[rerevisionist]

Pretty much entirely off the topic of nukes - though there must be links as regards psychology, beliefs, the spread of information, etc.

I was looking at a site saying 'legalisation is essential' - it looks to me like a promotional campaign with carefully-worded BS. There are so many issues it's a terrific exercise in clear thinking...

* Does addiction in fact exist?
* How differently can different people react to the same substance?
* Is there a sound definition of 'drugs'?
* Is it intentional that drug harm figures ignore numbers exposed to risk?
* Are drugs in fact pleasurable?
* How comparable are different substances?
* Is it intentional that historical difficulties in transport are ignored?
* Is it intentional that races/ groups etc who push drugs aren't mentioned?
* Are the figures quoted for money, drug-based crimes etc credible? <<< added later

Just some things.

[dinosaur_denier]

It looks that the definition of drugs is based mainly on prohibition criteria. These rules may differ somewhat across countries. For instance, opium was not banned in traditional societies. So, the prohibition in fact creates drugs and a black market.

It also seems misleading to refer to the whole spectrum of various substances as drugs, using the word "drug" as an umbrella term. Professor David Nutt published his views on drugs classification several years ago. It appeared that alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than marijuana, exstasy and lsd.

the problem of addiction can be assesed sociologically:

In the US and many other Western industrialized societies at the start of the 21st century, ‘‘addiction’’ is said to be a ‘‘disease’’. Virtually everyone in the treatment industry embraces the notion that ‘‘addiction’’ is a ‘‘disease’’, as do nearly all people who understand themselves to be ‘‘in recovery’’ from it. Officials of the US National Institute of Drug Abuse have adopted the claim that ‘‘addiction is a brain disease’’ as a kind of mantra(e.g., Enos, 2004; Leshner, 1997, 2001; Volkow, 2003). Yet addiction-as-disease did not emerge from the natural accumulation of scientific discoveries; its ubiquity is a different species of social accomplishment. The disease concept was invented under historically and culturally specific conditions, promulgated by particular actors and institutions, and internalized and reproduced by means of certain discursive practices.
...
The etiology implicit in such disease discourse shares certain similarities in logical structure with 17th century theological narratives in which demonic possession was thought to be causal; in disease discourse, addiction is a kind of ‘‘secular possession’’ (Room, 2004:231). In each case, an exogenous force or foreign agent (‘‘the devil’’, ‘‘the disease’’) is held to be the effective cause of the individual’s bad behavior.

The quote taken from
Addiction as accomplishment: The discursive construction of disease by CRAIG REINARMAN.

Under these circumstances groups with vested interest never miss opportunities to escalate moral panic over substance abuse. Instead of attempting to adress the problem rationally, the further demonization takes places. You can see the burning of a "effigy of drug addiction" in Kyrgyzstan. Looks like a medieval ceremony. This event is promoted as "an alternative to the drug-fueled Love Parade". May be it's not the best example of moral panic, because Kyrgyzstan is a transit country for heroine, and heroine is really dangerous, but the same approach is usually applied to light drugs too.

[dinosaur_denier]

Perhaps, psychedelic drugs better fit the definition of recreational drugs.

The best known one is certainly LSD. The social history of lsd raises many questions:

Was it really discovered incidentally as it is always claimed?
Was Dr. Albert Hofmann the true inventor of lsd or was he chosen as the figurehead for the LSD movement?
Did his famous bicycle trip really take place ?
Was Thimoty Leary a CIA agent?

According to one viewpoint the Hippie Drug culture of the 60s was artificially constructed by malicious conspirators:

That conspiracy goes back to the 1930s, when the British sent Aldous Huxley to the United States as the case officer for an operation to prepare the United States for the mass dissemination of drugs.

Under Wells's tutelage, Huxley was first introduced to Aleister Crowley. Crowley was a product of the cultist circle that developed in Britain from the 1860s under the guiding influence of Edward Bulwer-Lytton—who, it will be recalled, was the colonial minister under Lord Palmerston during the Second Opium War.

The counterculture that was foisted on the 1960s adolescent youth of America is not merely analogous to the ancient cult of Isis. It is a literal resurrection of the cult down to the popularization of the Isis cross (the "peace symbol") as the counterculture's most frequently used symbol.

But nothing sceptical is said concerning the father of lsd. It seems to me that A.Hofmann's biography is highly mythologized. It is possible to consider a kind of his cult of personality. There are Hofmann's blotters, Hofmann's t-shirts, the so-called Bicycle day is celebrated and so on. In the lsd subculture especially among youngsters he is perceived sometimes as an accidental prophet with a sacred book "Lsd, my problem ?hild". This idealistic notion is encapsulated in Alex Grey's painting "St. Albert".

