As I was suggested to see the conference on Dr. James
Penner’s book Timothy Leary: The Harvard
Years, it never passed through my mind the fact that the main theme of his
book was such a controversial one as psychedelic drugs is for the society. I
was very much impressed by the fact that an English Professor from the Río
Piedras Campus of the UPR wrote about such a controversial theme that may not
seem to be suitable for college and invited his and other students to accompany
him in his conference.
From the many insights I got from the conference I can say
that the one that impacted me the most was the use that is currently given to
LSD and the comparison with what it was used before, during Timothy Leary’s
years, around the 1960’s. Dr. Penner stated that Timothy Leary’s experiences
with these psychedelic drugs, such as LSD, was before these drugs went
underground. Nowadays LSD is mostly common with the “young crowd” and it may be
a problem because most of these drugs are not made in the most adequate places,
since you may end up buying a drug, such as LSD, that could’ve easily been made
by a twenty-something year old in his mom’s kitchen. Another surprising insight
I got from Dr. Penner’s conference was the fact that LSD is currently being
used to treat many addictions and mental diseases, such as depression, and is
having a positive effect on the patients its been given to. An example of this
so called success, is given by Dr. Penner when he talked about nicotine
addiction and the fact that of the patients that have been treated with
psychedelic drugs, 7% of them gave it up, this was by a sort of epiphany they
had as a result of the psychedelic drugs in which they didn’t want to smoke
more.
If given the chance to vote in favor of the psychedelic
drugs being used as a treatment of other diseases, I would have to vote in
favor since some of these drugs, as are the magic mushrooms Dr. Penner talks
about, come from nature, they are not lab derived, as are most of the drugs
used to treat many diseases. There’s also the case of a terminal cancer patient
whom is supposed to be left to die, but if given the psychedelic drugs, as Dr.
Penner says, the patient tends to accept more his or her fate and ends up
having a more acceptable death.
The problem with these psychedelic drugs is that if someone with extreme mental illness takes this drug they can become worse. Some of them might act insane since it depends on the user's perception of his surrounding, which could include anxiety attacks or a panic state. I remember that the professor said that the perfect surrounding for a non-mental patient was at a peaceful state, surrounded by nature so it could help relax. These drugs for medical use could benefit some patients, like the one you mentioned with cancer, but the abuse of the drug is the problem and I not sure if it will get my approval.
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