Just thinking out loud....

[Iggypoop]

So ok we're all here for a reason, we like to alter our conciousness in some way or another. What i want to know is why do people have such misconceptions about drugs? I suppose that people have never heard about drugs being used through the eons of mankindin healing rituals/spiritual experiences? Is it only because of ignorance? Have people become more closed minded in this day and age, rather than becoming enlightened? Are most people ignorant of the fact that they do drugs just by drinking alcohol andsmoking fags?


Has science removed spirituality/magic from the world forever? We can already see that the christian church is dying on its ass (at least in uk).Can psychonautics (hehehe)be integrated into science? Could tripping help us to create a utopian world were there was no war, famine and greed? (hell if we were to spread the cash from all rich countries we could already stop famines and droughts etc from happening!)


Is it the government/church that influences most peoples opinion on drugs? Is it the media? Is it just that the common man has no need/want to experience these things that i do?


Does that make me/us escapists who are trying to run away from reality?Are we trying to learn more about 'inner space' or are we really just running away?


I really am just thinking out loudhere, feel free to add thoughts and feelings on these questions. Also if anyone has any wierd ideas about things i'd be really interested in hearing them.

[billyloner]

the main problem is miseducation fuelled by, and fuelling the media. people are miseducated about 'drugs' (i hate that term - it just bunches every illegal substance together when they all are taken for different resons and have different social and personal effects) and have been for so many years that it is difficult to educate them properly. now, the media have to present what they can sell, so they make a big fuss about the problems and all that. which only makes people more ignorant. and people being more ignorant causes the media to make an even bigger fuss as they have a bigger market for it.


i can honestly say i do not take 'drugs' to escape from reality - the only thing i use for escapism is alcohol. and maybe that is part of the problem. many people use alcohol to escape, and because most of them have never experienced a 'drug' before, they assume that all these evil things are taken for exactly the same reason. which is obviously a ridiculous thing to assume when you think about it logically, but these unfortunate people are unable to do that as they have been brainwashed into this mass hysteria thing.


ive just been reading a debate on the legalisation of drugs held by the bbc (here if you are interested, though it is a very long read) and it disturbs me to see the level of ignorance and miseducation held by the majority of people opposed to illegal drugs. i think the term 'drugs' is partly to blame - as i said before, it just bunches all illegal drugs together, without regard for their effects. now, some illegal drugs, such as heroin and crack cocaine,do cause major problems, and although i think every drug should be legal, i still see the terrible effects of heroin addiction when i walk into town (the town i live in was once claimed to be the heroin capital of england) and i know that everybody who lives here does too. couple this with the level of ignorance about other types of drugs, and its only to be expected that people will assume all drugs will cause this kind of problem simply because they are all treated the same by the government and the law.

[Solidly-here]

If I can't feel that way, I don't want you feel good either.


Outside of the concern for (the few) people who have problems handling the psychedelic experience, there are powerful emotional forces at work to prevent these drugs from being widely used.


Here is my perspective of an anti-Drug believer. He lives with "rules" that he probably isn't even aware of:


Rule One: This world, and everything in it, is what is important.


Rule Two: Other states of consciousness are un-important.


RuleThree: Even though I am NOT against people feeling good about life, my life isn't good ... so thereforeI choose to have the laws set up so you can feel that your life is as lousy as mine is going.


A little jealousy. A little anger. A lot of not understanding. People are afraid of what they do not understand. It's easier to say: Just get-rid-of-it, then we don't have to think about trying it ourselves.


Feeling this way isn't bad. What makes its impact is that (beginning in the early 20th Century), people got nervous about other drugs, mostlymorphine (and then its cousin heroin). When they found out that (some) people who took this particular drug (and it was in most over-the-counter cough syrups, potions, cure-alls) became physically addicted to it. Oops. (It took many more years before anybody "realized" that nicotine is addictive, not that it matters).


Once people went-after these "dangerous" drugs, the system was in place to ban any other drug (or plant). So, as a drug (like marijuana) became socially unacceptable to a few highly-placed government officials, it was quickly demonized, and then quickly illegalized.


Life goes on. I am thankful that I am still (after all the FDA hoopla) able to zoom through the Universe, from time-to-time.Edited by: Solidly-here

[uqlfy]

Goverments today rule by a policy of fear. The kids are at risk
they say. The terrorists sell drugs. Drug dealers are murderers. Crack
babies dying in dumpsters. People driven insane by LSD jumping out
windows. Mexican cartels smuggling Al quaida members and herion.

Education budgets lose money as the war pigs feast. The more
ignorant we stay the easier we are to scare. Get back in your little
boxs or the sky will fall.

It is the apathy that scares me. The Boston Tea Party was over a 4% tax
on tea. Hell they take more than that on sales tax in my state.
Watergate was over a President being complicit in the breaking and
entering of a rival political partys office. Today we go to war over
"faulty intelligence" thousands of our boys and thousands of their boys
die, what do we do? NOTHING. Thousands upon thousands of people sit in
cells for the rest of their lives.Their crime? Wanting to get high.
They never hurt anybody but maybe themselves. What do we do? nothing.
It is a lack of empathy fostered by a culture of fear fed on ignorance
that we must first contend with. Then maybe.........



I for one will not go quietly into that night. Rage Rage against the dying of the light.

[phenethylamine]

I understand that no matter what anyone is doing,their actions and motivescan be traced back to them trying to escape, or change how existing right now is. I believe it is true that at least for most of us, being born is being in prison. The only way to get out of prison is to sincerely understand that we are in prison. Our need to escape is fueled by the energy of our consciousness, its the urge that makes us wonder how and why we are here. I think the government and the less enlightened forms of religion and the general picture of society and the media etc.is all a reflection of people copping out on the idea that we are in prison, and submitting to everything and completely ignoring the fact that there is even anything that we can escape from. It's a common but shitty way to live, in my opinion... Drugs are like a knife when it comes to these things. You can either cut yourself with the knife, or use it to cut whatever it is you actually need to be cutting. In myexperiences, most drugs divert me from where I should be, which is here, now. They leave me with pointless thoughts and emotions that I really do not need. These thoughts and emotionsare all distractions that do nothing but stop me from being able to listen to the divine knowledge that surrounds us. However, I am able to use certain other chemicals to really open up my mind, and hear how it all is. I do believe that it is every drug usersnext stepto eventually 'graduate' from the need to use an outside chemical as a launchpad to the divine escape, as thatmethod is proof of our intellegence and creativity just in being able to create such substances, but it is clearly not pure and is not the ultimate way towards enlightenment.Other, 'on your own' ways exist, many have not been discovered or passed on to each other. It has come to myattention that liquid dancing is a pure form or art, and a creative way towardspuremeditation, and it canlet you hear how it all really is, sober or otherwise. If you go into it deep enough, you can hit a groove where understanding will justflow into you, it will be you, and that feels physically and mentally good,almost overwhelminglygood, but not quite.Anything that can allow you to really listen is a form of meditation or escape. Everything is how it is because we are all in prison, and we all want to escape.