Worried? Have a Mushroom...

American scientists are re-testing the medical benefits of psychedelic drugs, finding that drugs like psilocybin (found in “Magic Mushrooms”) help patients cope with anxiety. Hallucinogenic drugs like psilocybin and LSD used to be prescribed to treat various psychiatric disorders in the 50s and 60s, before being banned as the drugs became popular recreationally.

So what deems a drug worthy of being outlawed? Why are amphetamines okay to prescribe to ADD children, but illegal for adults to buy? Why was cocaine an acceptable ingredient at the turn of the century but is now demonized by governments around the world? Why is alcohol, by far the most socially destroying drug to those who become addicted, legal and socially accepted?

In the BBC article about LSD, it states that the drug quickly became illegal when counter-culture started using it recreationally. And it seems that this is why so many drugs are controlled and made illegal: they’re fun.

Now here’s the disclaimer about addiction: I understand the gravity of this disease and I do see it as a disease. By making certain drugs illegal, governments are trying to cut down on addiction and other societal ills that come with drug abuse. But this is a sweeping judgment on the mass population, a high percentage of which will not find themselves addicted to much more than coffee in their lifetime.

Humans use drugs for a variety of medicinal reasons, and some of the legal drugs are far worse for the body than the illegal ones, especially because most illegal drug users (I am not including drug abusers) use drugs on a less regular basis than people on prescriptions.

It seems that society’s views on illegal drugs have more to do with built up attitudes (by government propaganda, by the media) than scientific evidence of long term and short term effects. And if society sees that a drug’s sole purpose is for recreational use, then it will ban it.

Everything in moderation, people.