From: The Psychedelic Salon
Guest speaker: Ethan Nadelmann
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PROGRAM NOTES:
[NOTE: All quotations are by Ethan Nadelmann.]
"The War on Drugs, this policy of punitive prohibition, is a horror in our society, something that cannot be morally justified, cannot be justified in terms of health, can certainly not be justified in terms of public safety, that cannot be justified in terms of any kind of fiscal prudence that I’ve ever heard of."
"The War on Drugs is a cancer in our society, in our American society and in global society."
"There’s never been a drug-free society, and there’s never going to be a drug-free society. We are moving increasingly into a world in which there will be ever-more psychoactive drugs available."
"The stand-bys, you know, the old faithfuls of tobacco and alcohol and marijuana and coca cocaine and opium, they’ve been with us for thousands of years in one way or another, and they’re going to continue to be part of our society and our lives, whether we like it or not."
"When drug treatment gets owned by the criminal justice system, drug treatment simply becomes a synonym for coerced abstinence."
"We need to aim to cut America’s incarcerated population in half, to pick a rough number."
"We need to get that term, over-incarceration, into the popular dialogue, into the popular language."
"One of the definitions of power is when somebody tells you to do something, and you do it without asking why. That’s the definition of power. Somebody tells you to do it and you do it without even asking why, that’s the power of the prison-industrial complex today."
"California used to be known as the state of higher education and is now known as the state of higher incarceration."
"When you live in a society where one of the most powerful political forces is the organization which earns its livelihood from keeping its fellow citizens behind bars, I don’t know of any other free society in which that is the case. That’s a distortion."
"I define recovery as getting to the point where your drug use, if you use drugs, is no longer impairing your life. … That’s the objective, to get on with your life."
"It’s about accepting that each one of us, who have struggled with drugs, has to find their own path. And that the role of the state should certainly not be to get in the way and optimally to facilitate this."
"That we are each sovereign over our own minds and bodies, that is the core principle that we have to keep putting out there."
5 comments:
I began listening to him last night, and was shocked some things he said--considering he's supposed to be on 'our' side exposing the 'war on drugs', so I posted him an email which I will copy here:
titled: "Big Pharma Danger:
Hello,
I am researching about the War on Entheogens, and started listening to an audio of a speech your gave in late November 2009 about the War on Drugs.
I heard you say how big pharma is going to become more and more prominent, and how young boys are on their drugs, such as Ritalin etc for 'ADHD' and so on, and then I am utterly appalled to hear you claim this is a good thing!
I think you are completely and utterly missinlg the point, and thus do a great disservice to the debate about the whole issue of a war on drugs.
Let me then spell it out. The RREAL war is war on entheogens. This is because it is fundamentally a war on consciousness. To understand this you have to see how different issues connect otherwise you are blind.
School? It is a place of indoctrination to fit the victim/child into an irrational materialistic consumerist culture which is self-destructive, and thus is not authentic education--but rather programming. Hence if children do not willingly fit into this irrational schema they are deemed mentally ill and forced drugs--drugs that HARM, and can KILL! How can that be good? You must checkout Dr Fred Baughman's book The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes Patients "Of Normal Children"
You must also do research about Big Pharma and its mega millions promotion of the myth of mental illness. This myth is commensurate with the so-called 'education' myth children are schooled into, ie., if for whatever reason you feel you do not fit into a self-destructive culture then you may find yourself deemed mentally ill and be coerced to take 'medication'.
(end of part 1)
part2:
The deep reason that by all political systems, Left, Right, and Middle, there has been an ongoing, consistent propaganda and war against entheogens, and later empathogens, like MDMA, is that the culture is maintained via a war on consciousness, and in this way our imagination can be cynically manipulated.
A good example of this has been had in the UK. In the 1980s, and early 90s there was a Rave culture going on with young people. Their favourite 'party drug' was MDMA, commonly known as 'Ecstasy'. They would take it, and dance quite a bit, etc, and not drink alcohol, but water. The powerful Alcohol Industry did not like that, so they spent £800 MILLION to manipulate the young peoples, and the public at large's imagination via advertizing, and shock tactics.
They began adding 'fruit' substances to alcohol (Alcopops) so as to appeal to younger people, and had 'cool' comedians do TV adverts drinking alcohol but with 'trippy' effects! Also they funded a scare campaign after a girl, Leah Betts, was said to have died from taking MDMA----there was massive publicity about this, and her parents were brought before the cameras often to campain against the 'DANGERS OF ECSTASY> IT MUST BE STOPPED FOR THE SAKE OF OUR YOUTH!!!. it turns out, Leah Betts was killed by water intoxication! But this fed into the Public's mind via TV--as have other scare tacics from 1960s/70s about LSD, etc.
