.....And there went out from Judaea, a commandment forbidding the possession of psychoactive plants, for the King was sore enraged that his people might thence derive thoughts that did not conduce to the seamless governance of his dominion. And among these dangerously enlightening flora, henceforth to be stigmatized evermore with the pejorative epithet of 'drugs', were, in no particular order: the kava-kava root of the South Pacific Isles, the bark of the Virola tree of South America, the roots of Tabernanthe ibigoa of equatorial Africa, the Psilocybe cyanescens mushroom of the Pacific Northwest, and all manner of "sacred fungi" from Central America. Neither shalt thou cure thy depression with coca, nor decideth for thyself how much pain relief thou needest in this life, but rather shalt thou pay through thy nose so that ye doctors can tell you how you feeleth and decideth what you needeth..."
You can get a master's degree in healthcare today and not learn a thing about the power of hundreds of outlawed drugs to inspire and elate.
My impression has been that the use of cocaine over a long time can bring about lasting improvement..." --Sigmund Freud, On Cocaine, 1884
Imagine a world in which we were told about both the potential benefits AND the potential harms of drugs like cocaine and opium.
Today's doctors are "quacks" because they fail to see any of the many obvious uses for psychoactive substances.
Prohibitionists are responsible for the 200,000-plus killed in the US-inspired Mexican drug war in the 21st century.
That's another problem with "following the science." Science downplays personal testimony as subjective. But psychoactive experiences are all ABOUT subjectivity. With such drugs, users are not widgets susceptible to the one-size-fits-all pills of reductionism.
Peyote advocates should be drug legalization advocates. Otherwise, they're involved in special pleading which is bound to result in absurd laws, such as "Plant A can be used in a religion but not plant B," or "Person A can belong to such a religion but person B cannot."
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.
You can get a Ph.D. in healthcare, and not learn a thing about the glaringly obvious benefits of drugs, as demonstrated by history, anecdote and common sense.
The FDA approves of shock therapy and the psychiatric pill mill, but they cannot see the benefits in MDMA, a drug that brought peace, love and understanding to the dance floor in 1990s Britain.
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