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From: notes@ucbcad.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Re: Controlled Substances (Ron Panki - (nf)
Message-ID: <335@ucbcad.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 2-Oct-83 14:57:09 EDT
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Posted: Sun Oct  2 14:57:09 1983
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#R:tekgds:-144500:ucbesvax:2900023:000:2657
ucbesvax!turner    Oct  2 10:00:00 1983

Charles Perkins neglects to mention that when Christianity came and
"took away all the fun" of religious rituals involving drugs (mostly
hallucinogens), that they really weren't all that much fun--in fact,
that was often the point.  These were rites of passage, and grueling.
Or they were vision quests; you didn't always come back from them with
good news for the people--or even all of your sanity.  Privilege is
hard-earned.

(Peyote on an empty stomach is a pretty racking experience, from what
I've heard.  Ritual consumption of it involves fasting for a few days
in advance.  Personally, I wouldn't much relish debating metaphysics
with a 14-foot tarantula in the desert, given a choice.)

I think it's plain that drug-consumption is still counter-cultural in
this country, not in the Aquarian/love-bead sense, but rather in that
consumption of them is a way of coping with a cultural existence that
is rather barren.  My youngest brother started doing drugs at an age
when I hadn't even heard of them, but I never blamed him: Marin county
must be one of the most boring places in the world to grow up, and
the fact that much of the professional population there deals with
reality on a drugs-soften-the-blows day-to-day basis (including many
parents) is no help at all.

I found it interesting, in Marin, to see how kids used drugs.  There
were a handful of sobering casualties, but, in even in the most re-
creational use, the (usually) inadvertant "rite of passage" happened
with surprising frequency.

Many kids, after a particularly harrowing acid trip, or a taste of
something tainted, would figure that they had learned as much about
themselves from drugs as they were ever going to, and dropped back to
being light (or non-) users.  In a way, however, it was the ONLY rite
of passage they would ever experience.  It's too hard to be recognized
as a grown-up in our society--there is no longer any demarcation of
when you become a man or woman.  I would say that commodity-oriented
societies have dis-incentives for maturity, since an informed, self-
sufficient, mature consumer is just not as likely to throw money
around in search of contentment.  Drugs represent a worst-case of
consumer behavior, with their greater chance of habituation, or of
buying a dangerous (or useless) product.

I'm not about to form Citizens for Responsible Use of Drugs (CRUD?), or
Spaceward Bound, but I do believe that some drugs could have a place
in a healthy society.  But ours is not healthy, and having "drug bars",
or legitimizing cocaine, is just not going to help.

    One of the Those Kids, But Still Alright,
	Michael Turner (ucbvax!ucbesvax.turner)