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It's more acceptable and state-sanctioned to sell drugs that kill people while keeping them subdued, than ones that keep them alive and open their minds. I don

It's more acceptable and state-sanctioned to sell drugs that kill people while keeping them subdued, than ones that keep them alive and open their minds. I don't want to sound like a crazy 'conspiracy theorist' or a 'hippie', but I don't know to distill this sad and truthful statement more simply than that.

ketzu 6y ago
The reasons why tobacco and alcohol are legal are mostly historical and they are basically the only exceptions. There are many drugs that kill people but keep them subdued that are illegal. It seems to me that is not the reason for which are legal and which ones are not.
- Retric 6y ago
  I agree with tobacco. However, alcohol is legal in part because it’s easy to make. Even prisoners often start making alcohol let alone the general public.
  - ketzu 6y ago
    While I agree that this plays a part, as it's what made it so popular to begin with, drugs 'directly' derived from plants are quite easy to make, too.
- eof 6y ago
  That’s an over simplistic and not realistic view. Marihuana had a similar history as tobacco, opiates go back thousands of years, caffeine is deemed fine, alcohol was actually illegal for years, etc. Considering the counter culture and anti war (and thus anti military industrial) sentiment being highly correlated with hippies getting lit—I think it’s impossible not to come to the conclusion that the powers that be consider mind expanding drugs to be a threat to the order of things.
  - ketzu 6y ago
    Yes I was simplifying quite a lot. But "historical" wasn't just meant as "was there already", even though it plays a huge part. As far as I know, marijuana was mostly made illegal in the 30s and earlier in the US, mostly due to racist origins and with arguments mostly opposite those of hippies (e.g., creating bloodlust). I forgot about Caffeine, that's true, as it is often not considered a drug by many (or at least not taught as one). But it's also not one of a dulling effect, as far as I can tell at least. That they tried to make alcohol illegal and failed because of it's societal acceptance is another indicator that the original claim is not so obviously true: > It's more acceptable and state-sanctioned to sell drugs that kill people while keeping them subdued, than ones that keep them alive and open their minds. Overall it feels more that the general Zeitgeist of regulating narcotics failed on alcohol but succeeded with often racist propaganda for other popular drugs. But that's just my understanding and I am not very well versed in any of those topics, so I'd be happy to listen to a better explanation. (I wouldn't be surprised that anti-establishment gatherings with strong drug usage correlation wouldn't exactly make legalisation popular in the establishment. But the history article I read on that just now claimed that sentences were reduced during the 70s because of the wake of hippies.)
dontcarethrow2 6y ago
I like to take that to the extreme and say -- how many hospital beds would be empty and pill shelves full if these drugs weren't around? How many dentists would be out of the biz if they didn't shove glue-like candy in our childrens teeth? Then I see that I'm being silly and take another swig.
CivBase 6y ago
You might sounds less like a 'hippie' if you avoid the phrase 'open your mind'. It implies that psychodelics provide users with some kind of enlightenment rather than just hallucinations and euphorea. Makes it seem like anti-drug politicians are trying to hide some sort of dark secret which can only be unlocked by taking LSD.
- tazjin 6y ago
  The common miscommunication here is that people perceive the statement as saying "psychedelics are the ONLY way of learning certain things", whereas what they should perceive is "psychedelics are ONE (very efficient) way of learning certain things". The thing is that for people whose normal life does not include pursuing knowledge and understanding just for the sake of it (and I think this might be most people), it's unlikely that they'd end up with the right perspective shift through some other circumstance.
  - carlmr 6y ago
    What exactly do they learn from it?
    - jungturk 6y ago
      The central revelation, as I see it, isn't so much about facts or content (e.g. truth, purpose, ultimate meaning) but rather about how flexible the hardware/software package is that underlies our cognition and sense of the world - the experience of your mind behaving in novel ways. I suppose there's nothing terribly transcendent for observers about seeing Doom run on an iPod, but it's definitely surprising to see how the flexible the hardware/software can be. Subjectively, though, it can feel pretty transcendent when its your runtime being hacked in new and different ways. If the iPod had a sense of self like we do then maybe it would be floored seeing itself run Doom (though hopefully it wouldn't confuse Doom for ultimate truth). "The mind is vaster and more fluid than our ordinary, waking consciousness suggests. And it is simply impossible to communicate the profundity (or seeming profundity) of psychedelic states to those who have never experienced them. Indeed, it is even difficult to remind oneself of the power of these states once they have passed." https://samharris.org/podcasts/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life/ https://samharris.org/podcasts/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life...
kerkeslager 6y ago
The problem with what you're saying isn't how it sounds, it's that there's no evidence for what you're saying. My understanding, looking at the history of psychedelic regulation, is that it had nothing to do with preventing people from opening their minds: the people who did the regulating don't think the concept of "opening your mind" even exists. I'll let John Ehrlichman (Nixon aide) explain: "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. [...] We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did." You might say, "well that's the same thing as being against opening minds" but it's really not. Keep in mind, a lot of times cops simply planted drugs on people to arrest them: why would they wrongly accuse someone of trying to open their mind if their intent was to prevent people from opening their minds? The answer is, that wasn't their intent. They didn't plant drugs on people to prevent them from opening their minds, they planted drugs on them because they were black or antiwar.
- ta17711771 6y ago
  > that wasn't their intent The intent of the beat cop and the high-level official isn't always 1:1.
  - kerkeslager 6y ago
    Agreed, but in a response to a comment whose claim is "It's more acceptable and state-sanctioned..." without differentiating who is doing the accepting or what elements of the state are doing the sanctioning, I think we've already accepted a level of oversimplification. Reality is always more complicated than anyone says.

ketzu 6y ago

The reasons why tobacco and alcohol are legal are mostly historical and they are basically the only exceptions. There are many drugs that kill people but keep them subdued that are illegal. It seems to me that is not the reason for which are legal and which ones are not.

