My comment to all this? No shit, Sherlock.

These arguments would stand up just as well as arguments against the existence of a spirit world even if psychedelics hadn’t managed to convince a certain segment of the population that machine elves and tree spirits are real. One of the arguments that can be used to refute the belief that deliberately altering one’s mindstate using a chemical is immoral, is to demonstrate how many other ways one can achieve this, and how many of these ways are associated with trying to find god. So if the attempted outcome is the same (see god), and the route is the same (alter one’s perceptions), then what is wrong with psychedelics? Or so the argument goes. However if there are no spirits, as the writer of the article suggests, then what?

To which I reply, does it matter? Dervishes spin, gurus meditate, some people handle snakes, some chant, some listen to repetitive electronic music and dance till they see god, some take psychedelics. And all claim to be having a spiritual experience through their various techniques. If there are no spirits then which of these techniques for seeking Spirit is morally wrong again? Any of them? All of them? And if the Spirit Without is not there, then which of these techniques is legitimate for seeking the Spirit Within?

In my experience of experimenting with various psychedelic substances and techniques, I have come to the same conclusion as Mr Kent. There is no god, there are no spirits, the things I am seeing and experiencing are not coming from another world. I have had experiences which felt as if I were in another world, through the use of strong dissociatives or hallucinogens (as well as some drug-free trance techniques). I have had conversations with Mother Nature and with the Spirit of the Land, with ancestors and with inanimate objects. I have come out of ‘entheogenic’ experiences with insights which have enlightened me to aspects of my life and personality in ways which have improved them. And yes, I have also scared the crap out of myself on occasion. But you know what? It was all in my head. Is there any reason that a spiritual experience has to be external in order to be valid? Do we really still have to appeal to a higher authority for legitimacy in our own insights?

I would suggest that a more interesting question in the field of psychedelics, rather than “Do spirits exist?” is to look into why so many people are describing similar experiences when using different substances, on different continents. In his book Breaking Open The Head, Daniel Pinchbeck describes the similarities between experiences described by people in South America using Ayahuasca (the oral form of DMT) and those described by people in Africa using Iboga. Both sets of people describe conversing with the spirit of the plant and coming away with insights. So if the plant spirit does not exist, what is happening here? Are these people tapping into a similarity we all have in our humanity in order to gain revelations into themselves? Rather than accessing the spirit world, are they accessing some form of collective consciousness or internal wisdom that we can’t access in our normal mindstate?

And why is this internal wisdom considered ‘less than’ external wisdom, that we feel the need to back ourselves and our methods of accessing this wisdom by trying to prove the existence of god? I would have thought it was greater than – because it shows what the mind is capable of.

So what’s not being said?

For a start Stargate, the importer of Pineapple Express, is run by Matt Bowden. Matt Bowden was at the forefront of the introduction of BZP to New Zealand and has made a lot of money from it. Now I’m not naive enough to think that the continued ability to make money from recreational substances isn’t at least in part a driver for Mr Bowden’s actions – however, regardless of motivation he has also been at the forefront of harm minimisation lobbying since ~2000. He is the driving force behind STANZ (the Social Tonics Association of New Zealand), a body which amongst other things created a voluntary Code of Practice for manufacturers and distributors of BZP based products. Bowden wanted these substances to be regulated rather than banned.

The creation of Class D in 2005 seemed like a step in the right direction – here was a category where substances that were a little bit risky but not proven to be harmful could be placed under regulation. BZP immediately went in there, and what happened? The government placed minimum regulation on it, pills continued to be sold in over the recommended amounts, with no guarantees as to what else was in them, no testing, and no health warnings. Here’s a press statement made by STANZ in 2007 in which they lay out a potential regulatory structure for BZP products, which goes much further than the minimal regulation imposed by the government. It was ignored, the market spun out of control, and eventually BZP was banned.

Now, we’re facing the same situation with Kronic. This is slightly different in that we have a potentially dangerous substance that has found its way into a product, gone through importation and been sold to customers, all without anyone picking it up. Now, this sometimes happens with kids’ toys too, but of course since this is a recreational drug we have a potential moral panic on our hands. And who better than Peter Dunne to stir it up with talk of unregulated markets and cowboys. However, do we think this will get Kronic regulated in a way that it can be tested to ensure quality and safety for customers, that it will be labelled to show what’s in it and regularly checked to make sure nobody’s sneaking anything dodgy in there? I doubt it, and here’s why.

tl;dr on that article – our drug laws are a dog’s breakfast consisting of the Medicines Act, the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, and the Misuse of Drugs Act. They contradict each other and pretty much make it impossible for governments to regulate something sensibly and within a realistic timeframe. It’s much simpler to ban it.

