Getting High
Amid the hype of the HHS announcement and the general industry noise, we often forget the original point(s) of normalizing cannabis. The stigma around being in a cognitively divergent state ( I’m trying to be pc here) still exists in society.
Being in an altered state is not just a human desire, but a living desire.
Animals all over the world seek out things to change their consciousness. Elephants eat fermented marula fruit, reindeer go to great lengths to find hallucinogenic fly agaric mushrooms and monkeys on St Kitts seek out unwitting tourists’ alcoholic drinks, imbibing at the same percentage of the human population.
The desire, the need, to see the world in a different light is universal. Altered states of being allow minds to go places and make connections that are impossible in the noise of the daily world. Some of the greatest stories written were by people wandering the desert delusional, seeing burning bushes, druids eating mushrooms and communing with trees and shamans drinking soma to communicate with the gods.
This is where anti-cannabis and frankly, anti-drug groups get it wrong. Six hundred years ago a goat in Ethiopia jonesin’ for a fix helped us discover coffee. Think what the next open mind might do for society.
I will die young. Maybe 80, maybe 90, but I will be young.
