America and Drugs - Hallucinogens

Note: I will be writing about our latest mass shooting in a few days. I need some time to process things before I can make any intelligent comments. Until then, I will continue the current series.

I hate the term hallucinogens. The term is just inaccurate since often, in fact usually, the drugs produce no true hallucinations. Visual effects? Yes. True hallucinations? No. The other terms are just as bad. Originally, they were called 'psychodelics,' meaning manifesting psychosis, which they were thaught to do. They don't. Then they were called psychedelics, literally meaning 'mind manifesting. Well, the mind is always manifesting so that is a silly term. Now, they seem to be called 'entheogens.' which roughly means an agent releasing the God within. This is absolutely ridiculous. It is true that in some people, at some times, use of the substances leads to a powerful spiritual experience but, it is equally true that they were, for a while, a favorite party drug for the Hell's Angels, so that pretty well kills that idea.

Ken Kesey put it best. They just turn up the volume; they intensify the brain's activity and thus allow you to access parts of the mind you normally aren't aware of. Look at it this way. Suppose you have an old TV with the old rabbit ear antenna and you get 3 channels. Now, suppose one day, while you are out, a kindly techno-gremlin drops in and hooks you up to cable. When you come home, you suddenly have 100 channels. That would be great except you are getting all 100 at once and at full volume. That gives you an idea what these substances do.

That is the problem. they do open the mind but they are so uncontrollable. After awhile, you do start to find your way around your brain and you can learn a lot, but all of that can be learned in other ways. True, the process is slower, but it is also richer and deeper. Meditation, contemplative prayer, fasting, music, extreme physical activity all can throw you in to new mental states in a far more useful way. Actually, so can rational study and even just learning to relax and pay attention to how your mind works and what you are perceiving.

There are a couple of sorts of these substances. Usually, when referring to hallucinogens, people mean LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, DOM, or DMT, in their synthetic form or in the plants they are derived from. These are all stimulants/ There are also drugs like ketamine, PCP, and DMX that are relaxants and really, while they do have a kind of psychedelic tinge, would be better called disassociatives, in that you jst kind of cut your mind off from the world.

There is another hallucinogen that I know little about, amanitia, a mushroom that is favored by some shamen. For some reason, people are fascinated by this mushroom which by all accounts produces a weird variety of effects that vary according to where it is grown and how old it is when picked. This stuff, if not handled properly will make you ill and may even be fatal, so why anyone touches it is beyond me.

Actually, I was under the impression that hallucinogens went out of fashion long ago, but it seems I was wrong. Let me say this. In these drugs, purity and dosage is vitally important and, unless you know a PhD in organic chemistry with a proper lab, don't go near any of it. Even if you know, 100%, what you have, there are better ways, as mentioned above, to explore your consciousness.

Most folks I knew who took them, quit for a few reasons. First, they are uncontrollable, after all, that is kind of the point. Second, the purity issue. Third, fatigue, they take a lot of energy out of you. And fourth, oddly enough, boredom; after awhile, they show you nothing new and after taking them, you are stuck in an odd, but ultimately very boring space.

I do not regret having taken these things; I learned a lot. Having said that, I would not go through that again, and I would urge others to avoid these drugs.

America and Drugs, Some Facts and Thoughts

For more than 40 years, going back to Nixon, America has been fighting a so called War on Drugs, and losing. We have spent an amazing amount of money on law enforcement and treatment centers and we have a bigger problem that ever. One would think that one of our leaders would say, "Hey, we need a new approach," but, alas, no. Instead, they wring their hands and bemoan the problem and promise action and then continue doing the same things. Such madness must stop.

I am going to write a series on drugs and try to tell you folks the truth about them. You see, much of what we have been taught about these chemicals is nonsense. I am not anti-drug, but I am against ridiculously harmful drugs and I am against the mis-use of any drug. I have a bit, well okay, a lot of experience with these various substances, some personal and some from dealing with the problems of my friends and families.

First. let's be honest. We all, with only a very few exceptions, use drugs. Just today, I have consumed nicotine, caffeine, naproxen, pseudoephedrine, and soon will have a little alcohol, and trust me, many, many folks will have similar patterns of consumption and we would not be considered to be drug users by most people because we do not consume illegal drugs. Yet, if I upped my consumption of those chemicals by just a little bit, I could catch a fairly good buzz. We all use drugs, we just have to use them wisely and we cannot do that until we learn about them.

Over the next few posts, I will cover, depressants, stimulants, inhalants, delirients, tranquilizers, opiates, and hallucinogens. I will also touch on drugs used by psychiatrists and give special attention to two drugs that are hard to classify, alcohol and marijuana.

I hope you will read this series because it is important that we develop a realistic approach to drug use. These chemicals should not be irrationally feared nor should they be taken haphazardly and, of course, many of them should never be touched. One thing for sure, what we are doing is not working.