echo of Vineland

[Doug Millison]

"[...] Does this mean that I think LSD is safe or that I am recommending
its use?
Hardly. I consider LSD to be a serious medicine, strong enough to make some
people see God or the dharma. That's serious medicine. There are two points
that need making: First, by diminishing the hazards inherent in our
cultural drugs of choice and demonizing psychedelics, we head our children
straight down the most dangerous path their youthful adventurism can take.
Second, LSD is dangerous but not in the ways generally portrayed. By
dressing it up in a Halloween costume of fictitious dangers, we encourage
our kids to think we were also lying about its real ones. And LSD is dangerous.

It is dangerous because it promotes the idea that reality is something to
be manipulated rather than accepted. This notion can seriously cripple
one's coping abilities, although I would still argue that both alcohol and
advertising do that more persuasively than LSD. And of course, if you're
lightly sprung, it can leave you nuts.

But LSD is not illegal because it endangers your sanity. LSD is illegal
because it endangers Control. Worse, it makes authority seem funny. But
laugh at authority in America and you will know risk. LSD is illegal
primarily because it threatens the dominant American culture, the culture
of Control. [...]"


http://www.alchemind.org/News/Barlowl&l.htm