With significant brainwashing, many people today fear these drugs as directly dangerous, not as a mind opening tool.
Try asking people if they think LSD should be legal -- I bet a majority will say no.
I myself think that all drugs should be legal.
With significant brainwashing, many people today fear these drugs as directly dangerous, not as a mind opening tool.
Try asking people if they think LSD should be legal -- I bet a majority will say no.
I myself think that all drugs should be legal.
I think that perhaps it alone should be restricted in the same way that access to plutonium is restricted, with the aside that individuals who would like enough for their own personal use should of course be granted (free) access.
You see the problem with that particular problem child is that enough LSD to dose every man woman and child on earth could be produced in a single lab and held within a coffee cup which makes it uniquely dangerous as a weapon of mass oppression if it were to fall into the wrong hands. Also the fact that you can't easily test a substance for LSD increases the liklihood of individuals being exposed who did not wish to be exposed.
Therefor the risks that it will be used as a kind of weapon against unsuspecting populations is too great relative to other drugs. I'd also like to point out that LSD doesn't seem to universally help people in the way that responsible amounts of MDMA (and arguably cannabis) does.
I don't think there is a justification for the restriction of other psychedelics that don't have these risks of weaponization such as various mushrooms, cactai, certain vines, etc.
Some of the psychedelic amphetamines fall into this category too. Many have doses in the sub-1mg range. Some exotics (Bromo-dragonfly) are not only effective in the same dose range as LSD, but last several times as long and are far more toxic. The LD50 of LSD is quite forgiving as I understand it, with BDF it is not and people have died.
There are other substances that border on poison - carfentanil is an opiate used to stun elephants and is active in humans at the 1ug range.
I also dislike the catch-all term 'drugs', but LSD is not entirely unique in its potency.
How the hell would you use LSD in that way "for oppression" or "as a weapon"? The main effect seems to be to cause uncontrollable giddiness and happiness.
The British Military actually tried to use LSD as a weapon. This was the result when they tested it against soldiers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX7m4fqTLKU
Needless to say, the "weapon" potential was quickly dismissed.
Edit: Here's a US equivalent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUQNqIIGN88
In short, LSD causes people to disregard authority, act chaotically and unpredictably, lose their ability to follow orders.
It's also highly volatile so likely to backfire on the people administering it, causing them to get high too.
From more direct experience, I can also say that LSD causes you to re-examine fundamental beliefs in quite an intense way. Not at all what you want to use on a population you want to control. In fact, if you were a dictator trying to retain control of an oppressed population, you should probably do everything in your power to avoid mass use of LSD in that population.
Also your personal experiences only apply to normal doses of LSD you have no idea what it can do to someone at extreme doses, nor are you referencing experiments where such doses were tested.
again, I'm not aruging in favor of restricting individuals from access to personal doses, I think that would be a good thing. I just don't want to live in a world where any psychopath can get his hands of billions of doses. This is not something you have to worry about with most other drugs because with most other drugs you can't produce that many doses all at once and transport it easily. I just wanted to point out that this unusual property exists with respect to LSD and it complicates matters.
I'll link you to a Time magazine article in which the author has begun to stick his toe in the water but you'll have to guide your own research from there: http://healthland.time.com/2012/03/23/the-legacy-of-the-cias...
In certain parts of South America, a chemical derived from Datura is regularly used to zombify people, when they come to their senses 48 hours later, they've a hole in their memories and no possessions left. Again, nefarious people will always find a way to use the tools nature gave us for nefarious purposes.
Anyways I highly disagree with your assertion that discussing any of this, to any level of depth, would be considered disrespectful in any way by or to Shulgin. A man who dedicated his entire life to the exploration of pharmacology in all forms, such discussion is precisely the sort of thing I believe he aimed to encourage.
Isn't the cat out of the bag already?
Enforcement of purity, taxation on sale, restrictions on advertising and access to children sounds ok.