Well, what's irritating to me is the reason they've had to "rediscover" it: the prohibitions our government imposes on what private individuals do to their own bodies.
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I've found that a having clear mind is a much more conducive to uncovering the matrix than being high is.
1. Take hallucinogens
2. Realize things are really, really fucked up
3. Change
2. You lose your ability for self-deception, so when you come face to face with your problems you are forced to be completely honest about them. And once you're honest with yourself, it's very hard not to go through with changing your life for the better.
3. You get to diff your ordinary state of consciousness against your altered state of consciousness. This allows you to learn a ton about how your mind works, changes your theories about how lots of phenomena work, changes your assumptions about reality, etc.
4. If you take what Terence McKenna would call a 'heroic dosage', you might come up against 'the cosmic giggle'. That is, you come face to face with god or aliens or things that go completely against all of western science. And what's really interesting is that in double blind academic studies, multiple people have very similar encounters with alien entities even though they have no had no contact with each other. (C.f. Rick Strassman's book DMT: The Spirit Molecule.)
(E.g. machine elves: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_elf)
For example, if everyone started asking themselves why they are chasing the American dream or what it really is then our economic landscape would look very different.
Most people who have a problem with LSD aren't worried about the "free thinking", because they don't associate these drugs with expanded consciousness. They're afraid that their kid will have a bad trip and develop long-lasting psychological problems (which is unlikely but not impossible).
People who are aware of the power and potential benefits of psychedelics are generally against criminalization, which decreases drug use but increases drug-related harm substantially.
The risks of drugs are certainly real and some concern is absolutely genuine. But the dangers of drugs are treated completely out-of-context with any number of other aspects of modern life.
Secondary objection: I don't think it's ever been convincingly shown that criminalization decreases drug use. Last I'd read, the opposite seems to have been occurring in areas that have legalized drugs.
But we are used to cars. Cars are "normal" (and therefore just fine). The more I observe human nature, the more I see that most people make decisions using "normal" as a reference point.
I agree, especially in comparison to the overprescription of stimulants to children and students.
I don't think it's ever been convincingly shown that criminalization decreases drug use. Last I'd read, the opposite seems to have been occurring in areas that have legalized drugs.
That could be, but it's counterintuitive, so I've always believed the opposite. However, it's irrelevant because, even if drug use increases, if drug-related harm goes down, this is a good thing and should be encouraged. Whether people choose to use drugs is their own business; harm reduction should be the goal.