From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri Dec 17 1999 - 12:00:17 MST
"kalib g. kersh" <non-stick@hotbot.com> writes:
> I wish that people who don't use mdma would accept that the ones that do
> think the costs are justified and are going to continue to use it until the
> DEA has clamped down on every last molecule of mdma in the universe.
The problem I see when I discuss psychopharmacology is that rather few
users of psychoactive substances (including nicotine and caffeine)
make a cost-benefit analysis. Like you, I have no problem at all with
people rationally chosing to use or not use a substance, but I'm
dismayed at how often people make these *extremely* critical decisions
without any thinking at all or with flimsy rationale. When asked to
justify their use, they often sprout a standard slogan or response
instead of think of it.
This is of course a problem for us who want to control our
psychochemistry: if a large number of people won't make informed
decisions, it becomes easy for stasist groups to claim that in order
to protect the majority of people psychochemical self-hacking must be
banned or rigidly controlled. It also leads to a huge number of cases
where people sabotage their own lives.
A large part of the cause is likely our irrational drug culture. Drugs
are not seen as anything rational, rather they are anti-rational and
should remain so. As long as this mindset remains, people will not
make informed decisions.
So maybe the place to start isn't at the DEA/FDA/Läkemedelsverket/etc,
but at changing the drug culture.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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