Retric 6y ago
I agree with tobacco. However, alcohol is legal in part because it’s easy to make. Even prisoners often start making alcohol let alone the general public.
- ketzu 6y ago
  While I agree that this plays a part, as it's what made it so popular to begin with, drugs 'directly' derived from plants are quite easy to make, too.
eof 6y ago
That’s an over simplistic and not realistic view. Marihuana had a similar history as tobacco, opiates go back thousands of years, caffeine is deemed fine, alcohol was actually illegal for years, etc. Considering the counter culture and anti war (and thus anti military industrial) sentiment being highly correlated with hippies getting lit—I think it’s impossible not to come to the conclusion that the powers that be consider mind expanding drugs to be a threat to the order of things.
- ketzu 6y ago
  Yes I was simplifying quite a lot. But "historical" wasn't just meant as "was there already", even though it plays a huge part. As far as I know, marijuana was mostly made illegal in the 30s and earlier in the US, mostly due to racist origins and with arguments mostly opposite those of hippies (e.g., creating bloodlust). I forgot about Caffeine, that's true, as it is often not considered a drug by many (or at least not taught as one). But it's also not one of a dulling effect, as far as I can tell at least. That they tried to make alcohol illegal and failed because of it's societal acceptance is another indicator that the original claim is not so obviously true: > It's more acceptable and state-sanctioned to sell drugs that kill people while keeping them subdued, than ones that keep them alive and open their minds. Overall it feels more that the general Zeitgeist of regulating narcotics failed on alcohol but succeeded with often racist propaganda for other popular drugs. But that's just my understanding and I am not very well versed in any of those topics, so I'd be happy to listen to a better explanation. (I wouldn't be surprised that anti-establishment gatherings with strong drug usage correlation wouldn't exactly make legalisation popular in the establishment. But the history article I read on that just now claimed that sentences were reduced during the 70s because of the wake of hippies.)

dontcarethrow2 6y ago

I like to take that to the extreme and say -- how many hospital beds would be empty and pill shelves full if these drugs weren't around? How many dentists would be out of the biz if they didn't shove glue-like candy in our childrens teeth? Then I see that I'm being silly and take another swig.

CivBase 6y ago

You might sounds less like a 'hippie' if you avoid the phrase 'open your mind'. It implies that psychodelics provide users with some kind of enlightenment rather than just hallucinations and euphorea. Makes it seem like anti-drug politicians are trying to hide some sort of dark secret which can only be unlocked by taking LSD.

tazjin 6y ago
The common miscommunication here is that people perceive the statement as saying "psychedelics are the ONLY way of learning certain things", whereas what they should perceive is "psychedelics are ONE (very efficient) way of learning certain things". The thing is that for people whose normal life does not include pursuing knowledge and understanding just for the sake of it (and I think this might be most people), it's unlikely that they'd end up with the right perspective shift through some other circumstance.
- carlmr 6y ago
  What exactly do they learn from it?
  - jungturk 6y ago
    The central revelation, as I see it, isn't so much about facts or content (e.g. truth, purpose, ultimate meaning) but rather about how flexible the hardware/software package is that underlies our cognition and sense of the world - the experience of your mind behaving in novel ways. I suppose there's nothing terribly transcendent for observers about seeing Doom run on an iPod, but it's definitely surprising to see how the flexible the hardware/software can be. Subjectively, though, it can feel pretty transcendent when its your runtime being hacked in new and different ways. If the iPod had a sense of self like we do then maybe it would be floored seeing itself run Doom (though hopefully it wouldn't confuse Doom for ultimate truth). "The mind is vaster and more fluid than our ordinary, waking consciousness suggests. And it is simply impossible to communicate the profundity (or seeming profundity) of psychedelic states to those who have never experienced them. Indeed, it is even difficult to remind oneself of the power of these states once they have passed." https://samharris.org/podcasts/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life/ https://samharris.org/podcasts/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life...

kerkeslager 6y ago

The problem with what you're saying isn't how it sounds, it's that there's no evidence for what you're saying. My understanding, looking at the history of psychedelic regulation, is that it had nothing to do with preventing people from opening their minds: the people who did the regulating don't think the concept of "opening your mind" even exists. I'll let John Ehrlichman (Nixon aide) explain: "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. [...] We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did." You might say, "well that's the same thing as being against opening minds" but it's really not. Keep in mind, a lot of times cops simply planted drugs on people to arrest them: why would they wrongly accuse someone of trying to open their mind if their intent was to prevent people from opening their minds? The answer is, that wasn't their intent. They didn't plant drugs on people to prevent them from opening their minds, they planted drugs on them because they were black or antiwar.

ta17711771 6y ago
> that wasn't their intent The intent of the beat cop and the high-level official isn't always 1:1.
- kerkeslager 6y ago
  Agreed, but in a response to a comment whose claim is "It's more acceptable and state-sanctioned..." without differentiating who is doing the accepting or what elements of the state are doing the sanctioning, I think we've already accepted a level of oversimplification. Reality is always more complicated than anyone says.