I get that the right to consume any substance one wants into one's own body is a basic human right, but outlawing LSD and cannabis are two cases of outrageous, striking dumbness and pointlessness. Neither one is addictive, and the LD50 of each is an incredible number of orders of magnitude higher than a normal dose. It is virtually impossible to harm yourself.
> I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. “You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
This is Dan Baum recalling a conversation with a dead Ehrlichmann after he got out of prison, 20 years after he served with Nixon. Dan puts quotes around this passage but I don't believe for a second that that is what Ehrlichmann said. And Ehrlichmann died 17 years ago, so he's not around to defend himself.
When you say 'recalling a conversation', you mean going over notes from the time he interviewed Ehrlichmann for a book. Given that Baum is a professional journalist, whose career depends on being able to accurately quote people, I reckon it's a bit better sourced that your phrasing suggests.
Note also that Erlichmann's family based their denial of the Baum story partly on the notion that he never said anything racist in front of them - though his propensity for racism is definitely confirmed in the Watergate tapes.
> Note also that Erlichmann's family based their denial of the Baum story partly on the notion that he never said anything racist in front of them - though his propensity for racism is definitely confirmed in the Watergate tapes.
Look, I'm not really here to stick up for Ehrlichmann. After all, he did go to jail for some time for conspiracy and obstruction of justice. First of all, that already makes him the least reliable of witnesses, even if he really did say that. Second, he's an easy target for a journalist that wants to sensationalize their story, and instead believing him just because "he's a journalist" is not rational. Dan Baum has written about that interview before and there was never anything close to that damning of a quote. This is why I think this quote is total hogwash. It fits exactly what you want to hear deep down about two bad people: Ehrlichmann and Nixon. Too bad it's likely a fabrication, with zero evidence otherwise.
> Look, I'm not really here to stick up for Ehrlichmann. After all, he did go to jail for some time for conspiracy and obstruction of justice. First of all, that already makes him the least reliable of witnesses, even if he really did say that. Second, he's an easy target for a journalist that wants to sensationalize their story, and instead believing him just because "he's a journalist" is not rational. Dan Baum has written about that interview before and there was never anything close to that damning of a quote. This is why I think this quote is total hogwash. It fits exactly what you want to hear deep down about two bad people: Ehrlichmann and Nixon. Too bad it's likely a fabrication, with zero evidence otherwise.
"likely a fabrication"
"with zero evidence otherwise"
The burden of proof is on you to show that the quote is a fabrication, not on the journalist.
Let's go through it, though.
Going to jail for conspiracy and obstruction of justice makes him a criminal, but not necessarily a liar on techniques the U.S. government used against counterculture.
Secondly, Nixon and his administration did outrageous things. You can hardly dismiss more allegations of outrageous acts as more-likely-to-be-fabricated because it fits pre-existing narrative. That's, like, the opposite of how priors work. "It fits exactly what you want to hear deep down about two bad people: Ehrlichmann and Nixon" -- YES! Nixon and Ehrlichmann were bad people and did bad things. Did they do what Ehrlichmann (allegedly) describes? Who knows, but it isn't an argument against their having done something horrific that they had other horrific policies.
Nixon, you may remember, bugged a Supreme Court justice.
Journalists' livelihoods are dependent on not misquoting those who they interview. The claim was that the quote is a fabrication. How can the journalist possibly defend against this charge? It's requiring him to prove a negative.
Actually, the previous poster's claim is worse than that. This journalist does have notes and so if it mattered enough, those could be subjected to forensic examination to see if they're consistent with the time period of the interview. The poster is basically denying something for which there is almost certainly actual physical evidence corroborating Baum's story, as well as apparently defaming a professional journalist.
Sorry, no, questioning a journalist's claims is not defamation.
The family thinks this quote is bunk, too.
"We never saw or heard anything from our dad, John Ehrlichman, that was derogatory about any person of color," wrote Peter Ehrlichman, Tom Ehrlichman, Jan Ehrlichman, Michael Ehrlichman and Jody E. Pineda in a statement provided to CNN.
