On Friday night I spent another corrupting evening in the presence of RealSister, continuing my investigation into brain-cell death and distortion. Also experimenting were DrummerBoy (the boyfriend of RealSister), a schoolfriend of RealSister called Wolfman and Wolfman's sister, whose name I didn't get all evening (or when I did, I promptly forgot it).
Overall, it was quite a success, once everybody had got over the unfortunate mental block of actually eating the foul things. And we convinced RealSister that she was unlikely to believe she was an orange and try and peel herself, or scoop her eyes out with a spoon or think she could fly and jump out of a window, and all the other scare stories from yesteryear.
I guess that the dose was lower than my previous attempt, because I was not quite as monged, although I still had some nice visuals. Generally, it was all a bit of a giggle. Only WolfmanSister and I were seeing lines and colours early on, although the others starting seeing them towards the end of the night. Mostly it was laughing like loons, standing under a tree in tranquility or trying to buy beer with great difficulty. And Wolfman claiming each successive thing we encountered was the Best Thing Ever.
It was, therefore, a little depressing to find out the next day that the government were being busybodies and making the whole thing illegal on the pointless premise that it can induce psychosis. Aside from the fact that it will only induce it in people who already have it, and many other things could trigger it (such as alcohol), it got me thinking about alternatives. If mushrooms are no longer available on street stalls, and are as illegal as LSD, cocaine or ecstasy, then people who want a trip are more likely to try one of those. Notably acid, which is far stronger and far more likely to have adverse psychological results than mushrooms, and can be easily concealed (i.e. it's a small tab of paper, not 15-odd grams of fungus). Of course, it's less likely to attract the casual user, but is it the casual user who is the most likely to have mental problems in the first place? I couldn't tell you for sure, but I'd doubt that a propensity for hard drugs (or, in more extreme cases, addiction) is entirely separate from the likelihood of being unbalanced. And these are the people who are going to be driven to harder drugs.
I still believe that the decriminalisation of all 'recreational' drugs - along with strict controls on quality, access and aftercare - is the most sensible option, but I doubt it'll happen. Not when we have hysterical interest groups, misinformation and little sensible discussion of the issues in an empirical and scientific manner (rather than just scare tactics and fear).
So, before the end of July, I will try and get a big group of people together for a big blowout, possibly an afternoon in the park with an ‘alternative’ picnic.
Monday, June 20, 2005
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1 comment:
You are such a rebel in your free time. Me, I just go home and do some knitting.
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