SLIM GRIM
ABOUT ME
My name is SLIM GRIM. I am a college freshman pursuing a BA in English at the University of Alabama. I created this web page and portfolio for my EN 102 class. Clicking the links above should lead you to all the assignments I've completed throughout the semester.
EXPLORATORY BLOG POST
by SLIM GRIM —— February 7, 2021
There isn’t an article discussing this topic on my reading log, but while I was going through all the posts I have on my blog thus far and contemplating what I may want to focus my research upon, this topic happened to come to mind. As of today, I’m planning to do a discourse analysis on recreational drug use and drug abuse/addiction.Within our society, where one may either be in support of advocacy towards harm reduction or may disagree with drug usage overall, this topic has been an ongoing argument for centuries. I’m especially interested in delving into this topic because I have more than enough experience with it. I’m not afraid to admit that I used to be an addict. After all, if I had never been addicted to drugs, I would have never learned so much about harm reduction. My peers could either be in the same boat or they could have little to no clue as to what I’m talking about. In any case, I would like my analysis to be as interesting and as informative as possible for them.I first developed my interest in pharmacology and harm reduction after around a year of (ab)using recreational substances. My usage began with cigarettes, marijuana, and alcohol before I progressively started to get my hands on much “harder” drugs. Though I’ll admit that my drug usage may have done plenty of harm to my psyche, I wouldn’t be wrong to say that there has been some good to come out of it as well. Taking the time to research all the things I was putting in my body led me to stumble across a community of people who were just like me, and that revelation has managed to save my life in ways that words could hardly describe.Despite there possibly being millions of people who advocate for harm reduction and better drug education, there are still a large number of people in this world who disapprove of the idea of drug advocacy, drug legalization, or drug use overall. A majority of people should know by now that there’s close to nothing that’s inherently bad about smoking weed, but there are other drugs out there that are almost just as harmless as marijuana, yet have been demonized just as much or even worse than cannabis. Likewise to marijuana, drugs such as lysergic acid diethylamide (commonly known as LSD or acid) and psilocybin (the psychoactive chemical found in what we call “magic mushrooms”) are also Schedule I drugs under the Controlled Substances Act, which proclaims that every drug under that category are the “most dangerous” of all drugs and have the highest potential for dependency. Personally, I believe that comparing drugs like mere hallucinogens to highly addictive depressants is asinine, but there are some people who really think that those two separate groups of drugs are actually comparable to one another.Seeing these rules and restrictions enacted by the Controlled Substances Act makes me wonder exactly why each schedule is structured the way they are. Some time ago, I did happen to learn that the illegalization of marijuana is actually deeply rooted in some of the racism and discrimination that plagues our American history (and, as expected from a severely flawed country like ours, only now are we beginning to question the logic behind cannabis being grouped under Schedule I.) But because psychedelics aren’t as popular or “mainstream” as marijuana is, many people aren’t aware that drugs like LSD, psilocybin, and peyote have zero potential for dependency, nor are they even as dangerous as substances like heroin and methaqualone. Within my research, I would like the find the reasoning as to why psychedelics are grouped as Schedule I substances, and possibly compare those explanations towards the opposite side of the argument.Of course, discussing the Controlled Substances Act and analyzing each of its schedules isn’t the only course of action that I could or will choose. There are several subtopics under the overall study of recreational pharmacology, and all of them could contribute plenty to my research. All in all, so long as I’m able to properly conduct said research and compile my sources into a comprehensive and compelling analysis, I think I should be fine. Though I have years worth of knowledge on this particular subject, my goal is to try to learn even more about the matter and to educate others who may not have known as much as me in the process.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
by SLIM GRIM —— March 7, 2021
Spector, Paul. “Harm Reduction Is a Way to Combat Drug Use.” Steven Eric Spector, 5 Jan. 2021, www.stevenericspector.com/harm-reduction-is-a-way-to-combat-drug-use/.
Paul Spector's article "Harm Reduction Is a Way to Combat Drug Use" gives some brief insight on exactly what harm reduction is and what it advocates for. The article begins by mentioning the ongoing opioid crisis and relating it to a recent study conducted by some of the faculty at Johns Hopkins University. The study itself observes the effects of harm reduction practices used by drug users. Essentially, the article itself is merely a summary of what one could find after taking their own look into the collaborative journal.Within this article, Spector compares the “traditional” approach to combating drug usage with harm reduction. Spector brings up some valid points as to why the more traditional approach hasn't been as effective all these years before going into more detail about how constructive harm reduction is in comparison. There seems to be little to no bias within this article; Spector only states the facts that have been given within the study, and also summarizes them in a way that just about anybody would be able to understand without having to look at too many numbers or statistics. I do believe that the study this article references itself would be useful for my research because this is the exact type of perspective I need.
