The politics of ecstasy by Leary Timothy 1920-1996

Author:Leary, Timothy, 1920-1996
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Hallucinogenic drugs -- Psychological aspects, Hallucinogenic drugs and religious experience, Ecstasy
Publisher: Berkeley, CA : Ronin Pub.

She Comes in Colors [ 121

the world. On April 16,1966, it also became a target for further harassment by what Leary calls **the forces of middle-aged, middle-class authority." Late that night, a squad of Dutchess County police descended on the place, searched it from top to bottom, found a minute quantity of marijuana, and arrested four people —including Leary. If convicted, he could be fined heavily and sent to prison for 16 years. Already appealing another conviction, Lf.ary had been arrested in Laredo the previous December as he was about to enter Mexico for a vacation, when customs officials searched his car and found a half ounce of marijuana in the possession of his eighteen-year-old daughter. Despite his claim that the drug was for scientific and sacramental use in the furtherance of his work and his spiritual beliefs (as a practicing Hindu) , he was fined $30,000 and sentenced to 30 years in prison for transporting marijuana and failing to pay the federal marijuana tax.

In the months since then, the LSD controversy has continued to escalate along with Leary's notoriety—spurred by a spate of headline stories about psychedelic psychoses, dire warnings of 'Hnstant insanity" from police and public health officials, and 'pious editorials inveighing against the evils of the drug. In May and June, two Senate subcommittees conducted widely publicized public hearings on LSD, and three states—California, Nevada and New Jersey—enacted laws prohibiting its illicit use, possession, distribution or manufacture. With a ringing appeal for still more stringent legislation on a federal level, Ronald Reagan even dragged the issue into his successful campaign for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in California.

It was amid this mounting outcry against the drug that Playboy asked Dr. Leary to present his side of the psychedelic story— and to answer a few pertinent questions about its putative promise and its alleged perils. Consenting readily, he invited us to visit him in Millbrook, where we found him a few days later reciting Hindu morning prayers with a group of guests in the kitchen of the 64-room mansion. He greeted us warmly and led the way to a third-floor library. Instead of sitting down in one of the room's well-worn easy chairs, he crossed the room, stepped

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