"The 1994 alleged 'quote' we saw repeated in social media for the first time today does not square with what we know of our father. And collectively, that spans over 185 years of time with him," the Ehrlichman family wrote. "We do not subscribe to the alleged racist point of view that this writer now implies 22 years following the so-called interview of John and 16 years following our father's death, when dad can no longer respond. None of us have raised our kids that way, and that's because we were not raised that way."
> Sorry, no, questioning a journalist's claims is not defamation.
If you're falsely claiming a journalist is lying, it damn well is. We're talking about someone who referred to his notes of an interview and flat out quoted Erlichman by name with a lengthy quote. If you're contradicting him, it's hard to see how you're suggesting an innocent misquote - either Baum is lying or you're wrong.
> The family thinks this quote is bunk, too.
The family clearly doesn't know shit about Ehrlichman's racist views. He was caught on one of Nixon's tapes, released in 2003, ranting that black people were sexual degenerates with no family values, and in another tape that black people should be stuck in boxcars to work as domestics.
I'd point you at the recordings (good luck denying those), but the Nixon archives are really hard to search, so it might take some time. The latter is quoted in John Dean's book "The Nixon Defence", but google books isn't giving up the footnote today!
Comments like yours are very dangerous. They buy into the DARE framing of the dangers of drugs being death. But there are much more subtle dangers that get ignored when the discussion is framed this way.
And I say this as someone who went through a prolonged depression following ecstacy use in my early 20s. I stupidly evaluated the dangers of the drug and determined that the naysayers who were warning of possible death were full of shit and didn't think to consider the less severe negative consequences.
Folks go through depression after prolonged alcohol use as well, and likelwise use it to treat their own depression. But it is still legal. We tend to ignore a lot of subtle dangers of alcohol as well - or overemphasize them in some contexts.
Unfortunately, a lot of the context of illegal drugs is of the overemphasizing sort instead of normal, down-to-earth information taking good with the bad. Which leads to some things like your situation and stupid behavior.
Besides, it is really difficult to sort that depression stuff out. Pot and hash can induce panic attacks in a small portion of the population, but in general that only happens if they have a predisposition to it or if they have an untreated anxiety condition. And it seems to be the same sort of thing with other drugs - and I'm going to guess that it only happens with a small portion of users in reality, much like most folks don't get addicted to most drugs. I fully believe to get over that sort of hump, we not only need balanced and completely truthful information on drugs, but we also need to be able to have truthful and destigmatised discussion about mental health in addition to having facilities available to help folks out.
I went through depression after my first relationship. We don't warn children about the dangers of relationships, we just expect that they'll "figure it out" just like everyone else.
You figured out the dangers of high ecstasy usage yourself. Are you one of these people who thinks nobody but you is capable of figuring out how to use it safely?
The point was that I had to find out the dangers of prolonged ecstacy use the hard way because the dangers of the drug were so overblown by opponents and I didn't hear a more nuanced take on the subject. I cannot be the only one capable of figuring out how to use it safely because I did not figure out how to use it safely.
I just think that potential ecstacy users need to hear that there are consequences that can be very severe that don't work well as scare tactics. If they understand the risks and still choose to use, then more power to them. They've made an informed choice based on accurate information. But accurate information is the key and we do a disservice as a society by putting out the ridiculous message that ecstacy can kill you.
Oh, and to equate breakup misery with clinical depression is pretty ignorant. Depression has a specific meaning that doesn't equate to sadness.
When talking about potential harm of a substance, it is important to qualify the risk. Transient down-regulation of serotonin receptors is not really the same thing as post-relationship breakup blues.
MDMA is famous for inducing temporary depression, ala a "breakup blues". The risk of extended or even permanent depression issues is not well known at this time, it does not seem likely from occasional doses as I understand it. But it still seems to remain a possibility with very high or extended doses. Certainly there's enough anecdotal reports out there that seem to suggest this.
While I do agree that it is a human right to consume anything you want, I very much disagree that "It is virtually impossible to harm yourself" with LSD or Ganja ...
Just because you can't really physically kill yourself with the drug, doesn't mean it can't do you bad otherwise.
Minus the legality issues, neither of these have shown to be any worse than some of the dangers of alcohol. Either can be bad for folks with severe mental illness of certain types. It probably isn't safe to drive on LSD, and you'd not really want to be too stoned (or drunk) to take care of your kids.
