Why You Shouldn’t Do Psychedelics

I am a person whose life was saved by psychedelics—and yet, for these reasons, I am unable to recommend them to you.

Photo by Nico Baum on Unsplash

I find myself in the unenviable position of being both a person whose life was saved by psychedelics and being unable to recommend them to you.

Psychedelics have gone mainstream. And, so, not recommending them has become a contrarian viewpoint, one that draws the ire and, sometimes, outright vitriol of many in my age group and social circles.

[Note: My experience is limited to psilocybin from ‘magic mushrooms’, MDMA once to no effect and 5-MEO-DMT from a vaporizer pen twice. I’m limiting my argument primarily to psilocybin but using the term psychedelics interchangeably because I think my experience is a good proxy for the broader class of drugs. Of course, I can’t say for sure because I haven’t tried all of them.]

Here’s the prevailing argument for why you should do psychedelics:

1. Psilocybin is near-impossible to overdose. It’s LD-50 (the dose at which 50% of test subjects will die) is 280 milligrams per kilogram, it would take almost 5 pounds of dried mushrooms to kill a 175-pound person.
2. It’s not physically addictive. In fact, a high-dose experience can be…