Throwaway account. Taking LSD has been one of the most powerful experiences of my life - same level of power as one of my children dying. The first time I took it (rather late in life), it saved my marriage. After the intense trippy part died down, I was able to introspect from other people's viewpoints in a way I was never able to before. I could actually see I was the one being the ass, not the other way around. This understanding and feeling takes a while to wear off (say, 2 or 3 months?) - long enough for me to make some substantial changes.
LSD for fun, is great. Try playing an RPG while on a low dosage. You're coherent enough to play and understand it, but the realism spikes a thousand times. (I tried Fallout 3, and really felt as if I was in a nuclear wasteland.)
I've tried understanding technical documentation (on low dosages), and found it to be quite understandable and was able to retain everything. Immediately you start visualising and really "feeling" the underlying technology (even if it isn't actually that profound, it'll impact your mind in that way). I haven't done tests to see if this is more effective, but it looks like a promising possibility. (There was a thread on HN a few days back that talked about this.)
As far as the dangers, it might very well be. Wikipedia provides the indication that it's relatively safe, with patients that experienced psychosis (a few out of a thousand) to recover within a few days. The rate of psychosis is higher for people with existing mental illness. FWIW, I've been DX'd as bipolar I, with psychosis. As "far out" as LSD has made me feel during the experience, when it's over, I feel much more grounded than ever.
LSD is something everyone should seriously consider doing at least once in their life.
See, that's terrifying to me. I've never taken LSD but I don't think I would ever want to put myself in the sort of situation that trivializes the death of a child by making it equivalent to downing a pill.
This talk of using MDMA for couples' therapy because it releases vasopressin scares me too. Vasopressin is the bonding hormone, and sure, you could probably make two people who were not in love fall in love artificially- but that's also scary. I'm not sure I would want to be married to someone I could only stand because I took drugs.
I'm pretty libertarian, and I do think that drugs should be a choice- but these accounts scare me more than any crap about flashbacks and hallucinations.
"When they were interviewed again 14 months later 58 per cent rated the experience among the five most personally meaningful of their lives and 64 per cent said it had increased their well-being."
> LSD is something everyone should seriously consider doing at least once in their life.
Yes, but no matter how great it sounds, you still have to consort with drug dealers to find it. Not sure that the risk of arrest (or worse) is really worth that reward.
For both individuals and society, all drugs present a dilemma: are they worth the risks to health, wealth and sanity? For me, the pay-off is the scientific inspiration, the wealth of new ideas and the spur to inner exploration.
The most prolific mathematician of all time, Paul Erdős, justified his amphetamine usage in similar terms [1]:
"After 1971 he also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month. Erdős won the bet, but complained that during his abstinence mathematics had been set back by a month: 'Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper.' After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his amphetamine use."
The article in Wikipedia says he was "one of the most prolific publishers of papers in mathematical history", that doesn't mean he was the most prolific mathematician of all time.
What about Euler[1] for example? (I don't think he used drugs though)
Anyway, I agree with your comment in the sense that intelligence, talent or success are not mutually exclusive with drugs.
"The drugs can take you up in a helicopter to see what's there, but you can't stay.
In the end, you have to climb the mountain yourself - the hard way."
The metaphor I've often preferred is that meditation is like biking into the woods. You know the path, and you only get so far as you are in shape to go, but you also know that you can get back out and that you're safe. Taking drugs is like hitch-hiking. You can go a lot farther with less effort, and you're probably OK, but you have no idea where the fuck you are or how to get back.
Having done many of the ones listed in the article, I would like to throw in my two cents:
Drugs, like LSD or DMT, are not at all like seeing things from a helicopter. Sure, they are from a "new perspective", but unfortunately it's all in your head. My closest analogy is to dreaming--it seems to make perfect sense when you're dreaming, but when you wake up, you realize that all your thoughts were nonsense. I've had high ideas before. The feeling of revelation is unparalleled... even if it's all in my head. Once I sober up, though, I suddenly realize that they're a load of crap.
