From: ricko@ee.uts.edu.au (Rick Jelliffe)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: ECSTACY followup
Date: 20 Nov 92 07:06:23 GMT
Organization: University of Technology, Sydney

twiggs_te@alice.lrc.edu writes:

>Path: lrc.edu!twiggs_te
>From: twiggs_te@lrc.edu
>Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
>Subject: ECSTACY followup
>Message-ID: <1992Nov17.130442.481@lrc.edu>
>Date: 17 Nov 92 13:04:41 EST
>References: <Nov.10.01.45.09.1992.12245@geneva.rutgers.edu>
>Organization: Lenoir-Rhyne College, Hickory, NC
>News-Moderator: Approval required for posting to soc.religion.christian
>Lines: 148

>ricko@ee.uts.edu.au (Rick Jelliffe) writes:
>> 
>> Of course drugs are pleasant or amazing or strengthening, that's why
>> they're popular. The unpleasant parts are often not seen at first (habits,
>> needing money and therefore having to steal and cheat, paranioa, mistrust
>> of authority, etc.).

twiggs_te@mike.lrc.edu responds:

>What?!?  You're talking about heroin, crack,and cocaine.  Ecstacy is not 
>a kill-each-other drug!  It's not even as bad as pot!  Psychiatrists used 
>it to treat depressive patients. 

As you agreed in your private letter to me, it has not been studied enough
to actually say "it is safe" other than anecdotally. The killing I
was talking about was on the distribution side, anyway.

>I am lost as to where you conjured up the idea that my idea of heaven is
>without a direct vision of God.  

Because you didn't mention it, if my memory serves me well. Do you believe
Jesus; is he your heart's desire?

>There seems to be a bit of misinformation here.  Alcohol is addictive.
>Alcohol is responsible for over 300,000 deaths each year in the USA.  All
>drugs combined, including crack and heroin, are responsible for only 3,000
>each year.  Alcohol is MUCH more dangerous than ecstacy.  The reason drink
>companies have not killed anyone is because it's *legal*.  That's plain and
>simple logic.  

Yes alcohol causes more legal deaths. But my point, as I have repeated to
such mutual tedium*, is that they have not died directly to give me my
pleasure.  But I do have Catholic friends who are teetotalers as a
permanent fast and prayer about the effects of alcohol: if you are
really concerned, why not join them?

(*US readers, please do not take this as sarcasm and flame me)

>And, believe me, the mafia does NOT deal with something as 
>miniscule as pot.  That's like saying drug lords deal Brach's candy.

In Australia they do. And people are killed when the business is threatened.
Australian readers won't need to go past Donald Mackay. It is possible the
current ICAC hearing might have more information about drugs & organized
crime here in quiet N.S.W.

>I'm the kind of person that most of you wouldn't talk to on a daily basis.

How do you know who or what we talk talk to on a daily basis? Why do you
think you are so horribly unique? I think you must be very young, or live in a
very  enclosed community. (This is not a put-down.)

>The funny thing is,
>it's a well-known fact that these drugs are safer than alcohol, yet alcohol
>is legal.  

For some of them, e.g. acid, it is not a well known fact. And even dope
causes paranioa in about 10% of the population. And your basic argument
is "this is bad, but allowed, so we should allow everything" which is
clearly wrong.

>What I'm saying is that in some cases, these false
>feelings can be utilized in a very good way.  My best friend, who had a
>hideous childhood and for a long time didn't care about living, tried ecstacy
>this past summer.  The change in his attitude toward the world is phenomenal.

Medicine is good. But self-prescription of psychiatric drugs can be dangerous.
As a former chronic depressive, I certainly wouldn't stand in the way of
someone having crisis medication, even illegal stuff, but to build your life
around it is as useless as psychiatry seems to be. Reason, hope, faith 
and charity are better. 

>	Of course, it would be nice if everyone could feel like this without
>drugs.  I think that's what makes an artist.  Artists are gifted by God with
>the ability to alter their perceptions without using drugs.

You have a strange neo-hippy idea of what an artist is. Have you ever met
a successful artist? I met one in Australia called Brett Whitely
who did Dire Straights album covers (& a cover for a group I was in too!)
and whose big paintings sold for >$100 000 each.
What got him through was not altered perceptions, even though
he was a notorious junky (and actually died by OD from "safe" methodone).
He was very aware of art history, and was a workaholic. And in music,
which I do know about, altered perceptions are nothing: though certainly
a musician on a particular drug will play music in a mood that others
on the same drug will find appealing (e.g. reggae, hi-energy). Drugs
make musicians think they are playing well, but IMHX it normally makes
them slopy or unbearable.

-ricko