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From: denbeste@spdcc.COM (Steven Den Beste)
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.bio,alt.drugs
Subject: Re: LSD and Manic depression.
Message-ID: <6859@spdcc.SPDCC.COM>
Date: 13 Mar 91 03:41:31 GMT
References: <Mbpy=CK00VpIAdvElK@andrew.cmu.edu> <RNeoy1w163w@bluemoon.uucp> <1991Mar12.190627.23104@midway.uchicago.edu>
Reply-To: denbeste@ursa-major.spdcc.com (Steven Den Beste)
Followup-To: sci.med
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA
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In article <1991Mar12.190627.23104@midway.uchicago.edu> den0@quads.uchicago.edu (funky chicken) writes:
<In article <RNeoy1w163w@bluemoon.uucp> bmb@bluemoon.uucp (Bryan Bankhead) 
<writes:
<
<>There is no evidence that LSD is capable of causing such a personality 
<>change. Although your emotions can get on a bit of a rollercoaster while 
<>it's active, none of these changes is permanent. This knowledge comes from 
<>controlled tests using standard personality measurements.
<
<This is worded too dogmatically.  As I understand it, you are right that there
<is "no evidence that LSD is capable of CAUSING such a personality change;"
<causality is difficult to prove.  However, there have been a fair amount
<of cases in which people being treated as psychotics have been found to
<have used LSD before their psychotic symptoms manifested.

And a lot of them have eaten French Fries, too. Do French Fries cause bipolar
affective disorder? By the way, the term "psychosis" is in disrepute now, since
attempting to group depressives, bipolars and schizophrenics together doesn't
make sense.

< This disorder
<is symptomatologically indistinguishable from real schizophrenia.

I hope by this you are referring to LSD-intoxication being indistinguishable
from schizophrenia, since bipolar affective disorder bears no resemblance at
all to schizophrenia. (Indeed, bipolar disorder is often difficult to diagnose
because the victims learn to compensate, in effect to "pass", without even
knowing that they are doing it.)