Opinion

Tune In, Turn On, Opt Out

Any psychonaut who is aware of the anti-democratic practices of Big Data companies (and of what those practices portend for a free society) has to ask themselves the following question: Isn't it time for Americans to "Tune in, turn on, and opt out" (opt out...

Hypocritical America Embraces Drug War Fascism

This morning I searched the vast image catalog of Shutterstock for some photographs that illustrated the general concept of abolishing the drug war. I was sure I'd find something since the site has over a billion images submitted by well over half a million...

What if Arthur Schopenhauer Had Used DMT?

In the "Wisdom of Life," Arthur Schopenhauer sums up an unspoken assumption of Western philosophy when he writes: "Every man is pent up within the limits of his own consciousness and cannot get directly beyond those limits any more than he can get beyond...

Fighting Drug War Tyranny

I have no doubt that the occasional use of criminalized plants, including psychedelics, would improve my life, make me a better person, help me enjoy nature and art, and encourage me to help others. It would also entirely obviate my need to become an...

Put the DEA on Trial

Liberal critics of the drug war keep saying that it’s failed. But this misses the point, because it implies that the drug war was not necessarily a bad idea, but merely one that turned out to be ineffective in combating illegal drug use. To the...

This is your brain on Drug War propaganda

If you want evidence that the American people have been bamboozled by the Drug War, just search the Web for “famous drug users.” Almost all of the “hits” will feature the judgmental term “addiction” (rather than “habituation” or “use”) and almost none of the...

Why American Drug Policy is Insane

First America takes away the citizens’ right to manage their own pain by rendering opium illegal. Then the American psychiatric field decides that it will treat the resultant epidemic of depression by damaging the patient’s brain, i.e. by treating depressed patients using electroshock therapy. Imagine...

Why Hollywood Owes Richard Nixon an Oscar

Hollywood owes Richard Nixon a posthumous Oscar. If the 37th president of the United States had not launched a paramilitary crackdown on the use of naturally-occurring substances in the early ‘70s, we would have no movies like the following: American Gangster, Asian Connection, Bobby Z,...

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