Serviceable Narcotics - Drugs that Heal

I think people in our society have the wrong idea about how to best use drugs, not just the people that don't do them, but the people that use them as well. Most of the people I talk to who have done mushrooms and feel they're at a stage where they can give advice seem to think people should use them to trip out and party. I used them (as well as many other hallucinogens) for this purpose originally, but it became all too clear to me that this was a tragic misuse of a powerful medicine.

To me they seem to be about removing barriers and illusions. I recall a particular mushroom experience where I was at a party with a bunch of other people on mushrooms and while they were just enjoying the tripped out feeling, I could only wonder why we felt the need to escape the world by drowning ourselves in toxins. I was thinking about alcohol, at the time, not mushrooms. Mushrooms are not in the same vane to me. They do not help one escape reality, they help one face reality. I would say the same thing about LSD and even DMT to a far greater respect. DMT does not fill your head with illusion unrelated to reality. To me, it reveals the true nature of reality. Since I chose to use drugs as a learning and healing experience rather than a party crutch, I have discovered the therapeutic value is enormous. In fact I think hallucinogens are a key element missing from modern psychotherapy, tragically replaced by anti-depressants which do not aid one on their journey to face and absolve their burdens, but rather enable one to get through the day while numbing them to the edge of life. I refer to the edge people regard when they use the phrase "...take the edge off." I refer to the edge Nietzsche referred to when he explained that pain enables growth and deepens the mind. I am basically advocating drugs which enable you to face your shadow rather than nullify your awareness of it.

Consciousness itself is the greatest healer. Being aware of inner pain without attempting to control is all one need to do to change and alleviate it. This is why good psychologists do not give advice so much as just ask purposeful questions and provide a compassionate ear. It is also why drugs which expand your consciousness serve such powerful therapeutic value. They are the key to undoing the conditioning exemplified by the experiment where if you give a dog a shock collar for a month and then turn the electric fence off, the dog won't bother trying to go leave the yard anymore. The danger no longer exists but the conditioning remains. This useless accumulation of conditioning requires careful attention to alleviate, and much of this conditioning is not only useless but also painful to deal with, such as PTSD, addiction and OCD.

If you didn't catch it, yes I am recommending drugs as a means to alleviate addiction, and other psychological problems. But not by themselves, not for the untrained. Combined with a guide, guru, shaman or therapist, a synergistic effect occurs where one may grow profoundly faster than solely with one or the other. And of course different drugs are also more important for different people. I recommend DMT to everyone, period, but I would not say the same thing about LSD, Mushrooms or Ketamine. Studies are coming out showing dissociatives like Ketamine are actually dramatically more potent at alleviating depression than SSRIs, but that doesn't mean everyone going through a moodswing should rush off to find some Ketamine, just like how not everyone dealing with dysthemia et al should get on SSRIs, or that getting anxious because your forced into a desk 6 hours a day means you should get on Adderall. There's a time and a place for everything, and different people have different needs. I am serious about the DMT though.

there are many greats tools that enhance the mind's perspective, but they can destroy you all the same. you raise a good question though; who should decide what drugs are okay and appropriate for medicinal/psychological benefit-- the masses, or trained, educated, and especially open-minded individuals, and to what degree should they be controlled?

I am instinctively opposed to control. I believe we try too hard to control what is not actually controllable. For instance I think the government's dependence on prohibition of drugs has led to greater disrespect for the law at large. I think if law enforcement and prisons didn't focus so much on victimless crimes, people would be more inclined to obey the law in general. Because the law doesn't make sense and doesn't appear just, people are more likely to disregard it.

And furthermore I think control is inherently an illusion, and Portugal is a good example, drug use does not increase just because the law stops trying to control it because there are natural controls in place. A herd of cattle doesn't rush off a cliff just because there's no fence there, and likewise people are not inclined to ruin themselves the moment they lose their baby-sitter. A percentage will, obviously, just as a percentage of people are born without the ability to reproduce and other dysfunctional mutations. We can help them the best we can but at the end of the day it is a waste of energy to control them. That may appear callous but in truth I think it's kinder to save 99 people successfully rather than fail to save 100. We've got to keep our eyes on the prize and enable society to evolve in a healthy manner rather than trying to make it so idiot proof that being intelligent and forward thinking no longer serves one's ability to compete. We could actually be helping millions if not billions of people by using drugs medicinally and therapeutically and opening our doors to greater experimentation, but because some douche decided certain drugs were dangerous to a certain minority likely to misuse them, they have to shut out everybody from the potential they offer.

