Argument Essay: Unschedule Safe Entheogens

The term entheogen literally means “to create god within.” “Safe entheogens,” in traditional context, are substances that one cannot become physically addicted to, nor die from. Unscheduling substances, addictive or not, would be cataclysmic to our society. If people are not regulated when it comes to their use of substances, their natural tendency is that of abuse. More than before will people be ingesting psychoactive compounds for various reasons, and this may lead to many unsafe scenerios. People may operate heavy machinery or drive under the influence of these non-prohibited drugs, causing mayhem. The psychology behind wanting what we can’t have would no longer apply to some of these spiritual mediums; they would lose their reverie and become commonplace without spiritual context. When given the choice to continue investing in the pharmaceutical industry or saving money with free legal alternatives, people will disregard the pharmaceutical empire as obsolete; this will cause an economic crisis.
Even if safe compounds were legalized, the potential for abuse still exists.
People will go beyond the rational levels of moderation and possibly form psychological addictions. An addicted person will not be capable of differentiating between moments when application of a substance is appropriate and when it is not. They will continue to abuse these plant-drugs even though they know of the possible negative outcomes of said addiction. This concept does not exclude driving and operating heavy machinery. Driving will just be another part of an addict’s day under the influence; they see no need for separation. Needless to say, driving under the influence of anything alters one’s potentially life preserving abilities like having a fast reaction time and avoiding severe motor vehicle collisions. This also presents a new problem to our beloved police force. How are they to enforce driving under the influence laws when there is a whole new plethora of substances to drive under the influence of? How would they devise tests on compounds that preexist in the human body? For example, dimethyltryptamine (abbreviated DMT). “DMT is naturally produced in small amounts in the brain and other tissues of humans and other mammals.”(Dimethyltrptamine, Wikipedia) If one was to attempt the suicidal concept of driving under the influence of this indole psychedelic compound, most likely this person at some point during their commute will not abide by all traffic laws. Upon being inspected by an enforcer of the law, it may obviously be deduced that this driver is under an influence, but which one? For alcohol, there are known ways of testing a subject, such as coordination tests and breathalyzers. However, when it comes to a compound that already exists within every living animal, everyone will test positive. To further complicate matters, this compound is also completely metabolized within thirty minutes of ingestion; however, the effects
may be noticeable longer than the window of testing positive. What is the law to do about such a situation? They cannot incarcerate suspects without proving “beyond a shadow of a doubt” that a person is guilty. If these substances were made legal, the government would have to compensate for the hazards they present, perhaps by infringing further upon personal rights than those that deny a citizen the right to use a safe substance.
Legitimizing the use of non-addictive psychoactives would lead to a bastardization of sacramental plants in religious contexts. If peyote were a legal substance to be bought over the counter at a local pharmacy, its reverie for being the spirit of the universe would be lost. Repetitive and commonplace use will start to paint something as sacred as peyote as ordinary. However, this plant in a spiritual context, evokes life-changing experiences that greatly benefit all users. “Ibogaine’s effects can be life- changing, and it is common for someone who has had a very positive experience to do their utmost to “spread the message.” (Sandberg) To not have it in a spiritual context is to “eat a drug,” and have no more meaning than being “high.” The context won’t be made part of the legalization as a requirement, so how can it be expected that people would abide by its intention as a spiritual medium? Look at a readily available physically non-addictive illegal plant - cannabis. Because people can acquire it, they use it, though it lacks the spiritual context of being the plant of the Hindu god Shiva. If people would respect entheogens as they should, they would spend long periods of time in meditation and personal reflection. This introspective phase provokes a more profound experience with the substance. Buddhist monks have a history of
practicing yoga and ingesting cannabis to catalyze anabolic resting states to regrow muscle tissue and to utilize its introspective effects psychedelically. These are proper uses of cannabis that include a beneficial context of use; however, modern use of cannabis in our culture has been turned into an opiate like experience of desensitizing the user to external stimuli. Western use of entheogens, especially cannabis, primary motive is to close our minds to issues that surround us. Traditionally and ironically, they are used to increase perception and understand more of the world we are all apart of. Native Americans fast for days before a period of cleansing through dehydration in a sweat logde. This is only the preparation to affirm the context of the experience. Just like dimethyltryptamine, this substance can’t be properly assessed in a user’s body with basic testing methods like a breathalyzer, which make it just as valid concerning why these entheogens should remain illegal. Mushrooms are another prime example of our disregard towards these hallucinogenic drugs. To the Mazatapec shamans of Mexico, they are known as “Tennonactl,” meaning, the flesh of the gods. These divining healers understand this flesh to grant enlightenment to a worthy user. To ghetto drug dealers, whose priority is economic and fiscal, they are known to get you “messed up.” It’s obvious that our culture cannot handle such powerful psychoactives, and this is why they should remain illegal.
Not only are people unable of handling the great responsibility of using these illicit substances safely, but our economy cannot handle this paramount burden. We are so dependent upon the pharmaceutical industry to provide work for us as we further go into debt and gain new prescriptions. Without the healthcare system, a large portion of
