Albion Dreaming (45 page)

If all drugs, not just LSD, were treated in this way, rapid and dramatic changes would take place in society. In 2007, it was estimated that fifty per cent of all crime in Britain was committed to acquire money or goods that could be exchanged for drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine. Legalizing all drugs would drastically cut this figure. If drugs were available through legitimate outlets there would be no issues of contamination or fluctuating strength, thus immediately reducing health problems and risk of overdose. The often-dangerous criminals behind the drug trade would swiftly move to other areas of illegality, and each year thousands of people would be spared the indignity of being criminalised purely because of their choice of intoxicant.
Last, but not least, the government would be able to levy taxes on all presently illegal substances, as it does now on tobacco and alcohol.

In 2005, the British government’s projected spend on drug treatment and prohibition services was approximately £1,483,000,000. The real figure is actually much higher as it does not include, for example, the wider expenditure involved in processing drug cases through the criminal justice system. Should so much be spent, year after year, when prohibition demonstrably does not work? If drugs were legalised, and the government remained concerned about levels of drug use, some of the vast sums of money set aside each year for prohibition and treatment would be far more effectively spent on drug education.
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In one twelve-month period, Sessa, Horton and Brunstrom opened a serious debate, not just about the future of LSD, but the future of all intoxicants in society. Whether or not any political party has the will to take up the challenge presented and revolutionise the public’s perception and society’s treatment of drugs and drug users remains to be seen.

In October 2007, the
Daily Telegraph
, a daily newspaper on the right of the political spectrum, published the results of a poll to find the world’s top 100 living geniuses. The poll was jointly topped by Albert Hofmann (discoverer of LSD) who shared the honours with Sir Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the World Wide Web). Nigel Clarke, speaking for poll administrators Synectics UK & Europe, said: “I think that Albert Hofmann and Tim Berners-Lee have this in common with the great geniuses of the past. Both of them have, in their own way, turned the world that we live in upside down.”
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Despite this fresh interest in LSD by psychotherapists, despite a high-ranking policeman’s views and and despite the respect given to Hofmann, the legal position in Britain looks less likely than ever to change. In 2009 a significant event took place which left anyone with sympathies toward LSD in no doubt that those who hold political power have no intention of ever making psychedelic drugs legally available. Moreover, the event made clear the governmental thought processes
which underlie the restriction of all personal freedoms around drug use.

In late October 2009, Professor David Nutt, the government’s chief drug advisor, published a research paper which ranked drugs in order of their harm to individual and society. In many ways this was similar to the 2007 study mentioned previously but Nutt went a step further, criticising politicians for “distorting” and “devaluing” the research evidence in the debate over illicit drugs. Nutt also produced evidence that Ecstasy and LSD were less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco. “Alcohol ranks as the fifth most harmful drug after heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and methadone. Tobacco is ranked ninth... Cannabis, LSD and ecstasy, while harmful, are ranked lower at 11, 14 and 18 respectively.”
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Nutt’s claims prompted swift and draconian reaction. Despite his assertions being based on sound research, the idea that substances such as LSD could be less harmful than legal, taxable drugs such as alcohol and tobacco was abhorrent to the government. Home Secretary Alan Johnson immediately wrote to Professor Nutt, asking for his resignation as chair of the ACMD (Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs). Nutt resigned but refused to be silenced and was outspoken in his criticism of the government’s attitude, “Politics is politics and science is science and there’s a bit of a tension between them sometimes.”
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The director of the Centre for Crime and Justice also came out in support of Professor Nutt, pointing out that Nutt’s paper showed what a realistic drugs policy could look like if it was actually based on scientific research rather than “political or moral positioning”. Garside said: “I’m shocked and dismayed that the home secretary appears to believe that political calculation trumps honest and informed scientific opinion. The message is that when it comes to the Home Office’s relationship with the research community honest researchers should be seen but not heard. The home secretary’s action is a bad day for science and a bad day for the cause of evidence-informed policy making.”
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Both the results of the 2007 study and Nutt’s 2009 research proved scientifically that LSD and psychedelic drugs were less harmful to the individual and to society than many commonly
accepted legal ones. This evidence was ignored. That a government – any government – will ignore scientific evidence to suit their own political ends, should give any thinking member of the electorate cause for concern. In the case of drugs it means an elected body can, based purely on the beliefs and prejudices of that political party, suppress and legislate against the individual’s right and freedom to change their consciousness at will by the agent of their choice. Applied to other areas of society, the consequences of ignoring evidence-based research could easily lead to the development of an authoritarian government where the restriction of individual freedoms becomes the norm. If a government can control personal freedoms to the extent that they have power over what substances an individual can or cannot take, then we are but a step away from every aspect of our lives being controlled. The freedom to change consciousness must be paramount in any genuinely free society. Framing these controls as a ‘war on drugs’, as has been the case, is nonsense. This is nothing less than a war against people and lifestyles and against certain states of consciousness.

Alan Johnson’s attitude also demonstrates extreme and callous social cynicism. If any government really wanted to prevent harm from drugs in any meaningful way they would immediately outlaw alcohol and tobacco, substances which each year kill, maim and destroy thousands of human bodies and lives, families and communities. Yet because these drugs are the drug of choice by those in government, and the bulk of society, and because they yield millions in tax, they are deemed acceptable. The corporations who manufacture them are allowed to advertise their product as being life-enhancing and, in the case of alcohol in particular, heavy and binge drinking is encouraged among young people in the clubs, pubs and bars of every high street in Britain. What is wrong with a society which glorifies, encourages and profits from drugs which enslave people, yet chooses to persecute drugs such as LSD which members of the psychotherapeutic profession and a subculture of millions believe are agents of personal and social transformation?

