The “difference between a medicine and a poison is the dose,” those are the last words ending an article, “A New Chapter in the Science of Psychedelics Microdosing”, in The Atlantic by Haley Weiss sharing the two perspectives of microdosing (Weiss, 2019).  During the rhetorical analysis of microdosing, the purpose is to understand a new way to benefit and improve your emotional and physical actions. Haley Weiss is a former editor fellow of The Atlantic in which, Weiss decides to write and inform the reader about microdosing and the research behind hallucinogenic drugs.  The dose of a psychedelic drug is known as a hallucinogenic drug which affects the senses of the human body. It causes for there to be changes in the person’s thinking and in their emotions. Having the benefits has created for there to be studies to show the benefits of “heightened emotional sensitivity, athletic performance, and creativity,” also creating reliefs of symptoms for “anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and chronic pain” (Weiss, 2019).The improvements have led for there to be research progressed, even though there is not an exact peer reviewed article there have been many researches created for microdosing. Usually to start a microdose there are steps to take to have a beneficial effect. A microdose, is a small amount of a hallucinogenic drug, that is to be taken following a schedule of every three to four days. This causes LSD, magic mushrooms and other drugs like the ones before to last for up to three or four days, which would lead to the reaction of the drug in your body’s cell to still have an effect. In many research studies found there has been a result of microdosing that has had beneficial effects on people rather than causing harm

         Weiss wrote an article which discussed the idea of having a “new chapter in science” it creates a rhetorical stance on discussing the “first biological evidence” for microdosing and the improvements it has on one’s health (Weiss, 2019). Weiss started the article with a photograph by the artist TV Moore, demonstrating “A psychedelic.” When first viewing the image, it has a portrait in the middle and on the right side a person looking at the portrait and seems to be a woman dressed all in black. The portrait she is viewing is very descriptive with different colors, it has primary colors and even neon colors. If you look into the portrait you can see that there are at least seven open eyes. The purpose of this image is to explain the different points of view a psychedelic drug has. When viewing this image, the audience’s attention falls right to this colorful portrait and as the audience looks closer you can see the images having hidden eyes looking out. The contrast between this portrait and the person in black, brings the eye straight to the portrait and then wonders the reason for adding a person in black. The purpose for the person in black clothing is to demonstrate how the feelings of that person is without taking a psychedelic drug, while the portrait is showing a brighter side of the drug. In one image, both perspectives are shown and how it differentiates from being without the drug and how it can be part of them. 

 The author wrote this article and added this image to show the emotions a person who would need to take a microdose would be without it and how it would improve the life of a person with psychedelic drugs. The image overall leaves a person thinking of the reason for adding it into the article, but it leads for the reader to have to think more about how it relates to microdosing. The image it has leads for the reader to have many points of view in what the real meaning behind the image is and what one concludes about it. Overall the photograph is named “A psychedelic” which can demonstrate different meanings about how one is feeling about the hallucinogenic drugs and their opinion on microdosing (Weiss, 2019). Showing this photograph would add for the response of the audience to be different for each person because of their emotional perspective but would believe that the psychedelic drug would create an improvement for them and would be a positive form of pathos. The characteristics of the audience would make it more assuring to wanting to take a microdose.         The purpose of Weiss writing this article is to bring into effect that there are people who need to be using a microdose drug, but do not have enough information to see what a myth is and what can be proven by a researcher. Bringing to awareness, a microdose cannot create a person to be “in any sort of trip” and shows that a small amount of “LSD, mushrooms, or other hallucinogenic drug” will not get the consumer to be unconscious (Weiss, 2019). Weiss creates acknowledgment to people between the ages of thirty to forty years old, “but harmful at any other age” (Weiss, 2019). For people who are younger taking a “full dose” can cause damage to the brain structure if taking more than the body can handle, but if taken in smaller doses then it can have a less harmful effect. Weiss, introduces David Olson, a professor of chemistry and neuroscience in the University of California, he created a study with rats and tried to understand the effects ketamine, which is a pain reliever, has on them (Weiss, 2019). Ethos is part of this article by adding the research of Olson. Creating microdosing psychedelics to be beneficial for hallucinogenic drugs to be legal in the United States and more evidence of showing the improvements.. From the results of the rats, Olson had questions to want to know more about, but overall realized that the age of a person would matter to know the effect of microdosing. It would demonstrate that knowing people’s age would damage the structure of the brain. Having the support of this research and acknowledgement, it would create an eye opener for researchers to start “open[ing] the doors to clinical trials (Weiss, 2019). There has been a stop on it because of regulations in the United States and has lowered the chance of creating research projects for it. 

