Only because its based on a primary alcohol, and as such, has the capacity for being metabolized into noxious things like acetaldehyde
Now if his boss had been into something BETTER than drink, not that I'm setting the bar too high there (see what I just did there?
) then it would be far more open to doubt.
And xtians can be into drinking and other drugs (OTHER, because godsdamnit [and here too
] I always get tired of people coming out with 'drink and drugs', as if they are either A-blind or too ignorant to acknowledge the fact that ethyl alcohol is as much a drug, as it may be part of items consumed as food and drink, or worse, B-THEY drink alcohol, yet disapprove of 'druggies', or whatever other selfrighteous name for people who ever choose to indulge in any alternative intoxicant, regardless of reason, that they have. So divide the two, as if they were not simply members of the same class of substance as EtOH and somehow both different, and that others who prefer intoxicants of any other nature than caffeine and nicotine to [ethyl] alcohol are somehow not only wreaking a wrongdoing upon others simply by ingesting whatever else they prefer to ingest, but are, its implied or said, depending on who is speaking, that said people are not even people worthy of respect as a human being)
I don't mean people who go out and get high and then let their already-present inner bastard slip its leash and go out to town and then to town on somebody, degenerates whos use is incidental and
who would be complete tossbags stone cold sober all the same, or who are due to being wrongly labelled criminals for their possession, manufacture, use , supply or combination of the above, are not able to maintain stable supplies at a fair price and of good purity, without all kinds of crap being bashed up with it, if its made criminal then only 'criminals' would have XYZ. This leads to economic pressure
such as forces those who have become addicted to a drug to feel desperate and trapped, especially in non-progressive, backwards countries like the US (on a federal level I mean, I'm glad to see how many states are now decriminalizing weed. Its not enough, to decriminalize, full, total legalization and pardoning, without fail, of each and every single 'offender' languishing inside for drug 'crimes', as long as the person has not committed any real crimes as well, like robbery, violent offending, thuggery in general, fraud or done something under the influence, but for those who simply comitted the 'crime' of being caught, possession, manufacture, supply and use, be that having a joint end, blazed right down to the roach, a single blotter of acid, or pain pill, once in their life, or be it someone whos cooked on kilo scales, or even hundreds of kilos. As long as they simply provide, and force nobody to take anything, of any sort, that they do not consent, knowingly, to taking.
Why should the two be different. I even hear weed smokers saying that they want full legalization, sales in the shops like one would purchase tobacco, etc. then go and say 'oh no, but weed is fine, the people who enjoy heroin, or PCP, or MDMA/MDA, coke, etc. those should remain illegal and those people involved with them deserve to feel the full weight of the 'law'
When precisely the same person moments before may have been speaking about how their drug of choice, their ganj should be legal because for it not to be, for the governmental arms involved in administering 'justice' to go round throwing their weight around, basically threatening, with menaces, to steal from, judge, threaten and assault them because of what they choose to put in their own body
is an affront to fundamental rights, namely sovereignty over their own flesh and mind. But are then prepared to support the denial of the very thing they claim FOR THEMSELVES, and for THEIR drug, for other people who choose differently. That to me is the very height of mealy-mouthed, spineless, base hypocrisy, and something I find repugnant. So its all very well for the weed smoker to want their
freedom, and choices respected, weather they make a right or a wrong choice in terms of doing or avoiding doing harm to oneself (the important bit being having the freedom to MAKE those choices, and not have them chosen for them by armed goons at the end of a gun barrel). But not for someone who likes a wee bit of skag, or who likes to drop some MD while they go nightclubbing, or enjoy a nice K-hole or two.
My point is, that being christian or otherwise religious, no more in and of itself grants somebody some kind of moral standing, than taking intoxicants, whatever kind they are, in and of itself, makes somebody a bad person, or immoral. Neither make a person moral, nor do either render somebody a wrongdoer.
