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Recreational use of naturally occurring dimethyltryptamine – contributing to psychosis?

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Recreational use of naturally occurring dimethyltryptamine – contributing to psychosis?

"The effect of substance abuse on mental health is a pressing issue in modern psychiatric practice, prompting legislation to limit the accessibility of naturally occurring psychoactive substances. In 2011 the Australian Attorney-General’s Department submitted the discussion paper ‘Implementation of model schedules for Commonwealth serious drug offences’ (Australian Government, 2011). The document proposed that all plant species containing the substance N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) be listed as controlled plants, provoking outcry from nurseries and gardening societies (Nankervis, 2011; Thompson, 2011). DMT is an endogenous hallucinogen present in many native Australian plant species. Interest in recreational DMT use is rising in the United States and Australia, particularly among users of other hallucinogens and cannabis (Cakic et al., 2010). Easily accessible Internet forums provide detailed information on the acquisition, extraction and use of DMT. This is a concerning trend considering the limited awareness of DMT use among psychiatrists"

Anyone have access to the full text?

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PM me Alchemica.

There's not much in it - just a letter, little more than a page.

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24 y.o. male admitted to hospital with first-episode psychosis. Had "excessive prior substance abuse, including ..... and methamphetamines". And a family history of psychotic illness.

Saw The spirit Molecule, "developed complex delusional spiritual belief system and was pursuing enlightenment. His goal was to open his internal third eye' ".

As you do.

Then the usual aussie plant references. Interestingly a 1983 reference to indigenous australian use of dmt containing plants during ceremonies (though not explicitly stating it was for psychoactive purposes). I hadn't seen that one.

A bit about 5HT2A receptors and a very old (1952) reference about schizophrenia and increased transmethylation in the brain playing a role in the pathogenesis of symptoms.

Dmt intoxication mimics schizophrenic states.

We should attempt to better monitor the dmt scene to increase our understanding and awareness.

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"This is a concerning trend considering the limited awareness of DMT use among psychiatrists"

shrink to client - "What's this dmt like Wayne? tell me more"

client to shrink - Well.....it's pretty hard to explain Mr.Fister.........it's pretty subjective i guess...here why don't you use that vase over there on your mantle piece for it's true purpose in life and hit a cone of this stuff.

Wayne hands Dr. Fister a small bag of changa and then packs him a hit

10 mins later......

After exhaling and lying down on his own couch, Dr Fister turns to Wayne..

"Awwh fuck, throw away that pack of Aropax ,forget everything i told you and tell me more about this spirit molecule."

:BANGHEAD2:

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"developed complex delusional spiritual belief system and was pursuing enlightenment. His goal was to open his internal third eye' ".

 

This is what shits me about Psychiatry.. In this instance, they're quick off the mark to classify the 'complex spiritual belief system' he developed as 'delusional',

yet there's no way they'd classify mainstream religion as delusional.

Sure there's a lot of debate going on regarding the DSM's classification of 'delusional', and it seems there's some agreement among psychiatrists that there's

some massive room for improvement (e.g. a belief isn't delusional if shared by a group / subculture -- wtf) -- but they wouldn't be so quick to classify religious belief as delusional..

I've ready quite a few terrific papers calling for the reclassification of what constitutes a 'delusion' - each article is careful in how it treats religious belief, conspiracy theorists, etc.

So it shits me in this instance how quickly and easily someone's belief system must be classified as 'delusional' -- for no reason (that I can see) other than the fact it was drug induced?

I suppose this is just one paper out of many, so no point getting panties in a twist.

Edited by SYNeR
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"If he's 'on drugs' then he must be delusional" said the shrink, as he wrote another script.

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To be fair, I think most psychiatrists would be just as quick to call someone with mainstream religious beliefs delusional, if there beliefs got them hospitalised or effected there ability to operate within society.

Personally, I think they are all delusional! Whether your ranting on about the word of god or upsetting plant spirits.

