Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
In the Brazilian rainforest there is a town built around a church where worshippers drink hallucinogenic tea. "At the church entrance I was served a cup of the brew. I swigged it down straight away. Then I drank another cup"
Addiction assessed via philosophy. "For Socrates, ‘yielding to temptation’ is not being unwillingly overpowered, but is the experience of being a willing participant choosing what is at that moment wrongly thought to be best"
In America, eccentrics are not born, but made. Usually by ingesting large quantities of illegal drugs. "When I landed in the People’s Republic of Berkeley in 1970 it felt as though I had followed Alice down the rabbit hole"
Michael Jackson's doctor gave him Propofol, an anaesthetic drug, as a sedative. Bad move. "Propofol doesn’t cause sleep. If given enough, it will cause oblivion, but the cerebral activity necessary for sleep does not take place"
Was "serotonin hypothesis" of depression discarded too soon? Latest research suggests serotonin is indeed central to functioning of mood, but "its mechanism of action is vastly more subtle and more magnificent than we ever imagined"
"You have to consider that in the region I’m operating in, the market’s kind of flooded. And in order to compete, I have to keep my prices pretty steady. So basically, clients and the market determine my rate and profit"
Doctor-patient relationship is in tatters. You have about 23 seconds to explain your symptoms. You probably won't grasp the reply. And you'll get the wrong kind of care: CT scans if litigation is feared; too many drugs if you're old
"Never before has it been so easy to obtain the instructions, precursor molecules, and manufacturing capabilities to produce exotic, unregulated compounds on a mass scale." Welcome to the dangerous world of underground chemistry
Central and South American leaders are bracing themselves to break with the United States and abandon the "war on drugs". They can't win it. The costs are too great. What follows? Perhaps legalisation for marijuana, at least
Yes of course you are. You "drink to relieve stress" and you "look forward to drinking". So you're somewhere on the alcoholic spectrum. Not totally in control, but not on Skid Row either. Have a drink and think it over
"There was a time when mothers gave their babies opium, people bought hallucinogens at the local bar, and anxious patriots sent hypodermic needles and cocaine to soldiers as a present." Even the Pope drank psychoactive Vin Mariani
Reflections on changes in attitudes to drug use, from 19th century on. "Fashion – the cyclical approval of certain intoxicating substances and the disavowal of others – has shaped the entire recorded history of intoxication"