“Dangers of LSD.” Time, vol. 87, Apr. 1966, p. 52. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rgr&AN=523522615&site=eds-live&scope=site.
“Dangers of LSD” is a brief article highlighting some of the “dangers” that the drug imposed on some of the local citizens of Brooklyn, New York. The article gives a brief summary of two separate incidents involving the drug: a five-year-old girl who unintentionally ingested an LSD laced sugar cube, and a 30-year-old man who was convicted for the murder of his mother-in-law. The article also includes some remarks on the situation made by two scientists—Dr. Donald B. Louria of New York and Dr. Sidney Cohen of Los Angeles—that both provide a little more educated insight on the phenomenon of LSD and its effects on the human mind.Though the five-year-old girl was said to have not incurred any permanent brain damage from the incident, I don’t doubt that the premise of the said incident was rather alarming for both her and her family. However, I’m skeptical that there was any real concern over the mishappening due to the fact that her accident only caused her a heavy case of hysteria. I believe that more concern should have lied within the negligence of her uncle, who was said to have left the sugar cubes unattended in their refrigerator. As for the case of the man who was convicted of murdering his mother-in-law, I’m also highly skeptical that this alleged three-day long LSD binge was the cause of it (or if he had even murdered her in the first place). As restated from Dr. Cohen’s recollection of the incident, someone tripping on acid is more likely to be distracted by their belly button than to have a violent, murderous breakdown— and I agree with this based on my own experiences of using the drug.I think it’s worth noting that this article is from 1966, a time where harm reduction definitely wasn’t as prevalent as it is now and a time where psychedelics/hallucinogens were widely demonized by the public. Judging by both the title and the time period it originated from, I expected this article to include some bias against LSD, but it seems as if the bias comes from some of the people the article mentions rather than the writer of the article itself. In spite of that, I picked this article solely because it included some bias; I wanted to observe any (pre-)existing biases against LSD in order to provide a better discourse analysis on recreational drug use, drug abuse/addiction, and harm reduction.
Dyck, Erika. “‘Hitting Highs at Rock Bottom’: LSD Treatment for Alcoholism, 1950-1970.” Social History of Medicine, vol. 19, no. 2, Aug. 2006, pp. 313–329. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1093/shm/hkl039.
The article “‘Hitting Highs at Rock Bottom’: LSD Treatment for Alcoholism, 1950-1970” is an academic study on alcoholics and how their unique cases of alcoholism responded to psychedelic therapy. As the title suggests, 20 years’ worth of trial studies were analyzed in order for this article to be written. Not only does the study focus on the effectiveness of LSD in treating alcoholism, but it also views the problem itself as a disease, in great contrast to others that may regard alcoholism as a “moral” or “behavioral” issue. This study follows the trials conducted by a handful of LSD therapy and harm reduction figureheads, such as Humphrey Osmond (who coined the term “psychedelic back in the ‘50s) and Sven Jensen, who both sought to prove that psychedelics could indeed treat alcoholism much better than other forms of addiction therapy.I haven’t yet read the academic study itself in full detail, but I did read the summary and skim through some particular parts of the text. From what I’ve seen so far, the study proves to be rather informative and has been a fairly interesting read. I don’t see any particular bias coming from the writer; it appears to only be a recollection of all the therapy-related studies and culture surrounding LSD between the twenty-year time period. I feel as if this would provide plenty for my research for a couple of reasons.Though alcoholism is a well-known problem throughout all parts of the world, not many people are willing to acknowledge that alcohol itself is as much of a drug as marijuana, LSD, cocaine, and heroin. Although this article doesn’t exactly acknowledge that within itself, the study does treat alcoholism just as dangerous and detrimental as any other drug addiction. After all, harm reduction includes all drugs—not just the “harder” and riskier substances like opioids, stimulants, and all the like. I also believe that a study dealing with LSD and its treatment towards alcoholism brings up a good argument when it comes to the stigma surrounding psychedelics. This study shows that we can use a notably “dangerous” substance to combat the abuse of another, one that is honestly far more dangerous than the one that is often surrounded by judgment.
