> I'm curious as to what differentiates cannabis from other psychedelics such that you think there is a healthy path to it and not to anything else.

Experience. Also you're more likely to come across it due to legality. When you cross the threshold of legality you're more likely to find yourself in bad company

> I personally think turning to psychedelics as form of subjective exploration is perfectly healthy, despite the risks.

Maybe it is, but if I had kids I wouldn't allow them to take that risk

> because it means you are implicitly deciding your current existence is not enough

> that is what bothers me with religion as well: it is a rejection of ourselves and reality traded for comfort. I get people need it due to bad life circumstances, but like any addiction it is just a pain killer for a festering wound.

Is it only drugs and religion though? And not just illegal drugs, but the legal ones as well?

Couldn't one argue that people seek out religion for emotional needs, and that emotional needs force people to reject themselves in favor of the community? Or is this a misguided take?

This can be applied to anything that gives us comfort. I take the view that we do these things because of a deep psychological knowledge that we will die. There's a book called The Denial Of Death. It's speaks all about how a lot of choices we make (almost all) once you still down deep enough, are because we are creatures who know the power of our own minds but also are aware that we will die one day.

Another way to think of it is, we have kinds that can imagine and simulate anything. We are practically gods in our own minds. The tragedy is that we have this power but will sooner or later die. This is a tragic a deep realization we all have.