Britain's most senior coroner has issued a stark warning that many young people are dying because of prolonged use of cannabis. Hamish Turner, president of the Coroners' Society, believes the drug is behind many deaths that have been recorded as accidents or suicides. During the past year, he claims, up to one in 10 of the 100 deaths he has dealt with have a significant link to the drug. Mr Turner's grim analysis came days after MPs voted for plans to reclassify cannabis as a Class C drug. [continues 215 words]
LONDON: British deaths from ecstasy, cocaine and amphetamines have rocketed 47 per cent in the past year. The toll topped 1500 for the first time, fuelled by a rise in so-called "recreational" hard drugs taken by weekend users. Ecstasy, cocaine and speed are increasingly used by young people who take cocktails of drugs every weekend. The findings emerged in a study of coroners' reports which suggested stronger tablets, easier availability, falling prices and the growing popularity of drug cocktails were behind the rising death toll. [continues 356 words]
POLICE can no longer seize boats, cars and motorcycles belonging to WA criminals because they've run out of storage room. Investigators are continuing to put freeze orders on suspected proceeds of crime but they can no longer remove the items. "At the moment the officers are putting orders on vehicles and boats and other assets and then leaving them in situ with the criminals they're supposed to have taken them off," WA Police Union president Mike Dean said. "You can imagine what's going to happen to these assets. They will end up being used, deliberately run-down, damaged or even stolen." [continues 419 words]
THE Gallop Government's climb down on cannabis reform is a sign of weakness and indecision, one of the key participants's in the community drug summit says. The Government is now considering a cap on the "occasions" a user is caught with cannabis. A user caught twice in three years would be charged and therefore have a criminal record. Under the Government's original plan to decriminalise cannabis use, someone using up to 30g and in possession of two plants would only be fined, with no criminal conviction recorded. [continues 400 words]
A new book argues the case for dagga Cannabis: A History by Martin Booth, Random House, R155. When Pope Gregory IX initiated the Holy Inquisition in 1231, one of the substances that came under scrutiny was hemp - used apparently not only by herbalists and physicians but sorcerers as well. Their persecution began in earnest in 1484, when Pope Innocent VIII, specifically targeting women, banned the use of hemp in rituals to prevent the celebration of the Black or Satanic Mass. Hemp aided in driving Satanists and witches into ecstatic frenzies, making them hungry and acting as an aphrodisiac for orgies. Hemp seed oil was also an ingredient in "flying ointment", which witches used to "ride their broomsticks". This was according to Malleus Maleficarum, a handbook on sorcery, first published in 1482. [continues 819 words]
TADA (Teenagers Against Drug Abuse) are a group of teenagers who campaign against the abuse of drugs. They operate from the standpoint that drugs increase problems rather than solve them. At Umlazi Commercial High, TADA members try their best to teach others about the effects of drugs and the damage they can cause. We are also aware that peer pressure seems to be the main cause of drug abuse. If you are not a smoker or drinker, your friends tend to look down on you. Young people indulge in those activities so that they will be accepted into a group. Your life is yours, and you only live once. Be a leader and do things your own way. Think twice before taking advice from a misguided friend. - Hlengiwe Xaba, Grade 11 and TADA chairperson [end]
MORE than 30,000 British cannabis smokers could die every year, doctors have warned. Medical experts blame Home Secretary David Blunkett for creating confusion about the risks posed by the drug - leading young people to believe wrongly it is harmless. They say Mr Blunkett's decision to relassify cannabis as a Class C drug - putting it on a level with anabolic steroids and prescription painkillers - sent out the wrong message and played down the devastating health effects of its regular use. [continues 287 words]
THE proposed law reforms surrounding the recreational usage of marijuana should be upheld and sentences for propagating and selling should be increased in line with other more dangerous drugs. Recently, I attended the funeral of a suicide victim who became mentally ill after smoking marijuana. If you ring the drug hotline they will tell you that there are more deaths from alcohol and cigarettes than marijuana, ignoring the fact that more people drink or smoke and that it is more socially accepted. Most people are unaware of the dangers of marijuana. [continues 59 words]
I respond to Liam Bartlett's column "Dopy debate helps nobody" (TST, April 13), particularly the last two paragraphs: "The Government argues it is on the right track because under the new laws cannabis will remain illegal. But when it comes to explaining how the changes will make life better, they are not (according to Liam) convincing..." Firstly, the Opposition has an ethical problem. During the WA Community Drug Summit, it said it would support the summit's process and decisions. The police supported the summit's thinking on cannabis. [continues 95 words]
