Blinded by the Colours, or maybe just Lies

Still Scandinavia

And so here I am, it is nearly Autumn and the first season in Denmark is almost over. I have concluded that this country is not bad in the slightest and that it may indeed be worth staying in.

The people are friendly and sensible (sometimes too sensible, but you can’t have everything), the women are friendly, beautiful and sensible, the food comes in friendly and sensible packaging from trusted suppliers and the beer is cold, crisp and makes people feel very friendly but not quite as sensible as when you met them earlier.

All in all I like the way they seem to know the little ways in which they can work together for a better country, not like the casual violence and littering of Britain or the public lavatory of India.

The one thing I have to say however, is this: that when people get a little locked into the belief that what they are told to say and do by other people is completely true and correct. I guess you could call it a certain ‘unquestioning faith’ in what the society around you believes in.

This came up in conversation over a few drinks at my place the other night. My girlfriend, her older brother John and myself had been to a concert that evening. As it was a folk concert I was absolutely bored shitless. John had successfully destroyed his boredom with alcohol - he was drunk when he arrived, he disappeared at the start of the concert (although I thought I saw the top of his head in the crowd near the beer stand), when we shot things with toy rifles in the circus afterwards his gun waved around alarmingly over the staff’s heads, and finally when we got back to mine he started the all time annoying drunkard behaviour of talking loudly over everyone whenever anything was said. I liked him immensely.

Borders and Boundaries

Ranting in full flow with his arms outstretched and head held high, talking more to the air than to anyone nearby, he remarked on the boundaries that society gives to people, like sexual behaviour for instance.

At this point I will say that bestiality, the act of sexual intercourse with another species, is LEGAL in Denmark…so long as the sexual act itself does not in any way hurt the animal (the question arises of how exactly you can tell whether you are hurting the creature is a tricky one, I mean, its not like you can just ask the thing). This is just an example of how liberal the Danes are with sexuality.

So John asks the air again why society frowns upon strange sexual behaviour. I can see my girl looking a little confused on the other side of the table, so I add “John, its not okay to have s*x with kids”. Everyone laughs.

Then the question of drugs comes up. Freja and John gradually enagage themselves in an ever descending spiral of heated debate about whether drugs and their use (or abuse) should be tolerated and even legalized. I showed them a video made by a supporter of the late Terence McKenna, a figurehead for the psychedelic community in recent times.

It seemed to make real sense to everyone until the words ‘psychedelic substances’ were spoken. The look on my girls’s face seemed to say it all. Then the words “they’re talking about mushrooms, right?” came from her mouth, followed by that look which said ‘I knew it’.

Drugs

Now, I happen to like psychedelics. I’ve tried most of the conventional drugs everyone knows at some point, so I think I might have some experience to use when Im talking about things like this. Normally when people talk like this its about pot (unless you’re lucky enough to live in Holland), but this time its about psychedelics. I mean, they don’t call me Major Tom for nothing you know.

Im not a fan of pot. I tried it, damn, I nearly destroyed my brain on it at University, but it didn’t work for me. If it works for others then let them take it. I mean, why should I care anyway? In the words of the comedian Doug Stanhope, its my body, I should have the right to do to it whatever the f*ck I want, if it kills me slowly - happy for me, shitty for you, *clack, clack* - stop me.

But all this gets wasted on the audience. She’s got the blinkers on and they’re not coming down. I guess Terence McKenna was right. We do have a phobia about the mind in the west and we prefer absolute terms that only deal with the physical nature of things. He also said that psychedelics tend to cause psychotic behaviour in those who don’t take them, which is just a genius comment.

Medical Excuses

I mean, the woman’s studying to be a doctor - who better to know about the chemistry or biology of things, the structure of organic matter and how to put humans back together when they’re broken. But the mental part of us is just as important, if not more so, than the physical side. ‘The two are actually the same thing’ is what Eastern teachings give us.

We have evidence that psychoactive plants and compounds have been used by mankind for thousands of years in both religious and medicinal senses. The shamans of many cultures understood that in order to heal the mind you had to heal the body, and the reverse also. Plants that allow people to expand themselves and look within, and self-heal were believed to be sacred as they let people actually communicate with the Earth, or the ’mother goddess’.

All this is sounds a bit too much like pro-drugs propaganda to my other half. How can such an intelligent person become so suddenly stubborn and blind? She argues that it does people serious damage. ‘I’ve heard the mind expansion argument too much to believe anymore.’

Well, someones been lying somewhere. Look at Prohibition in the 20s and 30s. Too many people were addicted to alcohol to just let it go. Supply and demand will always win, and those people who manage to get themselves killed while doing drugs are idiots who should be allowed to make an appropriate exit from the gene-pool. Why use them as an excuse to ruin it for the rest of us? There are tried and tested ways of doing these things properly, people, come on now.

All I know is the legal drugs of alcohol and tobacco that we have in our world do absolutely NOTHING for you (to paraphrase Bill Hicks). This is what the people upstairs want. If everyone would start using their brains they might just wake up to how cleverly tricked they are being in every waking second of their lives.

Trust Me

That and how if I was mentally ill I wouldn’t want anyone to come near me who had no idea how people’s heads worked. I know a friend who went to hospital after having a psychotic breakdown due to drug abuse, and after explaining to the doctor that he didn’t want to be alone because he felt he was going mad, she actually left without saying anything, wrote ‘D’ on the patient board, then left him alone for over an hour.

After working in and around bars for most of my young life, I have to say that alcohol is one of the worst ones. Its like filling a hole that gets bigger anyway afterwards. Everyone likes a drink (especially as our genetics are prone to it more in the West, but that’s a brilliant excuse - thanks scientists!) but some of the people who make real attempts to become animals need serious help.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but the hundreds of thousands of people dying each year in every country from the abuse of alcohol and tobacco overshadow the deaths from every other drug combined by, hmmmm, about a thousand times.

Last Orders

So why throw in natural, useful drugs like marijuana and psychedelics into the category of dangerous man-made substances? You should always be careful with whatever you put in your body and don’t hurt anyone, full stop.

But there are only two kinds of people who give anti-drugs arguments: those who never did drugs, and those who sucked at doing drugs. Before you give your opinion in future, maybe ask yourself the question - which one am I again? But am I just being an a$$hole without seeing the whole picture?! Someone tell me please.

Either way, my girl surprised me a little bit. Fair to her, we all had a few drinks, and opinions surface in amusing and provocative ways during a session between people. She is one of the most understanding and sensitive people I have met in my life, however. Perhaps i can change her mind in the future.

At this point John stood up, swayed unsteadily on his feet, pointed a finger at the ceiling and said, “Something should be don’t about this in the very near future…tomorrow…”, then slowly put his sun glasses on and collapsed on the floor.

Skøl for Helved, John, skøl.