Is This The Reason Psychedelics Are Illegal?

[Jordan Welsh]

 

[Tim R]

Quote

Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behavior and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.

Terence McKenna

[Leo Gura]

To be fair, if you give normies easy access to psychedelics they will abuse the shit out of them.

Psychedelics are only appropriate for the wisest of creatures.

[DocWatts]

Because psychedelics are a disruptive technology that's potentially threatening to established social norms.

Add to that the very real potential for Harm from people abusing these substances and it's not hard to see why they're banned in so many places.

As society continues to develop and the beneficial aspects that come when these substances are used responsibly become harder to downplay or ignore, their prohibition will become increasingly untenable.

[Carl-Richard]

12 hours ago, Tim R said:

Terence McKenna

The mainstream's reaction to the counterculture in the 60s says it all.

[DocWatts]

13 hours ago, Tim R said:

Terence McKenna

I'll second this. Outside of Richard Nixon, McKenna probably did more than any other person to ensure that research on psychedelics was set back half a century. (Half joking here.)

It's interesting that before McKenna's "tune in, drop out" middle finger to the establishment, in the preceding decades psychedelics were largely seen as a promising clinical / theraputic drug used to treat mental illness (and weren't all that controversial). 

*EDIT - meant to say Timothy Leary not Terrance McKenna 

Edited October 11, 2021 by DocWatts

[Carl-Richard]

4 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

"tune in, drop out"

That was Tim Leary, not Terrence McKenna

[DocWatts]

4 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

That was Tim Leary, not Terrence McKenna

Must have gotten a few wires crossed in my mind when I was posting that. 

Edited October 11, 2021 by DocWatts

[Thought Art]

Would you believe they are illegal to keep people safe?

I think psychedelics are great, but easily misused. Even with spiritual intent, there are dangers. 

[Egzoset]

>> Would you believe they are illegal to keep people safe?

 

NO.

[Heinrich Faust]

If alcohol and tobacco wouldn't have a centuries-old mainstream tradition, they probably would be illegal as well.

On 11.10.2021 at 8:43 AM, Leo Gura said:

To be fair, if you give normies easy access to psychedelics they will abuse the shit out of them.

That's a very valid point. There's nothing deterring some drunk from popping a dozen blotters of LSD at a single blow.

[GoobyBooby]

Psychedelics cut into big pharma's profits.  

Imagine trusting big pharma in 2021. 

[Heinrich Faust]

Big pharma don't make the laws, not even in America. And if LSD would be legal — guess who would produce it!

[TheAlchemist]

They are extremely dangerous to existing societal structures, especially intangible things that live in people's minds and require belief (ex. social matrix structures, money, authority).

But a 60's style global backlash is very unlikely now, even if hundreds of millions of people start taking them in therapy centers in the coming decades.

Now they are starting to stand on a very solid footing within the social matrix, jumping through the hoops of modern medical science and psychiatry.

Rick Doblin is a genius! 

[OBEler]

In Germany it is illegal because you cannot drive a car with it. 

Good reasons, but with alcohol you cannot drive, too. 

[BlueOak]

Hemp has a multitude of uses, such as fuel, cosmetics, clothing, ropes etc. Fuel alone means it'll never be legalized worldwide until the fossil fuel interests are finally disempowered. We are getting there at a snails pace. The key being having the people with the money no longer care becase they are already in renewables. 

[TheAlchemist]

4 hours ago, BlueOak said:

Hemp has a multitude of uses, such as fuel, cosmetics, clothing, ropes etc. Fuel alone means it'll never be legalized worldwide until the fossil fuel interests are finally disempowered. We are getting there at a snails pace. The key being having the people with the money no longer care becase they are already in renewables. 

I never fully understood that talking point. Isn't the growing of industrial hemp (with less than 0.2% thc) legal almost everywhere already? 

It's not like you need high amounts of thc in the hemp to use it for any of those things.

Edited January 13, 2022 by TheAlchemist