A Brief Drug History

We can learn so much by sharing views and experiences on drugs. I was part of the Sixties generation and experimented with about every drug that was available. The first acid trip that I took was when LSD was so new on the scene that it was legal. Some drugs have extraordinary effects and can give insight in to the very nature of reality and consciousness. I remember in those days avidly reading Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception and Timothy Leary. I also remember when I was on an acid trip being transfixed when I looked at the most exquisite pattern on the pavement. It was moving and glowing. It was so beautiful. I realised then that it was a pool of vomit. I have carried that experience all my life and into my interest in Buddhism. There is a true potential for inexpressible beauty in all reality if viewed free of the conceptual structures that we impose on it. Other drugs like heroin and amphetamines are terrible tools of self-destruction. And although I got too involved with that process at one point, I had the seed of something solid and sure deep inside of me that took me away from that path eventually. Sometimes taking both types of drugs at the same time had unfortunate consequences. Drugs also affected my career decisions and I dropped out of college. However I did go overland to India and that was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. When my children were born I more or less stopped smoking dope regularly as I could not properly care for a baby if I was not completely present to their needs. I am sixty-two and I don’t take any thing at all now. I have no regrets about any of the drugs that I experimented with in my youth although at times I was risking both my mental and physical health. Oddly enough if I have any regrets at all it is that I smoked cigarettes for so many years. (I gave up smoking dope completely when I gave up smoking about ten years ago). I also drank too much in my mid to late forties when I had many troubles in my life. These days I have the odd glass of wine for pleasure and I would recommend meditation as the most incredible way of exploring the nature of mind and perception and for finding a state of relaxation and well being My views on drugs today are mixed. I know the dangers because I have experienced them and survived them. I think that cocaine is evil and it concerns me that young people are smoking marijuana. Not because of the dope but because it gets them hooked on cigarettes