Rather being a helicopter to check out what's up there, drugs more so resemble staring out the window and pretending to visualize things past the horizon. You don't come to your senses until you realize it's all in your head.
I've quit them all now and honestly I only miss acid from time to time. But the fact that it's just eight hours of false epiphanies makes sure that I don't care to ever trip again.
As somebody who has smoked pounds...this tripe gets tired quickly. Any effort towards legalization must focus not on broad social acceptance (by representing ganja as some holy, enlightening agent) but rather on analysis of the terrible damage prohibition does to society. Writing of this sort is very snooty towards casual smokers who honestly just want to get high, which should be as acceptable as any other use.
Agreed but to bring about legalization we need to normalize, and to do that in all communities. The intellectual community is one to target, one of many.
Explaining a drug's effect to someone who's never done it is like describing red to a blind person. They're just not going to get it until they experience it for themselves.
I read her text book 'introduction to consciousness' in a fourth year course in cognitive science. Probably the reason she was able to study parapsychology early in her career was that it was during the cold war when there were branches of the US government that took ESP seriously, and wanted to prove and exploit or disprove it before the soviets. But her rejection of parapsychology was pretty complete, and that text for example did not make reference to it.
A recent edition I read a couple months ago mentioned it in a sidebar, as a personal anecdote. But it was mainly about her realization that the scientific methods of her colleagues were rather less sound than they at first appeared.
I just don't buy it. IMHO, saying that using drugs to get to ideas/inspiration is like saying a wheelchair can help you get from one place to another even though your limbs are perfectly adequate. Maybe it'll help you get here but you could have gotten there without it.
If you like to get high, don't make excuses for it. Just admit to yourself that you like to get high. People who like to go to strip clubs don't say they go there for the lighting and it helps with design. People who watch TV don't say they watch for the education. Why do people who like to get high make up excuses to make their behavior socially acceptable. If you like to do it, own it.
</soapbox>
It's definitely possible that I am completely wrong as I haven't done LSD, Coke, etc.
Some people like to eat for the taste, not the sustenance. Some people like to get high for the shift in perspective, not to get high. Some people like to drink wine for the taste, not to get sauced.
And some people do go to strip clubs for non-standard reasons. When I was going through my nude photography hobby phase, I went for inspiration and ideas. Of course, I met my wife there so I went for that as well.
Some of the most "beautiful" code I've written has been under the influence. The document and video encoding system we used at massify, a self-scaling multi-format disconnected conversion cloud, was designed and built in a very stoned haze. It's been running by itself with 100% uptime and without human intervention or maintenance for 3 years now.
If you haven't done drugs, then you can't really comment on them. That would be like me having a strong opinion on a topic I've never studied or have practical experience with. In fact, probably everything you know about drugs is wrong.
It's definitely possible that I am completely wrong as I haven't done LSD, Coke, etc.
Then I have to ask, on what do you base your opinion?
Some people take drugs as enhancers; perhaps that's like your analogy (though I'd replace "wheelchair" with "bike" or "car").
Some people takes drugs as normalizers. For example, people who have insufficient levels of serotonin or dopamine and are prone to clinical depression. That's like someone with broken legs using a wheelchair. Or like a diabetic taking insulin.
It's hard for people to know quite where they stand. To the best of my knowledge there's no good way to determine if someone has low levels of dopamine. Judging people as if they are taking drugs for the sake of enhancement presumes that person isn't in fact trying to compensate for a deficiency.
Curious that some people dislike the idea of chemical enhancement but have no problem with mechanical enhancement.
If taking drugs is like riding a bike or driving a car (or even using a wheelchair) instead of walking, why don't people disparage bike riding, etc.? I mean, you could have travelled that same distance without it, right?
No one gets upset because someone rides a bike for the fun of it, but somehow taking drugs for the fun of it is suspect, something you have to (gasp) admit to.
"If you like to get high, don't make excuses for it."
The amount of weed you need to consume to get extra creativity is far below the amount weed you would consume for recreational purposes. For someone without a tolerance looking to get the benefits of creativity, the proper vaporized dose would be around .03 grams. Whereas to get 'high' the proper dose would be around .1 - .2 grams.
