The Abuse of Psychotomimetic Drugs

Abstract

“Clearly, there are periods extensively characterized by anxiety-periods in which the consciousness of many people, and even more so their subconsciousness, is haunted in varying degree by fear and worry, by loneliness and apathy, and by frustration, resentment, and aggression. These are periods in which many see themselves as aliens and exiles trapped in a world from which they want more than anything else to escape, either by destroying the old order and actually creating a new and better world, or by withdrawing into a compensatory inner or transcendental world” (Rosen, 1967)

“While scientists may debate the appropriate use of hallucinogens, history records our unceasing urge to cope with dreary reality or dread with the aid of magic, drugs, drama, festival rites, and (with biological regularity) through dreams. The need to transcend limits also finds a voice in Utopian ideologies-be they of the inner world, of this, or the next; the promise of omnipotent mastery is always either implicit or readily inferred.… Given the prevalence of these motives it is not surprising that drugs play a role not only in the behavior of individuals but also in social and ideological processes” (Freedman, 1968)