Are Psychedelics Really Safe No Matter What?
20 days ago
- Why the scariest-sounding risk may be the wrong one to fear: serotonin syndrome is often overstated, and the real concern appears concentrated where MAOIs meet other serotonergic agents (think SSRIs plus ayahuasca), not in a single psilocybin or MDMA session. Kelan frames combining these as a caution to take seriously with a clinician, never a green light.
- Understand where the genuine open questions still live: daily, long-term microdosing is understudied, and a receptor signal (5-HT2B affinity, linked in some research to heart-valve changes) is an unanswered safety question, not a settled finding. As Kelan puts it, “if you’re not looking for something, you’ll never find it.”
- Consider how much of the outcome sits outside the molecule: the length of the subjective experience seems to track the length of the benefit, and rapport with the clinician, set, and setting may shape results as much as the compound itself. Pharmacology is real, and it’s also not the whole story.
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