It's the same as how the analgesic dose is below the recreational dose of every drug. Which is why you can take opiates for medical purposes without getting addicted as long as you don't abuse them. This also includes marijuana; people using marijuana for medical purposes use way less than those using the drug for recreational purposes, though different conditions warrant different doses. For example, those using marijuana to treat cachexia generally need a higher dose than those treating anxiety or insomnia.
Well I do think you're completely wrong anyway, but actually I hear plenty of people say they watch TV for the news and documentaries, and I hear plenty of anecdotes about guys going to strip clubs or hiring prostitutes because they're lonely.
Mmmh. You are wrong, but I would state that creativity and inspired thinking is something that can be cultivated without the aide of euphorics or psychedelics.
People should try the sensory deprivation tank. It is a really great experience. You'll have to try the tank many times and just let your mind go before you start tripping. The tank is the best way to get your creative muscles going without actually using drugs.
What's with this rash of illegal drug articles? Am I the only one who still thinks it's morally wrong to do something that's illegal, except in certain very special circumstances set out below?
Let me explain what I mean. There are just laws, and there are unjust laws. Just laws should be obeyed. Unjust laws should be changed. If you think a given law is unjust, you should be campaigning to change it, not breaking it willy-nilly. The cost of people taking illegal drugs is huge, from the drain on police and prison resources to the creation of the organized crime rings which support the drug industry, and if you're taking illegal drugs you're responsible for all of that. If you are correct and drug laws are unjust then... well shit, changing them is an important task for you, and you should get cracking on that.
Right now there's no great consensus over whether drug laws are just or unjust, but the majority wants to keep drugs illegal, even in California which recently failed to pass (by a huge majority) a legalization of marijuana. If you choose to live in a democratic society, why not obey the democratically ordained laws?
Yes, there are circumstances when it is acceptable to break a law which you regard as unjust. One such circumstance is civil disobedience, where you break an unjust law with the intention of getting caught and punished so that you can bring attention to how unjust that law is, but if you're not (courageously) trying to get caught and punished you're not a civil disobedient. Another such circumstance is if the law is so horrendously unjust that following it will directly harm others, but that certainly doesn't apply in this case.
In conclusion, if you want to take drugs then campaign for drug legalization. But don't go round breaking the democratically-devised law in the meantime.
You are probably not the only person to use the current boundaries of the law as an outer limit of your morality, but as you say, many people do not. People's morals vary and I'm not sure how far you will get by advancing your own particular moral code on others on this forum.
Most people would agree that in general, when living in a society, you should try to behave in a way that does not adversely affect that society. Is that the same thing as never breaking the law? People have different moralities, and they do not always closely track with the local laws where they live in all cases. Many people judge that their personal consumption of drugs does not adversely affect society in any significance, especially given that drug taking is common in society, and that there are legal drugs that are bad for society.
Judging whether something is good or bad is fairly easy with something like murder. Judging whether it's OK for you to smoke some of the weed your friend grew is very different. Morality is more complex than "is it illegal?".
The danger from the consideration that illegal acts are immoral is the reverse - legal acts are moral. I'm sure we can all think of legal acts that we would consider immoral. Is it immoral to smoke a Cuban cigar? Is it immoral to use a differently-sourced cigar the way Bill Clinton did? One is illegal, the other is not.
You think it is immoral to do anything illegal? Any action that is not yielding completely to authority (unless in the context of very public "courageous" civil disobedience) is just plain wrong? Even if your actions don't harm anyone else? I can't really agree with that ethos because you're outsourcing your own moral compass to lawmakers. By your logic, having gay sex is immoral in jurisdictions where sodomy is criminalized.
I definitely reject the notion that drug users are solely responsible for the high cost of enforcement when you look at the obscene and disproportionate amount of resources that are poured into the "War on Drugs." What has it ever truly accomplished? It's a failed policy. Yes we should change it, but society shares some of the blame with drug users for criminalizing something as harmless as pot use in the first place!
