Hi there,

Some colleagues and I are hoping to include posts from The Nexus in our analysis of trip sitting discussion in online forums. We understand community members have a lot of experience in this area, and their discussion is a significant and rare data set on this topic. With consent from the administrative team, we would create a thread explaining the study and provide participants the opportunity to have their posts excluded or alternatively, to be recognised as a contributor to the project. Unfortunately I so far have been unable to make contact with an administrator of this forum.

I have conducted similar research with Bluelight.org in the past, and my colleagues Sascha Thal and Dr Stephen Bright are experienced psychedelic researchers. We do not stigmatise the use of psychedelics and are strongly in favour of psychedelic law reform. We would love the opportunity to discuss our work further and hope you are supportive of this project.

Warm regards,

Dr Liam Engel
Adjunct Lecturer
School of Medical and Health Sciences
Edith Cowan University
Australia
l.engel@ecu.edu.au

You absolutely have the consent of the administration team for this project.

I think I speak for most members when I say the dmt nexus will be happy to provide any information you and your colleagues are looking for on our forum. Welcome to the nexus and I personally would be happy to participate in any way I can to help your establishments research. Welcome again and enjoy the forum.

I agree.

And if you like to contact me, it is best to send me a PM.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

Wow, thanks for such quick and supportive responses!

We are currently waiting on ethics approval and when we receive this I will make a project thread. Could you please advise me the most appropriate subforum for this thread?

In many regards, this forum exists in order to educate. Your suggestion epitomises this mindset. It doesn't surprise me to see you have the administration's support.

I look forward to reading your thread. We appear to be on the threshold of a new psychedelic revolution. However, unlike the 60's, which promoted LSD, there was a flaw because LSD didn't fully live up to its promise. DMT, however, does. This time, the revolution will work because DMT works.

Peace.
DD.

I think here in the research section is probably the best bet. I'll sticky it at the top when you make the post.

Hey Nexians,

Sadly, we were not successful in our first ethics application.

I really wanted to provide participants with the opportunity to be identified as contributors but doing so could also make participants easier to identify to law enforcement, so it seems safest to keep all participants as anonymous as possible.

Please let me know how you feel about this change, I hope you can still support this project.

Cheers,

Liam

Uh... What? What the heck is that supposed to mean? How did LSD "not live up to its promise"? How does DMT "work" in a way that LSD does not...?

Yeah LSD has always done right by me. I think the world needs more of it to really get the hint...

Sorry to hear the ethics application was denied, hopefully the next attempt will be approved.

We are happy to support your project in whatever manner you can get it approved.

Thanks very much dreamer, I appreciate the support and apologise for the change of plans. I'm still waiting to hear back from the Shroomery team, but once I do, we will resubmit the application. Hopefully we can begin the study before the end of the year

Let's hope they give interesting results.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

can you explain the ethics application thing to me please? i have no idea how the 'official' research world works.
im guessing you have to submit your plan to a ethics department of some sort who decide if its ethical?
and they refused based on what? did they even say? im guessing it was based on the lack of anonymity, since thats what you plan to change?

just curious about the whole thing, and i find it confusing that there is a body, most likely given authority by the least ethical people on earth, that decides what is ethical and what is not.

thanks

Hey PedroSanchez,

Most universities and a number of other research and community organisations have what is called an ethics committee. Normally this committee consists of a small group of people with diverse research backgrounds and sociocultural expertise. Researchers submit research proposals to the committee who apply different policies (such as Australia's National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research and ECU's Conduct of Ethical Human Research) to determine if the potential benefits of the project outweigh the potential risks.

Our application was not approved and we received the comments;

"The application states that participants can be identified as contributors. Can you please advise how this will be managed? Will the participants be required to provide formal consent before they can be identified as contributors?"
"Please outline the researchers’ obligation to report any illegal activity."

Obtaining a consent form would make participants more identifiable (we would need their name and signature!), and should the committee assert that we must report on illegal activity observed in our study, the consent form could place identifiable participants at risk. So while I think it would be ideal not to report on illegal activity observed AND give direct credit to participants, I feel that this mightn't be possible if we are seeking approval from the ECU ethics committee.

I agree that ethics committees are not inherently ethical. This is especially the case for research concerning illicit drug use, as insurance and law incentivizes persecution of and stigma against illicit drugs. In my experience the most ethical approaches to research strive to provide participants with as much benefit as possible, but in the case of illicit drugs somehow ethics committees don't see participants who use drugs as entitled to benefits as participants who do not.

I still think having an independent review of a project from diverse experts prior to the project's undertaking is necessary to appropriately assess and manage risk. I guess I dream of an ethics board specifically for people who use drugs, run by people who use drugs - perhaps this could be a more appropriate authority on these types of issues.

Cheers,

Liam