DELEGATES at the community drug summit were misled on the issue of cannabis-related deaths, the Opposition claims. A statistical sheet handed out to delegates showed no deaths from cannabis in Australia between 1985 and 1999. The Opposition says this is wrong and has given The Sunday Times Australian Bureau of Statistics figures that show there were 183 cannabis-related deaths between 1997-2001, including 60 in WA. The Opposition is enlisting the help of parents and grandparents in an attempt to stop the Government's plan to decriminalise the cultivation of two marijuana plants and the use of up to 30g of cannabis. [continues 301 words]
The State Government's plan to decriminalise minor cannabis use follows a similar experiment in Britain that has since been branded a failure. In Britain, the Blair Government allowed cannabis users in a working-class area of London's Lambeth to escape the full sanction of the law. After a year, the experiment was widely condemned as having a shocking effect on vulnerable people, particulary children. Opposition Leader Colin Barnet this week quoted from an article in London's Evening Standard to underscore his opposition to the Government's legislation. [continues 109 words]
An Uncompromising Stand By Schools On Drugs Is Unjust And Doomed To Failure, Says Mark Pyper, The Head Of Gordonstoun The government's downgrading of cannabis from a class B to a class C drug has been viewed with alarm by some head teachers, who worry that it may make it more difficult for them to keep schools drug-free. I do not believe that it will make any difference - as long as schools have the right policies in the first place. At Gordonstoun we abandoned the 'zero tolerance' policy - automatic expulsion for a single drugs offence - in 1996, recognising that it was unrealistic, unreasonable and unhelpful. [continues 756 words]
MORE than UKP 700,000 of lottery money has been awarded to a charity that gives children tips on how to conceal drugs from their parents. The charity, Lifeline, also gives a qualified endorsement of ecstasy as a slimming aid for women, publishes a free DIY guide to rolling the perfect joint and advises which surfaces are best for snorting cocaine. In addition to its lottery grants, Lifeline receives hundreds of thousands of pounds each year from the Home Office, which is responsible for Britain's war on drugs. The lottery money has been awarded by the Community Fund, already under fire from David Blunkett, the home secretary, for granting UKP 340,000 to a charity helping asylum seekers fight deportation. That grant has been frozen pending an inquiry. Meanwhile the Community Fund has turned down an application for UKP 180,000 by the National Drug Prevention Alliance, which urges people not to take drugs. [continues 561 words]
MINISTERS are to press ahead with "decriminalising" cannabis despite public concern that it will encourage an explosion in drug abuse. David Blunkett, the home secretary, is to risk a public backlash by announcing in July his plans to reclassify cannabis, allowing those who possess it to escape arrest. The move could see the drug effectively legalised across Britain by the end of the year. Ministers and police chiefs insist that a controversial pilot scheme in Brixton, south London, has been an "undoubted success", allowing police to concentrate on tackling street dealers and violent crime. [continues 608 words]
THE coffee shops of Amsterdam, where cannabis and other soft drugs are sold openly, are under threat after the swing to the right in last Wednesday's general election. The Christian Democrats, likely to form a coalition with the radical anti-immigration Pim Fortuyn List, have vowed to close such cafes across the Netherlands, blaming them for the growing drug use among the young. The party leader, Jan Peter Balkenende, a devout Christian who is expected to be prime minister, promised to end tolerance of cannabis. [continues 585 words]
A report from the cross-party home affairs select committee, due on Wednesday, is widely expected to say cannabis should be downgraded from a class B to a class C drug. This would mean it remained illegal but possession of it would attract a caution or a fine rather than arrest. The committee is also likely to suggest that ministers consider setting up "shooting galleries" where addicts can inject drugs under medical supervision in a safe, clean room. Most controversial will be the report's verdict on ecstasy, the drug taken by an estimated 500,000 young people in nightclubs each weekend. An early draft suggested that it, too, should be downgraded from class A to class B, but some members of the committee are thought to have objected. Last week a coroner described taking the drug as "like playing Russian roulette" after hearing the case of Kirsty Mendy, 17, a student who died after taking two ecstasy tablets. [continues 113 words]
CLASSES teaching people how to run their own Amsterdam-style cannabis cafes have been flooded with applications from Britain, including four from Scotland. Of the 30 places on the "cannabizness" course - run by Nol van Schaik, a convicted former bank robber, in the Dutch town of Haarlem - 27 have been filled by Brits. Students are taught how to set up a cannabis cafe, including storage control and hygiene tips. They are told how to judge the quality of the drug by sight and smell and how to roll the perfect joint. [continues 474 words]
