The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys

by James Fadiman

The basis for these reforms is the recognition of the following realities: Psychedelics are not addictive. They never were. Americans than still smoke cigarettesa)—does not kill anyone. Illegal drugs are crime and violence magnets. It was true when the United States prohibited alcohol in the 1920s; it is equally true of any other desired and prohibited substance. We forget the huge increase in drinking and crime that Prohibition brought on. Author Simon Louvish wrote, “Times Square— between 34th and 52nd streets—boasted 2,500 speakeasies, where before Prohibition there had been only 300 saloons. In the entire country, in 1925, there were estimated to be three million ‘booze joints,’ where ‘pre-Prohibition cafes numbered 177,000.’ In other words, a nation of moderate drinkers was turned into a nation of obsessive alcoholics, paying for criminals to build up an immense black market that would affect the nation’s economy for decades.”