What do the views of the majority have to do with my moral compass? Drugs in particular are a case where the benefits tend to be personal and individual. I don't expect most people to get it, especially given how many people are conservative, religious, or just believe whatever they have been brought up to believe. When I'm deciding what is right and wrong, the law is generally the last thing on my mind.
edit: As for "what's with the rash of...", I think there is a significant subset of hackers that are very interested in the workings of their brains, since we have typically been dependent on and defined by what our brains are capable of since childhood. In turn, there is a very powerful affinity between many of those who are fascinated with the brain, and psychedelic drugs.
I hope you are one of few that thinks it's morally wrong to do something that is illegal.
Legality should reflect a subset of morality, not the other way around.
The idea that you are morally obligated to follow unjust laws is absurd. Especially in a country where the laws are so obviously controlled far more by corporate interest rather than genuine democratic consent.
I will continue smoking pot and any other drug I fancy and shaking my head in disbelief that anyone can believe marijuana in particular should be illegal.
> If you choose to live in a democratic society, why not obey the democratically ordained laws?
As opposed to choosing not to live in a democratic society? Is there some psychedelic-utopian society out there that's just like a standard first-world social-democratic country (high standard of living, good education and job opportunities, I can speak the language, etc, etc) except that drugs are legal by fiat?
On being a rational anarchist:
"I will accept the rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."
The reason that drugs laws are not up for debate is because out "democratic" government subtly silences citizens who decide to speak up and express their zealous ideas pertaining to illegal narcotics from any perspective. Yours ideals will be silenced, tactics will be defeated, and openly publishing that you do not wish to conform to the drug laws of America, that includes all drugs not just simple cannibis legalization, you will be signing a social death warrant for yourself and family. People who do not put on the FAKE, politically correct "face" of our capitalistic society will be dealt with and discriminated (avoided) from "normal" Americans and their ideals required for survival. The farthest you can possibly get is to the position that ron paul is in right now, the political black sheep who votes comprise of stoner college students and ignorant druggies, or zealous liberals. Our government knows the majority of Americans want to end the war on drugs, legalize cannibis, and end this losing battle of attrition. They have seen the polls, statistics, opinions, letters from johnny from Columbus Ohio, and they DO NOT CARE. If you think this country is going to risk economical downfalls, inflation of the American dollar, admit wrongdoings not only to its people, but to the multiple countries that follow out ideals of drugs willingly, or more commonly through force, you are living in a "dream world." This country will not legalize drugs that will eventually convince drug users to turn their back on capitalism, because materialism, competitiveness, and politically correct ideals of America do not matter to them anymore because they rather get high. It is a beautiful pipe dream that our country unethically, in a myriad of immoral ways, rips away from our freedom, along with so many other supposed freedom's Americans use to have ( and i guess don't matter anymore because they were written hundreds of years ago), so politicians can get votes, smear ideals of a race, and many other reasons. IM DONE FUCK U USA FREE MY ASS
> If you think a given law is unjust, you should be campaigning to change it, not breaking it willy-nilly.
If I were to heed that advice, I couldn't do anything productive. Heck, even as it is I'm worrying about stupid laws far too much, even though I'm not breaking any (that I know of), and it's taking time away from my productive behaviour. Your argument doesn't hold water in an environment where there are many, many stupid laws.
I don't use any illegal drugs, but the drug laws are unjust and I don't think people who break them should be considered "morally wrong".
It can be irresponsible, in that a parent should not be engaging in activity that can lead to jail time, but it's not "immoral" and these laws shouldn't exist in the first place. The "drain" you speak of is the cost of drug prohibition, not use.
Dr Blackmore is a very interesting woman. Her early career was as a para pyschology researcher before she decided she was wasting her time and turned to real science.
A friend of mine freaked out after taking LSD for a while. She is fine now (it happened twenty years ago), but she was really scared - especially as there can be flashbacks, so you can not just opt out of not experiencing trips anymore.
Flashbacks are very rare, possibly even mythological. (A psyconaut friend of mine has reported only one 'flashback'-- it was a fraction of a second on the bus when she thought her hair had turned into a snake.)