Hidden Lessons Our name for him was ''the principal of vice,'' an ancient wisecrack we thought that we'd invented. He wore a funeral director's dark suit and tie, but his shoes were brown sneakers with soft treads -- the better to creep up on us, we figured. He liked to wrap an arm around our shoulders and ask us, in a casual, jolly tone that masked the alertness of a customs agent, how we were doing or what was up at home. We said nothing; one tiny confession might lead to others. [continues 911 words]
THE National Crime Authority will not be merged with the Australian Federal Police but the future of the controversial body remains in doubt. Senior state and federal bureaucrats and police officers will meet tomorrow to discuss the shake-up of the authority and improvements to terrorism and transnational crime fighting. The meeting will set an agenda for ministerial discussions later this month on the fate of the NCA, and between commonwealth and state leaders in April. But it remains unclear whether the AFP will take over any of the NCA's responsibilities, as recommended in a confidential review of the organisation handed to the federal Government earlier this year. [continues 163 words]
KIM Hough's dream to see WA farmers growing open fields of cannabis edged closer this week. The Hemp Resources chief executive officer and Hemp Association of WA president has been lobbying the Government for five years to allow industrial hemp to be grown in WA. And this week the State Government announced it would move to amend legislation to allow "safe" industrial cannabis to be grown. Agriculture Minister Kim Chance said a proposal would be put to Cabinet to allow cannabis containing less than 0.35 per cent of the hallucinogenic drug tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) to be legalised. [continues 177 words]
PEOPLE caught using cocaine, heroin and ecstasy will not face court action under sweeping changes to drugs policies that are being considered by police chiefs. Under the proposals, thousands of users who are arrested in possession of small amounts of hard as well as soft drugs will be referred for medical treatment rather than face criminal charges. The change is expected to be approved within the next few weeks. Chief constables insist they are not decriminalising hard drugs and emphasise that police will retain the option of pressing charges. But addicts and recreational users, although not drug dealers, will no longer be treated automatically as criminals if they agree to register for treatment, which could involve drugs prescribed under supervision. [continues 432 words]
If you want to take the "high" road to Scotland, head for Edinburgh, where there is growing pressure for the city to approve cannabis cafes in an attempt to create an "Amsterdam of the north". Support for the move is rising as the traditionally conservative city builds a reputation for street parties and liberal tolerance. It is also planning a CCTV-protected "tolerance zone" for prostitutes. Pete Irvine, one of Scottish tourism's most influential voices, has backed calls for the cannabis cafes. [continues 561 words]
PRINCE Harry has admitted smoking cannabis. The third in line to the throne confessed to his father that he smoked joints over a two-month period during his school holidays at Highgrove last summer. He was 16 at the time. Harry also confessed to underage and after-hours drinking at a local pub where he was introduced to cannabis. Several pub regulars returned to his father's country estate and on one occasion smoked joints in a basement den converted for the princes in the royal cellars. Harry calls his hideaway "Club H" and has had it equipped with a sound system and a well-stocked bar. The Prince of Wales confronted his youngest son after staff reported their suspicions, and then sent him to meet hard-core drug addicts at a London rehabilitation clinic where he heard horror stories of addiction. [continues 953 words]
Thailand is to carry out mandatory drug testing of school and university students as part of the Government's "war on drugs" strategy. The planned urine testing, requiring parental consent, is being proposed by Interior Minister Purachai Piumsombun. A recent survey by Bangkok's Assumption University estimated 6.2 per cent, or 374,600 students, aged 11 to 24 were involved with drugs "to some extent", mainly amphetamines and marijuana. Around 700 million amphetamine tablets enter the country a year from factories in neighbouring Burma and Laos. [continues 90 words]
CANNABIS does not lead to the use of hard drugs, a study will say this week. The survey, based on drug users in Amsterdam over a 10-year period, will be seized upon by advocates of more liberal laws in Britain, writes David Smith. It shows that cannabis users typically start using the drug between the ages of 18 and 20, while cocaine use usually starts between 20 and 25. But it concludes that cannabis is not a stepping stone to using cocaine or heroin. [continues 297 words]