Arenofsky, Janice. “Know the Dangers of Marijuana.” Current Health 1, vol. 24, no. 8, Apr. 2001, p. 6. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=4350067&site=eds-live&scope=site
“Know the Dangers of Marijuana” is a brief article written for a health magazine that discusses some of the “dangers” of marijuana use. The article begins with a brief tale involving two teenagers who share a joint with one another, followed by the outlandish accusation of marijuana being a “gateway drug” to much harder substances. The article then goes on to list several “facts” related to this claim, which are said to have been studied and confirmed by drug organizations, universities, and scientists. It also includes an actual “real life account” from a young and recovering drug addict and a list of “debunked myths” surrounding marijuana afterward.If anything, the entire article reads exactly like something you would hear in a D.A.R.E. program or a Foundation for a Drug Free World pamphlet. It starts off with a paragraph-long short story centered around the average-sounding teenager who has no idea that his life is bound to be ruined from smoking a single joint—you know, the usual fear-mongering tactic used in anti-drug propaganda. It goes on to reference several outdated studies related to marijuana usage, which includes data that is either pure misinformation or lacks any further context. Then there’s an excerpt from a “real” person’s experience with marijuana use and drug addiction, but the excerpt sounds so bogus that I could hardly even believe it wasn’t just another baseless attempt at fear-mongering. The myth-busting portion of the article was just as ridiculous. I wouldn’t be surprised if I were to look into a physical copy of the magazine this article originated from, only to see that the text lacks any proper footnotes or citations to let me see exactly where the author was getting this information from.However, the completely bogus nature of this article is exactly why I decided to read it. I’ve both researched and indulged in marijuana for many years to know that all the propaganda surrounding it from the past is almost nothing but fiction. This article was written and published during an era where anti-drug propaganda was the most prominent. Back then, anti-drug programs and organizations would say anything to make sure that kids and teens were steering clear from drug use. Once again, I picked this article in order to analyze any bias against marijuana within any discourse community, in order to try and pinpoint exactly why said bias would have existed in the first place.
SULLUM, JACOB. “From Magic Mushroom to Forbidden Fungus (and Back).” Reason, vol. 52, no. 10, Mar. 2021, pp. 24–27. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=148175491&site=eds-live&scope=site.
“From Magic Mushroom to Forbidden Fungus (and Back)” is an article that references Measure 109, also known as the Psilocybin Services Act, which was enacted back in November 2020. Essentially, Measure 109 legalized both the use and distribution of psilocybin all across the state of Oregon. Along with some details about Measure 109, the author includes a breakdown on the history of psychedelic mushrooms and its issues with legality within the United States.I believe that the most helpful thing about this article was its inclusion of psilocybin’s history in the US. Just about everyone’s familiar with LSD, but I don’t believe that many are as knowledgeable on psilocybin—with that being said, this article does psychedelic mushrooms a lot of justice. Not only that, but the overview on psilocybin’s history with the US both intrigued me and taught me something completely new. I had never known that psilocybin’s illegality had originated from a psychedelic craze from the 1960s, which had involved many college students and pro-psychedelic college professors. I honestly find that tidbit a little hilarious. According to the article, it was nothing but an era of university students tripping out on psychoactive substances while their concerned faculty and the FDA lost their minds. It makes me wonder exactly how LSD and other psychedelics were illegalized. Were they illegalized in the same manner, or even at the exact same time as psilocybin? Or were there other issues that arose that led up to it?
Regardless, I feel that Jacob Sullum’s article will help plenty with my research, especially since it almost directly answers my question behind the phenomenon of the DEA’s reasoning for including psilocybin as a Schedule I substance. Considering some of the other near harmless drugs that also fall under that category, it makes plenty sense that psilocybin had been demonized just the same way over nothing short of a misunderstanding.
Kobrin, Jake. “How Psychedelics Changed My Life.” Medium, Medium, 22 Apr. 2019, medium.com/@jakekobrin/how-psychedelics-changed-my-life-41d800f1b5d8.
