Everything started - and finished - when I decided to assist to a meet-up at the German Psychedelic Society in Berlin. I was brought there by some enquires, really high expectations and sort of a thirst for information; however, things went completely wrong immediately after I stepped a foot inside the headquarters.
Before telling what was going on there, we need to catch-up with a couple of definitions, and mainly, what attracted me to them.
What Is LSD?
LSD is a psychedelic substance derived from a very specific type of fungus which is mainly used for recreation. The story of this substance begins in the late 30´s when a Swiss scientific by accident - like always - discovered its properties. After that became widely used for psychotherapeutic treatments; then it was part of the cultural movements during the 60´s as a method of recreation, and used in top-secret investigations by the CIA until the drug became illegal in 1968. After LSD was banned, it was commonly used in electronic parties as a "fun potentiator." The point is that in the recent years the interest toward the drug has awakened interests for philosophical and therapeutic uses, primarily in the form of microdosing and that is what brought me to the meeting.
What Is Microdosing?
Long story short, LSD, MDMA and Psilocybin were used therapeutically; bringing allegedly positive results to patients with psychiatric conditions when consumed in minimal amounts. Apparently, microdosing seems to be the heaven for those suffering from clinical depression and anxiety. However, what it seems to be the heaven for a few, might be the hell for others.
How Does It Work?
To brief the whole psychiatrical complexity, let us summarize that a common type of depression is caused by a shortage of a neurochemical called serotonin. Since a few decades, a branch of antidepressants known as ISRR is used to treat depression. The ISRRs stimulate the production of serotonin without major side effects in most of the cases.
This type of treatment is highly opposed by many for different reasons, some researchers claim that ISRRs are related to long-term brain damage, some patients disagree with the fact of a pill being the only "mediocre" solution for depression and so on and so forth. The point is that even for this mainstream medicament there is still a lot to discover. No one knows how exactly it works, and proofs of brain damage are not proven, nonetheless, no one will complain if as measles did, depression gets its vaccine.
In contrast to ISRR, microdosing with LSD seems to mimic serotonin itself instead stimulating its production. That being said, In hopeless cases of anxiety and depression, several testimonies claim microdosing to miraculously recover life quality with no side-effect whatsoever.
If It Is So Good, Why This Is Not An Official Treatment?
There are many reasons for this but the root cause is the banning of LSD. Since the drug is completely forbidden in the Western World, no pharmaceutical company can scientifically investigate on it, therefore approve a treatment after its viability is confirmed. Besides, if any pharmaceutical would like to research off-shore about the substance, why would they invest such a huge budget in a project that they cannot profit since they cannot sell?
On the other hand, hallucinogens are extremely dangerous. They can trigger a psychosis in patients with an unknown predisposition to it. Many have been locked up in a psychiatric hospital for life by not coming back from the trip.
Could It Be A Magic Cure?
Does it work for clinical depression generally? Can it trigger maniac symptoms in bipolar individuals? Does it work differently for patients with depressive personality disorders and emotional personality disorders? Is there any contraindication in mixing with generic antidepressants? Is it recommended for patients with a schizoid background? what is the correct dosage for each case?
There is little known about it and in which type of psychopathology can be used. Communities promoting, active users and defenders sell it similarly to those fad-diets where do not matter you bio-individuality, as long as you do it, you will end it up having Chris Hemsworth body.
It could be a magic cure but without proper investigation that cannot now be concluded.
What Happened In Meet-Up With The Foundation
A clash between expectations and reality is what happened in the meeting. Since the foundation's aim is to re-legalize LSD for therapeutic and recreational purposes I expected a huge and smart community holding objective information with milestones and forecasts; in contrast, I found a clan of barefoot hippies, wearing Indian skirts and native American outfits at the best style of the 60´s hippie movement, and those were the ones leading the ship.
I was extremely surprised to find attendants seeking the same sort of information I wanted. In the crowd, you could find individuals diagnosed with major depression, bipolar disorder, PSTD, HIV + patients struggling with the medication and so on. Among the testimonies, you could hear people claiming to be cured by microdosing and happy about their quality life improvement, even when they were sentenced uncurable by their doctors. Some others claimed that during a while microdosing helped them to cope with major depression and anxiety but after a while it stopped working. And little by little, the meeting moved from an experimental talk to a philosophical and political conversation about the West incapability to see the world in a different way and consumerist behavior.
10 mins after I realized this was a sort of Reiki community that discovered hallucinogens talking with no objective base I decided to leave. I do have a lot of expectations about future treatments on this topic and how to booze your cognition but I really doubt that I will empirically experiment on something that is an open sea until a serious institution takes the lead. In the meantime, I just concluded that you cannot ever underestimate non-sense illegalization nor people stupidity.
And that was my experience microdosing LSD - no experience whatsoever.