[+] [-] ltemp|15 years ago|reply
LSD for fun, is great. Try playing an RPG while on a low dosage. You're coherent enough to play and understand it, but the realism spikes a thousand times. (I tried Fallout 3, and really felt as if I was in a nuclear wasteland.)
I've tried understanding technical documentation (on low dosages), and found it to be quite understandable and was able to retain everything. Immediately you start visualising and really "feeling" the underlying technology (even if it isn't actually that profound, it'll impact your mind in that way). I haven't done tests to see if this is more effective, but it looks like a promising possibility. (There was a thread on HN a few days back that talked about this.)
As far as the dangers, it might very well be. Wikipedia provides the indication that it's relatively safe, with patients that experienced psychosis (a few out of a thousand) to recover within a few days. The rate of psychosis is higher for people with existing mental illness. FWIW, I've been DX'd as bipolar I, with psychosis. As "far out" as LSD has made me feel during the experience, when it's over, I feel much more grounded than ever.
LSD is something everyone should seriously consider doing at least once in their life.
[+] [-] araneae|15 years ago|reply
See, that's terrifying to me. I've never taken LSD but I don't think I would ever want to put myself in the sort of situation that trivializes the death of a child by making it equivalent to downing a pill.
This talk of using MDMA for couples' therapy because it releases vasopressin scares me too. Vasopressin is the bonding hormone, and sure, you could probably make two people who were not in love fall in love artificially- but that's also scary. I'm not sure I would want to be married to someone I could only stand because I took drugs.
I'm pretty libertarian, and I do think that drugs should be a choice- but these accounts scare me more than any crap about flashbacks and hallucinations.
[+] [-] nico|15 years ago|reply
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2545731/Drugs-like-LS...
From the article:
"When they were interviewed again 14 months later 58 per cent rated the experience among the five most personally meaningful of their lives and 64 per cent said it had increased their well-being."
[+] [-] ttemp|15 years ago|reply
Yes, but no matter how great it sounds, you still have to consort with drug dealers to find it. Not sure that the risk of arrest (or worse) is really worth that reward.
[+] [-] sigil|15 years ago|reply
The most prolific mathematician of all time, Paul Erdős, justified his amphetamine usage in similar terms [1]:
"After 1971 he also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month. Erdős won the bet, but complained that during his abstinence mathematics had been set back by a month: 'Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper.' After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his amphetamine use."
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s
[+] [-] nico|15 years ago|reply
What about Euler[1] for example? (I don't think he used drugs though)
Anyway, I agree with your comment in the sense that intelligence, talent or success are not mutually exclusive with drugs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler
[+] [-] CoryMathews|15 years ago|reply
Thats a really good way to put it.
[+] [-] michaelochurch|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jwuphysics|15 years ago|reply
Drugs, like LSD or DMT, are not at all like seeing things from a helicopter. Sure, they are from a "new perspective", but unfortunately it's all in your head. My closest analogy is to dreaming--it seems to make perfect sense when you're dreaming, but when you wake up, you realize that all your thoughts were nonsense. I've had high ideas before. The feeling of revelation is unparalleled... even if it's all in my head. Once I sober up, though, I suddenly realize that they're a load of crap.
Rather being a helicopter to check out what's up there, drugs more so resemble staring out the window and pretending to visualize things past the horizon. You don't come to your senses until you realize it's all in your head.
I've quit them all now and honestly I only miss acid from time to time. But the fact that it's just eight hours of false epiphanies makes sure that I don't care to ever trip again.
[+] [-] oinksoft|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] redwood|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ImprovedSilence|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lell|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pkennedy|15 years ago|reply
edit: in light of this: http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/journalism/NS2000.html I'd have to agree that the coverage of the matter in the book was rather insufficient.
[+] [-] melvinram|15 years ago|reply
I just don't buy it. IMHO, saying that using drugs to get to ideas/inspiration is like saying a wheelchair can help you get from one place to another even though your limbs are perfectly adequate. Maybe it'll help you get here but you could have gotten there without it.