“How Psychedelics Changed My Life” is a blog post written by Jake Korbin, a visual artist and psychonaut, on the topic of psychedelics and how tripping on magic mushrooms impacted his life. Within this blog post, Korbin goes into detail about how his life was before he ever started using psychedelics and how his transition into agnosticism and spirituality managed to change his life for the better.When he was in high school, Korbin was severely depressed. Within the blog post, he describes his younger self as “prideful, cynical, and an overall asshole.” He then reiterates this point by naming some of his interests from the time, such as all black clothing and extreme metal music. Due to his poor mental health, he found it difficult to keep up with his schoolwork, and he would ditch class for music, art, and sleeping. The day his father convinced him to join him in Buddhist meditation ceremonies was the beginning of Korbin’s healing process. After exploring different genres of music outside of metal, some particular musical artists introduced him to the concept of psychedelics and recreational drug use. Before then, Korbin adamantly believed that anybody who used drugs were “losers,” but his newfound belief in spirituality intrigued him more than he once thought it would. Korbin talks about how his first psychedelic trip made him experience ego dissolution, and he describes this experience as if it were all he ever needed in his life.
I believe that this blog post would be valuable towards my research because, when compared to some of my other sources, it provides a more positive perspective towards psychedelics. It also gives me a firsthand account of someone’s experience with magic mushrooms, a psychedelic I’m knowledgeable of but have no personal experience with. Information that isn’t just coming from news articles, scientific studies, and freelance writers is also plenty useful with this type of topic—afterall, research that focuses a little on the individual experience of drug users should include some individual reports of how certain drugs came to affect them and their livelihoods.
From the six different sources I’ve gathered so far, I’ve noticed a particular pattern in the two most biased, anti-drug related sources: the use of fear-mongering and scare tactics. I also noticed this in another source that went into detail about psilocybin’s illegalization back in the 1960’s, though the tactic was coming from an event the source was referencing rather than the source itself. Each of these sources have an entirely different discourse community; one is a freelance writer, one is a senior editor for a magazine company, and one comes from a general magazine with an unidentified author. I’ve found that the senior editor for the Reason magazine, Jacob Sullum, provided me the most unbiased information; there were no scare tactics and nothing but a factual restatement of history. However, the other two extremely biased sources either don’t have an author I can find or had been written by someone who is self employed, meaning that the writer doesn’t work under close supervision of any particular company, but can still take on other small jobs when requested.The unreliability of these two sources is why I find them so valuable. Historically, drugs and drug (ab)use are one of the biggest topics that have had the tendency to be reported with bundles of misinformation in order to steer the general public (such as teenagers and young adults) away from using them. But as observed from decades among decades of anti-drug propaganda, this did nothing to combat the amount of drugs being used by teenagers and young adults alike. When comparing that to harm reduction tactics, such as proper drug education, promoting safer drug use, and pro-drug activism, the latter has done far more for combating drug abuse than the former. Pinpointing exactly why this is the case is what I find so important about this particular topic. Being able to recognize the differences in opinions between each side of the argument and just how their opinions worked in terms of what they were trying to achieve is one of the biggest things that could bring my research together.
RESEARCHED DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ESSAY
by SLIM GRIM —— April 11, 2021
When people hear the word “psychedelic,” words like “LSD,” “acid,” or “shrooms” may immediately come to mind. But what exactly do these people think when they hear the word “psychedelic?” Do they associate this word with something fun or exciting? Something life-changing? Something powerful? Or do they associate this word with something more menacing, something with a more sinister connotation? Or perhaps, do they feel indifferent about this word altogether? Do they care less about psychedelics, or are they just too uneducated about them to be able to form a strong opinion? In any case, psychedelics have been making an impact on the human race for some time, but only now are we starting to see psychedelics receive the immensely positive reputation that they deserve. However, I believe that it’s important to note that the lack of proper education on psychedelics and other hallucinogens is what gave these substances a bad rep in the first place. I will be looking at several different discourse communities, such as the United States government, scientists and academic studies, and drug organizations, and interlocking their thoughts about psychedelics into one comprehensive analysis.
The worldwide illegalization of hallucinogens is all thanks to the Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971, a treaty formed by the United Nations that provided a detailed list of a number of drugs that would henceforth be grouped into a number of pre-existing drug schedules. A year prior, the United States constructed the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (Gabay, Hospital Pharmacy), essentially forming the basis of what the Convention had been assembled upon. Just the same as they are today, each schedule within the CSA were as classified:
Schedule I: High abuse potential with no accepted medical use; medications within this schedule may not be prescribed, dispensed, or administered.