MICHELLE Lutken de Massy may have been born into a life of privilege but to her neighbours she was just another drug addict -- noisy, unkempt and potentially dangerous. As her corpse was removed from her west London apartment last week few of those watching could have guessed the social heights from which she had fallen. "There were always different men coming to the house, day and night, and lots of noise," said one. "The upstairs neighbour tried to get a court order to control the noise, but she couldn't. She was such a wreck that we were worried she would drop a cigarette and burn the whole place down." [continues 657 words]
AS Melanie Phillips said, the public, police and politicians are too complacent about cannabis (Comment, last week). Users are starting younger (14 and below) and continuing for longer (30 and above). Experts have highlighted the hazards of recreational cannabis use: accidents, respiratory disease, cancer, impaired adolescent development, exacerbation of schizophrenia and others - as well as a risk of using other illegal drugs. Cannabis-use disorders already affect about 300,000 adults in Australia alone. Use here is greater but nobody has assessed the number of people affected. Decreasing the penalties for cannabis possession, according to evidence from other countries, may or may not in the short term increase prevalence of use, but legalisation of cannabis almost certainly will. Why do we discourage tobacco but condone cannabis? [continues 261 words]
Step back just a few weeks and take a deep breath. The home secretary announced then that he intended to reclassify cannabis possession as a non-arrestable offence in order to allow the police to concentrate on what really mattered -- the arrest and prosecution of hard drug users and their suppliers. Now what do we hear? Senior Metropolitan police officers declare that pursuing the class A drugs cocaine and ecstasy is a waste of time and ecstasy should be reclassified as class B. So one month on it appears that far from wanting to concentrate on hard drugs, the police don't want to do that either. Pretty soon, no doubt, they'll be arguing that it's a waste of their valuable time to be pursuing car theft or burglary or indeed any crime at all. [continues 1067 words]
THE government's top advisers on drugs are considering relaxing the law on ecstasy, the rave drug used by an estimated 2m young people. A key member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, the statutory body set up to advise ministers on drugs policy, says there are grounds for downgrading ecstasy from a class A drug to class B. Such a move would halve the maximum sentence for conviction in a magistrates' court for possession to three months. [continues 651 words]
Exactly two weeks after terrorists ambushed New York and Washington, killed more than 5,000 of us and changed everything, and nothing, Aaron Sorkin, creator of ''The West Wing,'' leans anxiously against a long table filled with actors and production assistants. This is the high-tech briefing area where the show's main character, President Josiah Bartlet, huddles with the military brass when make-believe blips on the radar grow alarming. In the conspicuously insider patois of the show, the space is called ''the Sit Room,'' and this is roughly the Situation: for the last two years, ''West Wing'' has become one of the most popular shows in America because, among other things, Sorkin has been able to give his kinder, gentler, nobler White House enough verisimilitude to seem tantalizingly possible. ''The only reason it's not 'Touched by an Angel,''' Sorkin says, ''is that it imitates just enough the sounds and appearance of reality. And the way I do it is by saying words you don't normally hear on television shows, like 'Democrat' and 'Republican,' and having the place look real and the hardware look real and abbreviations be right. If I can do just enough of that, then hopefully we're on board.'' [continues 5031 words]
It was enough to give even the notoriously clean-living home secretary a headache. On almost every conceivable measure, David Blunkett's advisers told him, the war against drugs was floundering. While cannabis had become de rigueur at middle-class dinner parties, the police were still under orders to arrest anyone found smoking it. According to one report handed to Blunkett, two thirds of all drug busts involved possession of cannabis, and each one tied up police officers for up to three hours. Almost half of all 16 to 29-year-olds had experimented with the drug. [continues 558 words]
The Taliban are selling off stocks of opium stored in mosques amid a surge in exports of narcotics from Afghanistan and a collapse in prices since the attacks on America. Businessmen in Kabul and international officials in Pakistan say there is panic selling by dealers holding stockpiles of opium and hashish. The Taliban have released hoards collected from farmers as an Islamic tax of 10% on agricultural output, businessmen interviewed by telephone in Kabul said. And mullahs are liquidating their drug stocks for cash to pay for arms, wages and food supplies in anticipation of American military action, they said. [continues 533 words]
