Opinions - LSD-Problem Child or Wonder Drug?

[stoneinfocus]

Dear all,

the recent death of the inventor of the LSD-molecule, Dr. A. Hoffmann,
inspired me to open up a discussion about the dangers and advantages of
LSD and moreso a discussion about how this matter has been handled and the philosophy of why it has been handled these ways.

I´d assume, that any mind-altering drug led, as soon as it hit the public eye, to the pillow-talk of the typical couple Fred and Maria:

-M.:"Did you here about this dangerous drug they´re giving away?"
-F.:"Ah no honey I want to sleep."
-M.:"They say it´s altering the perception and make you see things that are not there."(deeply concerned, or more curious, wanting a TV-thriller or soap on the LSD-problem?)
-F.:"Mh, what? communists?"
-M.:"Yes, and if they have these hallotinatiation, they will go crazy and jump out of a window, be aggressive!"(thinking of a trapped animal, with flechting teeth, white foam dripping from the mouth, in severe panic, tamed only by several strong man with guns, open fire, and water throwers plus tear-gas and sticks)
If they see these things, they will go crazy, they damage their brains anmd stay like this forever!"
-F.:"Damn communists, now they got our children again.
I´ll talk to some pals at work, to see if we can get somethin´ together talk to chef, that old Schmock, getting fire some communists and making lists against it."
-------------
Fred goes to work, talks about it in restaurants, diners and the pub, a reporter sitting nearby snitches the info to his news-agency and writes an article, suited best to the opinion of our working-class hero, as heard before.

Politician John M.F. Catholik reads the next day´s news and discusses things, of how to capture the most votes according to the news headliners, will fund TV-campaings and laboratories and pass a law, or discuss it extensively before elections to the public address.

Dr. Leary is pissed because he´s no longer a free citizen, but a criminal and acts like an intelligent, spoiled, angry child, now in even greater -and understandable- opposition to the hatred he´s been set-off to, by ~all of society´s executives and media and consequently the working-class-hero-mob.

Dr. A. Hofmann steps back and replies with well-thought stereotypes, still standing up for his invention he, himself, tested and found it, among all others, who tested it in the scientific field, to be a good one, probably an outstanding one, that can´t be understood by the avarage Joe and without being taken and expereinced one-self.

As it has been marketed as a normal chemical, which was thought to stay low-profile, it was -despite of this assumption, widely used and Moonstar and Rocket, heavily tripping, thereby raising suspicion with irregularities in their behaviour, were hospitalized by the police or praying family members, where the drug´s action needed to be classified and documented in vivo, as a demanding of the the health-professionals to Sandoz.

Sandoz feared the end of further applications of patents of this, thought-to-be, marketable/scoring chemical, which was then, indeed, the case and outrun, by society-friendly, lobotomising pharmaceuticals, which are now among the biggest money makers on the market: Haloperidol, Zyprexa and Risperidone and for the rich, Tricyclics, Vicodine and Valium et al.

Dr. A. Hofmann did, what he humanly could do, raised philosophical, ethical and religous questions and draw cultural lines between LSD and other ethnic/traditional drugs alike and questioned the modern human state-of-mind, not like an angry child, but as a teacher to those, willing to listen and see for themselves, thereby questioning authority in a much more powerful way, than attacking it directly and raising hell(no criticism to Leary, he was acting humanly and I doubt, any of us could have done it better in his situation, without turning into a roboter or a corpse, a Harvard-Prof. probably having the most profund experience of his life and gotten a bit crazy over the system and the world all around and his life turning).

With great wisdom, he endured the blablabla... and now it´s honered to him, that LSD is being used in trials by psychiatrists in Switzerland.

Okay, let´s see where the little, "tell´s me all" in the media is, which to M. and F. are the only things, they understand and -as such, will remember and know about.

trying to read it with M.&F.´s eyes, remember:

-"[...]prolongued daily use causes irrevresible brain damage."
-in the TV-news in Europe:
-"He never took responsibility for LSD´s action in man."
-"Even one trip can cause an underlying psychosis to surface"
-"It´s a very dangerous drug (, if not used by a professional)."

Allright, we´re fucked?

I think, we should get started with a fight without fighting.
A culture, which just arises and will get it started through the back-door of society in demonstrating, that it´s not the doom of an already ultimative conservative society-system, but not so much so,more in a way, that to the avarage Joe, it´s just a faint smell of change, he´s hardly getting a clue of what´s going on.
Just leaving it alone and -zzzzip- one more is attracted, two more just are in without even recognizing, that soemnthing had changed a big deal, then hundreds, thousands, than a whole society has turned, by the individual, by another culture, but stayed the same to the conservatives, with just some more diversiy, which again, they wouldn´t even recognize, if changes happened slowly.

stone_in_focus

[N0ly]

Originally Posted by stoneinfocus

I think we should get started with a fight without fighting.
A culture, which just arises and will get it started through the back-door of society, in demonstrating, that it´s not the doom of an already ultimate society system, but., to the avarage Joe, just a faint smell of change, heßs hardly gettign a clue of what it is.
Just leaving it alone and -zzzzip- one more is attrackted, two more just are in, without even recognizing, that soemnthign changed or a big deal happened, then hundreds, thousands than a whole society has turned, by the individual, by another culture, but stayed the same, for the conservatives with just some more diversiy, which again, they wouldn´t even recognize, if changes happend slowly.

This is EXACTLY what SWIM and his other friends are trying to do, one mind at a time. Not necessarily with drugs, mainly with words. Something needs to happen, the direction things are going is not good.

[Panthers007]

Such is the parable of Frog Soup:

If you put a frog into a pot of boiling water, the frog will jump out.

If you put a frog into a pan of cool water, and slowly bring it to a boil, you will have frog soup.