This is one of the most thought-provoking articles I've read (to the end) in a long time. I've recently been researching Ayahuasca, similarly outlawed despite thousands of years of safe use in indigenous cultures and extremely promising clinical results for treating addiction, depression and antisocial behaviour...
LSD seemed to me a more edgy phenomenon - it's purely chemical - whereas one of the key psychoactive compounds in Ayahuasca, DMT, occurs naturally (nobody knows why) in mammalian bodies.
This struck me as incredibly important: "Francis Crick confessed that he was tripping the first time he envisioned the double helix."
Based on my own (so far very limited) experience, I only implore people to go and try these things for themselves, in a safe environment, with all the information prepared for skepticism and intellectual/scientific reasoning and debate... let our culture be based on experience, not received wisdom.
Some of us may some day be the lawmakers and influencers, or may already be so - if we get these experiences now (preferably in countries where risk of persecution is lower) perhaps we can bring such experiences and learnings into the everyday world. If not by decriminalising, then at least by increasing awareness and supporting proper scientific study.
LSD seemed to me a more edgy phenomenon - it's purely chemical - whereas one of the key psychoactive compounds in Ayahuasca, DMT, occurs naturally (nobody knows why) in mammalian bodies.
This struck me as incredibly important: "Francis Crick confessed that he was tripping the first time he envisioned the double helix."
Based on my own (so far very limited) experience, I only implore people to go and try these things for themselves, in a safe environment, with all the information prepared for skepticism and intellectual/scientific reasoning and debate... let our culture be based on experience, not received wisdom.
Some of us may some day be the lawmakers and influencers, or may already be so - if we get these experiences now (preferably in countries where risk of persecution is lower) perhaps we can bring such experiences and learnings into the everyday world. If not by decriminalising, then at least by increasing awareness and supporting proper scientific study.