I agree with your basic points Omnis, especially "I think if law enforcement and prisons didn't focus so much on victimless crimes, people would be more inclined to obey the law in general."

However, if there was a way to make these solid points without referencing, or more specifically, condoning psychedelic drugs, it would be more congruent with the standards of this forum.

That said, I fully support your guidance with respect to suggesting that each and everyone seek out the advice of his or her therapist before attempting any substance, illegal or not.

I don't believe it is fair to humanity to prohibit the advocacy of illegal activity based purely on the fact that it is illegal. I believe it is a terrible disservice to humanity to condemn anything due its position from a legal standpoint without fully considering its consequences. Perhaps willfully explaining how to find or create drugs should not be tolerated because of the threat it causes to the forum, but open discussions about drugs such as the Trip Reports thread deserve their place, especially in a forum dedicated to a type of consciousness shift. Drugs and dreams belong in the same astrological influence, which may mean little to you but you still have to face the fact that people on this forum are going to be interested in psychedelics and we are not going to stop this motivation by banning discussions on drugs. The best we can do is attempt to provide impartial guidance to aid them in making the best decision.

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Originally Posted by OpheliaBlue

That said, I fully support your guidance with respect to suggesting that each and everyone seek out the advice of his or her therapist before attempting any substance, illegal or not.

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Totally, but even "doctors" disagree sometimes. :cheeky:

I also wouldn't start and stop my therapy with a clinical psychologist or any therapist/healer with a background in modern medicine and psychology. I think reducing one's therapeutic needs to "trained doctors" disables a vast array of help available. I hold a guru or shaman, certified by an ancient lineage, of equal value to a psychologist.

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Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

I also wouldn't start and stop my therapy with a clinical psychologist or any therapist/healer with a background in modern medicine and psychology. I think reducing one's therapeutic needs to "trained doctors" disables a vast array of help available. I hold a guru or shaman, certified by an ancient lineage, of equal value to a psychologist.

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Dang, one could say you have tremendous faith.

Respect and Humility*

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Originally Posted by OpheliaBlue

That said, I fully support your guidance with respect to suggesting that each and everyone seek out the advice of his or her therapist before attempting any substance, illegal or not.

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Not all of us *have* a therapist.
But I could probably use one. Hell I don't even have a shaman.

I've seen an interview with a doctor who administered Iboga to treat addiction, and she said that she doesn't think that anyone should ever use psychadelics except under the direction of a doctor. With all due respect, it seems to me that the DIY element has made lightyears more progress than the above-ground medical program.

I think that using a guide and a drug together has a synergistic effect, but that's not to say that they can't each be beneficial on their own. If I had a guide when I first got into psychedelics, I would have saved years of fucking around trying to trip. Now that I am involved in a practice, my experimentation with psychedelics have become much more useful to my own growth and healing. My guru actually prohibits psychedelics from his students because one of them did mushrooms and got arrested, but I think this is just so he doesn't become culpable and gain the status of some freaky cult leader. I have enough experience with them that I gain the synergistic value, and it's difficult to tell when someone has the right attitude to gain this benefit, and where someone is going to freak out, panic and become unpredictable.

Before I had a guru and a sangha I had some really good books and reading a good book before embarking on a trip can have a similar synergistic effect.

I do believe everyone should trip at some point, though, and I think it should be considered a type of baptism or indoctrination into adulthood. I think just because a minority of people have had bad and over sensationalized experiences with drugs doesn't mean we should embrace the nanny state. But I think this baptism would be unsuccessful if someone doesn't know what they're getting into, and it seems like many people experiment with psychedelics for the wrong reasons. For instance people into LDing are obviously into hallucinating and experiencing things outside normal reality, and they may try to achieve the same interest with drugs, perhaps to bypass the practice required to LD. Psychedelics are not meant for this pursuit. They are not meant to help you see weird shit, they are meant to help you see.

I should have put more emphasis on the second paragraph of my post!

Just seeing where this thread goes, that's all.

