MalargueZiggy
Rising Star
Back in my callow youth I believed that psychedelic drugs were suitable for everyone, and that they should be forced on people.
It's quite an unbelievable thing to me now, and strikes me as an incredibly immature viewpoint.
The reasoning behind it was quite simple; my first mushroom trip revolutionised my life. The reasons why/how are probably shared by most of you and I won't go into them in this thread.
When I thought about the people I knew who clearly ‘couldn’t handle’ psychedelics I justified it in by saying tough love is sometimes important.
Who might not be able to 'handle' psychedelics? Examples include people who can never be alone and don't have any self-awareness or desire to analyse themselves, people who continually act in a selfish/greedy way, using others, people with huge anxiety problems etc
I saw these people as somehow deficient, and thought that, yes psychedelics would crush them (in an unregulated environment), but say they did mushrooms, how long could they cry for? There’s only a certain length of time the body’s adrenalin can run for. Surely after some point they’d start realising things about themselves and would eventually emerge from the other side a stronger individual. I thought that this would surely help the individual as well as society.
Imagine if our political leaders took psychedelics?
I say this at least part based on my own experience. Without going into the details, my first mushroom trip was absolutely mindblowing and very difficult to get through. I did it alone and I had far too many. As difficult and crushing as it was I learnt a lot about myself and my relationships, as well as key lessons about drug use, particularly psychedelics.
I no longer think that psychedelics should be forced on anyone. My reasoning behind this is:
----> A better understanding of latent schizophrenia and the problems of psychosis
----> The psychedelic experience is one that should be sought, not imposed. The lessons we learn from psychedelics, even if they are very helpful to us, may not be helpful to other people. They certainly wouldn’t be helpful if they were forced. If I acknowledge that psychedelics aren't suitable for these people, then giving them is inflicting pain. How can you inflict pain for good? That's the same logic that leads us into senseless wars.
It would also only breed resentment towards what are beautiful substances. I came through my horrific first experience because I have always loved the idea of altered states of reality.
One of my earliest memories is realising that I would take these substances and would love them. I looked at what I learnt from my mushroom trip, why it went wrong, blamed myself rather than the mushrooms. If people were forced to take them they would blame the drugs because they never think about themselves as worthy of blame anyway. I don't like the idea of any of these substances becoming yet another governmental tool, even if it was a government run by me! Particularly since any government I was involved with would be loosely Libertarian Socialist and therefore in favour of free choice without harming others.
I'd be interested if you guys have an opinion on anything I've said. Could it be conceivable to have some kind of mandatory (or at least strongly encouraged) regulated psychedelic dosing, to help people gain self-awareness and learn about themselves, to bring us all to a greater understanding of the world?
Are some people just not suited to psychedelics? Are they just 'not suited' because the government keeps on telling them its bad? How do we change this situation?
It's quite an unbelievable thing to me now, and strikes me as an incredibly immature viewpoint.
The reasoning behind it was quite simple; my first mushroom trip revolutionised my life. The reasons why/how are probably shared by most of you and I won't go into them in this thread.
When I thought about the people I knew who clearly ‘couldn’t handle’ psychedelics I justified it in by saying tough love is sometimes important.
Who might not be able to 'handle' psychedelics? Examples include people who can never be alone and don't have any self-awareness or desire to analyse themselves, people who continually act in a selfish/greedy way, using others, people with huge anxiety problems etc
I saw these people as somehow deficient, and thought that, yes psychedelics would crush them (in an unregulated environment), but say they did mushrooms, how long could they cry for? There’s only a certain length of time the body’s adrenalin can run for. Surely after some point they’d start realising things about themselves and would eventually emerge from the other side a stronger individual. I thought that this would surely help the individual as well as society.
Imagine if our political leaders took psychedelics?
I say this at least part based on my own experience. Without going into the details, my first mushroom trip was absolutely mindblowing and very difficult to get through. I did it alone and I had far too many. As difficult and crushing as it was I learnt a lot about myself and my relationships, as well as key lessons about drug use, particularly psychedelics.
I no longer think that psychedelics should be forced on anyone. My reasoning behind this is:
----> A better understanding of latent schizophrenia and the problems of psychosis
----> The psychedelic experience is one that should be sought, not imposed. The lessons we learn from psychedelics, even if they are very helpful to us, may not be helpful to other people. They certainly wouldn’t be helpful if they were forced. If I acknowledge that psychedelics aren't suitable for these people, then giving them is inflicting pain. How can you inflict pain for good? That's the same logic that leads us into senseless wars.
It would also only breed resentment towards what are beautiful substances. I came through my horrific first experience because I have always loved the idea of altered states of reality.
One of my earliest memories is realising that I would take these substances and would love them. I looked at what I learnt from my mushroom trip, why it went wrong, blamed myself rather than the mushrooms. If people were forced to take them they would blame the drugs because they never think about themselves as worthy of blame anyway. I don't like the idea of any of these substances becoming yet another governmental tool, even if it was a government run by me! Particularly since any government I was involved with would be loosely Libertarian Socialist and therefore in favour of free choice without harming others.
I'd be interested if you guys have an opinion on anything I've said. Could it be conceivable to have some kind of mandatory (or at least strongly encouraged) regulated psychedelic dosing, to help people gain self-awareness and learn about themselves, to bring us all to a greater understanding of the world?
Are some people just not suited to psychedelics? Are they just 'not suited' because the government keeps on telling them its bad? How do we change this situation?