America would be unemployed. We think of healthcare as a business that won’t ever run dry, because it won’t. People constantly get hurt and need help; our healthcare system understands this and manipulates our dependency. At this point we are addicted to health care and the pharmaceutical empire; we would have to wean our way off of the constant income for medical workers and the unlimited supply of compounding drugs. We cannot make this change, especially as abruptly as passing a bill. Keeping these substances illegal will preserve our failing economy. If we were to allow these plants for public use, concepts like methadone clinics would be entirely obsolete. The schedule I substance Ibogaine, isolated from the plant Tabernathe Iboga, has been clinically proven to interrupt opiate receptor sites and stay in the blood stream beyond the withdrawals of opiate addiction. It stops the physical addiction, the physical pain from withdrawals, and psychological addiction. If we didn’t have addicts running around causing destruction to sate their exponential avarice we wouldn’t have people whose job is to stop them and to tend to them medically - law enforcement and medical personnel. We need these jobs; without them, the economy would collapse, and we’d go further into a depression. The government would implode with more national debts as unemployment rates sky-rocket. Letting ourselves fall into a reconstructive chaos is apparently wrong.
Okay, so, maybe these safe compounds would be a good thing to legalize after all. Understandably, driving under the influence is still an issue, however, people will quickly learn to not merge daily life with a powerful entheogenic experience. The sacramental use of plants is something that our government has no right to control. It is
a religious freedom, and it is our choice. In a country founded on religious freedom, we are taught that the Christian god has forbade the use of these entheogens lest they be “pharmakos,” sorcerers and devil worshippers. Essentially, the practice of these sacramental plants has been considered damned. If the almighty god were to damn anything it wouldn’t continue to proliferate exponentially. Some of these plants actually suffer to produce their unholy compounds. They seem to crave a symbiotic relationship. We as consumers are more likely to ingest substances that house most beneficial effects, in this case increased perception. Many are legal under the pretense of a therapeutic and spiritual context, so why not extend the inventory to include all safe entheogens? If the economy were to collapse due to natural plant drugs, then why would we want such a weak and fickle economy, anyway? We as a culture are addicted to the way things are, and change is an unwelcome intervention. These plants facilitate that change; they are the intervention. Not just Iboga defeating opiate addiction, but entheogens defeating our predisposed fallacies and addictions of every sort. An experience that transcends three dimensions and five senses really brings about a drastic change to our understanding of everything. To judge something more effectively the arbiter must have a broader spectrum of experience, more educated, from which to derive his logic. To indigenous peoples, especially pre-Columbian, these plant drugs are known as the spiritual medium. To have them illegal is to deny salvation to children of the earth. Science and spirituality are not separate to the indigenous peoples. Our science is claiming no spiritual pretense; however, we have psychotherapists that deal with the psyche. The indigenous psychotherapist is the societal shaman, also dealing
with the psyche of his patients. To these people psychotherapy is not separate from spirituality. Shamans have been known to call their entheogen cultivation “garden of science.” Because of our pragmatic logic, we deny the presence of “god,” however; we as a culture still very much take part of psychotherapy. Both indigenous and western people don’t understand the connection and parallelism they inextricably share. We have in the past, and can in the future, utilize the same tools in psychotherapy. “Drugs like ibogaine, ketamine, LSD, and MDMA (Ecstasy), have been used in the past by therapists, but only as a component of an overall therapeutic strategy. Using the drug out of this context could cause more harm than good.” (Sandberg) Why pay to keep these substances outlawed. If we were to legalize these entheogens a large portion of everyone’s money wouldn’t be wasted, instead we could focus on reversing the economic deficit that the lack of law enforcement and medical personnel would ensure.
Each year we spend millions of dollars on the “war on drugs.” A great portion of that war is waged on these safe, beneficial, entheogens. The police force has swollen particularly for this reason, as well as the coast guard. The people paid to keep these drugs away from the public are paid by the public. Perhaps the public doesn’t want to waste money on obsolete positions. Each time the law enforcers incarcerate another criminal, it costs everyone. “ The U.S. federal government spent over $19 billion dollars in 2003 on the War on Drugs, at a rate of about $600 per second, the budget has since been increased by over a billion dollars” (Greer) . The longer a person is in jail, the more they are a deficit on our finances. Tax increases to pay for each moment that this criminal is locked up. “in the nation’s two most populous states, California and New
York, taxpayers are faced with an annual marijuana enforcement bill of more than $1 billion” (Drug War Chronicle, issue 379) This furthers the imbalance created by our prejudice towards these entheogens. Without this war on drugs, less people would be paid for to be in jail, and more money would be used to not hire law enforcement, and people wouldn’t become clandestine about these substances. It’s not something to be ashamed of, as we are taught in our politically adapted monotheistic culture.
As an animal in an environment, these substances are a part of our natural diet. To eliminate part of our diet is to retard evolution. Evolution is based upon the greatest genetic variation; to eliminate some variation is to damage the equation of evolution. By not ingesting entheogens or reaching the same understanding through other psyche/spiritual practices is to digress. Thus, the use of entheogens, with the appropriate intentions, will be beneficial to our society on a number of levels. They should be unscheduled for the betterment of our society and species.

