I don't think the ability to learn from modified states of consciousness is a phenomenon limited to any class of people as I have observed it in many classes and cultures to which I have had exposure, though it probably is true that the middle and upper classes are better able to express what they have learned from this type of thing, better able to protect themselves from insecure and envious DARE-like "mind cops" and less likely to get into trouble with addictions or the law because of the socio-economic advantages they do enjoy (and that is just the definition of being in such a socio-economic class rather than a function of the substances themselves or even the relationship people, in any class, might have with a particular substance).

It is clear to me, though, that of all the substances useable by humans for this purposes, cannabis is the safest and least likely to cause trouble I have ever known about.

Happy Easter (and Renewal) All:).

Studies suggest insight as to why conservatives have focused so much of their attention on drugs. One scaled 4-year-old children on an index of creativity and adventure seeking to find that such characteristics are the greatest predictor of recreational use of marijuana in subsequent high-school years. Drug users are perhaps by personality disposed to be the least obedient to orthodoxy and convention just as the orthodox are most disposed to believe that social rules must be reinforced with persecution of the non-conformists. Conflict over drug use is the great continuation of the unending dialectic between what Freud called anal retentive personalities and their natural opponents, the oral compulsives. Rule lovers are in a constant effort to bring rule breakers to task, while rule breakers seek new horizons for their will to creative non-conformity. Drug Hate and the Corruption of American Justice,Drug Hate and the Corruption of American Justice, David Sadofsky Baggins, pgs.98-99 ; http://info.greenwood.com/books/0275959/0275959562.html

"Historically speaking alot of people who did use drugs did seem to be from a higher socio-economic class."

"In defense of the Pygmies, perhaps I should note that a friend of mine who has spent time with them says that for such activities as the patient stalking and hunting of mammals and fish they prepare themselves through marijuana intoxication, which helps to make the long waits, boring to anyone further evolved than a Komodo dragon, at least moderately tolerable. Ganja is, he says, their only cultivated crop. It would be wryly interesting if in human history the cultivation of marijuana led generally to the invention of agriculture, and thereby to civilization. (The marijuana-intoxicated Pygmy, poised patiently for an hour with his fishing spear aloft, is earnestly burlesqued by the beer-sodden riflemen, protectively camouflaged in red plaid, who, stumbling through the nearby woods, terrorize American suburbs each Thanksgiving.)"

p 191 footnote (pb edition 1978, copyright 1977)

He said: "There is certainly evidence that plants evolved to mimic the neurotransmitters of mammals.

Since plants evolved BEFORE mammals, I have to wonder whether animals took rudimentary plant-evolved signalling chemical systems and used them as part of the evolution towards animal nervous systems.

Then after animals evolved, we co-evolved with the plants that remained the most potent utilisers of those neurochemical systems, by eating them, and then we we got civilized, selectively breeding them, to boost or adust our animal chemical systems.

Plants aren't stupid. They know what they need to survive, after all.

Special: How Tobacco Companies Free-base Nicotine

In the mid-1970s, the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (RJR, makers of Camel and Winston brands) noticed that their competitor's brands, particularly Marlboro (a Philip Morris brand), were experiencing much higher sales than their brands. Determined to find out why their brands were doing so poorly compared to the others, RJR chemically "deconstructed" Marlboro cigarettes with the aim of finding out just how they were different.

RJR soon discovered that Philip Morris (PM) had made a "deliberate and controlled" chemical change in the smoke of their cigarettes. PM was fltering the smoke pH by adding ammonia to the tobacco, which made the smoke more alkaline. Why? Because in a more alkaline atmosphere, more of the nicotine "...occurs in 'free' form, which is volatile, rapidly absorbed by the smoker, and believed to be instantly perceived as nicotine 'kick'."

Putting more of the drug into a vapor form that is rapidly taken up by the body is known as "free-basing" a drug. Some of you who are old enough may recall that years ago comedian Richard Pryor set himself on fire while trying to free base cocaine. This is the same chemical principle.

This paper, marked "SECRET," discusses RJR's discovery of this sales-enhancing chemical change, and how they could mimic the freebasing technique that Philip Morris was using.

Now, as the industry calls it, employing ammonia technology" is state of the art in cigarette manufacturing. In essence, all cigarette companies now freebase nicotine, to give the user a faster, harder "kick" after lighting up. The industry calls it "increasing customer satisfaction." Others view it as markedly increasing the addictiveness of cigarettes. [1].