This focusing on the predominantly bright sides of lsd-experience can't go unnoticed. To a some extent such an excessive positive legendarization of psychedelic drugs may be the only possible way to legitimise the value of psychedelic experience in our society. The whole phenomenon may also be viewed in a broader context of the process of sacralization of psychedelics taking place. (with DMT beeing reffered to as "spiritual molecule")

But if lsd is regarded not just as a tool for inner growth as it was advertised to be, but as a kind of experimental psychic weapon, it's possible to speculate that with a certain degree of probability Dr. Albert Hofmann may appear not to be the main inventor of lsd. I even found one reference for this assumption:

British intelligence also designed and created the drug LSD in the 1950's through places like the Tavistock Institute in London. By the 1960's MI-5, MI-6 and the CIA were using LSD as a weapon against the angry protestors of the sixties and turned them into 'flower children' who were too tripped out to organize a revolution.

The validity of this source is under question, of course, but the Tavistock connection sparks curiosity.
The great amounts of LSD were synthesized by Sandoz A.G., a Swiss pharmaceutical house owned by S.G. Warburg & Co.
The official date of lsd discovery is November 16, 1938 although it was not until five years later on April 19, 1943, when the psychedelic properties were discovered. This is a rather strange 5 year gap.

So, to put it more bluntly the possibility exists that A.Hofmann was chosen by the elite circles to be an icon of the whole psychedelic movement. As a descendant of the centenarian's family he represents the jungian archetype of the wise old man. Hippies are encouraged to believe that he took psychedelics untill his death and lsd facilitiated in someway an increase in his life span. Though this may sound a little bit paranoid.

The second and much more realistic hypothesis may be that his famous bicycle trip should be regarded as a legend designed to boost lsd sales. This story has a certain symbolic meaning attached to it and it's really miraculous.



The fairytale personage is mentioned:

"The lady next door, whom I scarcely recognized, brought me milk… She was no longer Mrs. R., but rather a malevolent, insidious witch with a colored mask.”

There may be some hidden connotations... Well, he left his workplace under the influence of the unknown drug. Rather light-minded behaviour for a chemist, but possibly a good role model for drug abuse.

Something is definetely exaggerated here, but it all refers directly to the brand story of lsd , which is rather elaborated.

Nobel Prize genius Crick was high on LSD , when he discovered the secret of life.
and this probably refers to Clear Thinking )

[Sorensen731]

A similar subject is music, let me recommend a classic;

Coca-Colonization and the Cold War: The Cultural Mission of the United States in Austria After the Second World War
Reinhold Wagnleitner

Tells how they ate a whole culture and changed it completely, the clothing, the songs to the children, the dances, the classical music, the best of the world was forgotten and after the American Invasion, English voices invaded the air of the country that gave us the best composer the world has ever seen.

I would put Coke as a drug that helps distant hypnotism - influencing.

Drugs (mushrooms specially) can be separated in two groups; psilocibe and datura

psilocibe and similars destroy the I, or damage the self, the ability to offer resistance, to think independently. marijuana belongs to this category too

datura, like amanita muscaria and others, if used properly with sexual abstinence (a fact conveniently forgotten by the propagandist) can help the self, the individualisation. Coffee is a weak one of this group.

Clear thinking, recreation, the two words you wrote are directly related to energy, and orgasm and ejaculation waste energy.

The SEX word everywhere, in subliminal messages are for us to waste our inner energy, "good sex" ends in sleep, as a good citizen-slave that sleeps instead of questioning, reading of thinking.
Sexual energy is also related to concentration, orgasms stops us from achieving good thoughts, from connecting pieces of puzzles that were on our mind.

I have old XIXth century books on women, relations, and they all warn of having too much sex.
They knew it was bad for the psyche! They managed to hide that common knowledge and are pressing us to have sex constantly.
And from several points of view, they taught wives to convince their man of being self-responsible and dominating his passions / desires.
In Germanic tribes it was considered healthy to stay away of women until 20, women influence was said to weaken the idealist spirit, and attach it to material pleasures.

Didn't know that about Bulwer-Lytton, he was friend of Disraeli too!

Good post, I agree, I would add music too, the 60s psyop.