But this same sort of stuff is true for so many other things. If it were that bad, I'm pretty sure there would be many more problems in places like Amsterdam.
Well, water is not any worse than alcohol, so that first statement doesn't really make sense. In general LSD is orders of magnitude safer than alcohol, even based just on the LD50. LSD is very potent, but not addictive, and for a few casual uses, which can be mind-expanding, it generally doesn't have any negative effects, outside of a few very rare cases.
LSD is not without risks. There are number of well known artists from the 1960s that experienced mental health issues related to LSD consumption. Look up Roky Erikson, Syd Barret, Peter Green and Skip Spence.
None of it is without risks. My understanding has generally been that LSD doesn't produce mental health issues, but can trigger it in some folks, most of the time because they already have it or enough of the markers, such as in Schizophrenia. (Yes, still a horrible risk). Other drugs can terse out underlying mental illness as well: Unfortunately this is one of the side effects of any drug. Contradicting this is the folks that are experimenting with microdosing as a drug to help mental illness, especially depression. Odd how minds work.
As far as the stuff in the 1960's, literature gets weird. Some say that the stuff from the 60's was stronger than the stuff from the 90's forward: Some say it is in general safer. Safety might just be because more folks know what to expect and the culture 'grew up' as they say. Some say there was more 'bad' acid back then. Doesn't change what happened to them, nor that the two might (or might not) have been related.
But to me, this is all a cry for legality so that such things can be regulated, down to earth talks about what to expect and side effects can occur, and much better mental health screenings (and diagnostics).
In the eyes of the traditional establishment, LSD is an extremely dangerous substance, not because of it's potential for causing physical harm (which is very close to zero), but because of it's consciousness altering ability, also called "mind expansion" ability.
People who go through a proper acid trip are permanently changed. Their core philosophy, religious and political views can be dramatically altered.
They stop believing the stories that the State and Church wants them to believe and some become hard to control, insubordinate, etc which I would sum up with one word - "free" (of course, with it's own set of consequences).
If the System "brainwashes", the LSD "braincleans".
And then people turn into "hippies", wearing flowers in their hairs, hugging trees and eating vegetarian food. They look at all people as "human beings", instead of "Communist", "Muslim" or "Gay".
They also want everyone to take it.
If I were the military-industrial ego-centric paranoid war-mongering establishment of the '60s, then I would definitely outlaw it and try to get rid of everyone who promotes its use.
Fortunately, LSD and Marijuana are making a major come back, now globally, with millions of young people "waking up", which in our day and age is vitally important, so I hope we'll see news like these more often, including the release of Ross Ulbricht of SilkRoad fame among others.
Because LSD ended up being used primarily within counterculture after academia dismissed its medical potential, I do believe there is some degree of truth in the Erlichmann quote / rememberance. But the fact that LSD culture was aligned with the rise of the beatniks and hippies does not mean that every person who takes LSD becomes a rebel-against-the-system hippie.
Some early LSD use was actually intended for therapeutic treatment, recall. LSD was also experimented with by those same military-industrial complex you are talking about, in the infamous Project MKULTRA experiments. These experiments may have contributed to making a hippie or two (Ken Kesey famously was a participant), but clearly not all participants became a hippie for sure. (Some individuals in fact received negative effects from what I recall, LSD is safer than DARE videos would have it, but the potential for causing mental harm is there, paranoia / schizophrenic type issues in particular) Do also recall that the Hell's Angels (in the California / Hunter S. Thompson circle at least) were also pretty big fans of LSD "back in the day". Biker culture is quite far away from hippie culture.
Today, with marijuana in particular, currently I think you are seeing somewhat of a "normalization" with marijuana in that it's becoming more "normal" to use in a casual manner (ala casual consumption of alcohol). It's not just "hippies" smoking marijuana anymore, it's anyone from CEOs to Olympic athletes these days. It's why, in my opinion, it eventually will be legalized. It won't happen with LSD as easily in my opinion, not enough potential for casual usage, but marijuana's story is a good reason why one has to be careful conflating the recreational substance with the culture it is associated with.
I favor precision in language. One may develop a cannabis psychic dependency or habit, but addiction means physical dependence including a real physical withdrawal syndrome.
