I got to thinking the other day, after someone mentioned that Terence McKenna died of a brain tumor, about the causes of death of some of the more well known psychonauts:

Terence mcKenna - cancer - brain tumor
Timothy Leary - prostate cancer
Alan Watts - heart failure
Ken Kesey - had a malignant tumor removed shortly before dying (couldn't track down actual cause)
Albert Hoffman - natural causes (whatever that is...)
R. Gordon Wasson (couldn't find the cause)
Aldous Huxley - cancer
Frank Herbert - cancer
Bil hicks - pancreatic cancer
Carlos Castenada - hepatocellular cancer

Seems to be a high incidence of psychonauts dying of cancer... the stats for deaths by cancer ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cause_of_death ) are approximately 18%, making this list anomalous to say the list. It's a short list though...

Anyone know of the causes of death of any other psychedelic luminaries?
Anyone ever notice the correlation underlined above?

Curiouser and curiouser...

JBArk

Just got me wondering...

Doesn't most people get cancer later in life?

And as you say, it's a short list.
There's probably a lot of people who used psychedelics who didn't die
from cancer.

terrence mckenna ate a lot of junk food. Bill hicks used to smoke a lot of cigarrettes and for sure used plenty of other drugs... not that this says anything conclusively of course but its important to question the several other variables out there

Cancer is natures way of saying give someone else a turn. Its lousy but its life. Add me to this list a month down the road, I think I'm going to become the first person the overdose on cannabis, thatll break up the results a little bit

Of course. I'm not drawing any conclusions, but would be curious to see a greater cross-section. The 18% (approx) surely contains a lot of smokers and junk food eaters as well...

You must admit, the list is impressively weighted down by cancer.

Anyone else know of causes of death of some of your heroes or psychonauts you know?
JBArk

Some of them got pretty old, like mr hofmann.

What's not right about the assumption that these deaths point in any direction is the way you present them: first you make a list of people who've died and then you mention the cause of death.

You could do the same thing with anything else, like making a list of famous sculptors who died. The conclusion would have to be that almost ALL famous sculptors have died at some point in their life, so that it would seem that sculpting is a risky busines to engage in.

Well, look at this facts: maurice ravel and claude debussy both died of brain tumors, and george gerschwin also died of a brain tumor after he had taken lessons from maurice ravel. Engaging in french music must almost certainly lead to braintumors. Especially when you also play piano.

From the data, i can't tell whether they represent a large percentage of users of psychedelics and i also can't tell whether they died relatively early. Cancer and heart failure are the most predominant causes of death once you've passed a certain age, so these figures could also indicate that users of psychedelics have a relatively long life or that psychedelics prevent heart failure.

yup... correlation ≠ causality.

Alan Watts and Bill Hicks died of complications resulting from alcohol/cigarette abuse. Pancreatic and prostate cancer are both closely linked with cigarette use, which Dr. Leary was known for. Albert Hofmann was 102 when he died, Wasson was 88. The only one that I really wonder about is Terence McKenna given all the exotic chemicals he must've partaken of, and the fact that he died of a rare brain cancer. I tried googling "psychedelics and cancer" and the only link I could find is a therapeutic link. For every psychedelicist who died young and sick you can find one who lived healthy to a ripe old age. I'm far more concerned about exposure to environmental toxins.

Sasha Shulgin still kickin it at 85.

good points from everybody

polytrip wrote:



indeed. but he was one of the exceptions on the list with regards to cancer. Bill hicks died at 32 and we all know T. Mckenna didn't make it very far along either.



that's why I quit piano lessons in Quebec!

I am aware that stats are subject to interpretation (for the record I didn't supply stats, just a perfunctory list and a little baseless conjecture! ) in fact i'll go one step further - the reason cancer stats are on the rise is not necessarily or entirely because of an increase of environmental carcinogens; we have, in the last 200 years, wiped out a number of fatal diseases and live in (relatively) peaceful times - people live longer, and they "gotta die of sumpin", right? Hence, in part, the rise in the incidence of cancer related deaths.

SnozzleBerry wrote:



*See above paragraph.

Looked over my posts and was surprised the word correlation was never written. My apologies, I was sure I had made that clear! However, the word cause was equally absent. I'm no fool, even if i have been known to imitate one!

So for the record, can any one add any data to further substantiate or repudiate the correlation?

Lysergify wrote:



Sure, but are you inferring there is a higher incidence of abuse among the psychedelic elite than the population at large? (you might be on to something )



So start listin' em!!

Just havin' a little fun here guys. I realize I haven't compiled a substantial list, and anyone who has taken even an introductory course in stats knows that that list is useless insofar as drawing conclusions or even a remotely credible correlation.

But it is curious, no?

But in all seriousness I think hyperspace entities are responsible for the cell abnormalities that lead to malignant neoplasm.

JBArk the statistician/pathologist

Most of the compounds that are psychedelics are not mutagenic (at least none to my knowledge). There is little to no risk of cancer from their use. Smoking and drinking on the other hand are cancer risks.

you must have been posting when i wrote my conclusion, Burnt:



That about seals it scientifically.

(tongue piercing through cheek for those too obtuse to feel it! )

JBArk

William Burroughs
Allen Ginsberg
Robert Anton Wilson
John Lily

Just to get the ball rolling...

What did they die of? don't forget the thread is entiltled "to what do psychonauts ultimately succumb?", not do psychedelics cause cancer...

The ball is a rollin'!

JBArk

from the top of my head:

Jim Morrison - ??? drowned??? heart attack???
Aleister Crowley - pulmonary emphysema
D.M. Turner - drowned
Jerry Garcia - heart attack

Maria Sabina (1888 - 1985)
Died at the age of 97 years old.

Smoked Tobacco, ate mushrooms.

Dan Carpenter - hung himself.

To quote a line from Fight Club;

"In a long enough life line, the life expectancy for everyone drops to zero."

We've all got to check out somehow. As you get older, the chance of random deleterious genetic mutations causing cancer increases vastly.

I believe some of these people have been covered, but Albert Hoffman I believe died of a heart attack at the grand old age pf 102!! This ain't bad going!! And this is a guy who was pro-use of small doses of LSD for the stimulation of new ideas and perspectives. He was noted as being mentally very sharp right until his twilight years, giving clear, concise and unaided talks when he was 100. I didn't know Maria Sabina lived to such an impressive age! And this is in an area of Mexico with less than average medical facilities at hand, and she consumed both mushrooms and a lot of tobacco.

William Burroughs was an unrepentant drug fiend, and heroin addict. He used it daily for many decades of his life, and yet was noted as looking unusually young for bis age, possibly due to his walking every day. He died of natural causes at the age of 88. Bill Hicks, Tim Leary and Alan Watts were all smokers and/or drinkers, which increases the chances of cancerous mutations greatly. Jim Morrison died of heart failure, almost certainly due to his very heavy use of both alcohol and heroin.

Now Terrence McKenna I believe had an extremely rare and aggressive form of brain cancer, that only 300 people a year are reported getting. When he experienced the first symptoms, he even quizzed the doctors about his psychedelic and marijuana use and how they might have influenced it, and they said there was no evidence for a link at all! And this is what Terrence himself had begun to suspect! It was just an extremely unfortunate and rare genetic anomaly. Thus I don't think there is a link between psychedelic use and death...we've all got to check out somehow...relatively few of us are likely to 'die in our sleep'.

Bancopuma wrote:



A better way of saying what I stated a few posts up. Great quote and great corroboration.

JBArk