*David Lenson draws a useful distinction between drugs of desire (cocaine, for example) and drugs of pleasure, such as cannabis. “Cocaine promises the greatest pleasure ever known in just a minute more . . . But that future never comes.” In this respect the cocaine experience is “a savage mimicry of consumer consciousness.” With cannabis or the psychedelics, on the other hand, “pleasure can come from natural beauty, domestic tasks, friends and relatives, conversation, or any number of objects that do not need to be purchased.”
