Red wine - poison? hmm....my grandmother became an alcoholic at 80, on red wine. and still going strong at the nursery at 95. I know it's not a sample with one person. But who knows, what we do know is that she drank a whole lot of red wine.
Alcohol in moderate doses, a few drinks a week, has been shown (suggested) to increase lifespan by a few years as well as protect against specific ailments, particularly coronary heart disease. The non drinkers tended to die earlier than moderate drinkers but the heavy drinkers had the same death rate as the non drinkers, in essence. Tobacco appeared to cancel any beneficial affects. Obviously those studies have been criticized for a variety of reasons
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2194048
http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh25-4/255-261.htm
Still, consumers of alcohol do experience a range of adverse ailments - blackouts, memory impairment, cancer. I think cancer is the leading cause of death for them. Drinkers still have a greater chance of developing cancer than the general population though.
I don't drink myself.
Alcohol tends to make me less luminous and lucid...unless I am with the right people. I would really like to try some psychedelics, though.
Depends on which ones. As far as "drugs" go it might be better to say don't smoke too much, rather than don't do them. Some dope is so good you shouldn't even try it once, however. Obviously you should stay away from meth, crack, and pcp; etc. *
The thing to know is people believe drugs (or psychedelics) allow one to gain a glimpse of a further spectrum of consciousness. This conflicts with certain teachings mystics preach, in which these substances merely distract one from consciousness, or reality. So once you have a taste it will probably never be the same... For better or worse?
On the other hand substances are implicated with increasing empathy and overall human bonding. They are all banned because they have no purported medical value
Being practical, it is hard to say whether some of these can help or not. Taking it too serious you may wander down the rabbit hole. Take PKD for example. Correct me if I’m wrong but a lot of his work seems to be anti-drug, considering he was a former drug abuser (mainly stimulants, it seems, plus a little experimentation with psychedelics). He would say that drugs fry the brain rather than allow access to hidden or distorted realities.
So go ahead and ask if all “drugs” fall under that same category. Maybe. The “correct” way to take a psychedelic is to meditate on it and figure out what may be wrong in your life. Some people manage to just have fun with them though, in a cool, hip manner. In a way this type of behavior makes the scene look immature similar to how recent medical marijuana facilities prefer to say ‘get medicated’ rather than ‘get stoned’.
So while they fall under the category of “psychotomimetic”, or psychedelic, many of these substances were tried and evaluated to see if they can offer anything other than interesting visual distortions. That is why they have been implicated in providing therapy, and there are indeed many recorded cases of people healing or becoming arguably improved individuals after a few LSD sessions in a professional environment with a therapist. It should be noted that while some have similar structure they probably don’t inherently possess “therapeutic” qualities… Most of them act on serotonin receptors.
Acid was first discovered in Switzerland, so the story goes (1938). The same guy later went on to isolate the active ingredient in the mushrooms. He was, apparently, fairly intelligent, died at 102, and was a proponent of acid, having used it on a few occasions. Maybe the drugs made him stupid somehow? Look up some of his quotes for more info.
Regardless, the CIA found out about it and began distributing it on the streets, via agents disguised as hippies and normal civilians. They were interested in mind controlling substances. Before, they were using pot as a truth serum (and referred to it as ‘sugar’) and to interrogate people. They needed something stronger and acid seemed to fir the bill. Even after experimenting with it for a number of years they still went on to use even stronger, non-psychedelic substances. Surprisingly, many people of the era became proponents of it and claimed it was the answer to humanity’s salvation - although it was sort of odd that the CIA initially used it for apparently aversive purposes.
Acid is still fairly popular but currently I’m under the opinion to stay away from it. At least do mushrooms, but not too many so as to get fried.
Marijuana is merely a mild psychedelic and is atypical since the active ingredients aren’t even alkaloids. It is more of an enhancer. You can smoke it to enhance your acid trips or to kick your mushroom trip up a notch, maybe even to boost your nutmeg intensification quicker and of course to intensify your alcohol or beer. Smoking it straight provides trips of its own but the novelty can quickly wear off as tolerance develops. It induces transient psychoses. It provides synesthesia for a short time but after that it just gives you a few ideas to possibly toy with later. It is easy to abuse… But of course it is more looked at as a medicine, providing pain relief to many people who have no other substance to turn to.
Keep in mind that in a totally different ideology the aboriginal peoples used and smoked these substances for ceremonious and religious purposes. Of course in modern societies these are quickly rendered bogus. However, back then, the indigenous peoples were basically using these tryptamines for therapeutic reasons. It even became a tourist attraction for westerners. The intense visions received aren’t so much important as any insights or feelings glimpsed, apparently. They don’t care so much about the visions, as long as your drug addiction can be cured via the tryptamine tea.
If you were to dabble with these it would be smarter to start mild then move up. Say, try some pot, get the basic idea, then move on to something more interesting. Of course, I refer to DMT. Maybe smoke salvia initially too but in my experience salvia has the peculiar quality of making you want to quit smoking.
There is literally nothing like DMT. Well, perhaps besides psilocybin mushrooms which have active ingredients similar to it but that is beside the point. As previously mentioned in the old world it was used in therapy but today it is used to go to hyperspace. Right now no one really knows what hyperspace is for, or what exactly resides there. The closest thing to it is dreaming & lucid dreaming. But even that has a tendency to pale in comparison since they can be difficult to recall (once metabolized hyperspace can be difficult to recall as well). To make matters worse when you smoke DMT it constricts your body making it hard to move, essentially forcing you to lay down in sleeping position, as if you actually were dreaming. However, it may be too intense for some people so you must start with something mild, such as pot first. Pot, really, is nothing. It is negligible. And DMT is illegal even though it is produced in the human and animal body.
Perhaps the general sober human brain is the way it is for a reason. Should it not be tampered with. Drink some caffeine and get a little boost. The idea is occasional alteration could yield valuable insight. Of course, you can just have deep conversation with someone and perhaps get the same general thing. We’ve been over this a thousand times. Perhaps not everyone need to smoke it. Not considering bad/paranoid trips we have all heard the joke that the world would be more peaceful if everyone were stoned. Just don’t get fried. Still go to work the next day. The war on drugs is a sham designed to slowly peel rights away. 9/11 2001. I’m done. This probably would have been better if I typed it out when I first had the idea. All these things do is heighten your appreciation of life. Oddly enough. Perhaps check this book out for starters:
The Psychedelic Future of the Mind: How Entheogens Are Enhancing Cognition, Boosting Intelligence, and Raising Values: Thomas B. Roberts Ph.D.: 9781594774591: Amazon.com: Books@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41xaikdYeuL.@@AMEPARAM@@41xaikdYeuL
however, if you can get a certain type of seed (which eludes me at the moment) then you can synthesize LSD in a laboratory setting.
