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Psilocybin Cancer Research Study Seeking Participants
A study being conducted by Dr. Charles S. Grob at Harbor-UCLA in Torrance, California, is recruiting stage IV cancer patients with anxiety to participate in an FDA approved study with psilocybin. Visit www.canceranxietystudy.org for further information, or contact the study coordinator, at marycie@canceranxietystudy.org or (310) 222-3175.

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posted by LoZo 11:50 AM

 

Psychedelic pioneer Humphry Osmond moves on
Dr Humphry Osmond, the psychiatrist who has died aged 86, coined the term "psychedelic" to describe the mind-altering substances LSD and mescalin, and introduced Aldous Huxley to these drugs; in 1953 he administered 400 mg of mescalin to Huxley, an episode described in the novelist's cult book The Doors of Perception (1954). . . . Osmond had become interested in d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) after reading the Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman's description of the psychological and behavioural effects of the drug. Having noticed that LSD seemed to mimic the symptoms of early schizophrenia, Osmond had been investigating its use in the treatment of mental illness and alchoholism. . . . In 1952 he shocked the medical world by drawing attention to the structural similarity between mescalin and adrenaline molecules, implying that schizophrenia might be a form of self-intoxication caused by the body mistakenly producing its own hallucinogenic compounds. He suggested, moreover, that mescalin enabled a normal person to see the world through the eyes of a schizophrenic and should be used as a training tool for members of the medical profession. . . . When Huxley - whose novel Brave New World (1931) described a totalitarian society in which the population is controlled by drugs - read Osmond's report, he decided to offer himself as a guinea pig. At first Osmond was apprehensive; he did not, he later wrote, "relish the possibility, however remote, of finding a small but discreditable niche in literary history as the man who drove Aldous Huxley mad". He was relieved, therefore, when, as the drug took effect, Huxley exclaimed: "How absolutely incredible!" . . . It took Huxley 70 pages to relate, in The Doors of Perception, what happened on that first "trip". An hour and a half into the experience he described staring at a bunch of flowers: "I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his creation - the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence." In fact, far from undergoing "imitation psychosis", Huxley had a mystical experience, and predicted that a religious revival would come about "as the result of biochemical discoveries that will make it possible for large numbers of men and women to achieve a radical self-transcendence and a deeper understanding of the nature of things". . . . Osmond and Huxley remained close friends after their experiment and corresponded for many years. During their search for a name to describe the hallucinogenic drugs, Huxley proposed the word "phanerothyme", derived from roots relating to "spirit" or "soul". He wrote to Osmond, "To make this trivial world sublime/Take half a gramme of phanerothyme." Osmond replied: "To fathom hell or soar angelic/Just take a pinch of psychedelic." . . . Psychedelic, from the Greek for mind ("psyche") and the verb "delein" (to manifest), means "mind-manifesting". In 1957 Osmond addressed a meeting of the New York Adademy of Sciences using the term. Hallucinogenic drugs, he argued, did much more than mimic psychosis, and thus needed a name that included the "concepts of enriching the mind and enlarging the vision". . . . During the 1950s and 1960s, psychedelics were used, with some success, in the treatment of a variety of psychiatric disorders. But after their use (and abuse) by the hippy generation, they were officially prohibited in 1966, and by 1970 had been classified as illegal. . . . For Osmond - who, far from being a hippy, was a respectable research scientist - the need to protect society had the effect of limiting progress. "I believe," he wrote, "that psychedelics provide a chance, perhaps only a slender one, for homo faber, the cunning, ruthless, foolhardy, pleasure-greedy toolmaker, to merge into that other creature whose presence we have so rashly presumed, homo sapiens, the wise, the understanding, the compassionate, in whose fourfold vision art, politics, science and religion are one." . . . "My experiences with these substances," he added, "have been the most strange, most awesome, and among the most beautiful things in a varied and fortunate life."

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posted by LoZo 1:37 PM

 

Ann Shulgin talks about drugs and the dark side
I've felt for some time that there is a deeply unconscious motive for making these drugs illegal. And that is that the people who make laws tend as a rule to be certain kinds of people who do not value insight, they tend to be more extroverted than others, more action-oriented. Who are, and have been since childhood uncomfortable with the idea of exploring their own minds at any level, and the reason for this is that unconsciously, along with a good part of the human race, they have a terrible fear that what is at the bottom of themselves, the core self that they might encounter if they went too deeply is a monster. Jung has called this 'the shadow'. It's called the dark side and we all have it.

The people who dare to explore themselves, sooner or later are going to come across that aspect of themselves because we use it all the time - it's a necessary component of our psyches. But the more unconscious you are of those darker elements, those more aggressive aspects of yourself, the more power they have, because they are unconscious and they work unconsciously.

