Thank You re. "A Cannabis Odyssey"

by Petros Evdokas
Member: Cyprus IndyMedia, and Belly of the Beast Collective

"A little about me. I am on the faculty (emeritus) of the Harvard Medical School in the Department of Psychiatry. I have been studying Cannabis since 1967 and have published two books on the subject. In 1971 "Marihuana Reconsidered" was published by Harvard University Press. "Marihuana, the Forbidden Medicine", coauthored with James B. Bakalar, was published in 1993 by Yale University Press; the revised and expanded edition appeared in 1997. Other books include "The Speed Culture: The Use and Abuse of Amphetamines in America", "Cocaine: A Drug and its Social Evolution", "Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered", and "Psychedelic Reflections".

"...You and I are among the more than 70 million Americans who have used Cannabis -- and possibly among the more than ten million who use it regularly. We know that people smoke marijuana not because they are driven by uncontrollable 'Reefer Madness' craving, as some propaganda would lead us to believe, but because they have learned its value from experience. Yet almost all of the research, writing, political activity, and legislation devoted to marijuana has been concerned only with the question of whether it is harmful and how much harm it does..."

-Lester Grinspoon, M.D.
http://www.marijuana-uses.com/learn.html

The above excerpts are from a personal statement by Dr. Lester Grinspoon, one of the most remarkable people I've ever met. It was only a brief contact of a few seconds, but more than enough for me to ascertain his genuine and thoroughly honest presence in the community of Friends of Cannabis.

His incredibly valuable contributions to our community are becoming more and more obvious as the Western world - headed by the US and the EU - is plunging deeper into a period of reactionary moral and political Dark Ages.

Our brief contact was backstage after he spoke at a Mayday legalization rally in 1987 or 1988. It was at New York's Washington Square Park in the Village, just before the annual Fifth Avenue Pot Parade, the organizational and cultural precursor of our Global Marijuana March that now includes more than 260 cities worldwide (thank you, Dana Beal and Aron Kay!). I went to speak with Dr. Grinspoon right as he got offstage and as David Peel was taking the microphone to sing his infamous "Mara, Marijuana" anthem.

I thanked Dr. Grinspoon from the bottom of my heart for his presence at the rally and for all the things he had said in his speech about the medical uses of Cannabis, which at the time were almost unknown. He responded very humbly and quietly: "everything I said is the simple truth. And Science." I was dumbstruck and at loss for words. His response carried the humility and brilliance one encounters at a University where new scientific breakthroughs are introduced, evaluated and debated among colleagues within a tradition of friendly calm and inspiration ...not the atmosphere one finds at a street protest about to be raided by the Police! I mumbled clumsily more thanks and sped off to join the march - our contingent from Long Island had driven three hours to come participate in this event and we had to stay together to ensure none of us would get arrested. Secret police and provocateur agents were already infiltrating the crowd and marchers were beginning to move forward with large banners, waving giant placards shaped like leaves of the Sacred Plant and singing "I like marijuana, we like marijuana, you like marijuana too." And laughing hilariously.

The legalization movement in the US was at a crossroads at the time, and Lester Grinspoon was articulating one of its possible directions - legalization of Cannabis for medical reasons, which was almost unheard of at the time; the other branch, utilization of hemp to stimulate industry and the economy toward Green solutions was also just beginning to be understood more widely in the movement. It took us about five to ten years after that to generate sustainable community organizations with solidity and continuity to carry on work around those concepts.

But it was necessary. The reactionary years of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. were beginning to drive millions of Friends of Cannabis within the US and around the world toward the underground again.

Nowadays, after almost fifty years of continuous Drug Wars, our own self-appreciation and knowledge about appropriate use of the herb among Friends of Cannabis is at an all-time low. Due to suppression of knowledge, disinformation, propaganda, lies, State- sponsored Terror, killings, jailings and violence galore our communities are in a state of almost continuous panic, fear and ignorance. Many of the millions of our people do not know the difference between correct use, wrong use and abuse. Appreciation of and knowledge about our experiences with Cannabis is very low. The propaganda of the war against the people disguised as a "War on Drugs", the lack of valid and dependable information within our community, the lack of authoritative sources from within our own ranks, have all led to a cultural poverty among Friends of the Herb.

