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| Into Intoxication |
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Posted by FoM on July 17, 2001 at 07:45:46 PT By Stephane Beauroy, National Post Source: National Post 
'For a moment nothing happens, and then you feel this great wave of massive, totally unhandleable energy rolling through you ... and you know you won't ever do this again. Then you let out your breath and you feel so beautiful." It sounds exhilarating, like bungee jumping, but it is actually an account of a crack cocaine rush, as reported to British journalist Stuart Walton.For Walton, intoxication is a psychological drive, a core element of humanity. He believes it enhances the risky business of living more often than it does damage. Snipped Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #3 posted by bcg on July 17, 2001 at 09:12:45 PT |
| "Refined into cocaine, coca is expensive, and using it once creates a craving for more" This B.S. is still around? I thought this reagan era coca-madness had largely been buried. The same is true of caffeine in some people. Granted cocaine is a powerful reinforcer, but not everyone who uses it wants wants to try it again. Also, I would like to see what this author says about alcohol or benzodiazepines and "social interaction" - I didn't see any listed that stimulated this COMLPETELY objective measure. And, as the author suggests there are some, I wonder if alcohol and benzodiazepines are the ones that do. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by Doug on July 17, 2001 at 08:53:17 PT |
| Another book in the same vein that I'd recommend is Intoxication by Ronald Siegel, now out of print. Both these books put forth the notion that intoxication is a natural state, and we ignore it at our peril. Siegel delivers cases of various animals (robins, elephants, etc.) getting intoxicated, and of course it has been done for millenia. The problem currently is that this natural need, perhaps more necessary now that we are so alienated from the earth and our souls, is visciously repressed; as a result this need for intoxication comes out in all kinds of undesirable, dangereous, and conterproductive ways -- witness the posting on the use of yaba in Thailand. Siegel suggests that the need for intoxication is so paramount that we need a new drug with certain qualities and lack of danger. Upon reading this, I realized, though Siegal didn't, that we already have such a drug, and it's called cannabis. You won't find anything safer or more versatile. But because of cultural conditioning, such as pointed on by Kapt in the first post, people refuse to recognize this fact and still buy into the official propoganda on marijuana. [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on July 17, 2001 at 08:25:30 PT:
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| Isn't it funny how many journalists can get on a hot streak, tell the truth for a large part of their articles...and then something comes along and they print nonsense and fall flat on their faces? " But Walton says, "Far from calling forth the kind of restlessly questioning intelligence that caffeine did in the 17th century, cannabis seems instead to pour a honeyed salve over one's dissatisfactions, smoothing down ruffled feathers to make it all seem bearable again." Under its effects, a person can have "little meaningful communication." Uh, excuse me, sir...but you're full of it. As always, it depends upon what is being communicated. And who is doing the communicating. Dumb ol' Forrest Gump on cannabis would still be dumb ol' Forrest Gump. (Oops, this guy's British; okay, Gumby from Monty Python on cannabis would still be Gumby.) Obviously, the same could be said for some of cannabis's more gifted habitues: scintillatingly brilliant Carl Sagan on cannabis was still the scintillatingly brilliant Carl Sagan. And as was revealled a few years ago, ol' Carl credited his cannabis usage with some of the great theories of modern astrophysics. Theories that have yet to be disproven. So, chillun', it's not just what you say, but how you say it. and judging just from wht I read here, we've little to worry about. Wish I could say the same for the sloppy, violent, loud, profane, vomiting, staggering drunks whose company I've had to suffer. All you need do to convince yourself of the fact that alcohol destroys brain cells is listen to them speak. The truth of this rolls off their tongues with disgusting ease. [ Post Comment ] |
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