"If people are not regulated when it comes to their use of substances, their natural tendency is that of abuse. More than before will people be ingesting psychoactive compounds for various reasons"


No offence but that sounds like BS to me...alcohol is regulated and lots of people abuse it...DMT is not regulated and many people do not abuse it..what you are saying there is biased and makes it seem as though we NEED the government to watch everything we do and prtoect us from ourselves.


I agree that these things shoudl remain unscheduled but really all drugs should just be legal..

Also as far as I know entheogen means to manifest the DEVINE within..not god within.

"Legitimizing the use of non-addictive psychoactives would lead to a bastardization of sacramental plants in religious contexts. If peyote were a legal substance to be bought over the counter at a local pharmacy, its reverie for being the spirit of the universe would be lost."

I dont agree with that at all. Peyote is legal where I live. I could get on the bus and go buy some right now, pay my tax on it and the government cannot do a damn thing...and I dont see people abusing peyote around here..I dont even really know anyone that eats it..

What I do see is NAC church members not living in fear and being presecuted for giving peyote to white people like what happens in the US.

These things SHOULD be legitimized..look at the John Hopkins studies..look at the good comming out of that..the people who are able to be helped..what you are implying is to stop that level of progress..

What about legitimate us of cannabis for cancer?..or ayahuasca?..o ibogaine for heroin addicts?..what you are implying would effectivly shut down the ibogaine therapy centres we now have in canada..all thes people would be shut out..probabily on methadone..and the people trying to help people with these things would have to do it in hiding..

Why does something have to be less revered just becasue the goverment decides to stop making people out as criminals becasue of it? It's YOU that choose how you approach these things...why should what the government thinks about it now change that?

"Look at a readily available physically non-addictive illegal plant - cannabis. Because people can acquire it, they use it, though it lacks the spiritual context of being the plant of the Hindu god Shiva."

This is also biased and actaully enthnocentric...as if cannabis was ONLY used for religous purposes in the east..cannabis was also used in places like Russia where it grew and in areas of africa..where there was no knowlegde of the god shiva..and it was used in europe as a normal medicine not only for spirituality, and probabily as a social intoxicant as well, just like henbane was in pilsner.

..and then there are the rasta..dont tell me that is not recreational..

