Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens

Any social phenomenon that achieves a certain significance warrants systematic and dispassionate scientific inquiry, in the hope that we may understand its norms or laws, if any, minimize its potential hazards for individuals and society, and maximize its potential benefits. The use, or abuse, of drugs is clearly such a phenomenon, and it is not too much to say that especially now, in the midst of yet one more "War on Drugs," we need far more and better information on which to base private attitudes and public policies that can have the most profound consequences, not just for individuals and the larger society, but those very Constitutional liberties that have made us the envy of peoples all over the world. As someone said recently, what if we wake up one morning and drugs are still with us but the Constitution is gone? Estimates of people on illegal drugs in this country vary depending on the way these things are counted, or the agenda of those who do the counting But there is no doubt that apart from alcohol or tobacco, which many people still refuse to acknowledge as drugs,* millions of Americans employ some more or less dangerous illegal substances on a regular basis, whether to escape from unbearable economic, social and psychological conditions, the pressures of competition and success, or lack thereof, or for less compelling reasons, but in any event in disregard of legal or physical consequences.