I never understood the devolution in music, from middle age rude wooden instruments, to pianos, orchestras, a hundred musicians, years of training, of theory of harmony... and then...suddenly... a fat black bitch screaming about her drug dealer with one drum and an electrical guitar.
And no, Beatles are no better, scratching a few guitars and a drum, with songs written by someone else who plagiarised classical music, and played it in pieces in reverse, stealing from here and there, using hard thought notes to sell drugs, only a Jew could be behind.

(An analysis of who wrote the Beatles song by the poster sandokhan, scroll to find sandokhan http://therr.posterous.com/the-ultimate ... -the-brave )

Of course music influences our brain, and our attention wouldn't remember things in films unless they played very aggressive music, and now that patter of thought has lead to noisy clothing shops, that level of sound-vibration stops the creation of clear thoughts, so the majority of modern radio stations. You can't study with voices on the background, only classical or similar will help.

The new music has come in hand with permissiveness or use of mind-weakening drugs.
And music are waves we consciously detect, for sure there are others we don't but still affect us.

[rerevisionist]

* Does addiction in fact exist? - I met a British chap who said he tried heroin once to see what it was like, but he wasn't addicted. Not that I recommend this. Also for social reasons: if you watch people buying/using packets of cigarettes, there's a whole ritual based around selecting the brand, removing the wrappers, tapping the things etc etc - in WW1 the soldiers posed with cigarettes; women had elegant cigarette holders etc - there was a general feeling of acting. When the circumstances change - e.g. concentrating on work, or doing something energetic - the desire to smoke, drink etc vanishes. Or at least it's arguable. Addicts have their own substitutes for social lives (and this is encouraged by the 'professionals' who make money from them). -- Are people 'addicted' to fish and chips, or burgers, or bread, coffee?

* How differently can different people react to the same substance? - some races can't digest cow's milk - I read that US blacks use powdered milk as whitewash, though this may be a folk tale. I believe central Asians and 'red Indians' didn't produce alcohol dehydrogenase, and couldn't excrete alcohol, so they would lie around drunk for long periods of time.

* Is there a sound definition of 'drugs'? - Presumably it's any chemical that produces some disproportionate action, including alcohol, nitrous oxide, chloroform etc. A poison is the same sort of thing - but potentially lethal. In my opinion the brain isn't understood anything like well enough to predict effects, and more drugs are discovered by chance (e.g. the effect of lithium salts) or by processing naturally occurring stuff in a way that's found to be active (e.g. opium -> heroin, and LSD from some precursor).

* Is it intentional that drug harm figures ignore numbers exposed to risk? - every now and then someone announces that (say) alcohol causes much more damage than (say) marijuana. The fact that use per head of population is hugely greater seems beyond them, despite its obviousness. Is this deliberate deception?

* Are drugs in fact pleasurable? - Freud thought cocaine was a wonder drug, though of course later he changed his mind & suppressed his previous praises. But it seems simply impossible that something can cause people to work much more energetically than before without some compensating fatigue or damage.

* How comparable are different substances? - the effects of (say) LSD, cocaine, 'ecstasy', marijuana are so different is seems unrealistic to have a one-dimensional scale of effects. Is this also deliberately suppressed?

* Is it intentional that historical difficulties in transport are ignored? - a typical statement is that e.g. opium was not controlled in the 19th century. But hardly any of it was around - any more than tobacco existed in Europe before 1600-ish. Another obvious point which is often suppressed.

* Is it intentional that races/ groups etc who push drugs aren't mentioned? - I'm thinking here of Muslims and the opium poppy/ 'golden triangle', and south Americans and cocaine. (And maybe whites selling alcohol and tobacco). There's unquestionably a deliberate policy in Britain of the police, officials, legal people etc not mentioning the links with e.g. Pakistan.

* Are the figures quoted for money, drug-based crimes etc credible? - Do they just add a few noughts to make the money sound important? If the intention is to harm people, the money is unimportant, so it might be a deliberate policy of misdirection.

* Health effects - unfortunately the medical professions have a history of deliberate lies and exaggerations if they feel they are morally justified, or if there's money in it. Why is it so difficult to get information on, for example, cirrhosis of the liver, or comparative figures on smoking? For example the Japanese are reported to smoke more than in the west, but to get far less lung cancer, suggesting a diet link. Why is this never mentioned, except by me?.

[voerioc]

* Does addiction in fact exist? - I think that yes, addiction exists. What most recreational drugs do is to artificially calm people at one moment or another. This is what do tobacco, marijuana, heroin, many solvents, maybe LSD. Alcohol excites people at the beginning (depend of the context however), but calms them after several hours. As people are uninhibited with those drugs, it's often depend on the context. If there are many people partying, it will help them to party hard. But their main effect is to calm people.

