Not necessarily. Andrew Feldmar, a prominent psychologist I held in high regard advises to do exactly that: if you feel bad already, might as well take more.
Well, I do trust the experience of psychologists, or at least the ones familiar with LSD. I personally know some who have assisted hundreds/thousands of people during their trip.
No. Do not ever do this. If you are having a bad LSD trip, the best medical course of action is to take a benzo like xanax. It will stop the trip almost immediately. Never trip with inexperienced people without one or two handy.
I try to keep my comments civil on here, but that's horrible fucking advice. The best thing you can do is try and relax and calm down, taking more of a drug you're having a bad experience with is the opposite of what anyone should do ever.
There is wisdom in it. Some drugs have a kind of scuzzy zone somewhere between a mild dose and next level dose. If you're taking a drug that perforce requires you to "let go", it may help take enough that you lose agency to resist.
Actually I have experience with lsd, mushrooms and some other hallucinogens. I've gotten really high on them. I've talked about it in my comments here before. I still believe it's bad advice especially for inexperienced users.
I don't know who Andrew Feldmar is, but he is one incredibly stupid psychologist, likely one of the dumbest in the world if not the dumbest if what you say is true.
And what is your reasoning behind that? People who take psychedelics are very familiar with the concept of not breaking through and being stuck in a limbo state between where your ego still has a chance to fight.
Also please note this we are talking about a world renowned expert in LSD psychotherapy, who has 5 decades of experience in the matter. How many trips did you guide?
Yeah, worked wonders in this case. Amazingly great outcome. Good thing he followed Feldman's instructions. Now he's guaranteed a trip to jail or maybe even the cemetery. Yeah Feldman is a genius, you're right. I'm sure the people this guy put in the hospital would agree too. Really he probably still didn't take enough. Another ten to a hundred doses would probably have been even better.
Reminds me of all the "LSD" and "MDMA" in Austin TX was likely just shit like 25I and MDPV when I lived there and had a bunch of tripsafe test kits. There was a time where I would go to a rave and wonder if there was a single person actually rolling.
> At this point they’ll get blood samples, I’m pretty sure that we’ll know exactly what he took.
...what? This seems like a very strange assertion to me.
LSD is obviously difficult to test for and is not typically part of a routine test at all.
But even if it is in this case, unless things have rapidly progressed in the past few years, I don't think it's possible to differentiate between different tryptamines (or even different indoles) in the blood, and even detecting them at all is difficult or impossible after 12 hours or so.
Are you saying that it's now possible, from a blood test, to make this differentiation? Do you have a source for this claim?
Unless another dose of the material is provided, I doubt that we'll know what this person ingested.
I don't think your use of the qualifier "obviously" is quite called for. I also don't think it's reasonable to assume the statement was made by a professional, as you seem to be (correct me if I'm wrong?). The majority of people probably assume blood tests can detect most popularly known drugs when the dosage is high and the sample is collected within a reasonably short time.
No, not a professional in this field - or even close - but with a smidgen of formal education (BA minor in physiological psych).
I guess I thought it was "obvious" in the sense that many people routinely face employment-related drug screenings which don't test for these compounds.
But yeah, reading my comment again, I think you're right that "obviously" is probably overstating things.
I do think that it's probably sadly optimistic to say "I’m pretty sure that we’ll know exactly what he took", unless things have changed since I last studied this material.
I hope that there is a conclusion on which psychoactive compound(s) this person ingested; I apologize for my tone.
I had no idea LSD was difficult to test for; I guess I had some preconceived belief that most regular drugs (including LSD which is not rare) could easily be detected after a few hours of ingestion.
It actually surprises me that you can be high as a kite in a hospital and that doctor might not be able to detect what drugs you’re on with blood/puke sample. I don’t actually have anything near medical training!!
> It actually surprises me that you can be high as a kite in a hospital and that doctor might not be able to detect what drugs you’re on
Funny - I have the opposite notion: it amazes me that it is possible, with blood alone, to determine what someone has ingested. I tend to think of digestion and metabolism as a sort of one-way hash function, but apparently it's a fairly weak function, and rainbow tables abound.
A lot of what's sold as lsd is actually stuff like 2cb, 2ce or other research chemicals. The effects can be similar, especially if you don't know any better, but you can physically overdose on many of those. Pure lsd should be tasteless and odourless, and shouldn't make you sick, though even that's not a reliable indicator that you've actually got lsd.