Schedule II: High abuse potential with severe psychological or physical dependence; however, these medications have an accepted medical use and may be prescribed, dispensed, or administered.
Schedule III: Intermediate abuse potential (ie, less than Schedule II but more than Schedule IV medications).
Schedule IV: Abuse potential less than Schedule II but more than Schedule V medications.
Schedule V: Medications with the least potential for abuse among the controlled substances.
Within the United States’ Controlled Substances Act of 1970, the following substances are listed as a few examples of the drugs that are classified as Schedule I:
Heroin, marijuana, ecstasy, gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB). (Gabay, Hospital Pharmacy)
Though the CSA notably lists a couple of examples that have a much lower abuse potential than claimed, such as marijuana and MDMA (AKA ecstasy), the list of examples from 1970 was extremely vague. However, the Convention of Psychotropic Substances of 1971 gives a much more comprehensive list of all the psychoactive substances that are classified under Schedule I, which include some of the following:
N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT)
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD)
Mescaline
MDMA
Psilocin and psilocybin (magic mushrooms) (17)
Such examples have all been scientifically proven to have little to no potential for abuse and have also been proven to have more medicinal value than a majority of today’s accepted modern medicine. So if that’s the case, then why were these drugs illegalized in the first place? A number of reasons, which mostly consist of ignorance and intolerance to things many people didn’t understand and didn’t want to understand at the time. But the illegalization of psychedelics and hallucinogens is also deeply rooted within a disgustingly anti-liberal and racist political history, especially within the United States. The infamous “War on Drugs,” enacted under the campaign of former United States President Richard Nixon, is a prime example of such history.At face value, the War on Drugs was just as it was titled; it was to be a war against drugs, drug addiction and drug abuse, all in the name of the public safety of America. However, it soon became obvious that the War on Drugs had an ulterior motive. The number of incarcerated individuals skyrocketed, a majority of whom were minorities, and the war itself did little to combat the issue Nixon’s administration had claimed they were trying to fight in the first place. To pour even more salt into the wound, the following excerpt comes from Dan Baum’s interview with President Nixon’s former aide, John Ehrlichman, when he had been asked about the reasoning behind the War on Drugs:
“You want to know what this was really all about? 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.”
(Baum, Harper’s)
Ehrlichman’s account on the War on Drugs didn’t surface until 2016, a little more than 20 years after Baum had originally conducted the interview, when Dan Baum published an article on “how to win the War on Drugs” to the Harper’s magazine. Activists of America have long since speculated that the proclaimed war against drugs was actually a war against minorities and a war against leftists; Ehrlichman’s testimony only proves that suspicion. But if everyone knew that the War on Drugs was complete bullshit, then why are we just now seeing changes in America’s laws and regulations on controlled substances? Why did it take so long for us to realize that psychedelics and hallucinogens actually do have medicinal value and the lowest potential for abuse and dependency amongst all scheduled drugs?
The answer to these questions takes us back to my first point: ignorance and intolerance. Due to the propaganda introduced by Nixon’s own discourse community, Americans generally became focused on keeping drugs away from the hands of their gullible children rather than providing them the proper education they needed. In hindsight, this did nothing to combat the problem and could have even made the problem much worse than it was before. Let’s not pussyfoot around the topic here—substance abuse and addiction are definitely ongoing issues that affect a wide demographic of the American population, but continuingly spreading false information about drug use has to be one of the worst ways to control it.
Many people are already familiar with how much the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program has failed in combating drug use in adolescents and young adults. However, the issue with this community wasn’t that it spread false propaganda, perse, it was the overall delivery of its anti-drug education that led to its failure and eventual demise. The D.A.R.E. program operated under the guise of wanting to prevent children and teenagers from using alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs in order to enforce their high-key pro-police, pro-law enforcement, pro-snitch propaganda (Nordum, Scientific American). So what about the other anti-drug programs? What about the ones that didn’t necessarily have an ulterior motive like the War on Drugs and D.A.R.E., but were still so ridiculous in their forms of “harm reduction” that it did little to nothing to prevent any increase in adolescent drug use and addiction?