And those drugs have a withdrawal effect. When you stop taking them, you are then much more nervous than before. As those people have been used to be calmer than people who don't use those drugs, it's a complete change. Thus they become very nervous. And they need to take them again to be calm again. The physical withdrawal effect lasts one week or ten days. But the psychological withdrawal effect lasts several months. So, it's very difficult to stop taking them.

The withdrawal effect is very obvious. Most people have huge difficulties to stop to take tobacco, which is supposed to be one of the lighter drugs. And they often replace this addiction by another.

I think that the addiction comes mostly from the withdrawal effects, and not really from the pleasure felt when people begin to take the drug. But maybe some people feel quite a pleasurable effect from the beginning (a pleasure related to the calming effect). I think about people who are naturally very nervous. Suddenly, they feel at peace. There isn't any tension anymore. Quite pleasurable for them. Also, for injected powerful drugs like heroin, people say that there is a kind of orgasmic feeling during the first minutes after the injection.

Of course, when people are already addicted, they can feel some kind of pleasurable effect when they are in a sate of nervousness (when they didn't take their drug during some time). The release of the nervous tension is pleasant. It's the same pleasure than the one people who are naturally nervous feel, except that for them the nervousness is artificially induced.

* How comparable are different substances? - I think that when they aren't mixed with substances which excite people, they are all the same. The difference comes from the way of absorption, the dose, how long the effect lasts, etc...

* Health effects - I think the effects of the drugs are quite well documented. But some are exaggerated because the medical industry has interests in other parts of medicine. They need to exaggerate the number of cancers (for money), so, they do it also for tobacco use. But otherwise, the documentation about drugs is quite honest. Another thing they hide is the fact that many drugs (recreational or medical) which aren't considered as opiates are in fact opiates.

[NUKELIES]

I am at a point in my life where I have discovered that practically all of my friends and family are on some kind of medication. It pisses me off.

My parents were hippies so I never had any impetus to rebel by using drugs. I never got into them.

California is an awful place now in large part due to the marijuana-worship culture that has taken over the entire state. They are rabidly devotional and will argue to the end of time that marijuana is therapeutic, herbal, good for you, and "not a drug."

I am for the legalization of all drugs. Obviously there would be practical societal limitations involved, but those concerns I would leave to others to deal with.

The one great difference between modern Europe and current America that I have seen is the frightening proliferation of prescription drug usage and advertising in the U.S. The UK is riddled with anti-depressants, but the variety of other pharmaceutical drug offerings in the UK seem to be better restricted.

I'm sick of dealing with selfish, careless people who I care about. I'm beginning to care less.

[voerioc]

California is an awful place now in large part due to the marijuana-worship culture that has taken over the entire state. They are rabidly devotional and will argue to the end of time that marijuana is therapeutic, herbal, good for you, and "not a drug."

In fact, what people find in drugs depends on their own character, or on what they search, or on the context. For "normal" people, those opiates are drugs which only calm them or make them sleep.

But, for someone nervous or anxious, it allows him to be at last in a state of calmness. For someone who is too excited, it allows him to be able to be concentrated. For someone who like to party, opiates are fun because they disinhibit (like alcohol). in the context of a party, as all people are excited, the felted effect won't be weariness, but fun from disinhibition. For an artist, as it gives a sleep of low quality, it provokes after some times hallucinations (you dream during the day). Thus, it gives them some sort of inspiration. And people like hippies research peace, calm. So the calming effect put them in this (artificial) state of peace and they find that it as a great drug. As they are also often mystics, the hallucinating effect makes them think they have been in contact with spirits, the twilight zone, ghosts, etc... So they think once again opiate-likes are drugs with many qualities.

And as it has effects on health, they also can emphasize on those effects to promote those drugs (mainly marijuana). As we have already seen it, it calms people down. So, advocates of those drugs will say that it has a marvelous effect on anxiety. It has also an effect on diarrhea, on insomnia, on cough, on headaches, on pain, etc.. Thus, with so many good effects, advocates of those drugs will think these are wonderful things. In fact, the positive effects are the ones of opiate-likes used as medical drugs, nothing more.

And as people who promote marijuana are in fact often quite sectarian, they will say that it hasn't any side effect. The myth of the "natural" product makes them also think that. Natural products in the mind of those people can't have any bad side effect.