This year, the Law Commission released its report Controlling and Regulating Drugs, in which it recommended a full review of the classification system, a focus on harm, and specifically addressing how to deal with new recreational substances. It’s widely seen as a progressive view which could genuinely reduce harm from substances already illegal, and risk from new substances.

Matt Bowden’s response: “The current regime means that the market is flooded with untested and potentially unsafe products. Consumers often have no way to find out what they are taking. Requiring the manufacturers of psychoactives to show that their products can be safely used is a vital step in minimising the harm caused by drug abuse. Stargate recommended that the same toxicity testing used for testing new pharmaceutical medicines be used and the Law Commission have adopted this suggestion as the best way forward.” So essentially, “Yay! Now let’s get on with it.”

Minister of Justice Simon Power’s response: “There’s not a single, solitary chance that as long as I’m the Minister of Justice we’ll be relaxing drug laws in New Zealand.” Essentially *fingers in ears* “LALALALALALA”

So when Peter Dunne starts talking about cowboys, and about how this wonderful idea he’s had about regulating substances and testing them is so revolutionary and great, and how the likes of Matt Bowden are putting people at risk for their own profits, please take it with a grain of salt.

I have some idea who created this situation and who’s tried to change it and who’s resisted it in favour of more harmful approaches. And yes, Matt Bowden wants to make money, but it’s pretty clear he wants to do it without killing people. Can our government say the same thing?

Oh noes! Digital drugs!

Have a look at the use of language in that article. ‘Spaced out’ adolescents have ‘fallen victim’ to an ‘insidious new culture’ that ‘preys on their vulnerable young minds’, apparently. Some of you may even have seen the videos abounding on YouTube of people wearing headphones, apparently experiencing.. something.. while listening to these binaural sounds. And it’s enough to stir the imaginations of the overly-concerned and reach the media in more countries than just New Zealand. Apparently it’s a New!Global!Phenomenon!

So what are binaural sounds? There’s a seriously technical explanation here, but the simple one is that two different, low frequency tones are played through headphones, one into each ear. The two tones create standing waveforms that mesh in and out of phase, and our brain supposedly responds to this meshing, theoretically making it possible to alter consciousness. This technique has been used in meditation for quite a long time.

The idea of using sound to alter consciousness is not a new thing. There’s a belief that the repetitive beat of electronic dance music can put the brain into an alpha state. The band Coil experimented with sound on their 1998 album Time Machines, naming each track after a drug. The tracks on the album are just drones, yet they supposedly have narcotic potency. And of course, there’s the much-maligned i-Doser – the one the article above is referring to. This is an application which allows a person to download and listen to binaural tracks, the effects of which are supposed to resemble the effects of drugs.

This isn’t a new thing either. I downloaded and tried the i-Doser in 2008. My verdict? If I squint really hard, cross my eyes and meditate while listening, I might feel something slightly different from normal. I actually had the most effect in sound-experimentation from listening to Coil’s Psilocybin while going to sleep. There were visuals involved with that, however the fact that I was in pre-sleep state means that the music probably enhanced rather than caused my mental state . Other people’s mileage may vary.

Additionally, according to the article above, there is no scientific evidence that binaural beats do anything to alter brain function.

So, a question. What the hell has people so het up about the iDoser? Sure, there are videos on YouTube of teenagers rolling around on their beds wearing headphones. To which I say, there are also videos on YouTube of teenagers doing things that are actually dangerous – yet the concern-trolls focus on this? WTF? My guess is that a lot of these young people are hamming it up for the camera – and even if they aren’t, what is the issue here?

The main reason we are told not to do drugs is because they are risky. There is danger of poisoning, addiction, brain damage, hurting yourself or others, the list goes on of reasons we are supposed to avoid drugs. Now, here’s a system of supposedly altering our consciousness that doesn’t have these associated risks – and yet, it’s still a bad thing? Why?

They say that it promotes the drug culture to young and vulnerable minds. I say that children are born into a drug culture. Got a headache? Take a Panadol. Having trouble concentrating? Have some ADHD medication. Can’t get a hardon? Viagra! Friday? Alcohol! The list goes on. Our children grow up seeing people use drugs, including drugs that alter consciousness, as part of a normal life. The whole time they are told that there are these drugs over here which are ‘good’, and these others over there which are ‘bad’. In my experience the distinction is pretty arbitrary. And young people are not stupid – they see the hypocrisy of condoning alcohol and tobacco while stigmatising hallucinogens, of popping Panadol and Prozac while demonising cannabis, and they know that much of what they are told about drugs is misinformation. So to say that the iDoser is corrupting young minds into absorbing drug culture is, in my opinion, a red herring.

