Free Speech:
There can be no entity, be it government, social agency, or the police authorities, with the right to prohibit an informed, responsible individual from tinkering with his own consciousness.

"If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.  For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro'  narrow chinks of his cavern." William Blake The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell

INNER FREEDOM

The Doors Of Perception, and Heaven And Hell by Aldous Huxley The most important work, because of its later influence, written in the west on the subject of psychedelics. Huxley uses his immense literary gifts to illuminate the subject of "breaking through" by the effects of mescaline on his remarkable consciousness. The Varieties Of Psychedelic Experience by Robert E. L. Masters, Ph.D., and Jean Houston, Ph.D. Brand new re-issue of the classic 1966 work. If "The Doors Of Perception" was the most important work on psychedelics because of its influence, this then is by far the greatest because of its impeccable research, its far-ranging implications and its clear, lucid and compelling putting together of the evidence for the remarkable therapeutic and consciousness-illuminating value of LSD and other psychedelics (principally peyote). They don't, however, proselitize, and this is much to their credit. In fact, they go to some lengths to inform the reader that an active pro-drugs "for the sake of drugs" mindset is fraught with peril, and do so in a way that is both impartial and learned. They're at their best, however, in their extraordinary recounting of the psychedelic experiences they conducted themselves as guides. There are so many instances where the subject, usually a person with a very intense psychological or emotional problem, arrived at a life-changing breakthrough, that it lingers long in the mind. But the book is most of all a primer for their very lucid theory of the psychedelic experience and its various stages or levels. It is, in fact, so well thought out and explained, that this reviewer wonders why it had so little impact on the great body of psychedelic research, even after all these years. To me, it is the only theory that makes any sense and it's also the only one that could be used in a therapeutic setting so that the chances of errors or mistakes in guidance be effectively minimized. The Politics of Consciousness: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Steve Kubby The War on Drugs is in reality a war on Freedom. It is a war that brings misery to millions of people in this country. Through this misguided effort, the government has created a lucrative industry for gangsters and violent criminals and created a new police state, with more people behind bars than in any other country in the world! Drugs can never be as dangerous as armed government agents who trash the Bill of Rights, kick down doors, seize private property and make otherwise decent and honest people into de facto criminals. It's time for us to stop playing on people's fears and come up with a saner policy on drugs. Smoke And Mirrors: The War On Drugs And The Politics Of Failure by Dan Baum After three decades of increasingly punitive policies, illicit drugs are more easily available, drug potencies are greater, drug killings are more commonplace, the court system is supersaturated, the prisons are exploding, and millions of ruined lives is the end result. Dan Baum tells the story of how this War has escalated, who has benefited along the way, and how the mounting cost in dollars, lives and liberties has been ignored. Our Right to Drugs: The Case for a Free Market by Thomas Szasz Makes the case for a free market for prescription and recreational drugs, tells how drugs became an exception to property and privacy rights, how drug disinformation thrives, how the drug war persecutes minorities, and makes doctors fearful of prescribing certain drugs for ailments that cry out for them. Drug Crazy: How We Got into This Mess and How We Can Get Out by Mike Gray Drug Crazy is a scathing indictment of America's decades-long "war on drugs," an expensive and hypocritical folly which has essentially benefited only two classes of people: professional anti-drug advocates and drug lords. Did you know that a presidential commission determined that marijuana is neither an addicitve substance nor a "stepping stone" to harder drugs... only to have President Nixon shelve the embarrassing final report and continue the government's policy of inflated drug addiction statistics? Did you know that several medical experts agree that "cold turkey" methods of withdrawal are essentially ineffective and recommend simply prescribing drugs to addicts... and that communities in which this has been done report lower crime rates and reduced unemployment among addicts as a result? Whether he's writing about the American government's strong-arm tactics toward critics of its drug policy or the reduction of countries like Colombia and Mexico to anarchic killing zones by powerful cartels, Mike Gray's analysis has an immediacy and a clarity worth noting. The passage of "medical marijuana" bills in California and Arizona (where the bill passed by a nearly 2-to-1 majority) indicates that people are getting fed up with the government's Prohibition-style tactics toward drugs. Drug Crazy just might speed that process along. Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered: by Lester Greenspoon and James Bakalar Overview of use of psychedelic drugs, nature of the experience, adverse effects and treatment, and therapeutic and research uses.