With government help alcohol licensing was dramatically relaxed promoting 24/7 drinking, and allowing booze to be sold evetrywhere, and of course allowing more and more drinking joints to open up all over town.
NOW we have a alcohol binging crisis with the young people of the UK, which involves disease, violence, degradation, death, and our very National health Service is now under threat because of this which will effect everyone who is dependent on it.
So do you see how it works?
When you talk it is VERy important you don't make things worse by being blind to the REAL deal. NOT 'hey lets give big pharma a round of applause, and help them [push their drugs'...Hell No! You have to delve deep and see what the fuck is really going on.
I mean, haven't you noticed?...There is certainly NO war on big pharma drugs--in fact they are advertized all over American TV, mags, aren't they? THAT is the point.
Peace
Juliano'
My emphasis doesn't show up,because of text limitations in transfer, but you get the main emphasis. Also looks like I will have to do a part 1 and part 2 owing to limitation of characters
This was his reply --just got:
Juliano,
All this I know.
Sounds like selective listening on your part to what I actually say.
I may not see Big Pharma as pure evil, but I am no friend of theirs, and quite aware and critical of the bad they do.
Ethan A. Nadelmann
Great letter Muzuzuzus! I feel what your saying. I do NOT smoke MJ. His agenda is very pro-pot but I like how he don't hold prejudice against opioids, etc. In medical use, which ever works best with the least amount of side effects should be the first option and he mentions MJ should be legal for non-medical use. But he doesn't step up to bat for the general right to use entheogens.
The fact that we do not have the legal right to operate our own minds however the individual chooses is the equally as evil as throwing users who otherwise commit no crime in prison, split up families, ruin careers, etc. These are far worse then what most drugs will ever do to the average person. It is all about control and domination. the whole thing is huge mess and downright depressing. But as he said, we are not all going to agree. I am surprised more people don't stand up like this for the entheogen legal issue. For non-medical use that is. That always seems to have a Big-Pharma like shadow to me. What we need is spiritual and mental freedom. thanks for sharing!
One need not travel to China to find indigenous cultures lacking human rights. America leads the world in percentile behind bars, thanks to ongoing persecution of hippies, radicals, and non-whites under prosecution of the war on drugs. If we’re all about spreading liberty abroad, then why mix the message at home? Peace on the home front would enhance global credibility.
The drug czar’s Rx for prison fodder costs dearly, as lives are flushed down expensive tubes. My shaman’s second opinion is that psychoactive plants are God’s gift. Behold, it’s all good. When Eve ate the apple, she knew a good apple, and an evil prohibition. Canadian Marc Emery is being extradited to prison for selling seeds that American farmers use to reduce U. S. demand for Mexican pot.
The CSA (Controlled Substances Act of 1970) reincarnates Al Capone, endangers homeland security, and throws good money after bad. Administration fiscal policy burns tax dollars to root out the number-one cash crop in the land, instead of taxing sales. Society rejected the plague of prohibition, but it mutated. Apparently, SWAT teams don’t need no stinking amendment.
Nixon passed the CSA on the false assurance that the Schafer Commission would later justify criminalizing his enemies. No amendments can assure due process under an anti-science law without due process itself. Psychology hailed the breakthrough potential of LSD, until the CSA shut down research, and pronounced that marijuana has no medical use, period. Drug juries exclude bleeding hearts.
The RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993) allows Native American Church members to eat peyote, which functions like LSD. Americans shouldn’t need a specific church membership or an act of Congress to obtain their birthright freedom of religion. God’s children’s free exercise of religious liberty may include entheogen sacraments to mediate communion with their maker.
Freedom of speech presupposes freedom of thought. The Constitution doesn’t enumerate any governmental power to embargo diverse states of mind. How and when did government usurp this power to coerce conformity? The Mayflower sailed to escape coerced conformity. Legislators who would limit cognitive liberty lack jurisdiction.
Common-law allows that adults are the legal owners of their own bodies. The Founding Fathers undersigned that the right to the pursuit of happiness is inalienable. Socrates said to know your self. Mortal lawmakers should not presume to thwart the intelligent design that molecular keys unlock spiritual doors. Persons who appreciate their own free choice of path in life should tolerate seekers’ self-exploration.
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