What I think is really happening here is that those who have concern over the iDoser are showing their true colours. It’s not the danger that’s the problem – there is none with this. It’s not the drug culture that’s the problem – we all live in one anyway. The problem is that as a society we have become entrenched in the idea that deliberately altering one’s mindstate for entertainment is somehow morally wrong, and we don’t want our kids to ever believe that it might be ok, so we construct the iDoser as yet another corrupter of the minds of children, despite there being no evidence that it causes any harm or any further use of drugs, or even that it works.

Which leads me to my final question, which this issue has galvanised for me yet again – WHY is it wrong to seek alterations of consciousness?

It seems the Scientologists have found it.

Moreover, it seems the Scientologists have an agenda of attempting to get the Narconon progamme instigated in New Zealand prisons. It started with one chap by the name of Kevin Owen spamming comments all over the show about the current drug treatment programmes and their failure to deliver, strangely interspersed with links and quotes from various Dianetics sites. Then another showed up, calling him/herself Iatrogenic Doctor. This one claims to have been the main person behind the implementation of Narconon in Russia. People started going “Um, Dianetics? L Ron Hubbard? Scientology? Quack organisation!” To which the good Doctor took offence, stating that Narconon is the biggest rehab organisation in the world, achieving success rates far in excess of any other programme available today.

I’ve heard of Narconon and assumed that it was somehow related to Alcoholics Anonymous, and thus a similar programme. By the time I went searching I’d realised that this might not be correct, since every link posted by Kevin Owen and Iatrogenic Doctor led to Scientology.

Anyway, I googled “Narconon success rate”. What I got was a page containing 10 google hits – there are five links to sites claiming that Narconon has a success rate of around 70%, and five links to sites that question this claim.

Note here: Non-Narconon drug treatment programmes have a success rate of between 2 and 20%. Whether this is because the treatment is not effective or because the people in these programmes are often coerced into them by the criminal justice system, do not actually have a drug problem and have no intention of stopping use, is a debate for another day. The point here is that Narconon is claiming a success rate in excess of three times that of the most successful of other programmes, as is Iatrogenic Doctor, who is also suggesting that certain people in New Zealand government are greedy and wanting to keep funding for themselves, and that this is why Narconon hasn’t been introduced here.

So anyway, I first followed the links supporting Narconon. As it turns out, every single one of them leads to a Narconon-owned website. On these websites, it claims ‘proven results’. Here’s a link to their proof as presented. Question here: could I submit this page as an essay reference for a university course? If not, why not?

If you answered “HELL NO TENCHI, DON’T DO IT!” You got the right answer. And the reason this wouldn’t be accepted as a reference is that nothing is supplied that a marker could use to verify the claims. No links to studies, no research, not even names and publication dates (An independent sociology group? Who?). No peer review, no EVIDENCE, no proof. And what does this even mean?:

“During the Narconon Drug Rehab Program study, 38% of guilty findings decreased. 40% decreased after the study. As a comparison, a random selection of 10% of the prison population was tabulated. The Narconon program had reversed the trend of guilty findings having increased by 77%.”

*cough* Anyway, I could see that I wasn’t going to find anything useful on those sites, so off I went to the other ones. The first link goes to an assessment studies, and includes the Spanish study and the Russian study mentioned on the page quoted above.

Turns out the Spanish study was conducted by an organisation that no longer exists, using creative manipulation of statistics, and the subjects were, for the most part, employees of Narconon. Additionally, when the intake from the year of the study was surveyed as a whole by investigators, even with the Narconon employees included the actual number of people who claimed to be drug-free totalled 33%, less than half that of the claims by Narconon.

The site says about the Russian study:

“As usual, it is not reproduced in full – all we have are the “headline figures” which, as we have already seen, Narconon misrepresents for other studies. (In fact, it appears to be mentioned only once on just one of Narconon’s many websites.)

The qualifications and independence of its authors are questionable; one of the authors was the man who ran Narconon Russia (hardly an independent assessor!), one was a lecturer and one was a journalist, leaving only one medical doctor whose relationship with Narconon is undisclosed.”

*ahem*

And the much-touted Swedish study, which claimed a 78% success rate, was followed up by contacting enrolees and asking them about their current drug use. The bottom line figure from responses is that only 6.6% of people who began the Narconon programme had remained drug free.

In addition, Narconon seems reluctant to release their studies for peer review, verification and evidence-testing.

The Wikipedia page also says this:

Investigated in Russia

In April 2007, it was revealed that Moscow’s South District office of public procurator had begun an investigation into Narconon’s activities in Russia.The Moskovsky Komsomolets daily paper reported that legal proceedings were begun against the head of the clinic “Narconon-Standard”, for violating practices forbidden in Russian medical practices. Russian law enforcement became interested after receiving many complaints from citizens about the high fees charged by Narconon. The Narconon office in Bolshaya Tulskaya St., Moscow was searched, and documents and unidentified medications were seized.
In April 2008, as part of an investigation in Ulyanovsk into the Church of Scientology, police searched a Narconon office in the town of Dimitrovgra.

