4 ms·

I live and work in the industrialized west, and that characterization misses a lot of things.

by hosh 5y ago

sneak 5y ago
Ingesting DMT is doing drugs, no matter how much hippie shaman woo or "traditional herbal medicine" adjectival touch-ups one sprinkles on top. This isn't derogatory, but let's call a spade a spade. I would like there to be less stigma around doing drugs. The stigma around boring ones like THC is already starting to fade. There never seemed to be any around the most commonly used drugs (nicotine, alcohol, or caffeine) in the first place, despite all of their massive harm (alcohol and the inhaled combustion byproducts involved in smoking primarily). Pretending that hallucinogens are some special "medicine" in a different class than someone with an anxiety disorder slamming a double rye neat after work (or a double espresso beforehand, or a smoke on their lunch break) is doing neither drug user any favors. We are all drug users.
- 314 5y ago
  All medicines are drugs, not all drugs are medicines. Depending on the purpose and use of a substance, pointing out that it is a drug is trivial and does not disqualify it from being a medicine.
- hosh 5y ago
  I wasn’t necessarily talking about DMT. I was calling these plant medicine because there are interactions with the consciousness of the plant, and not just the material body of what is being ingested. As such, it is even possible to participate without ingestion. Certainly, the shaman and ceremony involved have a big impact on the experience and what is being worked on. So yes. You want to call a “spade a spade”, and that is true from a mechanistic worldview, but it misses the point from a different worldview.
  - sneak 5y ago
    If you can "participate" in your "medicine" "without ingestion", then it ain't medicine. Plants also don't have consciousness. Whoever told you that they do was lying to you. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00709-020-01579-w https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00709-020-01579-w

I live and work in the industrialized west, and that characterization misses a lot of things.

by hosh 5y ago

I live and work in the industrialized west, and that characterization misses a lot of things.

Ingesting DMT is doing drugs, no matter how much hippie shaman woo or "traditional herbal medicine" adjectival touch-ups one sprinkles on top. This isn't derogatory, but let's call a spade a spade. I would like there to be less stigma around doing drugs. The stigma around boring ones like THC is already starting to fade. There never seemed to be any around the most commonly used drugs (nicotine, alcohol, or caffeine) in the first place, despite all of their massive harm (alcohol and the inhaled combustion byproducts involved in smoking primarily). Pretending that hallucinogens are some special "medicine" in a different class than someone with an anxiety disorder slamming a double rye neat after work (or a double espresso beforehand, or a smoke on their lunch break) is doing neither drug user any favors. We are all drug users.

314 5y ago
All medicines are drugs, not all drugs are medicines. Depending on the purpose and use of a substance, pointing out that it is a drug is trivial and does not disqualify it from being a medicine.
hosh 5y ago
I wasn’t necessarily talking about DMT. I was calling these plant medicine because there are interactions with the consciousness of the plant, and not just the material body of what is being ingested. As such, it is even possible to participate without ingestion. Certainly, the shaman and ceremony involved have a big impact on the experience and what is being worked on. So yes. You want to call a “spade a spade”, and that is true from a mechanistic worldview, but it misses the point from a different worldview.
- sneak 5y ago
  If you can "participate" in your "medicine" "without ingestion", then it ain't medicine. Plants also don't have consciousness. Whoever told you that they do was lying to you. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00709-020-01579-w https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00709-020-01579-w