The government’s uncompromising anti-psychedelic drug message was further hammered home in their 2010 Drug Strategy
consultation paper. Home Secretary Theresa May wrote, “This government does not believe that liberalisation and legalisation are the answer”. In other words, scientific evidence and the rights of the individual are subservient to political belief. In the strategy all drugs were treated as being of equal harm and even so-called ‘legal highs’ were singled out for future legislation. The subtext of this Orwellian document was that any currently illegal drug which changed consciousness would, whatever the evidence to the contrary, remain illegal and drug users would be persecuted by the legal system for wishing to experiment with causing changes to their consciousness.
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Yet although there is a political and legal crackdown on LSD and other psychedelics, freedom of thought and expression is still an option. An authentic and vocal grass roots psychedelic movement has emerged over the past few years in Britain and is gathering strength and influence. In April 2011 at the University of Kent, a three day event called Breaking Convention took place. Subtitled “A Multi Disclipinary Conference Exploring Psychedelic Consciousness”, the event attracted over six hundred delegates from Britain and elsewhere to listen to lectures from more than sixty leading figures in the field of psychedelic research. Many of the speakers were scientists, academics and authors. Most had experienced the transformative power of LSD or other psychedelics. All were passionate in their belief that psychedelic drugs need to be brought back into society where they can be used for a variety of personal and psychotherapeutic reasons without fear of legal or social recrimination.

Some academics are now being given space to discuss psychedelics in the serious media. One such is Dr Sue Blackmore. Her views on psychedelics are clear and based not only on her personal experience but on her scientific research into consciousness. Her article for the
Sunday Telegraph
, “I Take Illegal Drugs For Inspiration”, made it clear that she believed LSD and other psychedelics were useful tools for examining consciousness, “drugs, such as LSD, psilocybin, DMT or mescaline, that undermine everything you take for granted. These are psychedelics that threaten our ordinary sense of self, and that
is where they touch most deeply on my scientific interests.” Those in political power who seek to keep psychedelics illegal may seize on statements such as this and ask just why anyone would want to question their ordinary sense of self. Yet this question of who we are and what we exist for is one of the central questions of religion and philosophy. Governments, as we have seen in the crackdown on Britain’s psychedelic culture, and outspoken LSD chemists such as Richard Kemp, simply do not want people asking what are essentially spiritual questions, questions to which the answer may require living and thinking in ways which fundamentally undermine western modes of consumerist thinking.
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More recently Blackmore poses the question, “Is LSD a great spiritual teacher? Or indeed a teacher at all?” In an article for
The Guardian
she concluded that it was the “ultimate psychedelic”, although not one to be taken lightly, “This drug, above all, confronts you with yourself. The flickering flowers can turn into scenes of horror and desperation, the coloured-streaked sky into a theatre of unwelcome memories and shame ... You have to face it. And this is, I think, what makes it the ultimate psychedelic. There is no hiding with LSD. You have to face whatever comes up or be overwhelmed by it.” Some may dismiss this as do it yourself psychotherapy, but for Sue and thousands of other LSD users the results are worth any risks involved.
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In view of the sacking of Professor Nutt and Theresa May’s drug strategy, there appears to be no room for manouvre or compromise between the beliefs of the political administration and those who believe LSD is a valuable tool for exploring consciousness. This impasse suggests that people will choose the route of civil disobedience and follow in the footsteps of Richard Kemp, Andy Munro and Casey Hardison, manufacturing and using psychedelic drugs without regard for laws which they feel restrict their individual liberty.

Irrespective of any medical or legal argument, LSD is now firmly embedded in the social and cultural fabric of Britain. Every adult has at least a vague idea of what LSD is, most either know someone who has used the drug or have experimented with it themselves. The phrase “on acid” is frequently used as cultural shorthand, to
denote an experience that is surreal, weird, or highly unusual. For example, in a December 2007 edition of the
Observer
magazine, columnist Kate Muir wrote of her visit to the film premiere of
The Golden Compass
“... and to the after-party which was surreal, ‘like an ice-dancing royal wedding on acid’, I heard someone say”. Advertising and fashion make free with the patterns, shapes and colour combinations originating from the LSD vision and musicians are currently enjoying a revival of psychedelic based sounds. It is clear that the psychedelic experience, real and imagined, still pervades Albion’s dream.
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LSD is a highly contentious tool for consciousness change and is here to stay. It cannot be uninvented or legislated out of existence. It is human nature to take intoxicants of one form or another and LSD is just one of many psychedelic substances humans have sought out and used for millennia. In most cultures, these substances have been understood and accepted as consciousness expanding tools, to be used carefully at certain times and with the appropriate set and setting. It is western civilization’s insistence on repressing the human need for transcendence that has led to the problems society perceives it faces from drug use and specifically the problems some LSD users have experienced.

At the start of this book, reference was made to the possibility that at various times the history of LSD has been infiltrated with conspiracies. However, despite the extent of his research, the author has found nothing to indicate that any organised conspiracy has taken place. But the question needs to be asked: why has the British government spent so much time, money and effort persecuting LSD manufacturers, suppliers and users, as well as disrupting the counter culture the drug helped create? The author’s view is that if there is a conspiracy, it is an unspoken one, enacted by the British Establishment; that matrix of political, legal, economic, religious, and social forces committed to maintaining the status quo. It is a conspiracy of whispers, borne out of the misunderstanding, ignorance, prejudice and fear that LSD has engendered in society.