With regard to 2CB and 2CE - This might be somewhat true in some local markets, but it seems very unlikely to be widespread, at least with experienced drug users, because the dose of LSD vs the 2Cs (except for the brominated ampetamine 2C derivatives) are very different. The dose of LSD is usually around 100 micrograms while a dose of 2CB is somewhere around 10-30 milligrams - so around 100 times as much. The amount of LSD in a dose is so small that it can fit on a blotter paper. This is not the case with most other drugs. There are some 2C derivatives which have very low doses and can be put on to blotter, but they tend to have much longer durations of action than LSD so would also be discernable by an experienced user (or even a new user who had done some reading before hand).
There are other increasingly common substances like NBOMe which are substitutable for LSD in potency and are also very dangerous. These have been reported sold as LSD on blotting paper and also show up in 'ecstacy' pills.
Going back to the original topic, it does seem unlikely the drug in question was LSD. It is more common for people to experience violent psychosis on drugs like PCP or potentially some ampthetamines. I hope the guy recovers.
Besides actual issues with mental health history, is there any way to know if someone will react this way to LSD? Set and setting may not be enough in these cases, it seems?
Idk what the sitter situation was but it sounds like this got out of hand pretty fast. If they couldn't calm him I imagine the best they could do is pin him down and tie him up.
Assuming this was pure LSD, 4 full doses is way too much. It leads me wonder if he knew what we was getting into ahead of time or if he was peer pressured and did not have much experience.
The trial will be interesting here. I think his best defense is that he had no clue what a safe dose was and had 0 control over his own actions while he did what he did.
One would likely want to be unafraid of letting go. After a heroic dose like that, it's possible he had some things on his mind and the chemical inescapably brought these things to the forefront of his attention.
His employment at YouTube doesn't seem relevant to the story. Feels very clickbaity to put that in the headline (unless they're implying working at YouTube is somehow connected to the attack, which I don't get from the article.)
The bio blurb from the article states "On his LinkedIn page, Koffi states that he is a Stanford-educated software engineer at YouTube and previously worked at Microsoft." There are a lot of developers who read HN; perhaps somebody who will happen across this article knows him?
This is standard practice for "the news." You're probably keying into it this time because of goodwill towards Google and/or a "one of us" connection to the subject of unflattering news.
this is why (people with mental issues should deffo not touch drugs in general, much less strong psychedelics)
#1 test ur shhit
#2 trip sitter (if shit goes down they can reel it in)
#3 low doses
If YouTube is willing to please their advertisers or decrease liability by banning content on hacking which could help people within the computer industry identify and prevent cyber attacks, then I wouldn't be surprised if YouTube banned everything related to drug harm reduction and educational content about how they work inside the human body for similar reasons.
He won't be a YouTube engineer in 48 hours, I'm sure.
If he survives, he's going to end up with at least 20 years in the California prison system.
Every hour he spent studying at Stanford, every tough coding interview he endured at Microsoft and YouTube, and every other sacrifice he made, are now likely irreparably flushed down the toilet.
Yet "we" (ie the HN and related crowd who engage in hero worship) love to wax poetic about Steve Jobs's LSD quote.
If the details of this story are true - and sadly, in cases in the USA where police shoot someone, it's very reasonable to doubt any claims made by "authorities" unless there is ironclad evidence - then I think that there is zero chance that this drug was in fact LSD.
LSD can certainly cause confusion and terror, but it does not generally cause the kind of delirium and rage described by police here.
Also, the reporting in this particular article is pathetic:
> The National Institute on Drug Abuse describes LSD as "one of the most powerful mind-altering chemicals." Some people who use the drug can experience psychosis or paranoia.
NIDA is basically completely discredited at this point on the effects of this class of drugs, having spent the past four decades denying their medical benefits.
Furthermore, the unsourced assertion "Some people who use the drug can experience psychosis or paranoia", obviously relying on the Osmond-era "psychotomimetic" designation, appears to have been a side-effect of LSD being administered in the sterile conditions of a mental institution in the 1950s and early 1960s and not typical of the effects outside that setting.
It is much more likely that this person unwittingly ingested a different compound - and again, that's assuming that these details are even accurate in the first place and not a CYA story by a person trying to justify discharging a firearm at another person.
I'm not sure that this person's background, education, or employer is indicative of the degree of reasonable hope. LSD (along with all other drugs) needs to be made legal and regular so that it becomes easy to obtain a quality-controlled dose.
>I'm not sure that this person's background, education, or employer is indicative of the degree of reasonable hope
How is it not indicative? Someone with a graduate degree from Stanford who works at YouTube as an engineer should have above average intelligence? If we believe the prestige of Stanford and Google then world class intelligence. Yet this person couldn’t responsibly take LSD or correctly test it. He lost his mind and went on a violent rampage that hurt a lot of innocent people.
