When America first dropped acid

Accessing the article / paywalls

• Several comments focus on bypassing The New Yorker paywall via archive links or browser extensions.
• Some report earlier issues with infinite CAPTCHAs and DNS/Cloudflare problems, but note these seem mostly resolved.

Personal experiences with psychedelics

• Multiple users describe occasional LSD and psilocybin use as helpful for sobriety, mood, or perspective, often preferring low or moderate doses.
• Others report no deep insights beyond entertainment, or say any “revelations” are similar to what careful introspection could produce.
• Some compare low-dose psychedelics favorably to alcohol for socializing; others emphasize that high-dose sessions can be life-altering in a way low doses are not.

Microdosing and health risks

• One thread cites pharmacology: psilocybin, LSD, and MDMA are 5-HT2B agonists, and chronic stimulation may risk heart-valve fibrosis.
• Linked papers and a legal/medical blog are used to argue that regular microdosing might be both clinically unproven and potentially harmful.
• Others note the risk seems to be from long-term, frequent use rather than occasional higher doses.

Availability and cultivation of mushrooms

• Several users report a dramatic increase in access to psilocybin in recent years (legal gray markets, storefronts in Canada, decriminalized areas in the US).
• Detailed discussion of home-growing techniques (spores, “Uncle Ben’s tek,” grow kits, contamination issues) frames mushroom cultivation as an easy hobby.
• Legal status varies by country; some note spores are legal where fruiting bodies are not.

History: CIA, MKULTRA, and early LSD

• One branch argues the CIA significantly accelerated LSD’s spread via MKULTRA, funding synthesis and early experiments that involved later counterculture figures.
• Others push back that LSD would likely have reached America through psychiatrists and intellectuals regardless, though CIA activity may have sped things up.
• A podcast and FOIA story about MKULTRA records are referenced.

1960s counterculture and media amplification

• A debated claim: the “peace and love” 1960s were largely media-created, brief, and not widespread; many adherents supposedly dropped out or became marginal.
• Critics counter that the cultural output, political shifts, civil rights, and broader social changes show a real and consequential movement, even if numerically small.
• Several note how media can both caricature and endlessly recycle short-lived subcultures, shaping collective memory.

Therapeutic potential vs harms

• Some commenters report psychedelics easing depression, loneliness, acceptance of mortality (including in terminal illness), and inspiring meditation practice.
• Others recount severe panic, long-lasting anxiety/PTSD-like symptoms, or intensification of depression after “bad trips,” sometimes over multiple years.
• There is frustration that negative experiences are often dismissed with “set and setting” explanations and social pressure to treat psychedelics as uniformly positive.
• A recurring view: benefits may justify risks mainly for treatment-resistant depression, PTSD, or cluster headaches; for most people, the risk/benefit is ambiguous.

Cultural, religious, and “enlightenment” debates

• Some users see psychedelic states as tapping into religious/spiritual dimensions or echoing long-standing ethical messages (love, peace, ego reduction).
• Others interpret these states as the brain overwhelmed by novel stimuli, then rationalizing them as “mystical” to protect its normal world-model.
• There is disagreement over whether such experiences reveal deep truths or just intensify self-referential thinking.
• Several draw parallels with meditation: similar states can sometimes be reached without drugs, though often with long practice.

“Should I try LSD?”

• One user asks whether never trying, trying a few times, or regular use is “best.”
• Responses emphasize:
  • Only consider it if you feel genuinely curious, not pressured.
  • Prior comfort with altered states (alcohol, cannabis) helps.
  • Start with low doses, in a safe, familiar setting, with trusted and ideally experienced companions.
  • Avoid if you have strong anxiety, possible psychosis risk, or family history of schizophrenia.
  • Acknowledge that trips can be both profound and terrifying, and last 8–12 hours with no off-switch.
• Some frame psychedelics as powerful but overrated in terms of permanent “insight”; others value them as rare, highly novel experiences.

Discussion about the reviewed book / early psychedelic science

• The book’s author participates in the thread, briefly describing a messy, iterative writing process with substantial cutting and heavy use of archival material and interviews.
• They note that digitized archives and cooperative archivists made this historical work possible.
• Questions arise about missing figures from the review (e.g., early facilitators and therapists); the author says some were cut because existing works already cover them, and highlights lesser-known contributors (such as early therapists who refined “set and setting”).
• Canadian work, especially in one province, is acknowledged as historically important but largely covered by other historians.

Meta and moderation concerns

• Early in the thread, one commenter urges focus on the specific article and book, not generic psychedelic talk.
• Later, another notes the discussion quickly devolved into broad drug culture debate despite that request.