Do you think that people are any different today than were in the past?..do you think that people didn't enjoy psychedelics at primitive "parties" just like they enjoy them today?

Bufotenine for instance IS a part drug for the natives..it's a recreational thing and they take it all the time in lots of situations..it's also a spiritual thing and used in ceremonies by the shamans..vilca literally means "sacred"..mushrooms were also used recreationally by the mayans, as well as in very sacred ceremonies..yet in both these cultures they still never lost reverie for these things. And who are you to say that taking peyote and going to some music show or something isnt spiritual?

I love a good debate

but my opinion is sides with fractal. I mean come on,



That is a bold bold statement which i defo dont agree with.

I actually do agree with that, and I am aware of the argument she is making, its not the first time anyone has argued this point. What you should do is put a reference there:

Abuse of alcohol actually went UP during the prohibition period and has fallen since.
and im not even american screw you, drunken yanks!

@Fractal Enchantment: I was under the impression that 'theo' translated to 'god' and not 'devine'.

If this is an English essay, you need to use paragraph breaks before I am going to even read it.

"@Fractal Enchantment: I was under the impression that 'theo' translated to 'god' and not 'devine'"

Well yeah I guess you are right, but that's not the way Ott was using it when he made up the term.

The whole thing is biased...it leaves out the reality of the situation..sure if you live in lala land this stuff makes sense..

Is it better to have people sitting in jail wasting tax dollars becasue they do drugs?..breaking into cars to make the money to buy the drugs that are overpriced becasue of the fact that THEY ARE scheduled?..
Yeah it sucks that people do abuse drugs but get over it..I dont think we need to make more things illegal becasue of it..you want more tax dollars spent on the "war on drugs"?

Do you really want to throw away personal liberty like that?

Better to put that money into decent rehab centres..

Not to mention the fact that the government has no damn right breathing down my neck telling what I can and cannot put into my own damn body..this just screams oppression.

"Abuse of alcohol actually went UP during the prohibition period and has fallen since."
Yes and when it was illegal gangster like Al Cappone were able to make a living selling it.
So when it was illegal people abused it more?..or are you trying to say that becasue the government can regulate it now that abuse is less?..I think all drugs should be legal for adults..I am not saying sell drugs to kids..that is where the regualtion should be..the only exeption I can think of is for new developed pharma drugs that are still untested..

People are addicted to all kinds of drugs..people get addicted to legal prescription drugs every day and overdose from those same drugs..people do illegal drugs every day and die as well..prohibition isnt going to do a damn thing about that..this isnt some TV afterschool special where we "just say no"..this is real life and the war on drugs really really fucks up good peoples lives and wastes money that could be better spent on society.

Legalize the right for peopel to put what they choose into their bodies and EDUCATE people about the good and the bad aspects of drugs, instead of telling teenage kids that all drugs are bad, so just dont do them ok, while mom and pop sit back and sip a beer or drink some coffee. God becasue of this oppresive drug war kids these days think pot and heroin are the same thing..THAT is frickin dangerous.

I dont believe that humanity is THAT stupid, if people were educated better they might make better choices...I dont feel like I need to be babysat by big brother and have my chemical intake on constant watch, feeling like a paranoid criminal.

Look at how much damage has been done from MDMA being illegal..it gets cut with all types of horrible, horrible shit that will screw up the brains of all these people a hell of alot worse than MDMA alone would..

Responciple adults should have legal access to entheogens and other drugs..the only regulation should be that you need to be an adult. Kids dont need these things. All that money wasted on the failed war on drugs can then go to proper and truthful education about these things, and decent and available rehabilitation programs.

Think of this situation as well..

So they decide to make entheos illegal becasue some people think they will be abused otherwise..So they make salvia illegal. Underground coke dealers that were slanging pot on the side to support the other stuff catch on and suddenly becasue it's illegal the value has gone up...all these drug dealers have another new things to push on the street corners called salvia

God I am just so against this whole idea of keeping these things illegal..

Look at what was done by the spanish, how many native peoples suffered die to the outlawing of these types of things..thats what caused the whole stigma against these things in the first place..and now you think they should keep on with that mentality?...I know that demonizing these things is not the point that you were making suicibe..but think of the concequences..