         Weiss’s audience for this article of psychedelic microdosing is to speak to those who want to understand more about microdosing and try to give information for those who will benefit from using these drugs. The audience who have depression, anxiety, or OCD would benefit since; it would give them information more accurate about microdosing psychedelics. The audience gets enough information, but also more questions that should be answered by a professional doctor. This article was published to be interpreted by the reader as a new opening into bringing back the illegal substance to help those who suffer from some of the symptoms like, depression and anxiety. It is an easy to read article even though there are words that are not part of everyday life, but the author tries to explain the words and make it understandable for us. Having the information of the study and of trying to make it a legal question if it is credible or not and it is since David Olson, is a professor in the “University of California at Davis” and is part of the department in “chemistry and neuroscience” (Weiss, 2019). Also knowing that the writer used other facts to make her opinion stand strong and beneficial.  

Weiss takes a supportive and beneficial stance towards microdosing and is demonstrated with evidence of staring at the article with knowing there are “purported benefits of microdosing psychedelics” and that there is “research,” but it “is sparse” (Weiss, 2019). He included the benefits towards different hallucinogenic drugs and how there are people like the “Silicon Valley elite” who believe it is a “productivity hack” (Weiss, 2019). Weiss shows awareness and the improvement it can create for people, while giving evidence to support his stance of having research showing biological evidence in her article. The article genre would be an informative piece, since it explains to the audience the perspective and the beneficial effects it can have while having a formal structure. Throughout the article it has evidence detailing the support how a microdose can create a “therapeutic effect” and pointing out that there are four published studies on microdosing (Weiss, 2019). Adding in the fact that there are more studies of microdosing leads for the reader to believe and be able to have more information to look up on microdosing. 

         The article demonstrates having historical, political, and social context to be part of the article and to create a more accurate reason on why there are not many research papers and clinical trials on microdosing. In the 1950’s and 1960’s the United States were allowed to have studies on the “effect that psychedelics” and how it effect “the consciousness,” but since President Richard Nixon’s Controlled Substances Act, the money for these researches had “dried up” and lead to not have the information of how it effects and if it has any side effects (Weiss, 2019). Weiss uses the act of President Richard Nixon, to help explain the reason why psychedelics have been banned from the United States. The diction choice of adding this act into the article helps into understanding why psychedelics are illegal. Weiss chose to add this piece of information to let the audience understand better the social and political perspective of hallucinogenic drugs. The social factor on microdosing is that there is a “political objection” towards taking psychedelics which lead for there to be a political stop for the researchers to progress.          The dosage of a drug can be seen as a political way to cause harm, but for those who can harm themselves microdosing can create an improvement. A drug is supposed to be poisonous in society, but people in society have transitioned to believe it is a medicine and having more research can lead to a better outcome. There can be factors to harm one, but Weiss picks the point of view of creating more positive outcomes than negative. Weiss creates an awareness on microdosing and creates more questions to be asked about it, which leads the audience to want more answers to those questions.

         Weiss chooses to use an image and a study to write the perspective of psychedelics and how it would show a beneficial effect while using it by taking a small portion which is called microdosing. Using the image helped to explain to the audience in a visual form and develop many ideas to be open and to be asking more about microdosing. While the research and the article give the information to the reader and give an overall view of how microdosing can affect the body of a human being, while giving an example that was tested on rats. Even though it is illegal to use hallucinogenic drugs in the United States, it brings up the topic to people who would benefit from this method. Weiss helps expand the constructive idea of microdosing, which would create an improvement for those who suffer from symptoms like chronic pain and PTSD. The main reason for this article is to have an idea of how microdosing can be more a help than a death sentence.  

Work Cited

Weiss, H. (2019, March 5). A New Chapter in the Science of Psychedelic Microdosing. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/03/psychedelic-microdosing-depression-anxiety/584119/