[ExI] 27 psychedelics??

[Will Steinberg]

And I guess as a follow-up to that little paragraph I would ask WHY doctors
DON'T try the psychoactive drugs they prescribe.  Awful side effects are
usually rare, especially if you just try them once to see what they feel
like.  And if you're that scared of the effects, how could you feel
comfortable prescribing them so freely?  For someone who cares about
intelligence, science, and information, you think it would be a no-brainer
to gain that wealth of new information by taking the drug--information you
literally cannot possibly obtain elsewhere, since it is essentially pure
qualia.  To come back to the color example, imagine you had a pill that let
greyscale-seers see color for the first time, and yet you had no idea what
color looked like.  You're telling me you wouldn't take the drug just to be
more knowledgeable?  Why?  Fear?  Decades of brainwashing education?  Pure
stubbornness?  I just don't understand.  It's not that scary or difficult
to try a mild dose of a drug.  Refusing to experience these things, if one
is dealing in them, should be considered an overt mark against that
practitioner.  Not singling you out; this applies to everyone, in my
opinion.  I would consider it equal to or perhaps worse than a doctor who
refused to read a chapter in a textbook about a drug he or she was
prescribing, or refused to attend a seminar on the newest medical
technique, but uses it anyway.  You simply cannot understand these drugs
without doing them.

It's sad because I would say you could pick a random, middlingly
intelligent amphetamine user off the street and they would have just as
much to offer in counseling someone on the use of amphetamine as a doctor
who prescribes it.  THAT is how much information is contained in the
experience itself.  Of course, this means that a doctor who is also
experienced in these drugs is the clear paragon of knowledge--I'm not
saying that it isn't extremely useful, and necessary, for a doctor to know
how drugs work and how they move throughout the body.  I just think the
experience is as important.  The great thing is, you don't need to go to
school for 8 years for that part; the tough part is already done.  All you
have to do is give yourself the experience.  And then you will be more of
an expert than any doctor who hasn't had the experience.

On Sun, Mar 27, 2022 at 10:51 AM Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com>
wrote:

> No, I reject the idea that you are an expert.
>
> It's one thing if the drugs only have physiological effects, even if it's
> not ideal since you don't understand what the side effects feel like.  You
> can still feel confident about their effects in a functionalist sense.  But
> for psychoactive drugs, I think prescribers being inexperienced in their
> actual effects is one of the reasons so many drugs are wrongly prescribed.
> It's insane to me that--having actually taken amphetamines, for
> example--someone could prescribe amphetamines without having experienced
> the effects.  Because without having taken them, I am confident in saying
> you have NO CLUE what they actually do.  The behavioral observations and
> the physiological data tell like 1% of the story when it comes to what
> these drugs do.  Some drugs are just about the physiological data, ok it
> lowers blood pressure, here ya go.  No problem.  But it honestly disgusts
> me that doctors prescribe amphetamine without knowing what it actually
> does.  And I would bet a large sum of money that if you tried amphetamine,
> you would be a lot more conservative in the amount of people you prescribe
> it to.
>
> Yes, I am shitting on your expertise and education, because I think they
> haven't actually prepared you to responsibly prescribe psychoactive
> medications.  At the very least prescribers should be required to consult a
> self-bioassaying drug geek like myself who actually knows what these drugs
> do.
>
> On Sun, Mar 27, 2022 at 3:43 AM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 10:49 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>> I don't think people should be allowed to speak in such an opinionated
>>> manner regarding drugs if they haven't tried them themselves.  It's like
>>> saying you're an expert on the color red if you can only see in black and
>>> white.
>>>
>>
>> ### Do I need to take every drug before I prescribe it to my patients, or
>> would you perhaps let me speak about drugs to patients based on my
>> knowledge of the relevant published research? Because, well, I *am* an
>> expert on neurological drugs, even if I don't take them.
>>
>> Rafal
>> --
>> Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD
>> Schuyler Biotech PLLC
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>
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