>LSD (along with all other drugs) needs to be made legal and regular so that it becomes easy to obtain a quality-controlled dose.
That’s fine, as long as people pay the price of doing something irresponsibly and innocent people aren’t harmed by it. Do it in a controlled environment with a guide.
Tabloid-style headline. Was this in private? It should stay that way (it's nobody's business except those directly affected). Was it public? Media shouldn't be broadcasting his place of work. Will not read.
He's the subject of the story, and occupation/employer are a major part of our identities. This is not "YouTube user goes on drug-fueld rampage," which would be superfluous.
I hope everyone in the story recovers. I have tried LSD a few times, and the thing that surprises me the most, is how bad his friends in the story are.
First of all, the rule is, when you get a new batch. 1 person tries a small dose to judge the potency and effects. You never give your friends drugs you have not sampled them first. You can poison yourself, but you may not poison others. Now, assuming this was not LSD they would have caught it early. But assuming that it is...
With inexperienced people you need a trip sitter. Someone who is sober (or is much more experienced) and lays out a plan for the trip. Things that you will watch, music to listen to, when it is time to snack. etc. A good trip sitter can change a bad trip to a good trip very easily. And the preparation for this starts even before taking the drug, by telling you some of the bad things you might experience (thought loops, very strong deja-vu, thinking you are trapped in that moment for eternity) and how to deal with the illusion of each one.
Also since LSD lasts to max 12 hours, it is good to amp the dosage slowly and not all at once. Secondly you need to feel comfortable. If you are in an unfamiliar house, and there is let's say a basement that creeps you out while sober. Oh boy... you 're going to have such a bad time thinking about that basement and all the spooky stuff in it when tripping! You must be comfortable and relaxed. Noone told him that? Noone was there to see he was acting strange? They were cool with him downing 4 doses?
Bad trips can turn good very easily. And feel-good moments quickly take a short dark turn when something unexpected happens (like a random ring of the doorbell - no one was expecting). Yes something that small can cause terror. You need somebody to guide you and take your mind of the bad stuff. I think the best explanation I can give is... remember when you were a kid and you were eating your favorite candy. Do you remember how much better it tasted back then than it does today? Also, imagine that as a kid you watched something that really scared you, but today you 'd laugh at non-scary it actually is. That's pretty much how your perception changes +
color hallucinations.
The psychedelic subject on HN is so biased. Submit a post about how a small LSD dose can help treat schizophrenia and it gets hundreds of points.
Submit a post about how someone goes on a violent rampage after dosing LSD irresponsibly and it gets flagged then downvoted.
Considering his employer and education (a lot of people are arguing it’s relevance) he could have easily been a HN community member. It’s like readers only focus on the positives of psychedelics and never want to discuss both sides.
64 comments
[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 119 ms ] threadThat middle zone you describe where you are stuck between the two worlds are probably the worst.
Also please note this we are talking about a world renowned expert in LSD psychotherapy, who has 5 decades of experience in the matter. How many trips did you guide?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Feldm%C3%A1r
Reminds me of all the "LSD" and "MDMA" in Austin TX was likely just shit like 25I and MDPV when I lived there and had a bunch of tripsafe test kits. There was a time where I would go to a rave and wonder if there was a single person actually rolling.
...what? This seems like a very strange assertion to me.
LSD is obviously difficult to test for and is not typically part of a routine test at all.
But even if it is in this case, unless things have rapidly progressed in the past few years, I don't think it's possible to differentiate between different tryptamines (or even different indoles) in the blood, and even detecting them at all is difficult or impossible after 12 hours or so.
Are you saying that it's now possible, from a blood test, to make this differentiation? Do you have a source for this claim?
Unless another dose of the material is provided, I doubt that we'll know what this person ingested.
I guess I thought it was "obvious" in the sense that many people routinely face employment-related drug screenings which don't test for these compounds.
But yeah, reading my comment again, I think you're right that "obviously" is probably overstating things.
I do think that it's probably sadly optimistic to say "I’m pretty sure that we’ll know exactly what he took", unless things have changed since I last studied this material.
I hope that there is a conclusion on which psychoactive compound(s) this person ingested; I apologize for my tone.
It actually surprises me that you can be high as a kite in a hospital and that doctor might not be able to detect what drugs you’re on with blood/puke sample. I don’t actually have anything near medical training!!
Funny - I have the opposite notion: it amazes me that it is possible, with blood alone, to determine what someone has ingested. I tend to think of digestion and metabolism as a sort of one-way hash function, but apparently it's a fairly weak function, and rainbow tables abound.