So what we have here is an organisation that will not conform to accepted standards of academic integrity in its research and thus cannot be believed when it claims such a high success rate. The programmes are considered to be expensive enough to warrant investigation in some countries, and their efficacy in treating people with drug problems is questionable at best. Never mind the link to Scientology..

And the person who claims to have been heading the Russian Narconon at the time of the investigation is now in New Zealand, pushing an agenda of implementation nationwide here as part of coercive treatment in prisons. They’re backed by someone with a vested interest in the success of Dianetics in this country – I believe Kevin Owen is the head of RehabilitateNZ, a Dianetics promotion organisation. These people are attempting to frame the drugs debate on the Law Commission website into discussion of which drug treatment method is best, with a view to implementing government-endorsed Scientology in prisons. And they wonder why Unzud isn’t interested?

I smell a Thetan that could stand some rehabilitation of its own.

The NZ Drug Foundation has an overview of some of the salient points. More comment from us later after we’ve had a chance to read the report ourselves, but at least they recognised how antiquated the law is, being drafted in the wake of moral panic about psychedelics.

In the mean time, I invite you to head over to read the documents yourself and have your say. Please make a submission or comment if you feel the current drug laws are ineffective at dealing with what we feel should be a health and education issue.

Context from the BBC article: “Prof Nutt was sacked by Home Secretary Alan Johnson last October after publicly disagreeing with the government’s decision to re-classify cannabis as a Class B drug and not to downgrade ecstasy.”

If you are ingesting a substance with the purpose of causing a chemical reaction in your brain that somehow alters your mindstate, you are taking a drug.

The legality, the means of ingestion, whether it’s a longstanding social tradition or something that was synthesised yesterday, is irrelevant to this.

Alcohol is a drug, and if you drink alcohol you are a drug user.

Thank you.

“The romantic comedy “It’s Complicated” arrived at the multiplex on Friday complete with an R rating, ranking it in the same category as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Basic Instinct” in the eyes of the Motion Picture Association of America.”

The article goes on to say that there is no violence and the bedroom scenes are decidedly tame. The only real reason it’s R-rated is due to the marijuana use, and apparently this is making some conservative segments of America happy with the ratings board for a change:

Dan Isett, director of public policy for the Parents Television Council, which also monitors movies, said “It’s Complicated” was a “rare instance” of the board getting a rating correct.
“The last I checked, smoking pot was still illegal, illicit behavior,” he said. “Too often material gets rated lower than it should be.”

Of course, Mr. Isett ignores that activities like physical assault and shooting people are also illegal, but that they routinely show up in PG-13 movies, and I’d wager such an act of violence causes more harm to society than smoking pot.

Interesting points:

Forbes magazine put Mexican drug lord Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman as No. 401 on the world’s list of billionaires.

Imagine if some of that profit went towards treating drug use as a health issue?

Mexico’s deputy agriculture minister, Jeffrey Jones, told some of the country’s leading farmers that they could learn a thing or two from Mexican drug traffickers. “It’s a sector that has learned to identify markets and create the logistics to reach them,” he said. Days later, Mr. Jones was forced to resign. “He may be right,” one top Mexican official confided, “but you can’t say things like that publicly.”

It seems Prof. Nutt isn’t the only one being sacked for being rational about the drug debate.

Oh, and by the way, if you think it’s just those of us that can responsibly use drugs that are after a lift of prohibition, think again. The very same people who’ve been on the front-line of the war against drugs are saying the same thing.

Update: It seems Joaquin Guzman is also the #41 most powerful person. Would he still be the world’s most powerful person and the USA’s most wanted man if it wasn’t for prohibition?

“Content defined under the National Classification Scheme as Refused Classification includes child sexual abuse imagery, bestiality, sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act.”

Notice the reference to content that’s related to drug use. Do you think Erowid will be filtered? Given that there is a plethora of drug information which includes chemical synthesis, I wouldn’t be surprised. Especially since Australia has in the past been one of the few countries that refused classification of Fallout 3 due to it depicting drug use. This seems strange because plenty of games have power-ups (mushrooms from Mario Brothers anyone?), perhaps the mistake Fallout 3 made was to depict this as actually have a realistic method of implementing these power ups? And surely the impacts of negative consequence and addiction in the game probably scared the censors too, since it’d be terrible thing for people to be forewarned of the potential dangers of drug use right?

Now the Australian government can prevent the public from doing their own research about drugs, and they won’t have to be pestered by the public finding out the relative safety of illegal substances versus alcohol in society. Instead, they can feed people whatever misinformation they like.