I think that the law makers tend to be people who are deeply afraid of themselves and who project that fear and the cause of that fear onto everyone else. They fear very deeply that if they were to take a psychedelic drug that they would lose control completely and become an axe murderer or an out-of-control something or other. Not having done the work on their dark side - the spiritual progress one has to try to make - and they project that onto everyone else. I think that's what's basically at the bottom of prohibition.

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posted by LoZo 2:21 PM

 

Peter Russell's Thoughts About Drugs
I don't think there's any point at all to tell people not to take drugs, in our society, drugs are freely available to anyone who wants to take them. In a way they always have been in all societies. I think its about exploring drugs carefully, sensibly, knowing what you're taking. The thing that everybody has always said is that set and setting is very important. Certain drugs that you take and go partying, that to me is drug abuse, but if someone is taking them in a situation where it's for their own inner growth, perhaps taking it in some sort of spiritual setting... in fact drugs is the wrong word, its more chemical sacrements which have played a part in all cultures, they have a role to play in our culture.

At the moment we just lump everything together as 'Drugs are bad'. But if you look at some of the great creative people in our society, they're people who've often played around with substances. Coleridge, and people like that are classic examples. Pythagoras explored a lot of psychedelics. Our society doesn't like us to know this about some of our heroes.

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posted by LoZo 2:06 PM

 

In 2000, the War on Drugs cost American Taxpayers $40 BILLION
See this powerful flash animation piece by Eric Blumrich about the effects of the Drug War and what a Kucinich Administration would do differently

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posted by LoZo 10:37 AM

 

Psychotechnologies (Philosophical Tools)
It is impossible to overestimate the historic role of psychedelics as an entry point drawing people into other transformative technologies. For tens of thousands of “left-brained” engineers, chemists, psychologists, and medical students who never before understood their more spontaneous, imaginative right-brained brethren, the drugs were a pass to Xanadu, especially in the 1960s.

The changes in brain chemistry triggered by psychedelics cause the familiar world to metamorphose. It gives way to rapid imagery, unaccustomed depths of visual perception and hearing, a flood of “new” knowledge that seems at once very old, a poignant primal memory. Unlike the mental states produced by dreaming or drinking, psychedelic awareness is not fuzzy buy many times more intense than normal waking consciousness. Only through this intensely altered state did some become fully aware of the role of consciousness in creating their everyday reality.

Those who ingested psychedelics soon found that the historic accounts closest to their own experiences derived either from mystical literature or from the wonderland of theoretical physics -- complementary views of “the all and the void,” the very real dimension that cannot be measured in miles or minutes.
-- Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy

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posted by LoZo 9:05 PM

 

Bush Administration Proposes FEC and IRS Rules in Attack on Free Speech
(Drug Policy Alliance, February 5, 2004)
Two Bush administration agencies are considering new rules that could prevent the Drug Policy Alliance and other advocacy groups from communicating with their supporters about the political actions of federal officials who are up for re-election. These proposals represent one of the worst assaults on the freedom of speech and association ever proposed in the United States. . . . The Federal Elections Commission (FEC) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) proposals would serve to provide those Members of Congress running for re-election with a green light to introduce and pass harmful drug policies right before election day. The proposals would restrict the Alliance's ability to run advertisements in a newspaper or send out emails alerting you to the actions of Congress. The proposed rulings are vague in that they do not clearly state exactly which communications would be prohibited. This would allow the federal government to selectively enforce the rule in order to clamp down on any speech or advertising it doesn’t agree with. . . . Even though the Drug Policy Alliance does not endorse or oppose specific candidates for public office, the proposed IRS and FEC actions would hamper our efforts to contact fellow reformers about drug war laws pushed through Congress by officials up for election or about the drug policy stances of candidates. The proposals would permit any member of Congress to push their legislation into law without hearing the voice of the American people. . . . An essential part of the Alliance’s work is to keep fellow reformers informed about the actions and votes of elected officials. The FEC and IRS proposals would severely limit our ability to do this. If these proposals are adopted, we and other nonprofit advocacy groups may no longer be able to contact our supporters. . . . The Alliance is formulating a response to the proposals. Check back at the Alliance website to see how you can help us put a stop to these controversial Bush administration proposals that would severely hamper our ability to communicate urgent drug policy reform messages to you in the future.

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posted by LoZo 3:56 PM

 

The importance of expanded awareness
Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, while all about it, parted from it by the flimsiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence, but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness. . . . No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded.
-- William James, the great Harvard psychologist

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 2:15 PM