Drug Warriors and Their Prey: From Police Power to Police State by Richard Lawrence Miller The war on drugs is a war on ordinary people. Using that premise, historian Richard Lawrence Miller analyzes America's drug war with passion seldom encountered in serious nonfiction. Miller presents numerous examples of drug law enforcement gone amok, as police and courts threaten the happiness, property, and even lives of victims--some of whom are never charged with a drug crime, let alone convicted of one. Miller not only argues that criminal justice zealots are harming the democracy they are sworn to protect, but that authoritarians unfriendly to democracy are stoking public fear in order to convince citizens of relinquishing traditional legal rights. Those are the very rights that thwart implementation of an agenda of social control through government power. Miller contends that an imaginary "drug crisis" has been manufactured by authoritarians in order to mask their war on democracy. He not only examines numerous civil rights sacrificed in the name of drugs, but demonstrates how their loss harms ordinary Americans in their everyday lives. The Politics Of Ecstasy by Dr. Timothy Leary Early work on psychedelics, the right to High, anecdotes about early psychedelic movement, new introduction. Why Marijuana Should Be Legal by Ed Rosenthal and Steve Kubby Rosenthal and Kubby offer crisp, well-reasoned argument for legalizing marijuana, obviously suffering none of the short-term memory loss said to afflict the pothead as they proceed and never, never letting a sentence trail off in an ellipsis. They contend that most of the evidence against marijuana is overblown, misinterpreted, or false and that the war on the weed has harmed society more than the drug itself ever could. After decades of government-sponsored antipot propaganda, and with California passing a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana for medical applications, this is a timely screed. Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts by Lynn Zimmer and John P. Morgan It is terrifying and humiliating to remind ourselves that ten thousand people every week are arrested for marijuana handling because legislators do not pause over evidence as readily obtainable as is now the case in a book that is exemplary, in terms of research graphically presented and concisely rendered, on a large public question. It may be very dumb to use marijuana. But it is surely very wrong for those who inveigh on the question to fail to consult this little book. Marihuana, The Forbidden Medicine by Lester Grinspoon and James B. Bakalar For many centuries patients and physicians have found marihuana to be a highly effective medicine. This drug, outlawed for decades in the US, provides relief from many ailments. Yet the US government grants only twelve patients in the entire country the right to use marihuana medically, and does even that with great reluctance. On Drugs by David Lenson Challenges the ways we think about drugs. How drugs affect philosophy, psychology, literature and art, and what this implies for public policy. Flesh Of The Gods: The Ritual Use Of Hallucinogens by Peter Furst, (Ed.) Furst, Schultes, Wasson, Reichel-Dolmatoff, La Barre and other contributors detail the use of hallucinogens by specific cultures: ayahuasca in the Amazon, San Pedro in Peru, peyote and psilocybe mushrooms in Mexico, Cannabis in many places, iboga in Gabon, plus an overview of hallucinogens and the shamanic origins of religion. Food Of The Gods: The Search for the original Tree Of Knowledge A Radical History of Plants, Drugs and Human Evolution by Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist and raconteur Terence McKenna's research on man's ancient relationship with psychoactive chemicals opens a doorway to the divine, and perhaps a solution for saving our troubled world. He provides a revisionist look at the historical role of drugs in the East and West, from ancient to modern entheogens, illustrating the human desire for the 'food of the gods'. Psychedelics by Thomas Lyttle Broad, serious inquiry into the nature of psychedelic drug use. Gives examples of why people use these substances and why they stay true to the subject. Excellent introduction. High Priest by Dr. Timothy Leary A first person account of the very early days of psychedelia: Leary's first trip, in Mexico (on mushrooms), his subsequent use of psilocybin in both research programs at Harvard and for unapologetic "kicks" use, his first experience with LSD and the accounts of more than a dozen experiences with such luminaries as Allen Ginsburg, Aldous Huxley, Arthur Koestler and others.