summary: government-funded study into magic mushrooms (including "Long term" personality changes) suggests that they might just make you a better person.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13804613/

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The researchers suggest the drug someday may help drug addicts kick their habit or aid terminally ill patients struggling with anxiety and depression. It may also provide a way to study what happens in the brain during intense spiritual experiences, the scientists said. Funded in part by the federal government, the research was published online Tuesday by the journal Psychopharmacology. Long-term changes Psilocybin has been used for centuries in religious practices, and its ability to produce a mystical experience is no surprise. But the new work demonstrates it more clearly than before, Griffiths said. Even two months after taking the drug, pronounced SILL-oh-SY-bin, most of the volunteers said the experience had changed them in beneficial ways, such as making them more compassionate, loving, optimistic and patient. Family members and friends said they noticed a difference, too.

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The experience included such things as a sense of pure awareness and a merging with ultimate reality, a transcendence of time and space, a feeling of sacredness or awe, and deeply felt positive mood like joy, peace and love. People say “they can’t possibly put it into words,” Griffiths said. Two months later, 24 of the participants filled out a questionnaire. Two-thirds called their reaction to psilocybin one of the five top most meaningful experiences of their lives. On another measure, one-third called it the most spiritually significant experience of their lives, with another 40 percent ranking it in the top five. About 80 percent said that because of the psilocybin experience, they still had a sense of well-being or life satisfaction that was raised either “moderately” or “very much.”

I guess the Hippie "Flower Children" of the 1960's were onto something.

but beware the "Bad Trip"

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Almost a third of the research participants found the drug experience frightening even in the very controlled setting. That suggests people experimenting with the illicit drug on their own could be harmed, Griffiths said.

"whats in there?"   "only what you take with you"  (heh)

Quote (Cobalt60 @ July 11 2006, 1:19 pm)

I guess the Hippie "Flower Children" of the 1960's were onto something.

Doubtfull.  If an LSD trip is the most meaningfull experience in your life, you've got a pretty borring life.  Besides, if it was all that powerfull, why is it that most of the people running the world now are the ones who didn't take it in the 60s?

the obvious answer would be because the people running the world don't care about all that peace and love and good happiness crap.


but maybe there's one thats less obvious.  I'll get back to you


-------


edit. yup. I thought so.

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“I don’t want any kid doing what I tried to do 30 years ago, and I mean that. It doesn’t matter if it’s LSD, cocaine, pot, any of those things, because if I answer one, then there will be another one. And I just am not going to answer those questions. And it may cost me the election.” ~ George W. Bush on Good Morning America

teh 'less obvious' answer : the people running the world wouldn't admit to it even if they did it   when asked point-blank, thats the kind of answer that politicians give.


(and when you think about it : the only way it would possibly "cost him the election"...
...is, well...  you know)

(but whatever)

Point.

where did it mention LSD? Mushrooms and LSD are to very differant things and trips.

Correct, psilocybin is not LSD.
When I was in amsterdam with a couple of friends they ate hawaiian mushrooms, the strongest ones. We were in a pretty beautiful environment and that trip they said was *very* impressive.
I was with them all the time being the only one who didn't try it (and I won't do so in the future for my own reasons), still it was very funny
IMHO, it would be good to introduce similar rules in all countries to the ones in the netherlands. It is inconsistent to forbid drugs that are as dangerous as alcohol or even less dangerous.
Maybe we should even think about the illegality of heroine and would be *better* off in the end if it was legalized. No question, heroine is a dangerous drug that under *no* circumstances can be used with a pure conscience by anyone and it should never be used.
Still, a governmental controlled drug market would remove the basis from illegal drug dealers and ensure that drugs are clean from toxic additions.
Maybe I'm wrong, I am not saying that it would work. I don't know that, and you don't know either because it has never been tried really in an as radical form as I suggested here.

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Psilocybin, like LSD or mescaline, is one of a class of drugs called hallucinogens or psychedelics.

Ok so not LSD, but close enough.

Quote (Trippy @ July 12 2006, 7:39 am)

where did it mention LSD? Mushrooms and LSD are to very differant things and trips.

I love the way that comes from a guy named Trippy