When thinking over this question, only one program comes to mind, and that’s the infamous and insanely hilarious Foundation for a Drug Free World. If any form of drug education were to be described as “ignorant” and “intolerant,” the Foundation for a Drug Free World would fit both descriptions without a doubt. Unfortunately, unlike the War on Drugs and the D.A.R.E. program, there seems to be a huge lack of research on just how ineffective and harmful the Foundation for a Drug Free World is on providing proper drug education. Because of that, the following account will be based on my own personal experiences with the program rather than a wide array of data that can be linked back to, so it’s up to you whether or not you want to take my word with a grain of salt.
I was first introduced to the Foundation for a Drug Free World during my first year of middle school. By the time I was in the 6th grade, D.A.R.E. had already disbanded and reformed into another drug education program by the name of “Keepin’ it Real,” in which its effectiveness in comparison to the original curriculum is still up for debate. Despite that, I believe that if my middle school were to host an assembly led by a representative from the KiR curriculum, the drug education I would’ve received would have been much better than the garbage that was lectured to me by the Foundation for a Drug Free World.I can hardly remember what was even said throughout that assembly—which is one of the main reasons why D.A.R.E. had failed as much as it did—but I do remember that the entire student body was given a collection’s worth of pamphlets related to some of the popular psychoactive substances at the time. The afternoon I went home, I remember reading through each and every single pamphlet, and though the information presented in each booklet was full of a bunch of misinformation and fearmongering that would have probably scared the piss out of any other gullible middle schooler, reading those pamphlets gave me the urge to do drugs more than I had ever wanted before. If anything, I could place all the blame upon the Foundation for a Drug Free World for getting me so fascinated with drugs at such a young age, while also giving me a terrible source for all of my drug-based knowledge.
Every pamphlet made by the Foundation for a Drug Free World can be shipped to you, free of charge, if you request them through the foundation’s website, and they can also be easily accessed online through PDF. I will be referencing back to one of their pamphlets to show you just how much this foundation demonizes drugs to the extreme. Along with their shitload of misinformation, each pamphlet is also filled with several “real life” accounts from people who used to use the particular drug(s) discussed within every booklet. Reading these stories from these “real live people” both fascinated and terrified my 11-year-old self; reading these stories again, almost eight years later, brings me into a fit of hysteria.
Let’s take a look at a story from a woman named “Donna,” which can be found in the pamphlet The Truth About LSD:
“At 13 years of age I took my first drink and soon after was introduced to marijuana. Then LSD quickly fell into my hands and I became addicted, eating it like candy.“One night during one of my binges I blacked out and awoke with blood all over my face and vomit coming out of my mouth. By some miracle I pulled myself awake and cleaned myself up. I got into the car, shaking, drove to my parent’s house. I climbed into bed with my mom and cried.“By the age of 21, I checked into my first rehab.” (9)
If I were to read this from the perspective of someone who knows nothing about LSD and has never taken a single hit of acid in their life, I can imagine that they’re probably thinking that this is one of the most terrifying things that they’ve ever heard (which is completely understandable). But when I read this from my own perspective, a young adult who has both researched and taken enough acid to become completely skeptical of the reliability behind this account, two possibilities come to mind: either Donna is lying through her teeth, or the drug Donna thought she was taking was NOT lysergic acid diethylamide. A third, most likely possibility is that this “Donna” doesn’t actually exist. None of the stories included within these pamphlets include any sources that can actually be linked back to real people, which makes me extremely wary of their credibility. If you know nothing about acid and have never taken acid, you also may be wondering exactly why I’m so skeptical of Donna’s reliability. There are a couple of reasons.Like any other substance, the more you take acid, the more your body builds a tolerance to it. This would definitely pose a serious problem if LSD were addictive, but it is quite literally impossible to have any physiological dependence to LSD or any other psychedelic—meaning that if Donna truly were eating LSD “like candy,” she would have felt absolutely nothing after the third or fourth day of her drug binges. I think that it’s also important to note that tripping on acid can be both a physically and mentally exhausting experience, a factor that usually deters recreational psychonauts from attempting to redose on the drug so often.
