Again with the smoke. This product has been used for its fibre for thousands of years, and its other uses as a medicine have been banned because it gets abused. In Western countries. Part of the abuse problem is the way it usually gets abused: by smoking it. Development as a medicinal product would have been a lot bigger and safer, if it had been embraced instead of shunned: it was used by jazz musos a lot back in the day, bohemian types, definitely the wrong colour too. It's only happening to a limited extent now with some new mood drugs and analgesics -it's just too useful a product, even its analogs and isomers, one of which (not a naturally occuring isomer) is in the same part of the stadium, as LSD: ~200 micrograms.
They stopped using LSD after experiments showed that it causes other psychological problems rather than helping. That's not true at all. Many states as well as the Federal Government have many different penalties that are given to offenders. Many states today make possession of less than an ounce of pot a misdemeanor which is payable by a fine , no jail time. Possession of LSD isn't a criminal offense like possession of crack would be and is also a misdemeanor in many states. If your caught selling anything though , that changes everything.
The only problem I've heard of is the risk of bringing an already existing mental condition to the fore. If someone has dormant schizophrenia it could trigger it to become active, but they can screen for this kind of thing and it's extremely rare. If you have links to these experiments I'd love to see them. I was speaking more about public perception and the various anti-drug 'education' programmes in place.
You've misunderstood my point. The situation at the moment is that people are illegally taking substances which damage their health and causes social problems. These substances, because of easy availability and the law of supply and demand, have become low cost. This is a direct result of their illegality. Every penny that is made from them goes into the pocket of criminals. What I am proposing is that their supply should be regulated, taxed, and the money generated go towards healthcare and health education. I'm not saying that some screwed up junkie should be presented with a bill if they end up needing dialysis.
Yes I've read about these experiments, done by the US and British governments in the 50's and 60's. The subjects in these experiments had no idea they were being given LSD, which led to the unpredictable results. The worst thing you can do is slip someone a psychedelic without telling them about it, I doubt anyone would feel fine drinking a glass of water and feeling themselves seemingly go insane an hour later for no reason. Least of all in a military environment. Which is why the Rockefeller Commission later created laws requiring informed consent for these types of experiments.
I just said what I think. Giving LSD without consent is bound to create problems, given in a proper environment with consent there's very little danger at all. The proper research looked very promising before the government put a stop to it.
What about this experiment. Look at what happens to the brain of this animal that was normal just a few minutes befor being given LSD. It would seem to me that if LSD makes animals do this, then what are we doing putting it into humans??:shrug: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66uVHDEHzAc&feature=related
What about that experiment? It doesn't say anything about it. What was the dose administered? How was it administered? Exactly what drug was it? (says Mescaline in the beginning, which is not LSD). You could inject an animal with 100x the recommended dose of an off-the-shelf drug and the results would probably be the same. Besides that, cats are not humans, the effects of drugs are often much different between the two. A tiny dose of DMT will kill a sheep, but is completely harmless to human beings. From here The experiments you're pointing out were the worst of the worst, done without controls and morally corrupt. I don't count the results of experiments where subjects were tortured under the influence of a psychedelic, or the results of a 30 second video clip telling absolutely nothing about the experiment itself. Look at the research on LSD done by universities and professors back then. Also from the above link.
Another grey area: why are people are using those narcotics? I mean, if you knew some addict whose life had been completely destroyed because they couldn't control their heroin addiction, you'd be forgiven for thinking all drugs should be illegal, but what about, say, someone who uses cannabis to alleviate a chronic disease? Are they really doing any aspect of society any harm?
The simplistic one-size-fits-all approach that prescriptive leadership takes: that it's a "problem" that needs to be "prevented", and "prevent"; leads to disparity instead, where treatment, especially self-medication, is concerned.
Most people use drugs of one type or another and I think that such usage can be a positive thing so long as it is not the most important thing in your life. Mankind has always used this kind of experience originally in a religious setting, to free themselves temporarily from their human responsibilities and attune themselves to the world as it is. After a hard day at work, many people have a drink in order to wind down, or a smoke of whatever. Is this always a bad thing? If we could ask a shamanic ancient what he thought of today's drug users, I think that he would find the binge culture gross.