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piss off jabez, with your random"i'm just travelling around mang" type of wordly niceness goodness, yet delivering the severing blow to the temple "comments you deliver.

it's probably you that did it

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That’s why I come here. Just trying to harvest as many souls as possible, before I’m condemned to the dark side.

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Sounds like the researchers were sent to find a problem. Their scrapping the bottom of the barrel with one mentally I'll meth head.

I think if they really wanted a study to enable psychiatrists to give advice on dmt use they should study the outcomes of dmt and other recreation drugs like marihuana and meth compared to dmt use on its own. Instead they have just assumed that marijuana use is the control and in the highlighted case meth abuse the control. In my experience marijuana mixes well with reality but not real great with other drugs. Mix it with meth and your on a fast track to psychosis. And from what I have observed, mix it with dmt and you will eventually hit the fear and be too scared to go back.

I don't think it's correct to blame these episodes on one drug or the other but more a combination of the two (or three, or four....) The sooner psychiatrists work this out the sooner they can provide sage advice and the sooner the government can relax on the dmt front.

Edited by rahli

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"if ur fuked on land, Your fuked on water"

A wise man once said to me whilst trolling for a Murray cod in the Lachlan one foggy morn.

Wisest thing I've ever heard I thought.

Has become a beneficial insight into life in general since, and especially applicable I feel (to me) toward mind altering substances be it alcohol erb whatever. The mind has to be rock solid I feel before I would contemplate such an incredible feet. Not only mentally strong but physically as well.

This has something to do with the kid with prior psychosis losing his shit on dmt, all these horror story's we hear.

Edited by incognito

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I think DMT can send you psychotic in the same way a car crash or a traumatizing event or a NDE can send you psychotic. NDE is probably a good example... someone almost dies, experiences something special and their life is changed forever. Psychotic? well they wouldn't fall within the normal spectrum, so they're experiencing a personality disorder.

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$$$ More people classed as psychotic = More anti-psychotic drug sales = more money and more submissive population. Happy days!!! :BANGHEAD2:

THX1138 eat your heart out and roll over 1984 - "2012 Psychosis" - now screening in a town near you...

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I don't believe psychosis to be a new phenomena.

Edited by incognito

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Obviously just banning every plant in sight is obviously counter productive and never really has positive outcomes.

But just simply denying psychedelic drugs have the potential to cause psychosis within a small minority of individuals is not going to help your opinions (as in this community) be taken seriously.

The recent story in the news of that Brazilian dude who got tasered to death by police is a perfect example. He only had 1/3 of a blotter and went completely psychotic, they’ve got the video footage of him running around the city completely flipping out to prove it.

He wasn’t even a known drug user and had no other drugs in his system, so you can’t blame poly drug abuse or whatever for that. Maybe DMT is different to a degree, because of its short duration, but damn! First time I went there I was convinced I’d travelled to another dimension. Tell me that couldn’t tip a small minority of people, who are vulnerable to developing psychosis over the edge.

You guys would be better of discussing safe use and harm minimisation methods, rather than just denying it ever happens.

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I agree Jabez that we should discuss ways for safe use and harm minimisation and in my experience (and yours too by the sounds of it) Mariguana increases your vulnerability to DMT causing "pyschosis". This is why I think that these researchers should be looking more along the lines of poly drug use, in the name of safe use and harm minimisation. instead they have assumed that poly drug use is the norm. Maybe it is the norm, but if this is contributing to the risk of psychosis maybe this fact would be a better outcome to providing psychiatrist with facts they can use to provide avice on harm minimisation. This is after all portrayed as a rather large concern within the report findings, that the risks are largely unknown.

I do not deny that some folk who are vulnerable to psychosis could trigger off an episode with DMT but this study which is designed to show this fact, has no where near convinced me. If it is such a big issue why focus the report on one mentaly ill meth user who has decided to top it off with shattering whats left of his world with the DMT experience?

