To say microdosing is “not doing much” is to underestimate the power of the placebo effect, especially when attached to a substance with as much psychological power as LSD.
The doses being used in most of the current trials is quite high-- 25mg of psilocybin or about five grams of dried mushroom. This may nto quite be a heroic dose but it’s close. Maybe Matt could weigh in on this.
Sure. Most of the modern therapeutic research has in fact used a “heroic dose” of psilocybin, or close to it. Most of our high dose work at Hopkins has used 30 mg/70 kg (154 lbs) bodyweight of the person (e.g., a 200 lbs. person would get 39 mg). According to analysis of cultivated mushrooms, the classic “heroic dose” that Terrence McKenna would speak of (5 dried grams of psilocybe cubensis mushrooms) contains on average about 30 mg psilocybin. So our high dose is a “heroic dose” or even higher in some cases for heavier people. 5 grams is about half way between an eight and a quarter ounce of mushrooms (as a reference since ounces are the units of typical sale in the illicit market in the US). For a typical recreational dose that one might take at a concert, for example, people might split a eight ounce between two or three people. So a heroic dose is indeed much higher than the dose many folks have used recreationally. The entire history of the “psychedelic therapy” method of using psychedelics, dating back to the 1950s, rests upon using a very large (heroic) dose. For LSD this would be 300 micrograms or above, sometimes up to 800 micrograms or more.
To say microdosing is “not doing much” is to underestimate the power of the placebo effect, especially when attached to a substance with as much psychological power as LSD.
The doses being used in most of the current trials is quite high-- 25mg of psilocybin or about five grams of dried mushroom. This may nto quite be a heroic dose but it’s close. Maybe Matt could weigh in on this.
Sure. Most of the modern therapeutic research has in fact used a “heroic dose” of psilocybin, or close to it. Most of our high dose work at Hopkins has used 30 mg/70 kg (154 lbs) bodyweight of the person (e.g., a 200 lbs. person would get 39 mg). According to analysis of cultivated mushrooms, the classic “heroic dose” that Terrence McKenna would speak of (5 dried grams of psilocybe cubensis mushrooms) contains on average about 30 mg psilocybin. So our high dose is a “heroic dose” or even higher in some cases for heavier people. 5 grams is about half way between an eight and a quarter ounce of mushrooms (as a reference since ounces are the units of typical sale in the illicit market in the US). For a typical recreational dose that one might take at a concert, for example, people might split a eight ounce between two or three people. So a heroic dose is indeed much higher than the dose many folks have used recreationally. The entire history of the “psychedelic therapy” method of using psychedelics, dating back to the 1950s, rests upon using a very large (heroic) dose. For LSD this would be 300 micrograms or above, sometimes up to 800 micrograms or more.