On the spiritual uses of mind altering substances

[justin3009]

Yea, I was looking at that and saw AIDS and pretty much said WHAT THE FUCK out loud.  How the hell can you get "AIDS" from doing Salvia?  I mean my god, might as well say men will get pregnant will you're at it.

[BROJ]

I think on another level that as a society, we've given up being independent, thinking adults in favor of being mere children under the supervision of authority figures. That way we can spend more time playing games, watching movies, and buying useless junk without ever having to face the realities of survival and death, yet alone stop to notice how the rest of the world is doing, or even where it's all heading for us if we blindly keep going the way that we do.

We don't even have a choice of whether or not we want to try something risky in a lot of cases, because we've rigged things to where it's someone else responsibility if we screw our own body up, which is insane. Life is inherently full of risk, and the risk of dying doesn't disappear until you're dead.

People have to learn to take more responsibility for their choices and accept the outcomes, and let other people do the same.

They sell rat poison at Wal-Mart, but nobody buys it and eats it. And even if they did, that's their right.

What you say is true, at least as much as I conjecture. But is such a system feasible for the majority of society in your opinion? And if so, how?

[chrono eric]

Yea, I was looking at that and saw AIDS and pretty much said WHAT THE FUCK out loud.  How the hell can you get "AIDS" from doing Salvia?  I mean my god, might as well say men will get pregnant will you're at it.

Aside from scare tactics, perhaps they meant to imply that when salvia is made illegal and Big Brother fucks us once more, they won't have the courtesy to wear protection. 

I can't decide whether the most offensive part of the video was the AIDS thing or that they did not mention anything about the duration and true nature of the effects. I mean, if you're going to broadcast propaganda and further advertise the existence of this entheogen, you might as well educate people about the true effects in case some high school kid that hasn't heard of salvia sees the news report and thinks "cool, I'm gonna go try that one", unaware about what is going to temporarily happen to his mind.

[Ramsus]

I think on another level that as a society, we've given up being independent, thinking adults in favor of being mere children under the supervision of authority figures. That way we can spend more time playing games, watching movies, and buying useless junk without ever having to face the realities of survival and death, yet alone stop to notice how the rest of the world is doing, or even where it's all heading for us if we blindly keep going the way that we do.

We don't even have a choice of whether or not we want to try something risky in a lot of cases, because we've rigged things to where it's someone else responsibility if we screw our own body up, which is insane. Life is inherently full of risk, and the risk of dying doesn't disappear until you're dead.

People have to learn to take more responsibility for their choices and accept the outcomes, and let other people do the same.

They sell rat poison at Wal-Mart, but nobody buys it and eats it. And even if they did, that's their right.

What you say is true, at least as much as I conjecture. But is such a system feasible for the majority of society in your opinion? And if so, how?

People lived for millions of years as individuals making their own life or death decisions. Even in modern society, up until recently it wasn't government that took care of you -- instead, people took care of each other through civic organizations and community effort, or by setting reasonable prices on the skills they had like medical services (even practicing for free at times).

The problem is nobody trusts each other anymore, so you need half a dozen certifications to practice any trade, making the training process difficult and corrupt. Kids grow up learning about the New Deal and government welfare programs, and learn to accept authority and "facts" as they are and simply let someone else handle things instead of questioning everything and acting to solve problems directly on their own part, by their own means.

You can't offer to do anything for free anymore either, since if you make a mistake, it's too easy for someone to sue you for millions of dollars and get rich rather than receive direct compensation in a form that merely corrects the mistake you made. And then with medicine, for the same reason, doctors can't just assume your problem is the common cold, but have to give you an array of expensive tests just so you don't sue them later on the off chance you really had a super rare case of some strange disease.

Hell, give a warm meal to a homeless guy and he gets sick, and suddenly you're getting sued for that, and fined and jailed for not cooking the food in a kitchen facility that's up to code for health standards (which are designed for restaurants).

I mean, people don't even know their historical rights anymore. Did you know you can, as a jury, rule a person innocent on the basis that you, as a jury, don't agree with the law? It's called jury nullification, and it predates the Constitution.

So really, maybe what you should be asking is whether or not the current path we've now set ourselves upon is feasible for the majority of society. I'm betting against it.

[BROJ]

What you say is true, even if it is a little hyperbolic in places(I understand what you mean though). But it is to be expected as this condition of humanity is a plague that has gone unchecked. I've seen first-hand the damages that have fraught society. Corrupt government officials(local, state and federal), useless, sometimes harmful regulations, apathy to one's fellow man, ignorance of history and current happenings as well as unreasonable fear of the law. For instance, the average person doesn't want to contribute to society. Nobody wants to work -- to better the community, themselves or what have you -- but still everyone wants to consume off the efforts of others. Instead of a system of collaboration, it's becoming a system of producers and leeches; where the producers get screwed over. It's just sickening watching hardworking people living in squalor, while dishonest individuals live well off a corrupt system of government. Said government being funded by those hardworking people. (And this doesn't just apply to Americans, either. The entire world is being exploited for the benefit of the few. Those pair of Nike sneakers probably weren't made by a well paid individual...)

Not to mention, we as a society have all but rejected the notion of failure. Which is why there are all of these frivolous lawsuits, bailouts and regulations -- no one wants to take a risk anymore. Certainly, no one wants to fail, either. So what do we as a society do? We expand the power of government to protect us and clean up our messes for us(Bailout Plan anyone?). This is all fine and dandy for the moment, but what happens to the power we've give the few -- our unintentional oligarchy?  It certainly hasn't disappeared. What's happened in recent years is that because the government has so bloated anybody who comes into an office of power can do or enable unimaginable damage to society. Every branch of government has become so powerful that the government no longer fears the people  (insofar as they depend on believe they cannot live without the government) rather, the people fear the government, but won't do anything about as long as they're spoon fed propaganda. So can one convince the people to wean themselves off the government's teat? Can one resolve the madness of modern society? I don't know if we'll be able to do that either, Ramsus. Only time and effort will tell.