When these guys can write a paper that convinces themselves that DMT is a high risk of causing psychosis, instead of just contributing to it in folk that are already on a fast track to hell, then I will change my opinion on the matter. As with my opinions on poly drug use. I am looking forward to the day I am proven wrong.

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And yet...hopefully more than a few psychiatrists are aware of the potential that 5-ht2a agonists have in promoting a personality of "open-ness", in reducing depressive symptoms, in promoting health via release of oxytocin and as potential anti-psychotics and anti-suicidal agents via down-regulation.

"You what now?" I hear some psychiatrists asking....hopefully most of them have heard of 5-ht2a. :BANGHEAD2:

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Curiously , the people that want to ban such things are those who would never use it themselves , and have no actual comprehension of the experience whatsoever .

Edited by Heretic
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If the example that is the folks in this community could take responsibility for the information they hold (which unfortunately is often rather inconsistent and discordant) and create a mechansism by which varied beliefs could be integrated as ordinary real experiences, it would be possible to educte those young people coming up throug the ranks of the psychoactive drug world and fortify them against mental isolation.

the problem is that in this culture its every man for himself because most of those ones out there are afraid for their own safety or too insecure to authroitatively pass on wisdom...

The fact is there is a vast amount of information to be explored and experiences to be had, and when these are ritualised or at the very least organised into classes, some level of cause and effect relationship can be developed and recorded.

until then niehter side of the argument is valid... there are no controls and there are no consistently occuring factors in psychosis other than that the organism experiencing it is aware of itself.

DMT doesnt cause psychosis...

sudden surges of personal responsibility and guilt, fear and the desire for the experience of freedom do.

on some level our society is culturally sick enough to cause psychosis... on another elvel if you simply do not give a flying lotus fuck about what goes on around you, you will make it through ok.

goto creativity AUShaman assoc thread and help out with a website build...

bless

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ban all plants with DMT in them LOL

LOL

LOL

LOL

LMFAO

um... rather a HUGE undertaking isnt it? almost every fucking plant here has dmt, including most grass.

and what, all because of one typicaly head-rooted meth-head. LOL

just another IMPRACTICAL AUSTRALIAN REACTION.

yeah, good luck with that one australia! hahahhahahhhaha

DMT as recreational, WTF? i tried that stuff many many years ago as a teenager along with all the LSD we used to get back then. and, there is NO WAY id ever go near that stuff again! why stress over something that is IMPOSSIBLE to remove, and that nobody would ever do more than once anyhow? as i said "just another IMPRACTICAL AUSTRALIAN REACTION."

now, GIVE ME TOTAL CONTROL OF ALL ASPECTS OF ALL YOUR LIVES!

i saw a photo of gillard drinking a beer today, perhaps we can expect more of this utter crazyness in the near future..

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Thanks for the replies everyone.

Sounds like the researchers were sent to find a problem...

I don't think it's correct to blame these episodes on one drug or the other but more a combination of the two (or three, or four....).

 

Agreed but rather than blaming the drug(s); understanding, finding helpful support for, and accepting the reasons that leads one to use drugs, or discovering what their self/life/culture is lacking that leads them to incorporate them into their life as choices, voluntary or not, seems to resonate better with me.

...create a mechansism by which varied beliefs could be integrated as ordinary real experiences, it would be possible to educte those young people (edit) and fortify them against mental isolation.

...there is a vast amount of information to be explored and experiences to be had, and when these are ritualised or at the very least organised...

...sudden surges of personal responsibility and guilt, fear and the desire for the experience of freedom do...

 

Agreed.

Many years have left me in a dark, stagnant place that occasionally sees the light, thanks to friends, family and other special people. Not to mention cultural baggage of 'psychosis', 'ASD', 'MDD', 'psychological trauma' etc. that incapacitate individual growth and don't have cultural support networks for many, myself included, that allow for effective social integration (despite the assistance of many helping and kind hearted people), let alone help to learn to bring such things into individual control and responsibility. A world where living seems worse than physical death is hardly a place to be... yet reality for too many.

