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Title: The Life Changing Effects of Magic Mushrooms and Why the Government Keeps this from You
Source:
Free Thought Project
URL Source: http://thefreethoughtproject.com/li ... ts-magic-mushrooms-government/
Published: Jun 21, 2015
Author: Justin Gardner
Post Date: 2015-06-21 13:05:19 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 9508
Comments: 52
The pursuit of knowledge and advancement of medical research are among the many victims of the War on Drugs. Just as marijuana prohibition is now being dismantled under the juggernaut of reason, so too will the prohibition of psychedelics. For thousands of years, cultures around the world have explored the mystical experience provided by psychedelic substances, using mescaline, ayahuasca, and magic mushrooms for religious ceremony and healing purposes. In the 1940s, western medicine began realizing the potential for psychedelics to treat addiction and psychiatric disorders. Tens of thousands of people were treated effectively, and psychedelic drugs were on the fast track to becoming mainstream medicine. But the beast of oppression reared its ugly head. In 1967 and 1970, the UK and US governments cast all psychedelic substances into the pit of prohibition. People were waking up to the fact that governments intended to keep the world in a state of war, and that governments were working to keep the populace sedated under a cloak of consumerism. The collective mind expansion of that era came to a screeching halt under the boot and truncheon. Now, as people share information globally, instantaneously, on a scale unstoppable by the state, we are resuming the advancement of medical research on psychedelic substances. Scientists are challenging the irrational classification of psychedelics as “class A” (UK) or “schedule 1” (US) substances, characterized as having no medical use and high potential for addiction. “But no evidence indicates that psychedelic drugs are habit forming; little evidence indicates that they are harmful in controlled settings; and much historical evidence shows that they could have use in common psychiatric disorders,” says James Rucker, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience The hurdles created from the baseless Schedule 1, Class A prohibition make research extremely difficult. It can take two years to get the necessary license for trials, and everyone involved—the manufacturer, the hospital, the researcher—has to have this license. The drug must be locked in a safe and bolted to a wall in a locked room within another locked room, as if it’s some kind of dangerously toxic material. Prohibition also makes procurement ten times more expensive, making funding more difficult and pharmaceutical companies uninterested in making the precise products needed for study. Despite all this, modern research is showing once again that psychedelics can treat disorders such as depression, anxiety, and addiction. The drug of choice for clinical studies is psilocybin—the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms”—which is not as strong and long-lasting as LSD or mescaline. A clinical trial carried out by Tony Bossis and Stephen Ross at New York University in 2014 showed astounding results for advanced cancer patients suffering from anxiety. “According to Ross, cancer patients receiving just a single dose of psilocybin experienced immediate and dramatic reductions in anxiety and depression, improvements that were sustained for at least six months. {The patients} were saying things like ‘I understand love is the most powerful force on the planet,’ or ‘I had an encounter with my cancer, this black cloud of smoke.’ People who had been palpably scared of death—they lost their fear. The fact that a drug given once can have such an effect for so long is an unprecedented finding. We have never had anything like it in the psychiatric field.” Roland Griffiths and Katherine MacLean at Johns Hopkins carried out studies prior to this, finding that psilocybin brought about mystical experiences in subjects. The “completeness” of this experience (according to the Pahnke-Richards Mystical Experience Questionnaire) closely tracked improvements in personal well-being, life satisfaction, openness, and positive behavior change for up to 14 months after the experience. Griffiths also conducted a study using psilocybin to treat smoking addiction, with striking results. 80% of the subjects remained abstinent for six months after treatment, a far better success rate than any other existing nicotine-replacement therapy. One subject said, “Smoking seemed irrelevant, so I stopped.” An analysis of trials from the 60s and 70s showed that LSD helped people overcome alcohol addiction as successfully as any treatment to date. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is helping to understand the mechanisms of how psychedelics can treat addiction and depression. Stimulation of serotonin 2A receptors by psychedelics decreases activity in certain areas of the brain, especially the “default mode network” (DMN) which is involved in our ingrained thought patterns and behaviors. Decreasing DMN stimulation can allow people to break free from destructive brain patterns. An exhaustive survey carried out by Johns Hopkins Medicine supports the conclusions of clinical research, finding that “A history of psychedelic drug use is associated with less psychological distress and fewer suicidal thoughts, planning and attempts…” Fascinating research using fMRI shows that, under the influence of psilocybin, the brain enters a pattern of activity similar to the dream state. Primitive areas of the brain linked to emotions, memory and arousal become more synchronized, while higher-level thinking and the “sense of self” become unsynchronized. After 40 years, it appears that another brick in the wall of prohibition is beginning to crumble in the face of science and logic. Eminent schools of medicine, along with organizations like the Heffter Research Institute and the Beckley Foundation, are challenging oppression and bringing psychedelics back into mainstream medicine. 
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 36.
#9. To: Deckard (#0)
What's your next article on? The benefits of pure opiates?
What's your next article on? The benefits of pure opiates? Deckard, you have represented yourself to be a Christian who holds strong Christian beliefs, at least that is the way I have read what you have to say numerous times in your posts. I have absolutely no reason to believe you are not the Christian you profess to be. Consequently, I can think of no better person to answer a question than you. The question is: As a Christian do not approve the taking of illegal drugs, including most recreational drugs....all those which can alter the mind? I may have a follow up question …
I have answered that previously. Should Christians Support the ‘War on Drugs’? You guys really don't get it, do you? It is NOT the government's business what a FREE citizen decides to put into his OWN body. Take this thread for example. The article is about the medicinal use of magic mushrooms, but you statists are pissing your pants at the thought of any "unapproved by fed.gov" substance that has shown promising effects in treating disorders. Same thing with marijuana - you've been fed government propaganda all your life and you just can't think on your own to see that these substances have real use in medicine.
