Comment by throw18376

some people should never take psychedelics.

in the last few years' surge of popularity, I found that your typical psychedelic advocate* would never admit this category of people exists. they were committed to the idea that everyone can, should, and must take these drugs.

this attitude is currently on a downturn, which is a good thing. people now admit that these drugs are not for everyone.

however, there's little solid understanding of exactly who should avoid psychedelics. it would be good to have a more solid scientific understanding of this. i imagine psychedelic advocates (which includes many scientists working on the topic) would be wary of such research, because it seems to similar to the history of government-sponsored propaganda "science" finding exaggerated harms of various illegal drugs.

however, scientific knowledge about who most likely will have adverse effects would be useful. that way people at low risk could use psychedelic drugs with the confidence that they are very likely safe. people at high risk can avoid them. this would be a great outcome.

The only problem here would be that if someone chooses not to use psychedelics, this might mark them as having certain traits that most people judge negatively. For example, history of severe trauma, family or personal history of psychotic disorders, and so on.

Given this, I think anyone who wants to normalize psychedelic drug use in their local community, ought to really fight to destigmatize such traits (and most communities won't accept this), or else more practically, promote an extreme commitment to privacy and personal choice.

*: I don't just mean people who do drugs, I mean people who think that doing drugs is mandatory to fix various spiritual/mental problems that prevent you from being a fully ethical being.