Donna’s recollection of the night she awoke with blood and vomit on her face is also too vague. Where was she before she drove home? And where was the blood even coming from? LSD does tend to cause nausea, especially if one may be anxious or panicked during their trip, but the other pieces of the story aren’t as precise to properly fit into the puzzle.Now while Donna’s story just sounds too ridiculous to be true, there are other stories in this pamphlet that make me a lot less skeptical, yet still make me wonder whether or not these accounts should be considered credible. Let’s take a look at another story within the pamphlet, this time coming from a guy named Justin:
“I started drinking at the age of 15. Then I progressed to taking Ecstasy, speed, cocaine and LSD.“I found it difficult to hold down a job and became depressed and thought I would never overcome my obsession with drugs. I attempted suicide twice by overdosing on pills. I was put under psychiatrists who gave me even more drugs, antidepressants and tranquilizers, which just made matters worse.“As an outlet for my feelings I turned to self-harm—I started cutting and burning myself.” (11)
And yet another story coming from a woman by the name of Andrea:
“The days following my LSD use, I was filled with anxiety and extreme depression. Following my first ‘trip’ on LSD, I would eat it frequently, sometimes up to four or five times per week for an extended period. Each time I would take the drug, mentally I was drifting more and more out of reality. The eventual effect was the inability to feel normal in my own skin.” (17)
Both Justin and Andrea’s experiences with using LSD sound a lot more likely to happen than Donna’s. However, I will note that Justin mentioned his prior usage of a handful of other drugs, like amphetamines, ecstasy, and cocaine, that are much more likely to be the main benefactor in his mental decline. I will also note that, just like Donna, Andrea couldn’t have possibly binged that much on LSD because her tolerance would have made the drug less and less effective the more she took it. Regardless, if these stories were to be true, Justin and Andrea both sound as if they could have been experiencing something by the name of drug induced psychosis.
Drug induced psychosis is mainly caused by an extended period of stimulant abuse, but it can also be caused by the use of other drugs like hallucinogens (a category psychedelics fall under) (Priory Group). This does not mean that merely taking stimulants and hallucinogens will cause someone to have psychosis, it means that the prolonged abuse of each particular drug can lead up to it, especially if the user has a history with or likelihood to develop a mental illness. This is especially important to note because these pamphlets typically list “real life” accounts that give examples of what sounds like people having psychotic episodes, but instead of simply calling it what it is, the foundation puts the blame on the drugs themselves for causing these adverse reactions. And once again, no, the drugs are not what causes someone to go into a psychotic episode. It depends on how much they use the drug, if they’re using the drug responsibly, and if they may have a mental illness or if they have a family history of mental illness.
And you may be asking yourself, well, exactly why is this important? You may not want to ever do drugs in your life, especially not any hallucinogens or psychedelics. If that were the case, I would understand wholeheartedly. But it’s important that you know the real truth about LSD, magic mushrooms, and other psychedelics, not just what the government tells you, what some shitty scientology sponsored foundation tells you, what your parents tell you, and what the police tell you.
Psychedelics are not addictive and do have loads of potential for medicinal value. In fact, spiritualists and shamans have been using psychedelics as medicine for centuries, far long before some of them were synthesized and discovered by scientists. This brings me back to one of my main points about the current illegality of psychedelics: psychedelics were illegalized and demonized the way they were because our government didn’t understand and didn't want to understand their power and value.
Jacob Sullum, a senior editor for the Reason magazine, happened to write an article about this ignorance and intolerance in reference to psilocybin. “From Magic Mushrooms to Forbidden Fungus (and Back)” talks a great deal about the psychedelic craze of the 1960s. The popularization of magic mushrooms between the college youth instilled a great fear in their concerned faculty, which eventually led to the government getting involved and banning the use and redistribution of psilocybin altogether. It is unclear as to why other psychedelics were illegalized, but they were all made Schedule I substances by the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, meaning that the surge of college students tripping on psilocybin back in the ‘60s could have also involved the use of other psychedelics.
But what about all the studies that were conducted on psychedelics and their medicinal value? Surely if there was evidence against these claims, the government would have taken that into account, right? Well, just because the evidence existed doesn’t necessarily mean that our government was inclined to pay any attention to it. An academic study by the name of “Hitting Highs at Rock Bottom” analyzes the 20 years’ worth of research dedicated to using LSD to treat alcoholism, yet the study mentions that LSD’s medicinal value still wasn’t accepted due to its potential for adverse effects, and the rise of its recreational use in the ‘60s unintentionally set its progression backwards (326-327).
That doesn’t change the fact that psychedelic therapy is still useful and has changed many people’s lives. Outside of alcoholism, psychedelics have shown to be able to treat other mental illnesses like depression, schizophrenia, and OCD, and have also been able to provide some treatment for the neurodivergent (qtd. in McClure, Double Blind). Using psychedelics for recreational purposes is just as acceptable. Dropping acid has had its ups and downs for me, but it has been one of the most astounding, most beautiful, most breath-taking experiences with any drug that I’ve ever had. Others who have had their own experiences with the drug can often say the same.
