Episode 011 Drugs and the Meaning of Life
Summary
- Drugs are a means of altering consciousness
- Language around drugs is often limited and unhelpful
- Drug abuse and addiction are real problems that require education and medical treatment, not incarceration
- The war on drugs has been lost and should never have been waged
- Psychedelics such as psilocybin, LSD, DMT, and mescaline powerfully alter cognition, perception, and mood
- Psychedelics have therapeutic potential, but can also be abused and neurotoxic
- Psychedelics establish the material basis of mental and spiritual life
- Psychedelics should be kept out of the hands of children and used responsibly by adults
- Psychedelics may be a material means of opening the tap to a transpersonal dimension of mind.
- The brain as a filter theory suggests that psychedelics decrease brain activity, but some studies have found that they increase activity.
- Damaging the brain should not increase cognition, as some people suggest.
- Psychedelics modulate existing neurochemistry and can produce profound experiences, but can also lead to psychosis.
- Psychedelics are a unique and potent means of altering consciousness, but can be harrowing and timedilating.
- Psychedelic drugs can produce both positive and negative experiences.
- On one trip, the speaker experienced terror and selftorture.
- Psychedelics can be ethically neutral and may not guarantee wisdom or selfless consciousness.
- Meditation can open the mind to similar states of consciousness without the same risks.
- Psychedelics can reveal depths of awe and understanding that can otherwise elude us for a lifetime.
- Psychedelics may be indispensable for some people, but other methods of practice are available.