Actually its largely those countries expressing large populations of adherents to the three abrahamic religions, xtianity, mammonism and terrorism, that treat drug use, inc. alcohol in the case of
those nonsecular countries with a lot of adherents to the terrorist religion, as some form of so called crime. In most cultures around the world, in fact nearly every indigenous native population (by 'native' I mean 'tribespeople') uses at least one form of intoxicant in their religious or spiritual/magickal practice, not to do so is exceedingly uncommon. One of the VERY few cultures I am aware of that don't make use of some sort of intoxicating plant or animal, or fungus, is the inuit/eskimo, because they had little access to the means due to those cultures living isolated and in climate conditions which don't support those organisms which otherwise would furnish the intoxicants themselves , I bet if they HAD the plants available, or the animals, mushrooms etc. then those cultures would have evolved a use of that nature. Almost all other cultures throughout history that we are aware of have had something. The peoples around the amazon river system have the likes of ayahuasca, native traditional snuffs
made from Anadenanthera beans (yopo, niopo, cohoba), from Virola bark (parika, epena, and yakee), and the dow-kietl, Phyllomedusa bicolor, a kind of tree frog which gives something called 'sapo',used both ritually, and in smaller quantities to sharpen the senses and allow prediction of the paths their prey will take whilst out hunting for food. That last, unlike the others, I haven't personally tried, although physically its meant to be pretty rough.
In africa, christ, thats a right melting pot of shamanism and magical, spiritual religious practices, zulu and xhosa in particular have quite extensive repertoires of psychotropics that their shamen may use, known as 'Ulabuwu' collectively. Things like species of Helichrysum, Boophane disticha [this one isn't recommended, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole, as its highly poisonous, the bulb is sometimes used as a delirient type drug of a smiliar kind of action as the nightshades, as well as as an arrow-poison. Even the pollen and flowers of the stuff are very irritating, keeping this plant growing in a confined space is not a very good idea, if one intends to enter that space without protection; needless to say, taking it internally isn't smart at all.], theres the african dreaming herbs like Silene capensis, another I forget the name of that produces the large seeds sometimes used for carvings, and known as vegetable ivory, this is smoked and I think snorted in powder form, as another dream-inducing Ulabuwu, and
still others, such as the ulabuwu uvua-omhlope, Synaptolepis kirkenii....
And of course the widespread use of psilocybin mushrooms wherever they can be found, such as the maya and aztec people, made extensive ritual use of them, as well as several species of morning glory
the seeds of which are infected, or in symbiosis with, an obligate intracellular symbiont of an endophyte fungus, endophytes being fungi that grow within host plants, and are not parasites as such, or not wholly, but which give and take really. The endophyte in morning glories, as well as the hawiian baby woodrose (NOT the same as hawiian woodrose, I mean, Argyria nervosa here) and in the aztec visionary
seeds known as ololiuqui, Rivea (syn.Turbinia) corymbosa, all produce lysergic acid amides like ergine, having effects quite similar to LSD, save for that the experience doesn't have that electrically charged, stimulant zingy-ness, but rather is a relaxant and sedative almost hypnotic as well as its psychedelic effects. And yeah, believe it or not, the morning glory seeds sold in garden centers carry lysergamide-producing endophyte fungi (heh. Heavenly blues, flying saucers, with names like that, is it any wonder!) and are perfectly active, I've tried it a couple of times and it worked just fine. And the aztec especially
also, like the native american type of indian, had peyote cactus, and a rather charming, although very strange a herb indeed, that they called pilpiltzintzintli, in the nahuatl language, or shining little prince, Salvia divinorum, the diviner's sage. This produces a very unusual psychedelic, that acts neither on the usual serotonin 5HT2a receptor as LSD, mushrooms etc do, nor on glutamate NMDA receptors as an antagonist, like ketamine and PCP, nor even on GABA receptors like the oddball compound muscimol that gives fly agaric mushrooms (Amanita muscaria) their unique properties, but as a potent, and very selective kappa-opioid receptor agonist. Its usually chewed in native use, although western users are more commonly doing so by smoking either dried leaf, or extracts of it, calibrated to a certain level of enhancement over baseline dried leaf, such as 5x, 10, 20, 25x etc., and the plant itself, a relative of the sage we know as a spice and garden plants, believe it or not, pretty much owes its continual existence to the hand of mankind. For it produces no seed, save only very rarely indeed, and even then its almost always sterile, being useful though of course, the locals started taking cuttings and planting them, propagating it that way, such that there are but a handful of genetic races, as the plants, being sterile, are clones. The effect being when smoked at least, in the form of extract, quite astonishing, both in the rapidity of onset, and intensity of the sudden rocketing up from baseline to maximal effect, highly visual, but strangest of all are the effects upon propioception, and bodily selfimage, as in 'the homunculus', making arms feel like they are switched round for instance, left arm attached to right side of body, and the inverse, was one that happened to me before through S.divinorum, feeling like one has been sliced like bread, not by a blade or in terms of injury, but rather, that my bodily form, took the shape of a human body, divided as if into the frames of a video, and each slice then instead of being presented linearly like a video, as if those frames were slotted one behind the other, like the slices of a loaf, with movement causing ripples through the frames, and proprioceptive body map as if from a stone cast into a pool of water. Weird, weird, weird stuff. Short lived, intense, and at times really quite profound and completely immersive whilst under the influence of the herb. Chewing leaves in a quid
is slower, longer, but less intense, and lends itself well to meditative practice whilst doing so, it takes a lot more effort to get to work, but at the same time whilst the effect is not so strong as smoking
even raw dry leaf, let alone extracts that doesn't mean its any less profound at times/of lesser value.
