"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."
"Excellent feelings, tremendous opening of insight and understanding, a real awakening."
"I acknowledged a rapture in the very act of breathing."
(quotes from Pihkal by chemist Alexander Shulgin3)
"Those hours of opium happiness which the Doctor and I spent together in secret were regulated with a scientific accuracy. We did not blindly smoke the drug of paradise, and leave our dreams to chance. While smoking, we carefully steered our conversation through the brightest and calmest channels of thought.5"
To oppose the Drug War philosophically, one has to highlight its connections to both materialism and the psychiatric pill mill. And that's a problem, because almost everyone is either a Drug Warrior or a materialist these days and has a vested interest in the continuation of the psychiatric pill mill.
If psychoactive drugs had never been criminalized, science would never have had any reason or excuse for creating SSRIs that muck about unpredictably with brain chemistry. Chewing the coca leaf daily would be one of many readily available "miracle treatments" for depression.
I could tell my psychiatrist EXACTLY what would "cure" my depression, even without getting addicted, but everything involved is illegal. It has to be. Otherwise I would have no need of the psychiatrist.
In response to a tweet that "some drugs cannot be used wisely for recreational purposes": The problem is, most people draw such conclusions based on general impressions inspired by a media that demonizes drugs. In reality, it's hard to imagine a drug that cannot theoretically be used wisely for recreation at some dose, in some context.
There are hundreds of things that we should outlaw before drugs (like horseback riding) if, as claimed, we are targeting dangerous activities. Besides, drugs are only dangerous BECAUSE of prohibition, which compromises product purity and refuses to teach safe use.
It's funny to hear fans of sacred plants indignantly insisting that their meds are not "drugs." They're right in a way, but actually NO substances are "drugs." Calling substances "drugs" is like referring to striking workers as "scabs." It's biased terminology.
Scientists cannot tell us if using drugs is worth the risk any more than they can tell us if free climbing is worth the risk, or horseback riding or parkour.
"When two men who have been in an aggressive mood toward each other take part in the ritual, one is able to say to the other, 'Come, let us drink, for there is something between us.' " re: the Mayan use of the balche drink in Encyc of Psych Plants, by Ratsch & Hofmann
"The Harrison [Narcotics] Act made the drug peddler, and the drug peddler makes drug addicts.” --Robert A. Schless, 1925.
We need a scheduling system for psychoactive drugs as much as we need a scheduling system for sports activities: i.e. NOT AT ALL. Some sports are VERY dangerous, but we do not outlaw them because we know that there are benefits both to sports and to freedom in general.
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