From the article:here. (TheWeek.com)


Im not familiar with this news source, this appeared in my gmail inbox. I thought it brings up some good valid points I had never considered. It is unfortunate that no matter how far we go with changing the mass consciousness in a positive way, directed towards using psychedelics in a healing fashion, the potential for profit will be what motivates the medical/pharma industries to research and produce them.

Oh and PS, Thanks Trav, for the welcome baque! I really appreciate the help. I hate it when I lose my house key.

" After the 1960s, there was a decades-long crackdown on such research, sparked by irresponsible grandstanding by clowns like Timothy Leary . Laughing on the one hand, and a far worse overreaction and backlash in mainstream society on the other. But in recent years, a dedicated group of researchers has been producing some solid research on various psychedelic compounds. "

OK so he wasnt very smart but to call him a clown is to much . Thats often been described as critic from vain scientists .

He got shot at by the scientific comunity because he took their toy and played with it in public . BUT ....... if it hadnt have been for him would the general public even know about it now ?

The BIGGEST joke there from people like hofmann was that leary got the acid and the psilocybin in kilos legaly from ...... SANDOZ = The firm that hofmann worked for .

The other big joke is that mr hofmann himself later gave people LSD for recreational use .

Ahh well, I am sure leary was called worse things by better people.

Everyone needs a scapegoat so they can feel superior.

I agree the term is a stretch and you cant blame Leary for not being blessed with the ability to see clearly into the future. He took it upon himself, or was saddled by his karmic place in history, to open the pandora's box of modern human consciousness in the form of a drug. LSD in the sixties was the equivalent of the atom bomb to society and culture in the west, and handling it like Leary did was taking a huge step into the unknown and incredibly huge risks that go along with such an endeavor. He was pioneering a new American culture. And I guess he did pretty damn well, considering.

Some of Leary's actions could be called grandstanding, some heroic, and some could be called downright irresponsible. But of course, when you write out the whole formula- the weight of his actions upon culture, along with the combined benefits and failures of his actions, the sum would more than likely be positive.(and strange)

I really didnt want to ruffle feathers, nor is it the focus of the OP, but I'll admit to having a touch of resentment towards him for what Ive seen as being damaging to the "movement", for some of his actions were doubtlessly responsible for helping to make the prohibition on psychedelics go down. But he was also held up as a scapegoat in those proceedings in the media, popular representations, and probably even in the legal proceedings for all Id care to guess. I thought the italicized quote illustrates what Ive perceived as a shift in the popular attitude towards these drugs though, or more so a shift in the people who are calling for an end to their prohibition. I'm seeing more and more conservative voices calling for a new look at them, and I think that's a good thing, since it represents a wider segment or portion of the public interested in them. The fact that we have a generation of young men returning to the U.S. from a vicious, bloody, brutal and all but invisible overseas war who are suffering from PTSD and who as the write up states, are taking their own lives at a staggering rate combined with the overwhelmingly positive results of the few studies that have been performed using psychedelics to treat them demands a closer look at these substances, and the military isn't the traditional bastion of liberal thinking you may think it is. The military, or VA, may end up being a primary funding source for the legitimization of psychedelics for therapy.

Either way, great posts and links, I've been thinking about the patent-bind a lot lately. IMO, there needs to be a legitimate space for plant medicine (all of it!), alongside of big pharma. Some things will be treated better with plants, some things with synthetics: we find out.

The "scientific" focus on the "single active constituent" is also deeply flawed. It's why single-component pharmaceuticals tend to induce debilitating side-effects, and plants don't.

"I really didnt want to ruffle feathers, nor is it the focus of the OP, but I'll admit to having a touch of resentment towards him for what Ive seen as being damaging to the "movement" "

I think he played the Prometheus card rather well. Movements tend to degrade into nicely packaged bs rather quick anyway.

"The fact that we have a generation of young men returning to the U.S. from a vicious, bloody, brutal and all but invisible overseas war who are suffering from PTSD and who as the write up states, are taking their own lives at a staggering rate combined with the overwhelmingly positive results of the few studies that have been performed using psychedelics to treat them demands a closer look at these substances, and the military isn't the traditional bastion of liberal thinking you may think it is. The military, or VA, may end up being a primary funding source for the legitimization of psychedelics for therapy."

The idea of military funded psychedelic therapy is interesting, and perhaps likely, due to it's implications. How convenient...now they can send more people off to die in dishonest wars, and simply wipe clean the slate of trauma which plagues those the military industrial complex pawns away to do it's (dirty) bidding.

Yeah, I'm sure some people are going to take issue with me saying that.

Yeah the idea of the military funding psychedelic studies is pretty scary to me, especially considering how much research was done by the military already on using psychedelics as mind control agents/brain washing tools. Project BLUEBIRD I think?

Although I could also see veterans taking psychedelic medicines to work with PTSD and really seeing how evil the military complex is, which might lead to a larger segment of people in the society who do not encourage future generations to join the military.

I'm not one of them. I had thought the same thing.

Interesting thread.

The inability of big pharma to profit from psychedelics is a strange echo of the 'no selling' rule!

The possible implication that this could place research in the hands of the state and the military - as if it isn't already - leads me to consider the possibility that at some point in the future, by signing up to the military the person concerned would be giving their implied consent to psychedelic/empathogenic treatment of PTSD.


I think Leary was very much a clown, but that's not to denigrate his intelligence.
Here.

^I find this to be particularly relevant.

GOD, I've tried looking for the source of your assertion that Hofmann gave LSD for recreational use - where did you get that from?



Despite his use of LSD!


The short term side-effects of ayahuasca (for example) could be considered rather debilitating on occasion... And once I accidentally overdosed on Devils Claw, and was shitting rusty water for a week. At least that distracted from my backache, I suppose.