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>>the government had a hysterical fit and completely banned it because people who took it were more likely to oppose the Vietnam War.

If you are to believe the Brave New World (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World) worldview of Huxley (who topically was on loads of LSD himself), you'd think the government would want to flood the public with psychedelics -- low to zero toxicity, allows people to zone out, not addictive, allows people to focus inwards rather than focus on civic mismanagement.

Any ideas on why the US government is so opposed Psychedelics? Clearly the government is for Bread and circus. In fact, the establishment left and right want desperately for us to believe everything is indeed fine regardless of the facts our eyes see (e.g. Annie Lowrey on https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/05/americans-depresse...)

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Psychededics are unpredictable. We know the government looked into their use as thought- and behavior-manipulating tools (MKUltra) but the results proved too chaotic. You might get a manchurian candidate...or the unabomber. But most likely just a renewed outlook on life.

Psyches basically raise the "temperature" (in machine learning parlance) of the brain, increasing crosstalk. This can jostle folks out of a mental rut. But it can also create positive feedback loops of upheaval.

Soma would only work as it did in BNW if society controlled essentially all sources of information - which is essentially the whole premise.

Psychedelics lead people to realize "truths"

Some of them are real, like becoming horrified by war. Other times the subjects think they've spoken with God. But I don't think they ever made anyone more pro-war.

> Any ideas on why the US government is so opposed Psychedelics?

Why do you think? Just watching a person off their tits on acid is unsettling if you've no idea whats caused it. And I would take LSD to "zone out", they aren't passive experiences like a joint, they are full day trips

I don't believe the effects of huxleys fictional soma are overly comparable to strong psychedelics. for a closer comparison see cannabis and its widespread legalization. legal cannabis does result in the intended effect of people questioning things less. proliferation of strong psychedelics is more likely to cause mass psychosis than it is to achieve anything positive for the common man. and from big brothers perspective, stoned workers are more productive than psychotic ones.

I thought the Soma in BNW was more like a type of depressant, like an opioid.

hallucinogens where taken by hippies, it was probably a way to put a few extra commies and lefties in prison

Yes, I think half of the politicians nowadays run on cocaine, no busts on TV.

why take cocaine when you can get your doctor to prescribe Adderall to you

The elites get the finest Colombian artisan cocaine. Comparing it to aderall is like comparing 25 years Japanese malt to cheap Johnny Walker black.

Pharmaceuticals are not a question of taste like alcohol and food, they're strictly a matter of purity, stability and toxicity, which is clearly better supported by being produced by an industrialized country with sometimes hundreds of career chemical engineers running the show in a billion-dollar company with processes etc., & who have liability for lawsuits worth hundreds of millions of dollars if they put anything remotely close to the shit recreational drugs are cut with, like horse tranqualizer and deworming agents and whatnot.

The best elites can dream of is pharmaceutical levels, but even the most pure illegal stuff comes from a production line that's isolated from the rule of law and from transparency and liability and also likely from actual professionals, so it's likely still more toxic than it needs to.

The real "advantage" of cocaine is mostly that the molecule has an inherently stronger euphoric effect, I would assume (I've never taken it), also making it a worse therapeutic if you want to actually do a better job vs just feel "high".

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