If you like to get high, don't make excuses for it. Just admit to yourself that you like to get high. People who like to go to strip clubs don't say they go there for the lighting and it helps with design. People who watch TV don't say they watch for the education. Why do people who like to get high make up excuses to make their behavior socially acceptable. If you like to do it, own it.
</soapbox>
It's definitely possible that I am completely wrong as I haven't done LSD, Coke, etc.
[+] [-] jawngee|15 years ago|reply
Some people like to eat for the taste, not the sustenance. Some people like to get high for the shift in perspective, not to get high. Some people like to drink wine for the taste, not to get sauced.
And some people do go to strip clubs for non-standard reasons. When I was going through my nude photography hobby phase, I went for inspiration and ideas. Of course, I met my wife there so I went for that as well.
Some of the most "beautiful" code I've written has been under the influence. The document and video encoding system we used at massify, a self-scaling multi-format disconnected conversion cloud, was designed and built in a very stoned haze. It's been running by itself with 100% uptime and without human intervention or maintenance for 3 years now.
If you haven't done drugs, then you can't really comment on them. That would be like me having a strong opinion on a topic I've never studied or have practical experience with. In fact, probably everything you know about drugs is wrong.
[+] [-] jamesbritt|15 years ago|reply
Then I have to ask, on what do you base your opinion?
Some people take drugs as enhancers; perhaps that's like your analogy (though I'd replace "wheelchair" with "bike" or "car").
Some people takes drugs as normalizers. For example, people who have insufficient levels of serotonin or dopamine and are prone to clinical depression. That's like someone with broken legs using a wheelchair. Or like a diabetic taking insulin.
It's hard for people to know quite where they stand. To the best of my knowledge there's no good way to determine if someone has low levels of dopamine. Judging people as if they are taking drugs for the sake of enhancement presumes that person isn't in fact trying to compensate for a deficiency.
Curious that some people dislike the idea of chemical enhancement but have no problem with mechanical enhancement.
If taking drugs is like riding a bike or driving a car (or even using a wheelchair) instead of walking, why don't people disparage bike riding, etc.? I mean, you could have travelled that same distance without it, right?
No one gets upset because someone rides a bike for the fun of it, but somehow taking drugs for the fun of it is suspect, something you have to (gasp) admit to.
[+] [-] Alex3917|15 years ago|reply
The amount of weed you need to consume to get extra creativity is far below the amount weed you would consume for recreational purposes. For someone without a tolerance looking to get the benefits of creativity, the proper vaporized dose would be around .03 grams. Whereas to get 'high' the proper dose would be around .1 - .2 grams.
It's the same as how the analgesic dose is below the recreational dose of every drug. Which is why you can take opiates for medical purposes without getting addicted as long as you don't abuse them. This also includes marijuana; people using marijuana for medical purposes use way less than those using the drug for recreational purposes, though different conditions warrant different doses. For example, those using marijuana to treat cachexia generally need a higher dose than those treating anxiety or insomnia.
[+] [-] 5l|15 years ago|reply
People are different
[+] [-] Ixiaus|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] redwood|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] guruz|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theprodigy|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hugh3|15 years ago|reply
Let me explain what I mean. There are just laws, and there are unjust laws. Just laws should be obeyed. Unjust laws should be changed. If you think a given law is unjust, you should be campaigning to change it, not breaking it willy-nilly. The cost of people taking illegal drugs is huge, from the drain on police and prison resources to the creation of the organized crime rings which support the drug industry, and if you're taking illegal drugs you're responsible for all of that. If you are correct and drug laws are unjust then... well shit, changing them is an important task for you, and you should get cracking on that.
Right now there's no great consensus over whether drug laws are just or unjust, but the majority wants to keep drugs illegal, even in California which recently failed to pass (by a huge majority) a legalization of marijuana. If you choose to live in a democratic society, why not obey the democratically ordained laws?
Yes, there are circumstances when it is acceptable to break a law which you regard as unjust. One such circumstance is civil disobedience, where you break an unjust law with the intention of getting caught and punished so that you can bring attention to how unjust that law is, but if you're not (courageously) trying to get caught and punished you're not a civil disobedient. Another such circumstance is if the law is so horrendously unjust that following it will directly harm others, but that certainly doesn't apply in this case.