I have answered that previously. Can you please answer it again? As to your the rest of your post, I am not interested in what the government does or does not do right now. I only want to know: As a Christian do not approve the taking of illegal drugs, including most recreational drugs....all those which can alter the mind?
Did Jesus change water into wine? Or was it grape juice, like those teetotalers believe?
Did Jesus change water into wine? Or was it grape juice, like those teetotalers believe? John chapter 2 records Jesus performing a miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. At the wedding, the hosts ran out of wine. Jesus' mother, Mary, asks Jesus to intervene, and He does so, reluctantly. Jesus has the servants bring six jars filled with water and then instructs the servants to give it to the overseer of the celebration. The water miraculously turns into wine, and the overseer declares that it was the best wine he had ever tasted. In this account, Jesus performed an amazing miracle, actually altering the molecular composition of the water, changing it into wine. The point of the account is summarized in John 2:11, "He thus revealed His glory, and His disciples put their faith in Him." Usually, though, when this passage is studied, a side issue becomes the main issue. Did Jesus transform the water into wine (fermented, alcoholic) or into grape juice (non-alcoholic)?
No he made real wine. Not grape juice.
That is what the article said also.
OH that part stuck out. I misread it as the kind of wind that doesn't get you drunk.
I've had wine in my day; I even got tipsy on it once or twice.
I've never drank enough wine to get drunk off of it. That isn't true of other substances.
#38. To: A K A Stone (#36)
Are you a pothead too? I stick to beer and get a buzz on occasion.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestFor thousands of years, cultures around the world have explored the mystical experience provided by psychedelic substances, using mescaline, ayahuasca, and magic mushrooms for religious ceremony and healing purposes.
#12. To: Deckard, redleghunter (#9)
For thousands of years, cultures around the world have explored the mystical experience provided by psychedelic substances, using mescaline, ayahuasca, and magic mushrooms for religious ceremony and healing purposes.
#19. To: Gatlin (#12)
(Edited)
As a Christian do not approve the taking of illegal drugs, including most recreational drugs....all those which can alter the mind?
#20. To: Deckard (#19)
As a Christian do not approve the taking of illegal drugs, including most recreational drugs....all those which can alter the mind?
#25. To: Gatlin (#20)
As a Christian do not [sic] approve the taking of illegal drugs, including most recreational drugs....all those which can alter the mind?
#30. To: Fred Mertz (#25)
Throughout the passage, the Greek word translated "wine" is oinos, which was the common Greek word for normal wine, wine that was fermented/alcoholic. The Greek word for the wine Jesus created is the same word for the wine the wedding feast ran out of. The Greek word for the wine Jesus created is also the same word that is used in Ephesians 5:18, "...do not get drunk on wine..." Obviously, getting drunk from drinking wine requires the presence of alcohol. Everything, from the context of a wedding feast, to the usage of oinos in 1st century Greek literature (in the New Testament and outside the New Testament), argues for the wine that Jesus created to be normal, ordinary wine, containing alcohol. There is simply no solid historical, cultural, exegetical, contextual, or lexical reason to understand it to have been grape juice.
Those who oppose the drinking of alcohol, in any quantity, argue that Jesus would not have turned the water into wine, as He would have been promoting the consumption of a substance that is tainted by sin. In this understanding, alcohol itself is inherently sinful, and consumption of alcohol in any quantity is sin. That is not a biblical understanding, however. Some Scriptures discuss alcohol in positive terms. Ecclesiastes 9:7 instructs, “Drink your wine with a merry heart.” Psalm 104:14-15 states that God gives wine “that makes glad the heart of men.” Amos 9:14 discusses drinking wine from your own vineyard as a sign of God’s blessing. Isaiah 55:1 encourages, “Yes, come buy wine and milk…” From these and other Scriptures, it is clear that alcohol itself is not inherently sinful. Rather, it is the abuse of alcohol, drunkenness and/or addiction, that is sinful (Ephesians 5:18; Proverbs 23:29-35; 1 Corinthians 6:12; 2 Peter 2:19). Therefore, it would not have been a sin for Jesus to create a drink that contained alcohol.
A second, related argument is that by creating alcoholic wine, Jesus would have been promoting drunkenness, which the Bible clearly identifies as sinful. This is not a valid argument. Was Jesus promoting gluttony when He multiplied the fishes and loaves far beyond what the people needed? Of course not. Creating a substance that can be abused does not make one responsible when another person foolishly chooses to abuse it. Jesus creating alcoholic wine was in no sense encouraging drunkenness.
The belief that Jesus created alcoholic wine is definitely more in agreement with the context and the definition/usage of oinos. The primary reasons for interpreting it as grape juice, that alcohol is inherently sinful or that the creation of alcohol would have been encouraging drunkenness, are unbiblical and invalid. There is simply no good biblical reason to understand John 2 as anything other than Jesus performing an amazing miracle by turning water into real wine. Is drunkenness sinful? Absolutely! Is addiction sinful? Definitely. Would Jesus turning the water into alcoholic wine in any way violate God's standards regarding the consumption of alcohol? Absolutely not!
#31. To: Gatlin (#30)
#32. To: A K A Stone (#31)
No he made real wine. Not grape juice.
#34. To: Gatlin (#32)
Jesus created is also the same word that is used in Ephesians 5:18, "...do not get drunk on wine...
#35. To: A K A Stone (#34)
I misread it as the kind of wind [sic] that doesn't get you drunk.
#36. To: Fred Mertz (#35)
Replies to Comment # 36.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 36.
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