There are other increasingly common substances like NBOMe which are substitutable for LSD in potency and are also very dangerous. These have been reported sold as LSD on blotting paper and also show up in 'ecstacy' pills.
Going back to the original topic, it does seem unlikely the drug in question was LSD. It is more common for people to experience violent psychosis on drugs like PCP or potentially some ampthetamines. I hope the guy recovers.
The trial will be interesting here. I think his best defense is that he had no clue what a safe dose was and had 0 control over his own actions while he did what he did.
More info here: https://erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_LSD.shtml
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://theintercept.com/2019/01/20/beyond-buzzfeed-the-10-w...
https://www.buzzsprout.com/164767/1046783
This is standard practice for "the news." You're probably keying into it this time because of goodwill towards Google and/or a "one of us" connection to the subject of unflattering news.
If he survives, he's going to end up with at least 20 years in the California prison system.
Every hour he spent studying at Stanford, every tough coding interview he endured at Microsoft and YouTube, and every other sacrifice he made, are now likely irreparably flushed down the toilet.
Yet "we" (ie the HN and related crowd who engage in hero worship) love to wax poetic about Steve Jobs's LSD quote.
LSD can certainly cause confusion and terror, but it does not generally cause the kind of delirium and rage described by police here.
Also, the reporting in this particular article is pathetic:
> The National Institute on Drug Abuse describes LSD as "one of the most powerful mind-altering chemicals." Some people who use the drug can experience psychosis or paranoia.
NIDA is basically completely discredited at this point on the effects of this class of drugs, having spent the past four decades denying their medical benefits.
Furthermore, the unsourced assertion "Some people who use the drug can experience psychosis or paranoia", obviously relying on the Osmond-era "psychotomimetic" designation, appears to have been a side-effect of LSD being administered in the sterile conditions of a mental institution in the 1950s and early 1960s and not typical of the effects outside that setting.
It is much more likely that this person unwittingly ingested a different compound - and again, that's assuming that these details are even accurate in the first place and not a CYA story by a person trying to justify discharging a firearm at another person.
How is it not indicative? Someone with a graduate degree from Stanford who works at YouTube as an engineer should have above average intelligence? If we believe the prestige of Stanford and Google then world class intelligence. Yet this person couldn’t responsibly take LSD or correctly test it. He lost his mind and went on a violent rampage that hurt a lot of innocent people.
>LSD (along with all other drugs) needs to be made legal and regular so that it becomes easy to obtain a quality-controlled dose.
That’s fine, as long as people pay the price of doing something irresponsibly and innocent people aren’t harmed by it. Do it in a controlled environment with a guide.
First of all, the rule is, when you get a new batch. 1 person tries a small dose to judge the potency and effects. You never give your friends drugs you have not sampled them first. You can poison yourself, but you may not poison others. Now, assuming this was not LSD they would have caught it early. But assuming that it is...
With inexperienced people you need a trip sitter. Someone who is sober (or is much more experienced) and lays out a plan for the trip. Things that you will watch, music to listen to, when it is time to snack. etc. A good trip sitter can change a bad trip to a good trip very easily. And the preparation for this starts even before taking the drug, by telling you some of the bad things you might experience (thought loops, very strong deja-vu, thinking you are trapped in that moment for eternity) and how to deal with the illusion of each one.
Also since LSD lasts to max 12 hours, it is good to amp the dosage slowly and not all at once. Secondly you need to feel comfortable. If you are in an unfamiliar house, and there is let's say a basement that creeps you out while sober. Oh boy... you 're going to have such a bad time thinking about that basement and all the spooky stuff in it when tripping! You must be comfortable and relaxed. Noone told him that? Noone was there to see he was acting strange? They were cool with him downing 4 doses?
Bad trips can turn good very easily. And feel-good moments quickly take a short dark turn when something unexpected happens (like a random ring of the doorbell - no one was expecting). Yes something that small can cause terror. You need somebody to guide you and take your mind of the bad stuff. I think the best explanation I can give is... remember when you were a kid and you were eating your favorite candy. Do you remember how much better it tasted back then than it does today? Also, imagine that as a kid you watched something that really scared you, but today you 'd laugh at non-scary it actually is. That's pretty much how your perception changes + color hallucinations.
Submit a post about how someone goes on a violent rampage after dosing LSD irresponsibly and it gets flagged then downvoted.
Considering his employer and education (a lot of people are arguing it’s relevance) he could have easily been a HN community member. It’s like readers only focus on the positives of psychedelics and never want to discuss both sides.