Know your body. Know your mind. Know your substance. Know your source. Four commands, in that order: the catechism of harm reduction, as it has circulated through the culture since the forum years. This page unfolds it.
One thing first. This wiki documents molecules and experiences; it encourages nothing. The only hundred percent risk reduction is not taking anything. But prohibition breeds opacity, opacity breeds accidents, and information prevents some of them. That is the harm reduction wager: you do not protect people by hiding from them the things that concern them.
Know your body
Whatever you take meets a body first, with its treatments and its history. Documented interactions are not fine print: seizure risk with lithium and tramadol under psychedelics, unpredictable potentiation with MAOIs (plant ones included, like Syrian rue), blunting by SSRIs and antipsychotics. A personal or family history of schizophrenia or bipolar I disorder is a contraindication for psychedelics. The heart matters (stimulants, MDMA), sleep matters, food matters. The body is the first setting.
Know your mind
A psychedelic amplifies whatever it finds. A rough patch, a dread you are running from, a decision you keep avoiding: all of it will show up, enlarged. Intention is not decorative ritual; it is a variable on a par with dose, because expectations shape the experience down to its content (this is the heart of the Bayesian brain page). Hence two simple rules: never take something to escape something, and for strong doses, keep a sober, trusted presence around whose only job is to be there.
Know your substance
Identity, dose, duration. Identity is tested (see below), never guessed. Dose is measured: a milligram scale for powders, volumetric dosing below that, and the humility of knowing a blotter cannot be eyeballed. Duration is learned before, not during: taking more because "it isn't working" is the classic trap of slow molecules. One molecule at a time; undocumented combinations are chemistry experiments in which you are the glassware. And classic psychedelic tolerance takes about two weeks to reset: hurrying has no pharmacological upside.
Know your source
Not so you can trust it: so you know what that trust is worth. The most honest dealer in the world repeats what they were told; nobody along the chain has analysed the product, and nobody stakes anything on the label. Batch names, "flavors" and reputations are marketing (see Research chemicals). The whole rule fits in one sentence: you do not test because you distrust your friend, you test because your friend is not a laboratory.
Testing: how
Colorimetric reagents are the entry level, about ten euros: a drop on a fragment of product, a colour, a chemical family. Ehrlich turns purple in the presence of an indole: LSD and other lysergamides, psilocybin, DMT. A tab that does not turn Ehrlich purple is not LSD; this is precisely the test that separates LSD from an NBOMe. Marquis, Mecke and Mandelin cover the phenethylamines (MDMA, the 2C series, amphetamines).
Their limits are real: a reagent points to a family, never to purity or dose, and Ehrlich cannot tell LSD from 1P-LSD. Dose takes quantitative work: drug-checking services, or mail-in laboratory analysis. Add one free sensory rule: if it's bitter, it's a spitter; LSD is tasteless, bitterness and numbness point to an NBOMe.
Testing: where
- France: harm reduction structures (CAARUD), festival outreach groups (Techno+, Fêtez Clairs), and the SINTES scheme (OFDT), which routes samples to analysis through those structures. Anonymous information line: drogues-info-service, 0 800 23 13 13.
- Europe: Energy Control (Spain, international mail-in analysis), checkit! (Vienna), DIMS (Netherlands), Miraculix (Germany, quantitative tests).
- North America: DanceSafe (kits, festival booths).
- Reagent kits are legal to buy online; the reagents themselves are not controlled substances.
If it goes wrong
A bad trip is not a medical emergency: a calm room, company, no decisions, and the curve comes down on its own. Talking, breathing, changing rooms or music is often enough to move the experience. A medical emergency has physical signs: seizures, hyperthermia, chest pain, loss of consciousness. Then you call 15 in France, 112 anywhere in Europe, your local number elsewhere, and you say what was taken: medical teams are bound by confidentiality, and naming the substance saves precious time.
Sources
- TripSit, interaction charts and community documentation
- DanceSafe, reagents and substance factsheets
- Drogues info service, information and referral in France
- OFDT, the SINTES scheme
- Energy Control, international mail-in analysis
- The Manual of Psychedelic Support, a free guide to sitting difficult experiences