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psychsafetyalliance OP t1_its15dt wrote

Reply to comment by meowpower777 in We are Dax Jackson and Ally Lee of Psychedelic Safety Alliance. We are here to provide scientific, no-BS adult harm reduction education around psychedelics. by psychsafetyalliance

There are two major categories of deaths associated with psychedelics....

The first category has to do with the physiological impact that the psychedelic has on the body - in short, an overdose. These are extremely rare for most psychedelics, given that they have such a high LD50 (the "lethal dose" amount of a material which causes the death of 50% of subjects) compared to other psychoactive compounds such as alcohol. A famous example is the legendarily high dose of LSD that had to be given to an elephant to result in its death: https://www.illinoisscience.org/2016/06/lsd-and-the-elephant/

But other compounds may cause death through other physiological mechanisms - especially psychedelics with a strong impact on cardiac systems, such as ibogaine or MDMA. Each compound presents its own unique challenges, and should be researched carefully with respect to contraindications with other drugs - another potential source of fatal effects - and underlying conditions that may not place nice with your psychedelics.

The biggest risk we see is how psychedelics change behavior, and in particular awareness of the environment. People on psychedelics much more in danger from the world around them - from perhaps not checking both ways before crossing the street while on bicycle day ride, from accidentally drowning in a DIY float tanks in their home bathtubs while K-holed, from losing their balance and falling while giddily climbing tall structures at festivals - all situations ourselves and/or our first responder community members have had to deal with. Ketamine seems to be a particularly common factor in deaths of this nature.

This is why we strongly recommend folks not only take preventative steps to make sure they are taking the appropriate substance in an appropriate dose for their individual biology, but also use substances in community so that they have people that can help them not accidentally harm themselves while on their cosmic voyage. We've got a safe(r) psychonaut dosing protocol we put together for community here to minimize risk: https://www.psychedelicsafetyalliance.org/f/safer-psychonaut-dosing-protocol

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psychsafetyalliance OP t1_its7mcy wrote

We should also add here that there are two kinds of crises one can experience while on psychedelics: Medical Crisis and Psycho-Emotional Crisis.

People experiencing an acute medical crisis sometimes need hospitalization, as a medical crisis can be fatal in some instances. Getting people in this camp medical attention can often keep them alive or prevent things from getting worse.

People experiencing a psycho-emotional crisis can often present as being in bad shape and really scared, possibility to a legitimately traumatic level, even to the the point where they think they're dying, but actually are not dying. Getting people in this camp to a hospital can often subject them to environments and situations which can make things more scary or traumatic.

To help some festival first responders in our network determine the difference between the two types of psychedelic crises, we made this nifty Crisis Laminate, which you can download for free, print out, and take with you when you're out in the world.

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Pun-pucking-tastic t1_itsgo3s wrote

Hey, thanks for pointing out the difference in these two kinds of emergencies. I think having some sort of "field guide" is a very good idea, but I can't help finding the version you have provided very unclear and hard to navigate. There's a couple of things that I didn't get straightaway, and I'm sober at home and not out on a festival with someone on a bad trip near freaking me out.

On page one, you say: "Check for basics. Are they 10-20 breaths per minute."
That's not only very weird grammar, it's especially useless because you don't even tell me what to do with the info that "they are 20 breaths". Also, what are "arousal techniques"? You are talking to festival goers I assume, not medical professionals (because then you would not explain that regular breath is a vital sign)?

I think it would be helpful to say something like "First of all, make sure that people are physically safe. If one of these conditions is not met, you may have a medical emergency on hand, and you should get help". Give clear guidance.

Also, the drawing of a person in recovery position is not under the paragraph mentioning the recovery position, but under the CPR paragraph. That's just bad layout, and hard to navigate.

The second page suffers from some serious layout issues, too. Example: "Sitting, not guiding. You are the anchor..." should be one bullet point, not two. Press Shift-Enter for line breaks without starting a new list item.

The text could be more explanatory. Be not attached to the outcome. What is that supposed to mean? A short headline with a short instruction would be more helpful than some shorthand. For example:
"Talk through, not down.
A bad trip lasts as long as it does, you can't 'talk somebody down' or 'steer them in the right way'. Be supportive, be their anchor rather than trying to be their steering wheel"

"Breathing" on its own is also super unhelpful...

And lastly, the font you chose is fairly hard to read.

Sorry to rip your flyer apart like that, but I think it can be super helpful to people out their to have good information, hope the feedback can help in some way.

Keep up the good work!!

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psychsafetyalliance OP t1_itsp0go wrote

This crisis laminate thing was made as a shorthand addendum to a longer training offered to festival first responders. formatted to fit into little laminates you can wear around your neck and is meant to jog someone's memory in a crisis without missing critical indicators of safety or being so dense as to be illegible at night.

We've mentioned it here because it's the best free thing we have right now for crisis response, but it's certainly imperfect for anyone who hasn't taken that training. When we're able to get around to making one in long form that's better suited for folks without first responder training, your feedback will be super helpful, so thanks for that.

Right now the only place we offer comprehensive crisis response triage and training to people who aren't first responders is our psychedelic safety masterclass.

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