The Ceasefire: War On Drugs
"Suddenly someone is there at the turnstile The girl with the kaleidoscope eyes"
“America's public enemy No. 1 in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.” -Richard Nixon 1971
What do you think about the psychedelic renaissance or as some now call it a revival?
Do you know what is going on? Do you get the newsfeed that I get?
Sometimes the straightest-looking people I meet bring this topic up with me out of the blue.
After the War on Drugs shut down any research and development using psychoactive ingredients, it seemed like what is happening now would not happen in my lifetime.
But now, the usage of THC and CBD is on the rise for pain, sleep, and mental health conditions. Of course, it is still used for recreation. I find it a good source to amplify fun especially when I see live music. The journey I have had with marijuana has been with me for decades and I respect it and enjoy it when the moment is right.
If I do not have a prescription though, I can still be hassled by the police here in Australia. Unless I am in Canberra, our capital, where I can grow my own. Nowhere else in this sunburnt country can you do that.
Go figure.
Getting a prescription is as almost as easy as it is to breathe. We are headed in the correct direction. You can get one from any doctor.
The weed is pricey though. It’s a weed, let us grow it.
My most recent foray to the United States showed me that marijuana is as common as a Budweiser beer. The states like California and Colorado and Massachusetts that I visited had dispensaries with budtenders giving you advice on strains, strength and what can help you with your sleep, creativity, energy levels and even for pain relief.
It is a weed that can do so many things for so many people.
Even in the states where marijuana was illegal, everywhere I went the smell was present. It was not uncommon for someone to offer you a gummy.
Having been raised in a time when Nelson Rockefeller was the Governor of New York State, my birthplace, it was like entering a work of fiction.
We feared the police if we were holding. The amount did not matter.
In 1973, Rockefeller was agitated and alarmed at the soaring use of heroin in New York State and passed laws that led to a huge leap in the incarceration of individuals who were in possession of any illegal drug.
Under the Rockefeller drug laws, the penalty for selling two ounces (57 g) or more of heroin, morphine, "raw or prepared opium", cocaine, or cannabis or possessing four ounces (113 g) or more of the same substances, was a minimum of 15 years to life in prison, and a maximum of 25 years to life in prison.
Look at those minimum times in prison.
Rockefeller used to think and act on drugs as if they were a social problem. Something shifted during the Nixon years, maybe even before that.
Nixon did not like the hippies and he was a racist. Fact.
John Ehrlichman was a political aide for Nixon, and he went down and served some time in prison himself for his engagement in Watergate. You know Watergate, don’t ya? If not, you will have to do your own research. Ehrlichman had this to say:
“You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did.”
— Dan Baum, Legalize It All: How to win the war on drugs, Harper's Magazine (April 2016)
As you can imagine, this resulted in a huge increase in incarcerations of so-called ‘radicals’ and minorities. This was also the germination of the billion-dollar prison industry in the land of the red, white, and blue. We could even go further and say this so-called war on drugs helped divide the country even more than the Vietnam War.
The war ended.
But not the war on drugs.
But now we are seeing a seismic change over the last ¼ century. California legalized medicinal weed in 1996 and now 23 US States have legalized recreational use and 40 States have legalized the medical usage of reefer.
Definitely not madness.
Even Joe Biden, who voted to pass some of those draconian drug laws, understands the need for change.
In 2022, Biden pardoned thousands of individuals who had been charged in federal courts for possession. If you were selling, well you will have to wait for some more deep-rooted changes. There are no people in federal prison in the US on marijuana possession charges. These pardons are not about getting them out of jail, this is to allow them to live a life without a felony conviction.
Unfortunately, there are thousands of people in State and County Jails for possession. They will linger longer. It is a huge ball of string to unravel.
America leads the world with imprisonment. Over 2.3 million Americans are behind bars.
America does need to decriminalize marijuana. That would be a start if they could do it nationwide.
But that is up to Congress. That’s another story.
Getting back to the psychedelic renaissance, how do you feel about it? Does it bring you fear? Or hope for people who need help that may benefit from these plants and potions?
I am going to write more about this as time passes. Revealing my journey and the journey of people I have passed time with or met or read about.
Simply, before I leave you now, my journey was influenced by being 12 years old in 1969 and watching the counterculture, reading books by people much smarter than me, and hearing stories that piqued my interest. Yeah, I aligned myself with the hippies and the seekers.
The doors of perception were thresholds I wanted to cross.
“To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours, the outer and inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with survival or to a human being obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended directly and unconditionally by Mind at Large—this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone and especially to the intellectual.”-Aldous Huxley
I am still here. I am still alive. My experiences have helped define who I am. I have no regrets about anyone of my journeys.
As we enter a period of rapid social and environmental change, we need substances to shake people up. Let’s use it, that term that has become a trigger for the right-wing loonies, to wake people up.
These alkaloids are not panaceas. They are tools. They are medicine.
My story will come along as time permits. You can follow along when you get an email or just go to my website (www.outsidemyinside.com) periodically and check-in when you want! Please subscribe to my Substack if you enjoy.
The intention of writing about these topics and my experiences is to humanize them and simply I am very interested in where this trip will take all of us.
You don’t have to light up or swallow a sugar cube or drink ayahuasca, but you should know the spiritual, medicinal, and psychological benefits as most of these items are going to be accessible via prescription.
Or as per usual, until society catches up, from the underground.
Big Pharma wants in and is already in, so you know it is a fait accompli. They already make 13.4 billion a year on anti-depressants. We know these have become overprescribed and over-advertised in America and around the world.
Maybe Big Pharma should not be allowed to get involved, but of course, capitalism will have its way.
Next time I will tell you about how I came to my first experience and how I knew nothing about one of the key rules of psychedelics. Fortunately, I am here to tell the tale.
Meanwhile, enjoy some music which is a good way to commence any travel.
Within or Without. Outside My Inside.
