Indeed, used correctly, LSD is an exorcicotic. It can cure criminality.

LSD is simply powerful. It stretches the brain.

Since it produces permanent changes, using it more than necessary or with a stronger dose than necessarily is like hyperextending a joint. Yoga is good. Too much yoga is literally torture.

Humans vary a lot. Given constant doses, blood level changes in melatonin vary by a factor of 4000 across individuals. I don’t think LSD is that variable, but maybe it is. Definitely, getting the dosing right should be left to a professional. Taking a randomly sized tab is a terrible idea.

Think about it: a chemical substance causes permanent damage to some part of the body (in this case the brain).

Q: What is this kind of substance called? A: A toxin, a poison.

There are plenty of examples of toxins which cause permanent damage with a single dose. The ‘change of personality’ is just a sensitive test of Permanent Brain Damage.

For example, if someone has a stroke, e.g. a cerabral haemorrhage, this will usually cause a change of personality which family and friends can notice – not surprising conisdering the brain has been altered, and part of it destroyed (plus compensatory changes).

Some of these drugs will presumbably be destroying some aspect of brain functioning, probably some structural damage is present but too small to be detectable with current technology.

My point is that modern psychiatry has a long-standing tendency for giving a new name to and thereby making ‘mysterious’ something which, plainly understood, is actually perfectly clear (and usually shocking).

Another example (much commoner) is the way that the fact that *all* psychiatric drugs cause withdrawal symptions (more or less severe) is obscured. The SSRI ‘antidepressants’ (e.g. Prozac) produce serious withdrawal problems in at least a quarter of long term users – this is drug withdrawal and leads to drug dependence – but it was cleverly re-named a ‘discontinuation’ syndrome, as if it was something new and mysterious…

But if SSRI problems are called withdrawal and dependence is the outcome – then it becomes clear that SSRIs produce worse dependence problems (on the whole) than the Benzodiazepiness (such as Valium) which are notoriously ‘addictive’. Both cause dependence, but SSRIs are worse.

(The main difference on average is that Valium is usually pleasant to take – i.e. makes the user ‘feel good’, whereas Prozac is either neutral or somewhat unpleasant – makes the user ‘feel bad’. Psychiatrists regard this as a problem for Valium – they prefer to prescrive drugs that coonsistently make patients feel bad – e.g antipsychotics such as Abilify – the best selling drug in the world in recent times.)

Ha! Thanks for writing that, I actually did laugh out loud.

On to the topic at hand…

Part of the problem is that psychological definitions, except at extremes, of what constitutes health are far more broad and vague than any other branch of medicine. Not to mention a certain “preciousness” at changes in what might be called “personal choice” topics.