"Excellent feelings. Tremendous opening of insights and understanding. A real awakening."
"This feels marvelous, and a whole new way to be much more relaxed, accepting, being in the moment. No more axes to grind. I can be free."
"I felt an enriched emotional affect, a comfortable and good feeling, and easy sleeping, with colorful and important dreams."
"Er... um... I feel... eeee.... shh... I'm sorry, what was the question again?
"The substantial reason for rejecting a philosophical theory is the 'absurdum' to which it reduces us."
ARGAN: But doctors themselves must believe in the truth in their science since they use it on themselves.
BROTHER: That's because there are some in their number who suffer from the same delusion by which they profit.
--The Imaginary Invalid by Moliere, produced by Yuri Rasovsky
If I should die of some unusual concatenation of circumstances, I want my survivors to pass "Brian's Law," a law stating that we will no longer pass laws based on hard cases and so needlessly fill our prisons by taking common-sense discretion out of the hands of judges.
It's no wonder that folks blame drugs. Carl Hart is the first American scientist to openly say in a published book that even the so-called "hard" drugs can be used wisely. That's info that the drug warriors have always tried to keep from us.
"Like Christians burning mosques and temples to spread the word of Jesus, modem drugabuseologists burn crops to spread the use of alcohol." -- Ceremonial Chemistry, p. 48
If drug war logic made sense, we would outlaw endless things in addition to drugs. Because the drug war says that it's all worth it if we can save just one life -- which is generally the life of a white suburban young person, btw.
When scientists refuse to report positive uses for drugs, they are not motivated by power lust, they are motivated by philosophical (non-empirical) notions about what counts as "the good life." This is why it's wrong to say that the drug war is JUST about power.
In "The Book of the Damned," Charles Fort shows how science damns (i.e. excludes) facts that it cannot assimilate into a system of knowledge. Fort could never have guessed, however, how thoroughly science would eventually "damn" all positive facts about "drugs."
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies." -- Groucho Marx
It's always wrong to demonize drugs in the abstract. That's anti-scientific. It begs so many questions and leaves suffering pain patients (and others) high and dry. No substance is bad in and of itself.
If opium were legal, then most of the nostrums peddled by drug stores today would be irrelevant. (No wonder the drug war has staying power!)
SWAT raids have increased by 15,000 percent from the late 1970s to today, resulting in 50,000 to 80,000 SWAT raids annually in the US alone. --War On Us
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