Here is an idea that I hope will appeal to LSD prisoners. If it works, it could help in two ways. It could get the word out to the public that LSD is not the evil monster government propaganda pretends it is, and it could - just could - speed the end of Prohibition and the injustice of sentencing people who use LSD to prison. The two goals are related. Both are meant to swing public opinion against Prohibition and the War on Drugs.
The idea is for LSD prisoners to write down your thoughts about LSD: what LSD means to you personally, how it has benefited you and how it can benefit society, the government's reasons for banning it, and so forth. In addition to saying why you think LSD is a good thing (if you do), the idea is to describe the unethical behavior and terror tactics used by government agents to entrap you and put you where you are.
Before going into detail, I will say something about myself and why I feel the way I do. My name is John Beresford. I am in the older age bracket and in good shape mentally and physically. For that I have LSD to thank. If I hadn't got into LSD when I was younger and been able to renew the experience as occasion arises, I'd hate to think what life would be like now. I have made my share of mistakes, been mean to people I had no business being mean to, and made an ass of myself in countless ways. There's plenty to regret. But the reason for dumb behavior is forgetting what LSD reveals about myself (or any self). Being mindful can save a lot of trouble.
Until ten years ago, I was ignorant of the scale of Nixon's and then Reagan's War on Drugs. I was a US citizen living in Canada, a country fortunately not suffering from the same pathological obsession. One day I answered an ad in High Times, placed by an LSD prisoner in the US, a young guy just out of high school named Brian Adams. Brian had been socked with a 10 year sentence for distributing LSD to his pals. The ad invited readers who might like to know more about Brian's case to write to him in prison. I did, and from the exchange grew a voluminous correspondence with other LSD prisoners, some of whom I visited in prison and many of whom I came to know well.
The realization that the government treated part of American society as an enemy, that LSD users could be put away with the barest pretense of justice, and that people's thinking about LSD was shaped by the skillful use of propaganda reminded me of life in Nazi Germany, of which I knew something from a pre-WW2 vacation and later study. With America following the example of Nazi Germany - the parallels are too numerous to mention here - the question was what to do about the unwelcome discovery. For me the answer was to start an organization called The Committee on Unjust Sentencing.
The policy of The Committee on Unjust Sentencing can be summed up in two NO's. One NO is to the War on Drugs. The other NO is to sentencing people to prison for drug use (or punishing people for drug use in any way). The first NO was the policy of groups already in existence, for example the Drug Policy Foundation in Washington, although it's fair to say that a positive alternative policy - exactly what should take its place - was not then and has not since been stated. The second NO was first articulated in public by the Committee on Unjust Sentencing. Saying No to a corrupt justice system and the unjust sentencing it revels in was and still is the key to putting an end to Prohibition and changing Drug War policy.
Putting pen to paper on the subject of LSD - pencil to paper if you're in the hole - will, I hope, become a project the Committee on Unjust Sentencing can help get under way. I won't stop to describe projects the Committee has undertaken in the past, except to mention one that has a bearing on the present case. In January 1996 I wrote to a number of LSD prisoners to see if any might be interested to write to Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who first synthesized LSD and first experienced its effect. If a prisoner got a letter for Albert to me in time, I would deliver it in person at the conference of the European Society for the Study of Consciousness in Heidelberg, Germany, where we would meet the following month. Twelve LSD prisoners liked the idea, and in February I gave Albert a folder of letters from LSD prisoners in America at the wind-up session of the conference, in the presence of three or four hundred leading academics in the field of consciousness.
This was admittedly a sneaky way of telling university professors that over in America the subject some of them had given papers on, namely LSD, was getting people thrown in prison for vicious terms of imprisonment, and that maybe they should give this some thought. At a piggy-back conference the Committee on Unjust Sentencing put on that night in Heidelberg, 200 college students learned the sorry truth about America and formed their own conclusion: the same mess their parents were mixed up with in Nazi days was repeating itself in today's United States. Young Germans, I discovered, have a keen ear for the past.
Those letters from prisoners helped Albert a lot. You see, Albert Hofmann already had some knowledge of the War on Drugs and the horrifying treatment accorded people who use LSD in the US. What he didn't know, and what the letters told him, was that prisoners did not hold him responsible in any way. Each of the twelve letters put the thought in different words, but the message was the same. Despite what had been done to them, no one regretted having taken LSD, and no one would refuse an opportunity to take LSD if life were to be lived over again. The effect on Albert was, I believe, profound. It meant he did not have to shoulder blame, as in his decent way he did, for the misfortune suffered by users of his "problem child." Those who wrote to Albert then and are still in prison now will remember the replies Albert typed with his own hands, describing what your letters meant to him.
