"The substantial reason for rejecting a philosophical theory is the 'absurdum' to which it reduces us.11"
"No China resident believes in the terrible frequency of the dull, sodden-witted, debilitated opium smoker met with in print."
"I had daily intercourse with the people from whom the best and most trustworthy information on the subject of opium and opium smoking could be obtained, and my experience is that opium smoking, as practised by the Chinese, is perfectly innocuous. This is a fact so patent that it forces itself upon the attention of every intelligent resident in China who has given ordinary attention to the subject."
"During my long residence in Hong Kong, I have never known a single instance of an Englishman, or any other foreigner, being an opium smoker, although I have met with many who had smoked a few pipes by way of experiment. All have assured me that the vapour was nauseous, and produced no pleasurable sensations whatever.19"
That's the problem with prohibition. It is not ultimately a health question but a question about priorities and sensibilities -- and those topics are open to lively debate and should not be the province of science, especially when natural law itself says mother nature is ours.
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
Problem 2,643 of the war on drugs:
It puts the government in charge of deciding what counts as a true religion.
Westerners have "just said no" to pain relief, mood elevation and religious insight.
All the problems that folks associate with drugs are caused by prohibition. Thousands were not dying on the streets when opioids were legal in America. It took prohibition to bring that about.
Americans love to blame drugs for all their problems. Young people were not dying in the streets when opiates were legal. The prohibition mindset is the problem, not drugs.
Opium and cocaine have a vast host of potential rational uses -- yet we all have to pretend otherwise in the age of the Drug War.
Science knows nothing of the human spirit and of the hopes and dreams of humankind. Science cannot tell us whether a given drug risk is worthwhile given the human need for creativity and passion in their life. Science has no expertise in making such philosophical judgements.
I thought mycology clubs across the US would be protesting drug laws that make mushroom collecting illegal for psychoactive species. But in reality, almost no club even mentions such species. No wonder prohibition is going strong.
Philip Jenkins reports that Rophynol had positive uses for treating mental disorders until the media called it the "date rape drug." We thus punished those who were benefitting from the drug, tho' the biggest drug culprit in date rape is alcohol. Oprah spread the fear virally.
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