drugs and other consensual crimes

[Lisa Rogers <eqwq.lrogers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Adam, I'm sorry I can't send this direct to all your cc because I
receive the digest version of the list, and it doesn't retain all
that.

I highly recommend a book _It ain't nobody's business but my own: the
absurdity of consensual crime in a free society_ 1993
I can't recall the author at the moment.

It's not written from a marxian point of view, but it is a very
useful source of info and very fun to read.  It is full of obscure
quotes from famous people, such as the "Founders" of US, saying
wonderful things about separation of church and state, for instance.
They were mostly deists and it was no accident that they used the
word Creator in the Declaration of Independence, not god, not yahweh,
etc. in spite of what the so-called christian right says.

There is also a great story about how and why cannabis became illegal
in US; there can be little doubt that the banning of hemp contributed
to the immense profits of the new synthetic fibers invented at that
time.  Supplying rope to the US gov/navy alone was worth a lot of
money, and DuPont's newfangled polyester quickly replaced hemp.

I've seen hemp cloth, got some handspun stuff in Transylvania, and
it's now available from some mail order suppliers, as an import.  It
is notoriously durable.  The original denim levis were made of hempen
canvas.  It was a standard fiber used all over North Am and Europe,
often cross-woven with linen.  It was more heavily used before cotton
became cheaply available.

I heard that some Canadian province legalized hemp production for
fiber only.  Can anybody confirm that?

Some of that stuff they are handing you is so silly I'm surprised.
Cannabis "undeniably" leads to heroin or speed?  I'd like to see the
evidence of that!

The latest figures in Utah say that about 15/20 high schoolers have
tried cannabis, but only 1/20 is a regular user, once a week or more.
 Now I ask anybody, what makes the difference between the 15 that
dabble and the 1 regular?  Level of stress and lack of other coping
skills, among other things.  The psychs and social worker's I know
and have worked with when teaching math to kids in state custody have
no doubt that much drug use is largely a symptom in this society.

Perhaps it's even more obvious for legal prescription drugs.

People don't want to talk or hear about a reasonable discussion,
study or position just because it has been so demonized by the right;
that is why it has indeed become the political kiss of death among
many people.  That has got nothing to do with any
medico-pharmacological data.  It's a ridiculous big lie to classify
cocaine as a "narcotic", for instance, a narcotic causes sleepiness,
by definition.

People need to be reminded that a "drug store" used to be a "drug
store".  Into the 19th c. anyone could get tincture of opium, and
extract of cannabis over the counter, as I understand it.  Cannabis
was common treatment for the nausea and depression of pregnancy.  Yet
where was the "drug problem" of today?  What is the difference
between now and then?  There are many, I won't go on about it.
Obviously, the difference is not just in "drugs" being available.

Traditional Yanomamo men in Venezuela harvest a certain tree bark,
dry and powder it and blow it up each others' nostrils with a long
tube.  The active ingredient is dimethyl triptamine, DMT, a potent
but not long-lasting hallucinogen.  They do it at least once a week,
to sing and dance with the spirits, to feel the power of the spirits
come into their own bodies.  No way to know how long this has been
going on, but it was not introduced by capitalism or western
decadence, it is indigenous.  The only apparent bad side effect is a
lot of green snot, but if they purified it a bit it wouldn't be so
irritating to the membranes.

This is not considered pathological or a problem to them, it is part
of their religion, seriously a sacrament.  This is important to them
because the power that they feel is used to prevent, repel and
revenge the witchcraft of others, which is blamed for all illness,
especially infant deaths.  So it seems to be a response to the
uncontrollable harms they experience, like other magical attempts to
control the world.  Perhaps not so far from being a "symptom of
stress" in a way, even for them.

Hope this helps.



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