THE IRA has been promised drugs money by Farc, the Colombian terrorist group, in return for training its members in urban guerrilla warfare, a senior American official has claimed. The allegation of cash links between the two groups has been made by Bob Graham, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee. Graham's staff said this weekend that his comments were based on CIA briefings he had received each day since the September 11 terrorist attacks. Graham, a Democratic senator from Florida, revealed that American intelligence had become aware of a network of international alliances between terrorist groups and cited the links between the IRA and Farc, which has been implicated in cocaine trafficking. [continues 578 words]
It seems rather strange that you will not be prosecuted in Brixton for recreational cannabis use, but in Cumbria medicinal users still face the ordeal of a court case. I use it to stay well (I suffer from multiple sclerosis), not for fun. Where is the justice? Lezley Gibson Alston, Cumbria [end]
Before I opened The Sunday Times last week, I had made a note to send to my MP Melanie Phillips's previous article about drugs, with a request that he commits to opposing any attempt to legalise cannabis or any leadership candidate who equivocates on the matter. I should have known Phillips would return so conclusively to the debate (Comment, last week). Many who favour decriminalisation have no children. I have two teenagers. What chance do I have of keeping them away from cannabis if it is legalised? During the election campaign there was a memorable description of William Hague - "a chameleon on glass". Now Portillo and Lilley are playing the same populist game, attempting to attract the vote of the under-25s, who were the most apathetic at the election. It is our kids who will pay the price of these utterly cynical political ploys. Jonathan Hoffman, London N20 [end]
AN obscure hallucinogenic herb from Mexico has become the latest fashion in the world of recreational drug-taking. Suppliers are using a loophole in the law to sell the powerful drug - known as Lady Salvia or the magic Mexican mint - to young people. Users have reported sensations of travelling through time and space, assuming the identities of other people and merging with inanimate objects. Experts say they are risking their minds, and perhaps their lives, by taking the drug. Salvia divinorum, a type of sage used for thousands of years in Mexican Indian rituals, is legal in Britain and America and is available on the internet. [continues 362 words]
TWO former home secretaries said yesterday that possession of cannabis should be decriminalised amid signs from the Home Office that change may be contemplated during the course of this parliament. Lord Jenkins and Lord Baker each supported a change in the law under which possession of cannabis for personal use would no longer be an arrestable offence. A third former home secretary, Lord Waddington, said he would regard decriminalisation as a "minor step". At present cannabis is a category B drug, as defined by the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act. Those caught in possession can be arrested and face a prison sentence of up to five years. [continues 577 words]
What on earth is going on? Suddenly, Britain is in the grip of a frenzied campaign to legalise cannabis and even all drugs. In Lambeth, south London, the police commander announces to great fanfare that people will no longer be arrested for cannabis possession but will be let off with a warning. Mo Mowlam, Peter Lilley and The Daily Telegraph all call for cannabis to be legalised. Sir Keith Morris, our former man in Colombia, says legalisation should apply to all drugs. Meanwhile, a much lionised television series says heroin should be legalised on the grounds that the drug is safe and it is the criminal law that kills people. [continues 1076 words]
COCAINE, the ultimate "success" drug, has fallen on hard times. Once the preserve of touring rock stars, footballers and City wide boys, it is becoming the drug of choice in Scotland's housing schemes, writes Carlos Alba. Ministers are alarmed by the development and have ordered an inquiry to find out who is using the drug and what damage it is doing to Scottish communities. Its increased availability is linked to a global price slump. A decade ago the average price of cocaine in Scotland was ?200 per gram. Until the late 1990s it remained at about ?100 a gram. Now the same amount can be bought for ?40. [continues 123 words]
The deaths of two young men after an all-night London "rave" last week led police to make what was an extraordinary comment. They said the dead ravers had "normal" levels of ecstasy - a class A drug - in their bodies and had probably been killed by heat stroke and not a contaminated batch of drugs. The superintendent in charge said youngsters who go to raves should take lots of water, relax in cool-down areas and take advice on "safer drug use". There had been no change in the law, he stressed. Narcotics were "still illegal". [continues 616 words]
The unmistakable whiff of cannabis hung over a bustling street market in Brixton, south London as Michael, leaning casually against a wall, took a long draw on a joint. A little less brazenly, in a grimy stairwell a few yards away, a group of young men huddled together with hoods pulled over their heads puffing on roll-ups emitting the same giveaway smell. From tomorrow even minor precautions will be unnecessary, as cannabis smokers in Brixton will be free to light up under the nose of a police officer and escape any form of punishment. [continues 1687 words]
