Although open source isn't a panacea, couple it with trustless ledgers, and the more parties distrust each other, the more nodes they (and nonpartisans) will run. ..and that's nearly a panacea.

..and, what about trustless ledgers? This is probably the safest direction to be heading.

Easy: Buy some sketchy black market drugs from an untrained person you don't know, don't test them, take a large, unmeasured dose in a chaotic environment with people you feel unsafe with, throw a bunch of other drugs in the mix without checking for potential interactions, and see what happens!

Just kidding. We've seen people do all those things and it rarely goes well.

We made a masterclass to answer this question. It covers all the skills and awareness you need to have if you plan to take psychedelics outside of a supervised medical, therapeutic, or ritual environment and want be as safe as possible.

We still don't recommend that anyone take psychedelics without professional supervision, but if you're gonna do it anyways, you might as well know all the ways people accidentally fuck themselves up so you can avoid same.

You already said it. Harming and criminalizing indigenous communities sucks, as does endangering any plant or animal species. There are plenty of other ways to get the benefits of psychedelics.

Chacruna is a psychedelic justice organization that does work around this for anyone who wants to know more.

Tim Ferriss also put out a piece about this not too long ago.

Firstly, we're sorry to hear that you're experiencing such long term negative effects - and unfortunately far from the first we've heard. HPPD is not well understood (especially when start of symptoms is when the brain is still developing as a young adult); consequently, the clinical treatment options are scarce and inadequately studied.

To start on simply keeping it from getting worse: you're definitely on the right track with ceasing use of hallucinogens. Anyone with lasting detrimental side effects from taking psychedelics should probably not take those psychedelics in the future. There is some anecdata indicating the other stimulants, such as common ones like caffeine and nicotine, may also exacerbate symptoms.

There are a few case studies out there in the clinical research indicating off label treatment using Lamotrigine has been successful. It might be worth seeking out a psychiatrist who has worked with HPPD specifically in the past to tailor a treatment protocol for you. Treatment of any co-occuring anxiety or other mental health issues has also been indicated to reduce severity of symptoms.

How to go about trying it? Anyone?

What do you know, and/or what are your thoughts on the various folks that having success using psychedelics to treat cluster headaches and migraines?

There's a whole field of psychedelic harm reduction dedicated to just this thing, and they have hella best practices to share.

During a challenging psychedelic experience, one of the easiest things you can do is call the free hotline offered by the Fireside Project, where someone trained to hold space for your difficult time can monitor you and help you through it over the phone.

For general theory on what to do, the Manual of Psychedelic Support is one of the texts a lot of people point to.

If you know anyone with a lot of money who'd like to fund a psychedelic safety organization to wrangle a bunch of experts to do a literature review on this topic and compile an at-a-glance resource for folks with this question, we might know some people they'd want to talk to. ;)

There's not enough research on this and not enough of it is centralized, which sucks given that this is a common question.

It's a really complicated thing to try and study given how many psychedelics and psychiatric medications there are.

Here's a table we found about combinations between various psychedelics and antidepressants.

We don't know of anything relevant to contraindications with anti-anxiety meds and many psychedelics, but because ketamine is a legal medicine, you can at least find contraindications between ketamine and various psych meds using the Drugs.com Interaction Checker.

There's some research you can do on Google by typing "__name of psychedelic___" and "__name of psychiatric medication__", then adding the words "interaction," "combination" and "contraindications" to that in three successive searches. Much of what you'll find through this method is not medical research and thus should be treated as for informational purposes only.

What specific interventions has your research determined to be most likely to help someone who seems to be experiencing a challenging psychedelic experience? I have sort of trial and error’ed my way into a few steps but would love to have as many effective tools in my arsenal as possible so that I might be able to help someone around me if they need it.

Thank you for your advice!

I did a large amount of psychedelics (everything across the board from basics like LSD and psilocybin to MXE and other designer chemicals) when I was in my teens and now am suffering from a pretty hefty case of Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder (HPPD). I stopped my hallucinogenic intake when the symptoms started getting bad, but it's persisted for the last few years since. Is there any way you have researched that can mitigate the effects of HPPD/facilitate a return to feeling normal again? I know the effects may well be permanent, but I would love any information you might have.

Can you speak to the harm inflicted on indigenous populations by the increase of whitewashed ayahuasca ceremonies and retreats, the quintessential colonial poaching and endangering of bufo toads, and over-harvesting of peyote off lands cared for by people who have been stigmatized and criminalized for their relationship with the same plant?

For sure! Hart suggests "health and happiness" as an alternative term which is definitely good but is a little too far on the other end of that spectrum maybe. I think "risk management" is an excellent middle ground.

How can I figure out which psychedelics are safe to take with my antidepressant/anti-anxiety medications, and in what amounts?

I’ve gathered some medications dull the effect of psychedelics, some enhance it, and maybe some are potentially deadly? Info online always seems to range from “you will get serotonin syndrome and die” to “if you need psychiatric medication you should not be tripping.” But my friends and I have had enough positive experiences to know that it isn’t categorically dangerous. Where can I get good harm-reduction info about this?

Great, thanks for your input! We've heard of Chacruna but are not familiar with the other organizations you've mentioned (we're much more on the science/harm reduction side than the policy side), but will avoid recommending Decriminalize Nature in the future if they suck.

Decriminalize Nature is rife with gross and messy approaches to advancing their agenda, lend themselves to silencing indigenous folk, and are just not particularly well versed on anything outside of legalizing “”””plant medicine””””. Chacruna, EntheoNation, and Visionaries Gathering are much, much better resources to start with, from someone that tried very hard to find common ground with Decrim Nature.

For dosage info, here's the Erowid vault for psilocybin mushrooms

You don't know what gerrymandering is? Go look it up.

It's not a good idea to leave them exposed, but ideally shouldn't bea huge risk. And with paper backups and audits that risk can be minimized.

It's really the audit part that's important. Statistics and such topics. On the CS side maybe cryptography, if you want to learn about that part of electronic voting. There's /r/crypto (I'm a mod there) and /r/cryptography where you can ask questions.

Deciding on the frequency and dosage depends entirely on you and your own unique biology and intentions - we can't really advise a one-size-fits-all approach. I'd suggest starting with establishing what you are hoping to get out of your experience. Depending on the intention, a micro or a macro dose may be more effective; and, if it's something that intersects with trauma or other mental health challenges, creating a treatment structure with the assistance of a professional, licensed psychedelic therapist may be the safest way to go.

We made this Safer Psychonaut Dosing Protocol a while ago to help people think through these issues methodically with respect to any one experience. Minimally, we recommend taking it slowly and cautiously in increasing dosage and frequency, and ensuring that the prior experience has been fully integrated before proceeding to the next one. Take your time - and lots of notes to reflect on each experience afterwards!

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It's not a sports team. More people voted against former guy than for him because they wanted him out. End of story.