I could easily provide many more examples, hundreds certainly, possibly thousands, of such plants, and occasionally, animals, and cultures using them ritually or societally, or like the polynesian Kava , from a species of pepper plants root, or khat, chewed in yemen, somalia and thereabouts socially, as it contains cathinone, beta-ketoamphetamine, related to the stimulant methcathinone, the N-methylated derivative of cathinone, which is produced synthetically by oxidizing pseudoephedrine or ephedrine and like cathinone/khat, and meth, a stimulant. Got to try chewing some myself once, a few years back, noticed some, asked for it, and was then served with a bundle of fleshy twigs and shoots, with a few leaves here and there, wrapped up in what I think, was a banana leaf, although I'm not sure
not the leaf of the khat plant certainly for they are not large. Coincidentally I just found a little tiny packet of Catha edulis seed. I'm not sure how long khat seeds remain viable, and they are a bit old,
but, I think they should be given the chance to grow at least. Would be a nice plant to have as a houseplant, and as a garden hedgerow too. Not the kind of thing that in its ethnic use really results
in abuse, for two reasons, despite the fact its packed with an amphetamine type stimulant. One being of course, that its slowly absorbed through the oral mucosa on chewing and holding the quid
between teeth and cheek, and as such does not cause the 'rush' that amphetamine/meth users seek in smoking, snorting or shooting speed, and the other factor, which IMO is more important with regards to religious, and ritual use of intoxicating agents and the lack of addiction and misanthropic activities on the part of the user, is cultural or societal/cultural, khat for instance, or the balinese, thai and similar places native opioid bearing tree, kratom, popular throughout the malaysian area, but despite being an opioid, and as such addictive if misused, its not, usually there, and people don't all end up as rampant junkies, or thugs, theres a lot of cultural background and history associated with its use, although thailand is attempting to stamp on it, and on its users
(tried kratom too, many times, and many different varieties. Found it quite pleasant, and unusually, at least some strains produce a delta-opioid receptor agonist, DOR agonism appearing to be stimulatory
in general nature, although some, but not all, synthetic DOR agonists at least are convulsants in too great a quantity. No such thing I've noticed about kratom though, shares the quirky stimulating nature
with opium poppy pod tea in some respects although the mechanism is different (in poppies, its from thebaine, a non-opioid minor alkaloid that works like strychnine does. Large amounts are toxic, a convulsant poison like an overdose of strychnine in overdose, but which when just a little is taken, in the form of pod tea, or extracts, or opium itself, the perky nature of it is most refreshing.
So that all goes to show, that religion and drug use can and indeed USUALLY are, if used in the religious or societal, or cultural contexts. Repressive 'laws' serve no man aught but misery, ill, pain and strife, and the only ones who benefit are governments profiting through the prison service, and esp. in the US the unforgivable, abhorrent practice of allowing private prisons run on a for profit basis, and actually forming contracts for the government agreeing to provide a certain number of prisoners annually. Provides a strong vested interest and incentive for the govt to keep drugs 'illegal' and persecute use wherever they can get away with it, as well as sick shit like asset-stripping of drug 'crime' suspect's property and homes, and finances by asserting they are the proceeds of a crime, and then seizing the assets. Thus depriving the person of the means to hire a lawyer, because they just had their money stolen, and so have vastly reduced chance of being able to fight it in court and win, because the onus
is being placed on their heads, to prove the assets are NOT the proceeds of crime, rather than upon the justice system having to prove that they are.
