I Can Think Of Better Ways to Spend Your Time!

THE STIGMA OF ENTHEOGENS
an essay by Matt Mongrain

The society we live in frowns upon narcotics (powerful and weak) and their users as if they were some kind of plague. Ask any parent, or even still any middle-aged person to describe a drug user to you; more than likely they'll say something along the lines of "Homeless, bleary-eyed, unshaven and poor." Invariably there's this stigma attached to the usage of substances that also invariably improve the quality of life of their users. Why do we hate so vehemently these things?

I'll admit, up-front, that this text suffers a little bit from the virgins-writing-about-sex syndrome - I've never in my life touched any of the substances listed herein, nor do I condone of their use. But the myths that have spread about them frustrate me to no end, as ignorant, pretentious baby boomers rant on about the dangers of heroin and LSD and whatnot to their Valedictorian children in their comfortable suburbanite heaven. All these stories are spread to our youth, with little or no reality within them. Shouldn't we be informing them of the real dangers inherent in using rather than make better, politically correct problems up?

government regulation?

Wouldn't most of our problems be solved if the government regulated all substances, but didn't render them illegal? People who want these substances will use them regardless of the laws - history has proven that time and time again. I'm more than certain some people use them only because they're illegal, just to get that added buzz of being an outlaw to combine with the high. For one, overdoses would decrease for a lot of substances, most notably for the evil and malcontent cocaine and heroin users, the crackheads and the junkies. How does that make sense, you ask? How would making the substances these addicts crave legal and thus easier to find reduce the overdose potential? Simple. With substances like those, overdoses are not usually caused by the addict taking too much stuff - all or most of them are far too aware of the risks and how much substance gets them where they want to be. Usually these substances will be cut numerous times before being resold to the public - that is, combined with a cheaper substance to provide more narcotic to sell. For example, a dealer might add a cup or two of flour or icing sugar to a kilo of cocaine, and the man he sells it to will keep some for himself and then cut the rest again with broken fluorescent tubes to sell to his friends. So the purity of these substances is usually very low, so a lot more has to be smoked/injected/snorted to get the desired effect. Let's say, now, that the dealer gets a bunch of pure, pure stuff by chance. The user buys his usual amount from it, fills the syringe with the usual amount, and paf - he dies. Simply because of the purity. If the government was in charge, there would more than likely be a standard for purity for the substances, and so there would be no unpleasant surprises when they're used.

Any other advantages? Sure. This way the government can keep tabs on who's using too much or with too high a frequency to set them up with rehabilitation the very instant there's a problem. Rehabilitation programs would have to be changed, too, because obviously the current programs don't work to perfection. I don't know the exact success rate but if Robert Downey Jr. is any indication it's not all that high.

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that governments should condone the use of these substances, just make them available. They can still have the warnings on the packages of crack-smokes or whatever. Kids can now be taught in schools how to make an informed and mature choice over whether or not to use these substances with our morals getting off scot-free. Of course, we can still impose a minimum legal age (between 18 and 21, depending partially on the population's tendency for abuse) to regulate somewhat who can and can't use the stuff.

we've got our priorities upside-down

On television you'll see one advert blasting loud party music, featuring a bunch of happy twentysomethings hanging out and drinking a pint or two of their favourite alcoholic substance. Next is one that shows a homeless man lying on the street telling us how marijuana ruined his life. Do we have our values misplaced somewhere? Not once have I ever heard a sad story of a pothead coming home after a long night of smoking really riled up, and beating his wife and leaving his family. Nope. Nor have I heard all that many stories of somebody who was smoking and driving and ran over some poor pedestrian, or engaged in a head-on collision killing his pregnant wife. Yes, marijuana impairs, but not to the degree that alcohol does. Yet alcohol goes completely unregulated and the magic dragon gets slapped with a big fat Schedule 1 legal status by the DEA. What that means in laypeople terms is you can get inebriated to the same degree on both substances in terms of reaction time, but the pothead will be jailed/fined huge amounts of time/money. Perhaps I'm the only one this doesn't make sense to.

Not only that, but cannabis is significantly less addictive and damaging to the body than alcohol is. Most users are just casual ones - they smoke a joint now and then, on weekends, to relax, get into a social and ambient atmosphere. Alcohol use, though, tends to get out of hand. Heavy users of the former are nice and docile at least. Heavy users of the latter get violent. And are usually habitual users of the substance as an easy way to forget their problems (and a few brain cells along the way).

If the government can't be bothered to change the laws for ALL of the drugs, they can at least legalize this harmless little substance. Why they haven't yet is completely beyond me as there's conclusive scientific evidence telling us how harmless the stuff is.

lysergic acid diethylamide

This brings me to my next point - LSD. This is a substance that has absolutely zero addiction potential (that means non-addictive, you can't get hooked to it, no!), opens up a new world for users and increases their appreciation of the world and its people even when they're not using, and generally makes them happier people, more content with their lot in life. Now, forgive me for wishing a bit and maybe destroying all the Bohemian ideals inherent in LSD use, but the government and private individuals could make a MINT off of this stuff. 

Still here? Good.

Something else about LSD that's been spread around quite a bit is the blue star tattoo myth. I'm sure you've already heard about it: evil drug pushers roam the schoolyard, armed with red cardboard boxes filled with smallish pieces of paper with blue stars on them, impregnated with LSD and probably strychnine (a highly toxic and deadly alkaloid). They offer 'free tattoos' to the kids who need to lick them and then hold them to their arms for a few minutes. The LSD therein is then absorbed through the skin and the child gets addicted, giving the dealer a new customer, or the kid overdoses and dies right away. I actually remember having an officer COME INTO MY CLASSROOM in grade school and show us blue star LSD squares and tell us this story, and even my 12-year-old brain was able to pick up something spurious in there.

Now, if you've read the initial part of my LSD rant, there are a couple of warnings that go off immediately reading that little bit. For example, it's completely non-addictive as a substance so the pusher would not be getting any new business from the not-addicted child. That kind of wrecks the credibility of the report in one fell swoop, but just to properly beat this dead horse I'll detail some other points.

1) Strychnine is lethal only in about 200mg doses - less than that won't kill a person. How much LSD is in a typical dose? Around 100µg, or micrograms. That's a hundred millionths of a gram. And you need two hundred thousandths for strychnine to kill you. Needless to say... that's a loot of LSD you'd have to ingest. In fact, even if you wanted to you couldn't get that much substance - LSD or strychnine - on a piece of blotter paper, so if a guy wanted to rip you off he'd sell you a blank sheet before selling you strychnine. So you'd have to ingest about FIFTY extremely heavy doses that are entirely pure strychnine to die from it. Unlikely at best, and you'd have to be bloody rich and bloody stupid to do it. In fact, you'd probably die of stomach distension before dying from the strychnine if the LSD is in windowpane (gelatin) form.

2) Overdosing on LSD is just about exactly impossible. LD50 for LSD - that is, the lethal dose for 50% of people - is an amazing 12mg. Now, at an average pf 7$USD per hit with an average of 100mcg per hit, that's 840$ worth of LSD in one use for you to overdose. Again, bloody rich and bloody stupid.

3) LSD isn't absorbed through the skin, it's eaten, stupid.

There's also the myth of strychnine-laced LSD back in the 80's but I covered that too.

moral dilemmas

[ this page and all media therein is copyright © 2002 by matt mongrain. all rights reserved. reproduction prohibited without express, written permission of the author. ]