One thing that has been a guiding light, something that has provided some hope for me is this community and its many ways of life. To see that not validated as being a beneficial opportunity for growth (despite inevitable 'developmental challenges') and lovingly accepted by society is potentially the darkest though of all.

A few good ideas (that could be integrated into Western society in a beneficial way) in the following articles, as far as I'm concerned.

Over the years WHO has undertaken several major studies on the expression, course, and prognosis of schizophrenia in several countries, including Colombia, the former Czechoslovakia, Denmark, England, India, Nigeria, the former Soviet Union, Thailand, and the United States. Using standardized instruments, researchers have identified a set of symptoms that were present across all cultures in the schizophrenic samples. Just like with the depression studies, symptoms as lack of insight, auditory and verbal hallucinations, and ideas of reference, are thought to be the “core” symptoms of schizophrenia. The WHO studies nevertheless found differences in symptom profiles from study center to study center, where for instance, schizophrenics in the USA differed from their Danish and Nigerian counterparts on the extent of how much they lacked insight and experienced auditory hallucinations. Schizophrenics in Nigeria also reported more of "other hallucinations" than the USA and Danish schizophrenics. Given this "common core" (and the partial reduction of variation in diagnosis when common instruments are employed), it could be argued that schizophrenia should be viewed as a moderate universal disorder, and as a disorder that is recognizably present in all (studied) cultures, but the disorder appears to respond to different cultural experiences in prevalence rates and modes of expression.

Perhaps the most interesting finding from the WHO studies is that patients from developing countries showed better prognosis compared with their peers in developed countries (Williams, 2003). However, the factors underlying the better outcome of schizophrenia in developing countries are still not fully understood. Jablensky (2000) points to interactions between genetic variation and specific aspects of the environment as one possible reason. Differences in prognosis have also been related to what constitutes stressors in different societies. A number of studies (e.g., Corcoran et al., 2003) have found a link between stress and the onset of schizophrenia and its relapse. A link has also been found between schizophrenia and more subtle everyday factors such as daily hassles (Norman & Malla, 1993). One form of daily hassles – expressed emotion (EE), which refers to negative emotional reactions to patients – may be relevant as a stressor in psychosis relapse in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia patients returning to families with high criticism and emotional involvement levels have about 50 percent chance of relapse, compared with 15 percent in patients returning to low-EE families (Butzlaff & Hooley, 1998; Corcoran et al., 2003).

Revisiting the Mutual Embeddedness of Culture and Mental Illness

While the bio-medical approach to mental illness is linked to an individualist ideology where mental illness is diagnosed and treated as something purely individual, Marsella and Yamada (2000) are of the view that mental illness are very much rooted in ones culture, poverty, helplessness, and racism backed by powerful socio-political and economic structures.

...In cases where culture is taken into consideration, it is often marginalized and construed as an independent variable similar to the status given to culture in cross-cultural psychology with its inherent limitations (Moghaddam & Studer, 1997). The marginalized status of culture to the understanding of mental illness is due in part to the dominant position medicine enjoys (Marsella & Yamada, 2000). As a scientific discipline, the biomedical ideology has been powerful enough to keep the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness in the biological realm. This area is also deeply linked to the use of psychopharmaceutical drugs, which is of great economic interest to the large and ever growing pharmaceutical industries.

Changing our Attitude about Psychosis

Warner (1985) in his study of schizophrenia has shown that psychosis is a disease of societies with a wage economy: tribal societies and those with subsistence economies do not show the same pattern of illness. When someone, ususally a young person, has what we would call a psychotic breakdown there is no stigma and no loss of status. Either they stay within the family and extended community and do simple tasks until there is full recovery, normally within about 9 months, or else they gain status by becoming the shaman's apprentice and undergoing training. This training, which can last for up to 20 years, teaches them stability, control of their mental and emotional states and also how to go into trance states without a full blown psychotic episode, which is characterised by the hallucinations taking control as well as other social dysfunctions. The shaman is well cared for by the community, making sure that they have their needs met in recognition of the service they provide.