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Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

I think that using a guide and a drug together has a synergistic effect, but that's not to say that they can't each be beneficial on their own. If I had a guide when I first got into psychedelics, I would have saved years of fucking around trying to trip. Now that I am involved in a practice, my experimentation with psychedelics have become much more useful to my own growth and healing. My guru actually prohibits psychedelics from his students because one of them did mushrooms and got arrested, but I think this is just so he doesn't become culpable and gain the status of some freaky cult leader. I have enough experience with them that I gain the synergistic value, and it's difficult to tell when someone has the right attitude to gain this benefit, and where someone is going to freak out, panic and become unpredictable.

Before I had a guru and a sangha I had some really good books and reading a good book before embarking on a trip can have a similar synergistic effect.

I do believe everyone should trip at some point, though, and I think it should be considered a type of baptism or indoctrination into adulthood. I think just because a minority of people have had bad and over sensationalized experiences with drugs doesn't mean we should embrace the nanny state. But I think this baptism would be unsuccessful if someone doesn't know what they're getting into, and it seems like many people experiment with psychedelics for the wrong reasons. For instance people into LDing are obviously into hallucinating and experiencing things outside normal reality, and they may try to achieve the same interest with drugs, perhaps to bypass the practice required to LD. Psychedelics are not meant for this pursuit. They are not meant to help you see weird shit, they are meant to help you see.

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I think we have to be careful how we approach drugs and the discussion of their place in our lives, particularly on this forum. I recognize that there are some very young people here and we wouldn't want them to consider the use of hallucinogenic drugs simply to achieve some dream-state they heard about second-hand. Additionally, we don't want to advocate the use of substances because we have had good experiences with them ourselves.

That said, I agree with most of your points, particularly for society at large, though I wouldn't want to see drugs made readily available.

I too have experience with various products, and I personally handled them well, but I got to see directly what happens when a trip goes bad when my friend lost his grip on reality. It really only takes one bad time, and I feel glad that he survived the experience. Still, it could have gone way worse. He, too, was quite experienced with the drug he was using, and every previous time went very well.

It just takes one bad time.

It doesn't matter who your guru, shaman, spiritual advisor or therapist is or what their experiences were like. They can never predict what will happen to YOU when you take the same substances in the same quantities.

For that reason I wouldn't ever recommend trying out a substance (particularly strong psychedelics and hallucinogens) until a person is of an age where they can fully understand all the possible outcomes and what they could mean for the long-term. I do realize you stated virtually the same opinion in your above post.

It's okay to say that we should be happy keeping the 99 out of 100 strong but if that one person happened to be your kid or your sibling it might not be so easy to dismiss them as the price of advanced thinking.

I remember when you recently made a post saying you didn't think a thread like this could exist for long. So far it seems like a healthy discussion has emerged, though I still wouldn't want anyone young to ever decide to experiment based on our rationale and this hypothetical discussion.

Thank you melanie, well said.

And in case I failed to stress this in my previous posts, please NO condoning the use of illegal substances on this forum. Most especially, references on how to obtain said drugs.

It's also necessary to consider that the word drugs is a very large umbrella. I wasn't kidding when I condoned DMT. Just because it's illegal doesn't mean squat to me. I wouldn't only condone it but recommend it and make it readily available. I wouldn't do the same with mushrooms, mescaline or LSD because they're not the same thing, even if they're all considered "drugs." Like I said before, it may appear callous to recommend that no drug (or victimless action) be prohibited because I'm saying let the 1/100 go kill/ruin themselves. But that's not my attitude. I believe the truly callous attitude is to prohibit people from using medicine who could really benefit from it because 1/100 would misuse it. For example the effects of Ketamine to combat depression have been substantially demonstrated, and I think it's a crime to prohibit people dealing with severe depression to use Ketamine simply because not everyone can handle their dissociatives.

Furthermore I think the legal status of drugs is partially culpable for so many people misusing them. If their quality were held to a certain standard you could trust you were getting what you were paying for, if their sources were legitimized distributors one wouldn't need involve themselves in clandestine markets and open themselves up to risk (and the drug would no longer be a "gateway drug."), and finally if certain drugs were free of social stigma and coincided with spiritual initiation people wouldn't approach them with a party attitude and instead could approach them as medicines and teachings. Ayahuasa actually translates to Teacher Plant.