Oh, and forgive me for going off on a tangent with the whole government spiel.

On an unrelated note: I disagree on creating an approval(thumb's up) system as it would simply turn the forums into a popularity contest. Post counts are border line anyways...

[ZeaLitY]

ttp://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=salvia+trip&search_type=&aq=f

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbkx8htAK3I

That made my day. When someone's laughing uncontrollably like that, I can't help but laugh too. Man, I needed to laugh after that House marathon...

Edit: As to the subdued nature of the world (which does seem at odds with the larger than life pace of things after the Industrial Revolution), I liked Lord J's idea that World War II weeded out mass audacity (hope I'm not misrepresenting this): http://the-sinistral.livejournal.com/528680.html

[mav]

My goodness...that Fox video was ridiculous. It's absurd how prominent scare tactics and propaganda are in today's society...but to be fair, it's Fox and it's a local news station--if anyone is dimwitted to tote misinformation like that, it'd be them.

But back to the situation at hand, ultimately the responsibility of using a drug does fall on the user themselves, but look at some of the videos posted so far and just think to yourself how irresponsible these people are. It's unbearably ironic that we always see the least responsible people taking drugs. It's this outcry of irresponsibility that causes a seemingly well-intended government to make ridiculous decisions to protect the people, and for the misinformed to act as self-proclaimed watchdogs (like in that Fox video) at the expense of the intelligent, responsible citizen. Like BROJ said, we've gone from having the government, to needing the government, to relying on the government, to becoming subordinates to the governments. It's ludicrous! We, as citizens, need to make decisions for ourselves; we cannot and should not rely on the government to babysit us, while we sit frivolously and do nothing...

AND AIDS FROM SALVIA? Sweet mother, that's so damn disrespectful and ignorant that I don't know where to begin. Hell, let's go ahead and add rape to the side-effects list while we're at it! And...schizophrenia? Isn't schizophrenia genetic? I guess they meant schizophrenic side-effects or some such nonsense...

[chrono eric]

AND AIDS FROM SALVIA? Sweet mother, that's so damn disrespectful and ignorant that I don't know where to begin. Hell, let's go ahead and add rape to the side-effects list while we're at it! And...schizophrenia? Isn't schizophrenia genetic? I guess they meant schizophrenic side-effects or some such nonsense...

Well, schizophrenia was pretty much the only thing listed there that could potentially be true. Yes, it is apparently genetic, but if someone is predisposed to a mental illness like schizophrenia, it is highly recommended that they do not attempt to use psychedelic or entheogenic drugs. This is because it has long been suspected that in some people with a predisposition to mental illness, the intensity of the experiences that these drugs produce can very rarely trigger the onset of symptoms of that mental illness. They used to think LSD produced an accurate model for schizophrenia in normal people for example (now it's believed that a combination of mind altering and dissociative substances is better), and LSD was studied extensively in the 60's in relation to schizophrenia.

I would submit for argument that whenever an individual that already has an unstable mind undergoes an experience that is profoundly earthshattering, often completely replacing and destroying all vestiges of former reality, that the possibility exists that they cannot integrate the experience afterwards. Thus triggering a psychosis. However, a cause and effect relationship between triggering the onsets of mental illness in predisposed people and psychedelic drugs has never been scientifically observed. I would believe it though. Wherever Salvia is sold they have to sell it as "incense". Arguably the most powerful psychedelic drug on the planet, sold as incense? I think this is highly irresponsible. There should be a warning on the box about potential risks for people that have a history of mental illness in their family.

And on the topic of drug laws and government overstepping, it becomes even more rediculous when you consider the chemistry of psychedelic substances. The famous organic chemist Alexander Shulgin (author of PiHKAL and TiHKAL) has synthesized hundreds of novel psychedelic drugs, most of which are still technically "legal". But you see, a slight modification to a chemical which already has psychoactivity will just produce another chemical that is less, more, or equal in psychoactivity. For example, the drug 2C-B (4-bromo, 2,5 dimethoxy phenethylamine) is illegal, but the drug 2C-E (2,5 dimethoxy, 4-ethyl phenethylamine) is not. However, by the Analog Drug Law, if you are caught with possession of 2C-E you can be prosecuted for it.

This law is particularly rediculous in that it is hugely ambiguous and pays no heed to biochemistry of the nature of individual substances. For example, the drugs 5-Methoxy DMT (dimethyltryptamine), 5-Methoxy DIPT (diisopropyltryptamine), 5-Methoxy MIPT (methylisopropyltryptamine) are all potent psychedelic drugs, but the chemical 5-Methoxy AcT (acetyltryptamine) is not. The common name for 5-Methoxy AcT is melatonin. You may have heard of it. It is the body's natural sleep hormone which regulates circadian rhythm and it is a sleep aid sold over the counter at CVS.

You cannot 'trip' on melatonin. The acetyl group apparently conveys so much polarity that it either has great difficulty crossing the blood brain barrier or does not fit into the active site on the serotonin receptors in the brain that the other drugs do. But by the Analog Drug Law melatonin should be illegal. Technically melatonin is psychoactive. But the extent of it's psychoactivity is that it makes you sleepy.

With enormous ambiguity in already ineffective drug laws, I predict that things will get much, much worse before they get better.