Also tribal people have a world-view in which the supernatural plays a large part. Giving psychotic symptoms a supernatural element removes "blame" from the person, leading to conflict resolution and social reintegration with the family. If the person is being interfered with by bad spirits then they remain integrated within their family and anxiety is less because there is a higher degree of tolerance of their problems and no social stigma. The label mad is applied only to highly disruptive people, or those who are violent.

...certain features of psychosis can lead to considerable elevation in social status. The hallucinations and ASCs produced by psychosis, fasting, sleep deprivation, social isolation and hallucinogenic drugs are often a prerequisite for gaining shamanic power. The psychotic features are interpreted as an initiatory experience and social reintegration is so successful that spouses are happier with them than before breakdown. Indigenous healers who have suffered psychotic episodes find their elevated status and well-defined curing role a valuable defence against relapse. The psychotic may be able to function well as a shaman because the emotional supports available to the shaman greatly alleviate the strain of an otherwise excruciatingly painful existence. These are of necessity people who have few personality or emotional disorders, since the presence of these would compound the experiences and make the person unfit for the role of shaman.

For example the Western medical model “views behavioural disorders as displays of symptoms of underlying psychological “disease entities.” Labelling someone as “ill” places then in a dependent and therefore inferior role in our society. Such labelling may have dire consequences for the person stigmatised by the disease syndrome tag. The ASC experience by orthodox Western psychological standards is “sick”, “inferior” or “pathological”. Tart (1975) notes that an implicit assumption in Western cultures is that deliberately “cultivating ASCs is also a sign of psychopathology.”

...Silverman (1967) argues that the onset of acute schizophrenia in our culture is analogous to the “initial call” of the shaman, as described by Eliade (1964) and others. Eliade’s chapter on initiatory sicknesses and dreams centres on their importance in Siberia and elsewhere as a transformation process :They transform the profane, pre-choice individual into a technician of the sacred.” Laing (1967) claims that “no age in the history of humanity has perhaps so lost touch with this natural healing process that implicates some of the people we label schizophrenic.” Shamanic techniques are described as closely resembling certain psychotherapeutic techniques in our own culture by Murphy (1964) who sees “the process of shamanism as ‘whole man’ therapy” and by Peters and Price-Williams (1980) who compare it with the various types of “waking dream” therapies, especially with the process of “active imagination” in Jungian psychotherapy. Both shamanism and schizophrenia are subject to colouful romanticization.

...shamans are healthy people, who have not been subjected to abuse, not been told that they are sick, stigmatised, put down, so they can utilise the experience rather than being terrified by it and losing control over it, with the voices being helpful rather than condematory, their emotions being healthy rather than having to cut off from feeling because it is all so scary. What are we doing to these senistive peole in our midst? What tragedy is being committed to so many sensitive souls that they have to live a nightmare rather than fulfilling their birthright and growing into spiritually whole people?

Walking Between the Worlds

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Understanding why folks throw themselves into a negative spiral is i agree the real issue. But giving themselves a clear view to intergate realisation of how these negative actions play out is important to bring these traits to an end. Many folks use powerful entheogens like dmt to see the truth of themselves. I beleive this truth is somewhat hidden if the mind is clouded by certain substances specific to the inderviual. This can lead to folks failing to see and intergate the truth of themselves resulting in a break down in their consiousness.

If drug use is your personal problem you wont fix your problems by using entheogenic experience, if you continue with the problem that needs fixing, whether you choose to acknowledge the fact or not. This goes the same for the entheogenic experience itself and this is why a period of intergration is helpful. To keep it real.

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I wonder if a certain member here knows that his researched got referenced in that paper lol.

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