for those who are ready to try to address their issues. Right now most crimes are committed by drug users who want to stop, recognize that they have a problem, do not want to commit crimes to fund their habit, but either have no way out due to lack of availability of help, or because they don't see a way out. Many have given up, as they are felons ... often just for possessing the drug ... and so can't get a decent job due to the social stigma and the fact that companies don't tend to hire felons. A company will hire a guy who had an alcohol problem and cleaned up because he has no felonies. He is every bit as much an addict as the others, but he hasn't done hard time for the sin of having an AMA recognized disease.

Note that your belief that the benefit of legalization is that people already using hard drugs will switch to less hard drugs is a misnomer. Marijuana is the exception because many who use alcohol have switched to the "harder" drug (alocohol) when they would prefer to use the less harmful drug (Marijuana), due to the problems caused by legal dangers of the "softer" drug. In this case the law makes the otherwise much more safe drug more dangerous to use due to risk of imprisonment.

"What would you say has to be legalized to make meth and other highly addictive drugs an insignificant problem ?"

Murder ;-)

(Hopefully you get the somewhat inappropriate joke after reading what I wrote)

Nope.

[Megol]

The safest drug is nitrous oxide. The only documented medical problem for the drug itself is reduced B12 levels but only on (for most people) unrealistic levels of use. The number of users seeking medical help associated with the drug use are extremely small.

There are associated problems like people getting frostbites due to incompetent handling of compressed gas and people suffocating due to inhaling too little oxygen but neither of those are a problem with the drug itself.

Nitrous have a very short lasting mild disassociative and calming effect that most tolerates well.

I don't know about that

[kaizendojo]

I've never gotten ill or thrown up from smoking pot. But I have from shrooms.

How safe

[Anonymous Coward]

So that was why I ended up in the emergency room, the safety factor....
The original article had an image of an Amanita Muscaria, a good chance that if you eat that without knowing how to prepare it, you die.
The anti toxin will be what kills you though, so think twice!
Better yet don't eat stuff that frys your mind or kills your body.
Toxic + toxin = intoxicated so where is the logic in that.
Try prayer, it works better in the long run.

Ain't math grand?

[Anonymous Coward]

Five times lower than 0.2% would mean 0.04%. Or as an expression 0.002/5 = 0.0004.

That would be one fifth..

Five times lower would be (0.002 - (0.002 x 5)) = -0.008

Math truly is a wonderful thing.

Ain't math grand?

Do you think you can fly?

[Mike Van Pelt]

The closest I've ever gotten to 'shrooms is a guy in my dorm back in the 70s... Not sure how many he ate, but his nickname was "Birdman" after he recovered from taking a trip out of a second (third? I forget) story window.

He wasn't trying to kill himself. It was more "Wow, everything's moving so slowly. (drops pencil) "Floats like a feather." (jumps up) Whoa, I'm floating! Gotta try this... (out the window) "Wow, I'm floating! Far out, man! Here comes the ground. I wonder if it will be friendl... OW OW OW OW OW!" To the hospital with a broken leg.

Bottom line, anything that alters your perception of reality is a potential hazard when reality doesn't alter to meet your altered perceptions.

Me, the only illegal drugs I've ever done was half a bottle of beer when I was 17.