The fact that they ignore the similarity of opiate-likes drugs makes also them think that. For example, if they have a problem of depression they can stop marijuana for some time, to check if this is the cause of the problem. The problem is, most often they will take then medical drugs which have the same effect than marijuana. So, they will still be depressed. And as they think the medical drug is completely different from marijuana, they will think that their depression is not caused by marijuana, but is a natural state of their mind. And of course, as doctors don't know the similarity of those products, they will think the same thing.

Because of the calming effect, and the research of peace, many hippies will take any criticism about marijuana as a break of the consensus or of the peace state. It will be considered as aggressive. So they won't listen.

People have also often some kind of love relationship with opiates. So, you can't criticize their beloved marijuana (or tobacco, opium when it was trendy -19th century-, poppers, etc...)

This is why they wrongly worship marijuana.

They will also think that the one who criticizes marijuana is in fact fooled by the pharmaceutical industry and thus wrongly believes official lies. In fact, it's true they are more advanced in general than ordinary people about health. But their beliefs and knowledge are still not the right ones.

The truth is marijuana (and other opiate-likes drugs) has known bad side effects. It will cause depression, somnolence, memory loss, fatigue, low blood pressure, dizziness, nausea, most often loss of appetite (when taken often), sometimes hallucinations, teeth problems, etc...

And thus, all this stupid worship of marijuana is complete crap.

As other opiate analogs, effects are weaker and weaker time after time. So, people need to take more and more of it. After some time, as they can't smoke 100 joints per day, they begin to also drink alcohol. They can also begin to take sleeping pills ; anti-psychotic drugs ; painkillers which contains opiates, etc, etc... So, when they are 60 year old, they can take the same amount of opiates than someone who takes heroin.

[NUKELIES]

Because of the calming effect, and the research of peace, many hippies will take any criticism about marijuana as a break of the consensus or of the peace state. It will be considered as aggressive. So they won't listen.

That is so true. That statement defines California - and people close to me who shall remain nameless.

It's enough to make one a cynic.

[FirstClassSkeptic]

* Is it intentional that drug harm figures ignore numbers exposed to risk? - every now and then someone announces that (say) alcohol causes much more damage than (say) marijuana. The fact that use per head of population is hugely greater seems beyond them, despite its obviousness. Is this deliberate deception?

I remember when they used to advertise on television that one in four auto accidents was caused by a drunk driver. I guess someone noticed that that meant that most accidents were caused by a sober driver.

Then they changed the advertising to one half of all auto accidents are alcohol related. I guess that means that if you wreck on the way to the liquor store, that is considered 'alcohol related'.

[voerioc]

When you study opiate-likes, you discover that in fact, there are many plants which have the same effect than Opium poppy. Three days ago, there was an article on Yahoo about dangerous plants. Among them, several have very probably opiate-likes effects. I think it's the case of actae pachypoda (fruit), brugmansia, datura, and aconit. But there must be many more plants which have that kind of effects.

So, we can imagine that the pharmaceutical industry and the (recreational) drug mafia, both Jewish controlled, put the accent on Opium poppy in order to make people think that only this plant is able to cause such effects on the body.

This allows them to justify :

1) High prices of recreational drugs based of Opium poppy. Since White Opium poppy grows only in distant foreign countries, it allows the mafia to say that consumers pay the risk of the long distance transport.

In fact, it is only the version for ordinary people. It would be certainly possible to make it grows in Occidental countries. Then, the new version would be that if it isn't cultivated in Europe or the USA, it is because such cultivations would be very easily visible from the sky (and thus the farmer would be easily arrested). And they can say also that it is more easily cultivated in poor countries, because poor farmers accept to cultivate it to gain some money, and police is easily corrupted. Thus, they could say that the prices are high not really because it is the only plant which has such effects, but because they are obliged to cultivate it in foreign countries, and that in poor ones, it is easier to corrupt farmers and policemen.

But I think presenting Opium poppy as the only plant which has such effects is still necessary for them (or at least useful). Because, if it was known that many other plants have such effects, it would mean that the police wouldn't be able to forbid the cultivation of all those plants. It would then be difficult to prevent people from cultivate them and to use them as recreational drugs. It would be difficult for the mafias to justify the fact that they don't cultivate those other plants directly in Occidental countries. Then it would be difficult for them to justify the high price of those drugs.

We can also think that maybe they could create drugs similar to opium or heroin from drugs which are considered to be less powerful, like marijuana.

2) The control of some poor foreign countries (South America, Central Asia, South Asia). With the war against drugs, making the drug cultivation there allows them to justify political intervention.