And no, this is not me saying that everybody in the world should trip balls on psychedelics. Psychedelics are very powerful substances that shouldn’t be regarded as lightly as drinking a beer or passing a blunt between your friends. Tripping on psychedelics definitely isn’t for everyone, but if someone ever becomes interested in trying it out for themselves, then at the very least they should be presented with the truth about psychedelics rather than false propaganda regurgitated from the mouths of people who have no clue on what they’re talking about.
Works Cited
Baum, Dan, et al. “Legalize It All.” Harper's Magazine, 31 Mar. 2016, harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/.“Convention of Psychotropic Substances.” United Nations, Convention of Psychotropic Substances: Hg, 1971.Dyck, Erika. “‘Hitting Highs at Rock Bottom’: LSD Treatment for Alcoholism, 1950-1970.” Social History of Medicine, vol. 19, no. 2, Aug. 2006, pp. 313–329. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1093/shm/hkl039.Gabay, Michael. “The Federal Controlled Substances Act: Schedules and Pharmacy Registration.” Hospital Pharmacy, Thomas Land Publishers, Inc., June 2013, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3839489/.McClure, James. “Why Are Shrooms Illegal?” Double Blind Mag, Double Blind Mag, 12 Mar. 2021, doubleblindmag.com/shrooms/why-are-shrooms-illegal/.Nordrum, Amy. “The New D.A.R.E. Program-This One Works.” Scientific American, Scientific American, 10 Sept. 2014, www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-new-d-a-r-e-program-this-one-works/.Priory Group. “Drug-Induced Psychosis.” Priory Group, www.priorygroup.com/mental-health/drug-induced-psychosis.Sullum, Jacob. “From Magic Mushroom to Forbidden Fungus (and Back).” Reason, vol. 52, no. 10, Mar. 2021, pp. 24–27. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=148175491&site=eds-live&scope=site.The Truth About LSD, Foundation for a Drug Free World, 2015.
REFLECTION LETTER
by SLIM GRIM —— April 26, 2021
Before I ever took this class, I’ve always considered myself to be an outstanding writer. I have always excelled in any English related subject and assignments, especially ones that were related to creative writing. However, this does not mean that I regard myself as one of the best writers in the world. Everyone is capable of making mistakes, and I am no exception to that capability. Despite that, I still think that my writing skills gave me the upper hand with how I approached my assignments within this class. The flexibility of this class, in my opinion, also helped me express myself and my writing style more proficiently.I don’t believe my writing style has changed much over the course of the semester. I didn’t receive much feedback from my peers, but the feedback I received from my instructor was generally positive and supportive. Of course, this doesn’t mean that I think there’s nothing that can be improved upon with my own writing; as I said, I’m just as capable of making mistakes. Over the years I’ve found that the more I continue to write, the more I can catch my mistakes and make improvements on them. Looking back on my previous assignments, I’ve noticed smaller errors within my work— such as excessive wordiness and awkward phrasing— and mended as many errors as I could see to make my writing sound clearer. Overall, that seems to be one of the most prevalent mistakes I make when writing.Before I began writing my research paper, I already knew quite a deal about psychedelics and all the anti-drug organizations I discussed and criticized. However, I did learn a lot more about the history of psychedelics and their impact on the United States as a whole. I didn’t have much trouble with conducting any more research on my topic because I had enough prior knowledge to be able to decide what sources I wanted to use within my essay. My research didn’t change how I felt about my chosen topic either.I will say that the one issue I had with writing my research paper was the inability to find a stopping point. The more I wrote, the more I felt like things were missing or extra context needed to be added, and I felt like I spent more time than needed bringing all of my ideas and information together. That’s the main reason why the essay is as long as it is. I feel like reading through my essay might seem very tedious, but I conducted my research with the goal of being as informative and concise as possible. Although it obviously isn’t too “concise,” I do hope that it’s just as informative and interesting as I intended it to be.Unlike my essay, my reflection letter is rather short because I’m not too sure of what else I could reflect upon. I will end this letter off by saying that I enjoyed nearly every second of preparing and writing my paper, and I feel that taking this class gave me the well-needed opportunity to expand upon my own writing skills.