Nearly five years have passed since that occasion - Albert enjoys good health at the age of 95, I'm glad to say - and the reason for this writing project is different. Here's what I have in mind. If POWs go for the idea, it may be possible to publish a book by prisoners telling the truth about LSD from a unique perspective. I got this idea while reading a letter from a letter from Tim Tyler, an LSD life prisoner and Grateful Dead fan in Atlanta. Tim wrote that for him LSD was a sacrament, and always would be. I thought, suppose a sufficient number of prisoners attest to the value of LSD, describing personal experiences and speculating on the place of LSD in a just society, and moreover describing the nightmare at the hands of the justice system preceding prison. Suppose such a book were prepared for publication. I felt sure that Albert Hofmann would contribute an introduction, and that a publisher could be found.
I said that that publication of such a book could show the public that LSD is not the evil monster it is made out to be, and that it could - just could - speed freedom for LSD prisoners. Here's what I mean.
Several books have come out recently with good things to say about LSD and psychedelics generally. The Secret Chief by Myron Stolaroff is one. Another is Cleansing the Doors of Perception by Huston Smith. People who read these books probably get the psychedelic message already. It is unlikely they will hit best-seller lists. But why should a volume written by the undistinguished and the unknown - a bunch of prisoners at that - fare better at attracting readers? Why should a public brainwashed by propaganda put out $12.95 for a book on LSD by prisoners?
There are two things to remember. One is the swing of the pendulum. In the sixties and seventies, before the propaganda machine revved up and people were conditioned to think bad things about drugs, popular books on LSD found a market. Today, a current of opinion may be forming which says that the government has gone too far in its assault on citizens who like to use some drug or other. A book on LSD by those condemned to prison, sometimes for life, for doing what there is no reason to believe is harmful to society and good reason to think is beneficial may cause a change of heart in members of the public and initiate a call for reform and justice for LSD prisoners. If the pendulum of public opinion has reached its apogee, ready for a downward plunge, a push by prisoners may start the motion. Remember the breath of a butterfly in chaos theory that starts a hurricane.
The other thing to remember is novelty. Publishers are on the lookout for novelty. By itself, a collection of statements on the ever-mysterious subject of LSD may not catch the eye of a reviewer. But a collection by prisoners could provide just that touch of novelty to get the public relations wheels turning. There is a further consideration. No one outside prison these days can afford to wave the flag for LSD from personal experience, any more than outside prison it is safe to recommend the use of marijuana (except perhaps on medical grounds) or that of any other illicit substance from personal experience. Calling attention to oneself this way is liable to bring down the wrath of the drug police, America being the police state it has become. In contrast, what do prisoners have to lose? Liberty, assets, and all too often families have gone. Self-respect may be all that's left. LSD and other Drug War prisoners who write in tell me to use information they provide in any way that I see fit - for press releases, for the Committee's web site, or whatever. There is nothing more to lose by being open. Truth has become immune to retaliation.
Suppose that the public gets the message that LSD has been falsely depicted and that prison for LSD use is immoral and unjust. Suppose it gets the message that as it applies to LSD the USSC's §2D1.1 belongs in the garbage. Given the volatility of public opinion in the US and the extremist corner the McCaffreys of the Drug War have painted themselves in, who can say what changes in the prison/drug equation are in store?
So send your contributions - anything from a couple of sentences to a full-length essay - to The Committee on Unjust Sentencing, P.O. Box 76665, Los Angeles, CA 90076. Any response that is delivered will receive a reply, though replies will take time to arrive. And this last word. The injustice done to LSD prisoners is incontestable. Other Drug War prisoners suffer their share of injustice too. The pro-LSD book I am thinking of can serve as a model for a similar book by marijuana prisoners or by methamphetamine prisoners or by others in the contested realm. It is time to challenge the Drug War propaganda lie that all drug use is "bad." The use of every drug in the illegal category has something good to be said for it, mixed blessing or no mixed blessing. All drug sentencing is unjust sentencing, and all drug sentencing must be exposed for what it is. Let's make a start in this direction and get public thinking turned around.
The Committee on Unjust Sentencing, Los Angeles, September 2000.
Original Source: http://www.drugwarprisoners.org/opletlsd.htm