BRITAIN'S first drugs czar, Keith Hellawell, has softened his hard line on cannabis, saying that he no longer believes it necessarily leads on to harder drugs. In a significant U-turn the anti-drugs co-ordinator, who was sidelined by David Blunkett, the home secretary, last month, said: "I do not believe it's a gateway drug." The shift signals an end to Britain's apparent "zero tolerance" of soft drugs, coming only days after Blunkett endorsed a police experiment to let off people caught in possession of cannabis with only a warning. [continues 146 words]
ROADSIDE tests are to be introduced by police forces throughout Scotland to catch the growing number of erratic and dangerous drivers under the influence of drugs. Suspects will be asked to perform tasks to test their motor skills. These include standing on one leg for 30 seconds and walking nine paces heel-to-toe in a straight line. The tests were introduced in Strathclyde on June 1 and will be adopted by Scotland's other seven police forces as soon as officers can be trained to conduct five "field impairment tests". These also include examining eyes, because pupil can be affected by drugs, asking drivers to touch the tips of their noses slowly with their index fingers and a Romberg test - tilting the head back with eyes closed and estimating a period of 30 seconds. [continues 407 words]
Three years into the government's 10-year strategy to fight drugs, the war is over. The government lost. Not only is Britain awash with drugs, but they are more affordable and more easily available than ever before. The time has come to face the fact that drugs have become just another part of our leisure activity. British kids spend as much on Ecstasy as the whole nation spends on tea and coffee. Cocaine is almost as freely available as alcohol and is nearly as popular. And it is not just the young, the trendy or the socially deprived who are recreational drug users. [continues 1146 words]
The leader of the Scottish Socialist party, Tommy Sheridan, plans to sue the Daily Record newspaper which he claims is leading a smear campaign against him and his party. Sheridan has instructed lawyers to begin an action for defamation against the Glasgow-based tabloid which formerly employed him as a columnist. The move follows a public falling-out between Sheridan and Record editor Peter Cox who has published a series of withering attacks on the MSP and has now banned any mention of him from the pages of the paper. [continues 368 words]
A Grieving Mom Tells How She Battled To Save 22-year-old Kevin - But How The Druglords Got Him For Good In The End On Thusday afternoon Sue Castle buried her 22- year-old son, another victim of the curse of crack cocaine. As his coffin was wheeled out of the Benoni Central Methodist Church, his favourite song, Everybody Hurts by R.E.M., played. His mother wept and vowed that she would tell her story and that Kevin Castle's death would not be in vain. [continues 936 words]
Q - You were arrested for drug possession, driving under the influence and leaving the scene of an accident. What is your status these days, legally? A - I'm on probation. But you should do the interview with my lawyer if you want to know about that. I just do what I'm told, which is to show up in court, stay clean and sober, go to your program, check in with your probation officer. And when you talk to the judge, you can't say, Yes, sir, and No, sir. You say, Yes, your honor. [continues 608 words]
DOCTORS should break patient confidentiality to inform local authorities of all drug addicts with school-age children, according to one of Scotland's leading drugs experts. Professor Neil McKeganey, head of Glasgow University's Centre for Drug Misuse Research, said family doctors needed to share information in the interests of children's welfare. He made his comments as he revealed details of the first comprehensive study into the impact of drug abuse on the children of addicts. McKeganey estimates that 20,000 children in Scotland have a parent who is an addict. He said that the doctor-patient relationship may even be making the lives of the children more difficult. [continues 374 words]
[NYST's editorial note] The cover article on Ecstasy generated much mail, which was notable for its especially strong opinions, both pro and con. Many parents, doctors and public officials accused the article of glorifying Ecstasy use and said we did not sufficiently describe the drug's risks. A nearly equal number of readers praised our attempt to detail what attracts users to the drug and our description of its deadening effect over time. Overall, its numbers were dwarfed by those for the previous week's article defending atheism, which continues to draw hundreds of readers' thanks. [continues 445 words]
I read Klam's article with interest -- and a sense of deja vu. Describing his transcendence of emotional barriers to empathy and connection, he writes, "No other drug produces this kind of feeling." He is wrong. I had similar experiences taking LSD. Along with them went a conviction that the drug somehow allowed me access to a capacity for happiness long suppressed and forgotten. As with Klam, this effect waned after my first few trips. The question then became how to recover that lost capacity in a less-ephemeral way. The drug of the moment may change; the question does not. [continues 216 words]