How will the public mentality EVER change and at the very least tolerate the people who use these things if they cannot even be legalized?..how does us being labled criminals for our actions help this is the least?..

Entheogens / psychedelics / psychotropics & hallucinogens are different terms for the same substances, depending on the purpose of their use - its confusing.
suicybe, sorry, but i disagree with most of your arguments for why psychedelics should be illegal. No offence but is this for high school?
you need to back up your arguments with actual research or its all just immature speculation. Firstly there are no 'safe' psychedelics, because all drugs have a lethal dose. LSD is something like 1mg/kg, which is basically unobtainable for the average user. (which i think could be considered 'safe'

fractal enchantment, I agree with where ur coming from, but i still dont believe that all drugs should be unregulated and 'legal'. Let me tell you why.

Yes, it has been shown in a British study that LSD, along with other hallucinogens are not toxic or addictive while nicotine has addictive properties similar to heroin. Although, i do agree that (some) people will abuse the substance if left unregulated, which could result in some accidental deaths (not overdoses). The main key is not spending the 'war on drugs' tax dollars on rehab facilities, but rather education. "Prevention is better than cure" (much cheaper also)
My personal belief is that hallucinogens should only be used in a controlled setting, now what does that mean?
"If" theoretically it was legalised it should be only given by a licence professional such as a doctor or some kind of health professional (or at least someone who has experience with such substances and how to manage adverse effects)
I dont like the term entheogen that much because it means that the drug is being used to explore the 'spiritual' realm (which doesn't exist). Rather such drugs should be used by intellectuals, academics and perhaps artists who can put it to use, thinking of concepts 'outside the box'.
In short,
Yes hallucinogens should be decriminalised, because the punishment doesn't fit the crime.
No hallucinogens should not be given to everyone, too risky for many people who are not ready for it mentally or who have pre-existing conditions that predispose then to psychotic episodes.
No hallucinogens will not cause a breakdown of society and people (generally) will not drive around wrecklessly on them (just go to Amsterdam and you will see what i mean)

yeah I agree..but I never said I was against regulation 100%..I think that these things should be available to responciple adults though..just not kids..

I dont like the idea of having to get some sort of permit to use psychedelics..thats where regualtion seems rediculous to me, I am well enough qualified to use psychedelics..this is my right as a human being..sure I agree to DISPENSE psychedelics I think someone with some sort of certificate in pharmacology should be necessary..

But I also think that it should be 100% legal for me to extract DMT or synth it in my own home for personal use..if I was selling it than that is a different story.

"The main key is not spending the 'war on drugs' tax dollars on rehab facilities, but rather education. "Prevention is better than cure" (much cheaper also)"

Yes this is how I feel.

I actually read his whole paper from top to bottom, and about 3/4 of the way through he pulls the old switcheroo, wherein he makes it clear (kinda sorta) that he was just kidding with his whole hypotheosis.

Suicybe - I'm afraid I'd have to give you about a D+ at best here. A good debate requires something a bit more substantial than veiled sarcasm, and the April Fools angle didn't work too well for me at all. Sorry.

Oops, I admit i quit reading about 1/3 into it. hahaha pretty funny. Thanks for letting me know art, I retract my previous statement but not arguments.

ha ya I stopped reading about 3-4 the way through becasue of the large blocks of text..good eye art!

Suicybe I would change this around a bit if I were you and use more solid examples to back up your ideas, going into more detail about the social and political concequesnces of keeping these things illegal..it's sort of a confusing read..

I agree with this part..

"As an animal in an environment, these substances are a part of our natural diet. To eliminate part of our diet is to retard evolution. Evolution is based upon the greatest genetic variation; to eliminate some variation is to damage the equation of evolution. By not ingesting entheogens or reaching the same understanding through other psyche/spiritual practices is to digress. Thus, the use of entheogens, with the appropriate intentions, will be beneficial to our society on a number of levels. They should be unscheduled for the betterment of our society and species."

If I were you I would go into more detail about how the use of these entheogens will benifit society on a number of levels and give easy to understand and clear examples..

THe general tone at the end makes sense but overall the essay needs much more structure.