As far as the cover photo, I don't think ketamine (a replacement for PCP) and MDMA (an analogue of drugs like Adderall (amphetamine class)) qualify as psychedelics. It makes more sense to classify psychedelics as 5-HT2A partial agonists, meaning LSD, psilocybin, DMT and analogs like bufotenin, and mescaline, from a pharmacological perspective. See:
Ketamine and MDMA in contrast act through different pathways, the former being a dissociative anaesthetic acting via the NMDA receptor, and MDMA acting as much via dopamine receptors (though unlike other amphetamines, it also increases serotonin levels significantly). In popular use, these are so-called party drugs, and users often have no idea what they're taking (amphetamines and ketamine have been commonly sold as MDMA). I don't know why they've been lumped in with true psychedelics so frequently, but they're much more likely to be used recreationally as a replacement for alcohol, cocaine, etc.
Secondly, I think naive users should be aware that the true psychedelics are indeed dangerous if not treated with caution and respect, in the same sense that a motorcycle is. Drive a motorcycle too fast, bad things happen. Ingesting a large amount of psychedelics is similar. There are at least two particular dangers: immediately, a psychedelic overdose leaves the user ambulatory, so they can end up falling off cliffs, walking into traffic, and otherwise oblivious to dangerous situations. Secondly, some people have traumatic responses to very large doses of psychedelics that can take months to recover from (dissociation from reality, paranoia, etc.).
Still, I think these drugs can be immensely beneficial and people should be able to access them, much as people should be able to drive motorcycles. Perhaps one solution is that they should only be supplied in low dosage packaging (aka microdose amounts), such that people don't accidentally take large doses with the common unfortunate consequences. It's generally not a good idea to think of them as 'recreational' either, although many people are going to use them that way.
Just because they act through different pathways doesn't mean they're not psychedelics.
They're not Tryptamines, sure, but they are psychedelic even if they act differently from "classical hallucinogens" (to borrow a similarly strange term I've read in scientific literature).
Salvia is also not a 5-HT2A agonist, does that mean it's not a psychedelic?
What you have mentioned are called classic psychadelics .
Something being a psychadelic has nothing to do with it's pathways.
Let's take a look at the definition .
Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary mental states (known as psychedelic experiences or psychedelic "trips") and/or an apparent expansion of consciousness
This fits ketamine perfectly, I have tried many substances and ketamine is one of the most powerful substances I have tried .
Prolonged fasting and meditation can generate non-ordinary mental states (which you could call psychedelic trips if you like) but the mechanism and the effects are not the same. When it comes to psychoactive compounds, classification matters a lot, at least from a pharmacological perspective. For example, MDMA dependency is a lot more likely than LSD dependency from an abuse perspective as it hits the dopamine reward circuitry in the brain, and this is generally true of all the tryptamine-class psychedelics.
As far as ketamine, it's an organochlorine compound whose regular use is associated with liver and urinary toxicity, I can't believe anyone who knows about this would want to take it regularly or recreationally.
You can't call prolonged fasting or meditation a psychadelic because it doesn't fit the the definition neither having a abuse potential or a compound that causes damage .
The definition exists , if you want to create a new word for it you can go ahead .
(LSD, mescaline, psilocybin) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5756147/
(DMT) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9768567/
Ketamine and MDMA in contrast act through different pathways, the former being a dissociative anaesthetic acting via the NMDA receptor, and MDMA acting as much via dopamine receptors (though unlike other amphetamines, it also increases serotonin levels significantly). In popular use, these are so-called party drugs, and users often have no idea what they're taking (amphetamines and ketamine have been commonly sold as MDMA). I don't know why they've been lumped in with true psychedelics so frequently, but they're much more likely to be used recreationally as a replacement for alcohol, cocaine, etc.
Secondly, I think naive users should be aware that the true psychedelics are indeed dangerous if not treated with caution and respect, in the same sense that a motorcycle is. Drive a motorcycle too fast, bad things happen. Ingesting a large amount of psychedelics is similar. There are at least two particular dangers: immediately, a psychedelic overdose leaves the user ambulatory, so they can end up falling off cliffs, walking into traffic, and otherwise oblivious to dangerous situations. Secondly, some people have traumatic responses to very large doses of psychedelics that can take months to recover from (dissociation from reality, paranoia, etc.).
Still, I think these drugs can be immensely beneficial and people should be able to access them, much as people should be able to drive motorcycles. Perhaps one solution is that they should only be supplied in low dosage packaging (aka microdose amounts), such that people don't accidentally take large doses with the common unfortunate consequences. It's generally not a good idea to think of them as 'recreational' either, although many people are going to use them that way.