In conclusion, if you want to take drugs then campaign for drug legalization. But don't go round breaking the democratically-devised law in the meantime.
[+] [-] cromulent|15 years ago|reply
Most people would agree that in general, when living in a society, you should try to behave in a way that does not adversely affect that society. Is that the same thing as never breaking the law? People have different moralities, and they do not always closely track with the local laws where they live in all cases. Many people judge that their personal consumption of drugs does not adversely affect society in any significance, especially given that drug taking is common in society, and that there are legal drugs that are bad for society.
Judging whether something is good or bad is fairly easy with something like murder. Judging whether it's OK for you to smoke some of the weed your friend grew is very different. Morality is more complex than "is it illegal?".
The danger from the consideration that illegal acts are immoral is the reverse - legal acts are moral. I'm sure we can all think of legal acts that we would consider immoral. Is it immoral to smoke a Cuban cigar? Is it immoral to use a differently-sourced cigar the way Bill Clinton did? One is illegal, the other is not.
[+] [-] cosgroveb|15 years ago|reply
I definitely reject the notion that drug users are solely responsible for the high cost of enforcement when you look at the obscene and disproportionate amount of resources that are poured into the "War on Drugs." What has it ever truly accomplished? It's a failed policy. Yes we should change it, but society shares some of the blame with drug users for criminalizing something as harmless as pot use in the first place!
[+] [-] anonLSD|15 years ago|reply
edit: As for "what's with the rash of...", I think there is a significant subset of hackers that are very interested in the workings of their brains, since we have typically been dependent on and defined by what our brains are capable of since childhood. In turn, there is a very powerful affinity between many of those who are fascinated with the brain, and psychedelic drugs.
[+] [-] eof|15 years ago|reply
I hope you are one of few that thinks it's morally wrong to do something that is illegal.
Legality should reflect a subset of morality, not the other way around.
The idea that you are morally obligated to follow unjust laws is absurd. Especially in a country where the laws are so obviously controlled far more by corporate interest rather than genuine democratic consent.
I will continue smoking pot and any other drug I fancy and shaking my head in disbelief that anyone can believe marijuana in particular should be illegal.
[+] [-] rntz|15 years ago|reply
As opposed to choosing not to live in a democratic society? Is there some psychedelic-utopian society out there that's just like a standard first-world social-democratic country (high standard of living, good education and job opportunities, I can speak the language, etc, etc) except that drugs are legal by fiat?
[+] [-] arethuza|15 years ago|reply
I'd argue that the legislators who made the consumption of these substances illegal are responsible for the current situation.
[+] [-] civilian|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drglenmomo|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pnathan|15 years ago|reply
oh, to put it another way:
geeks align hard towards chaotic good.
[+] [-] jng|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kinship|15 years ago|reply
Get a clue and stop bothering people.
[+] [-] jpr|15 years ago|reply
If I were to heed that advice, I couldn't do anything productive. Heck, even as it is I'm worrying about stupid laws far too much, even though I'm not breaking any (that I know of), and it's taking time away from my productive behaviour. Your argument doesn't hold water in an environment where there are many, many stupid laws.
[+] [-] michaelochurch|15 years ago|reply
It can be irresponsible, in that a parent should not be engaging in activity that can lead to jail time, but it's not "immoral" and these laws shouldn't exist in the first place. The "drain" you speak of is the cost of drug prohibition, not use.
[+] [-] satori99|15 years ago|reply
http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_13.html
[+] [-] Tichy|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] civilian|15 years ago|reply
There are some effects (often visual effects) that persist. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_percept...
[+] [-] sigzero|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edtechre|15 years ago|reply
(Good bye karma)
[+] [-] edtechre|15 years ago|reply
SF drug propaganda FTW!
Doing drugs for "enlightenment" is for the lazy and stupid. There are many other ways to achieve this. Just ask a devout Hindu or Buddhist monk.
Typical Westerner attitude...