Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Albert Hofman RIP

Albert Hofman, the discoverer of LSD and long term psychedelic adventurer died on April 29 aged 102. A collection of obituaries and videos on Albert’s life are here. Hofman disliked the way Timothy Leary and the other psychedelic enthusiasts gave LSD a bad press since he believed LSD could expose people to the spiritual side of life. To Hofmann however LSD was by no means essential for doing the latter:

His advice to would-be trippers was simple. “Go to the meadow, go to the garden, go to the woods. Open your eyes!”

I concur. The main argument against the use of illicit drugs is that while they raise the prospect of damage and harm they are unnecessary. It’s called life. Get into it.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does that mean if you take LSD, you'll live to be >100?

hc said...

Yes, there is compelling evidence that is so.

TimT said...

It’s called life. Get into it.

Ha! For a disturbing moment there, you sounded like a 1980s health campaign!

Anonymous said...

It’s called life. Get into it.

I know you've heard it all before, and continue to stick your head in the sand about it, but the fact is we all have our own lives, Harry. For some people the use of recreational drugs is part of that life, and regardless of how naively certain you are of your viewpoint, you don't know what's best for them or how they should live their lives. In many ways you are the height of conservative arrogance.

A decent conservative acknowledges the rights of an individual to make their own choices as the basis of any civil society - then tries to educate them as to why conservative values are good for them. The weak conservative just wants lots of laws to force their views on others, and in doing so gives conservatism a bad name.

hc said...

Michael, I am not a liberrtarian I am a conservative. There is a difference. Genberally however I too favour persuasian - if you noptice I am heavy on publicising harms of dope use but do not support heavy punishments.