In the world of hyper-competitive business and San Francisco’s experimental culture a trend has emerged – microdosing psychedelic drugs to improve performance.
One tech startup worker from San Francisco who spoke anonymously to Rolling Stone said he takes “microdoses” in his free time and sometimes at the office. A microdose is described as approximately 10 micrograms of LSD or 0.2-0.5 grams of mushrooms.
“Microdosing has helped me come up with some new designs to explore and new ways of thinking,” the anonymous tech worker RS refers to as Ken told the outlet. “You would be surprised at how many people are actually doing it. It’s crazy awesome.”
Serious questions remain in this field and the potential long-term effects could be very serious. That’s in addition to the risk of the drug’s addictive and dangerous nature. “You’re tinkering with the system that is involved with depressive systems, but in unexplored ways,” Matt Johnson a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore told Livescience in July.
Taking hallucinogenic drugs for performance is by no means a new concept. In January of this year CNN Money reported on psychedelic drug use in Silicon Valley as a means of increasing creativity.
“The billionaires I know, almost without exception, use hallucinogens on a regular basis,” Silicon Valley investor Tim Ferriss told the outlet. “[They’re] trying to be very disruptive and look at the problems in the world … and ask completely new questions.”
LSD sits alongside heroin as a Schedule I drug with “high potential for abuse” according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Association. “Schedule I drugs are the most dangerous drugs of all the drug schedules with potentially severe psychological or physical dependence.”
The National Institute of Drug Abuse describes LSD as, “one of the most potent mood-changing chemicals. It was discovered in 1938 and is manufactured from lysergic acid, which is found in ergot, a fungus that grows on rye and other grains.”
Recreational use of the drug is also prevalent among those who use it for work purposes according to the CNN Money report. Techies are known to hit Nevada’s Burning Man event where drug use is common. According to an FBI report, “greatest known threat” at the 2010 gathering was “crowd control issues and use of illegal drugs by the participants.” Breitbart News previously reported on the festival and the prevailing “anything goes” attitude when it comes to sex and illicit drugs.
Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana
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