In "The Book of the Damned," Charles Fort writes about the data that science has damned, by which he means "excluded." The fact that drugs can inspire and elate is one such fact, although when Fort wrote his anti-materialist broadside, drug prohibition was in its infancy.
Drug use is judged by different standards than any other risky activity in the western world. One death can lead to outrage, even though that death might be statistically insignificant.
Mayo Clinic is peddling junk. They are still promoting Venlafaxine, a drug that is harder to kick than heroin.
No drug causes addiction after one use. From this fact alone, it follows that even drugs like meth and crack and Fentanyl can be used wisely -- on an intermittent basis.
Anyone who has read Pihkal by Alexander Shulgin knows that the drug warriors have it exactly backwards. Drugs are our friends. We need to find safe ways to use them to improve ourselves psychologically, spiritually and mentally.
Politicians protect a drug that kills 178,000 a year via a constitutional amendment, and then they outlaw all less lethal alternatives. To enforce the ban, they abrogate the 4th amendment and encourage drug testing to ensure that drug war heretics starve.
I might as well say that no one can ever be taught to ride a horse safely. I would argue as follows: "Look at Christopher Reeves. He was a responsible and knowledgeable equestrian. But he couldn't handle horses. The fact is, NO ONE can handle horses!"
Scientists are so used to ignoring "drugs" that they don't even realize they're doing it. Yet almost all books about consciousness and depression (etc.) are nonsense these days because they ignore what drugs could tell us about those topics.
All drugs have potential positive uses for somebody, at some dose, in some circumstance, alone or in combination. To decide in advance that a drug is completely useless is an offense to reason and to human liberty.
Besides, why should I listen to the views of a microbe?
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