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Yes.�
Holmes looked idly away from the old book with its Gothic script.
“Cocaine,” he said. “Seven percent.” Do you want to try it?
“Thank you very much!” I snapped. “My body hasn't fully recovered from the Afghan campaign yet. And I don't want to put too much stress on it.
Holmes smiled at my indignation.
“You may be right, Watson,” he said. “And drugs are bad for your health.” But what I did discover was that they were surprisingly stimulating to the mind and clear the mind. So their side effect can be ignored.
Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Sign of Four”
However, if it was that simple, they would be accepted by everyone and be geniuses.
Neither LSD nor cocaine can put brilliant thoughts in a person's head if they weren't there in the first place. But if they are there, LSD and cocaine don't make a big deal out of it. You can take anything. Dumas the father was eating hashish, Honore de Balzac was taking coffee, and Mussorgsky was drinking.
Drug-inspired genius consists of turning off critical thinking, which prevents us from saying a lot of things that we don't say for various subconscious reasons. There are many techniques that allow you to turn off critical thinking without using drugs, which are still – excuse me, Mr. Holmes-harmful to your health.
LSD lovers will now pick on my words and say that LSD is not harmful. Yes, LSD is practically not harmful to health. But the brilliant thoughts that occur under LSD are limited in nature and relate mainly to self-knowledge. These brilliant thoughts, as a rule, cannot be conveyed to anyone, because they are not expressed in words.�
And what can be expressed in words will at best sound something like this: “I understand the table!!! This is a board and four legs. How brilliant that is!!!”
Everything is somewhat more complicated.
To begin with, these are completely different classes of drugs, with completely different effects. Why, the word “drugs” is generally more of a legal term and does not have a strict scientific definition.
Cocaine is a psychostimulant. Under it, wise thoughts come about as often as under alcohol, which is a drug in theory, also a drug. Well, unless the ideas that come up under cocaine usually seem priceless, even if they are super-idiotic.�
LSD – another conversation. It's a hallucinogen. When it is taken, parts of the brain that normally do not come into direct contact begin to talk to each other. This, in principle, gives you a chance to look at existing problems from an unexpected angle. But the “surprise” of an angle, of course, does not guarantee its usefulness. In order to learn something useful and valuable from such a trip, you need both the right attitude and a rather harsh mental self-discipline with developed critical thinking skills. Then there is a small chance. And not even on a real idea, but rather on a “useful allegory”, which, if carefully developed in a sober form, can help (or maybe not) to understand some aspects of a complex concept.�
Psychoactive substances are tools. Both very dangerous to use, and not very reliable, at the same time. They won't make you a genius or superhuman.
When I was young and used drugs, we used to play chess in the company, I will note that under LSD and Amphetamines, I smashed everyone in a row, like Kasparov first-graders. In general, drugs are evil! Better read books! Huxley, Grof, Leary, McKenna, if it's hard, start with Nosov…