"Its also worth noting that often the experience of actually consuming these kinds of things, results in symptoms not that different from actual poisoning. Stomach cramps, nausea, the 'spins', double vision."
Those are the easier effects to explain. Much harder is why these compounds cure/treat depression or addiction, make people see infinite beauty or god, enhance their creativity, etc... Not much analogy to poison there.
I think that if I can make an animal who's trying to eat me hallucinate aliens on another plane, the animal kinda... totally forgets that it's trying to eat me.
Psychedelics in that sense may be distracting poisons rather than harmful poisons
Those are the easier effects to explain. Much harder is why these compounds cure/treat depression or addiction, make people see infinite beauty or god, enhance their creativity, etc... Not much analogy to poison there.