Dr Grinspoon returns now to help us address this problem. Writing in the present time about the many unappreciated gifts of the Herb, he notes that the medical marijuana movement is correctly oriented toward the medical benefits of Cannabis, but "as encouraging as that movement is, it represents only one category of marijuana use. The rest are sometimes grouped under the general heading of 'recreational', but that is hardly an adequate description of, say, marijuana's capacity to catalyze ideas and insights, heighten the appreciation of music and art, or deepen emotional and sexual intimacy."

He goes on: "These kinds of marijuana experiences, which I like to call 'enhancement', are often misunderstood and under-appreciated -- not only by non-users, but even by some users, especially young people who are interested mainly in promoting sociability and fun. Most of marijuana's powers of enhancement are not as immediately available as its capacity to lift mood or improve appetite and the taste of food. Some learning may be required, and one way to learn is through other people's experience."

He returns the quest back to the origins of knowledge, back to the time-honored but almost forgotten now need for Education. The need for Education among us and the need to cultivate and improve our relationship to Cannabis with knowledge are essential. And indispensable.

Education about the appropriate use and enjoyment of this mild Psychedelic, just as with our Education about the enjoyment and proper use of other, full-potency Psychedelics, has been the subject of various traditions and works from which the millions of our people are increasingly getting cut off, losing touch with our roots. That educational tradition has its origins within the temples where the Eleusinian Mysteries took place; in rainforest ceremonies, on sanctified mountaintops and deserts where since antiquity people have gathered to commune, to heal and to enjoy themselves with Sacred Plants.

It's also found within modern works created by some of our people where the theme of Education features prominently. For example, the subtly heart-breaking and astounding novel by Aldous Huxley titled "Island", revolves among other things, around the theme of how society provides Education on altered states of consciousness... to schoolchildren. It also revolves around the questions of how do these Sacraments need to get woven into our schooling - yes! ; how exactly to be woven into our love life, woven into our planning for the future, into our collective social decision-making processes? Also the Psychedelic Manual published under the title "The Psychedelic Experience" by Timothy Leary, Ph.D; Ralph Metzner, Ph.D; and Richard Alpert, Ph.D, (all prominent scholar-activists from prestigious universities), is a modern interpretation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead applied to facilitating a Psychonaut's navigation through the Sea of Consciousness. And the almost incredible book titled "The Santaroga Barrier" by Frank Herbert (he is the author of the "Dune" series), documents the catastrophic and lethal repercussions that take place when we *neglect* that Education.

Do we know how to appreciate being High?

How much of that precious gift of personal, social and spiritual insight that Cannabis bestows on us should be shared with our lovers, friends, comrades, or shared with the community-at-large?

How much does society lose when we *omit* to share those insights?

Cultivation of an expanded Consciousness and the gift of delighting in the flow of its experiences can best be achieved by identifying some of its elements. Since Cannabis is a major ally on that path, enumerating the various benefits that Cannabis bestows on the expansion of Consciousness; enumerating the enhancements it brings to the quality of the experience of Being, itself; enumerating the various ways in which Cannabis restores balance to the Heart and Mind in addition to healing the Body, restores clarity of Sensation, harmonization with the true flow of Time, harmonization with the nature of Gravity and with the essence of Light, enumerating all these can be of great value to the millions of our people who definitely experience something a lot more than just being "stoned" but who often have no words to express, or concepts within our shared culture within which these delights can be recognized, celebrated, appreciated and cultivated further.

Dr. Grinspoon explores some of these themes in an essay titled:
"To Smoke or not to Smoke: A Cannabis Odyssey"

...in which he shares one of his most crucial dilemmas as one of the world's leading authorities on Cannabis -  "To Smoke or not to Smoke?" - along with some wonderful personal stories negotiating areas of the inner Cannabis experience that are instantly recognizable to all of us. Intimately familiar.

In the essay he sets the tone for assembling a body of cultural~educational materials that help identify and celebrate those elements of the Cannabis high which he calls "enhancements" in order to enrich and empower our community. In his own words: "Some colleagues and I hope to promote this kind of learning by assembling an anthology of accounts of Cannabis enhancement experiences."

The assemblage of educational materials on the use of Cannabis by Lester Grinspoon and colleagues following the publication of his "Cannabis Odyssey" has been growing. It now includes materials from world-known scientist Carl Sagan, the poet Allen Ginsberg, parents, scientists, and several others. There's even a simple recipe for Cannabis Olive Oil!

I'd recommend reading it right here:
"To Smoke or not to Smoke: A Cannabis Odyssey"

And let's talk about it!