The International House of Mojo

The post does still exist, you just can't see it. And I guess removing it brought more attention than anything else, but the impression I got on IRC was 'lame excuse to push a personal opinion' - and that was mostly true.

Seriously? Really? Really? From who?

Isn't Mojo all about 'lame' and 'push' and 'personal opinions' anyway?

Everyone has a different idea about what Mojo is "all about" -- my favourite idea is fro elTee on IRC: "just some masochistic circle-jerk"

Mixnmojo: Potemkin editorial controlâ„¢

I hope it was elTee who deleted this post on his own, otherwise someone out there's an extreme lame-ass.

Heh yes it was me, because it was inappropriate - or at least, the kind of inappropriate that was pissing people off.

Should've kept it. ¬

Bah, thats lame.

Anyone who cried about that post was a lameass.

Is this what Mojo has fallen to? Truly a sad day when such a once-noble fansite can't find anything better to talk about than the "joys" of recreational drug use.

The noble fansite that talked about killing the queen. Good times, good times.

Waaaaaah, waaaaaaah. Thats all I see.

Eh, I shouldn't write this because these debates are pointless.

I didn't talk about the 'joy' of using LSD, and I certainly didn't recommend anyone take it. LSD is dangerous in exactly the same way that a car is dangerous - you can't die from taking LSD, no matter what anyone might have told you in an anti-drug lecture. It's a non-toxic drug; that means you can't 'overdose' on it. And like a car, if you don't know what you're doing and you try to drive one, you're an idiot and when you spin out of control it's not because the car is evil, it's because you didn't know what the hell you were doing.

It's important to make the distinction between drugs - all drugs, legal or no - because they're all different. Cocaine? Bad. Heroin? Also bad, but it's an opiate, and I tell you if you ever end up in hospital with some godawful injury you won't be complaining when they pump you full of one of those. Then you have the legal drugs which are accepted by society, alcohol being the best example. Compare alcohol to ecstasy - both dangerous sure, but comparatively so. One is demonised, and you can buy the other in a store. Alcohol makes people violent, ecstasy makes them want to hug everyone. It's a simplified version of the argument but it highlights the ridiculous way illegal drugs are treated compared to the legal ones, which people assume are fine because the government say they are. "Don't do drugs! They're bad! Have a cigarette instead."

Anyone who knows the history of LSD knows that for well-over a decade it helped thousands of people with psychological problems, because it was used legally and in a controlled environment. Plenty of respected scientists value its ability to let you see things in a different way - hell, Francis Crick used to take LSD and he admitted, however reluctantly, that it played an important role in his discovery of the helical structure of DNA.

And I joked about Steve Jobs, but he founded one of the most important companies of the modern world and he also described taking LSD as one of the "two or three most important" things he'd ever done. In fact the computer industry is a perfect example of something that has benefitted from LSD - numerous programmers have extolled its virtues, because when you're trying to code something and you can't figure out a problem, LSD's ability to let you 'see' that problem is an excellent way to solve it.

And regardless of all that, it's an important cultural day. July 4th celebrates a violent revolution, April 19th celebrates a drug that for better or worse changed the world. Maybe in the future when scientists are allowed to study LSD again, and you can get it on prescription to cure your cluster headaches, people will be glad we didn't just let this drug die an unfair death at the hands of ignorance.

And for the record, just because Western society doesn't have a history of psychedelic sacrament in religion doesn't mean that it isn't a valid way to solve your problems.

A slight, but unfortunately major flaw in your logic there, elTee. LSD is not dangerous in the same way a car is dangerous, and certainly not [i]exactly[/i] so.

LSD is certainly capable of doing permanent brain damage. This isn't necessarily because you took too much (and how do you calculate what is "too much" anyway?) but might simply be down to a genetic disposition.

Getting drunk is more like driving a car. If you do it wrecklessly, night after night, you will probably eventually get hurt.

LSD and other hallucinogens carry an additional danger of being predisposed to having a switch flipped that cannot be unflipped. This cannot be avoided by "driving carefully".

Just because you can say "well me and friends are all ok", doesn't mean that it wouldn't and couldn't happen to somebody else.

Yes, I know there are other dangers out there, such as common allergic reactions that can kill. And yes, I'm aware that amphetamines are more likely to flip that "irreversible switch" than LSD (contrary to what people might imagine).

But hallucinogens deserve respect and I feel it would be a falsehood to portray them as being safe "provided you know what you're doing".

Despite that, it's also worth mentioning that Albert Hofmann recently topped a list of great minds (along with Tim Berners Lee) for the discovery of LSD. It's effect on psychology was apparently ground-breaking.

Those who would like to learn more on the whole LSD thing could do much worse that checking out "Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream". It's an excellent book that literally changed my life.

PS - Mushrooms are better.
PPS - No, I didn't complain about elTee's original post :P

Heh, so many people I speak to prefer Mushrooms. I don't know, I only tried them once - and that was back when you could buy them legally! - and it was just fun, not insightful. I mean I guess there are worse ways to spend an afternoon.

For the record there's another good book called 'Acid Dreams' which talks a lot about the CIA and their experiments with LSD.

But I couldn't agree more, hallucinogens deserve a lot of respect. All I was trying to say is that if someone takes LSD and doesn't know what it is exactly (other than 'a drug, woot!') then the chances of them having a bad trip and possibly endangering themself (running across busy roads etc.) is much higher than the person who understands what LSD is, and knows that whatever they experience they are not dying and they are under the influence of a drug. That it will end in a few hours time and it's not poisonous: that they can calm down and start to enjoy the experience.

I researched LSD for years simply because the idea of a chemical that could make you hallucinate fascinated me. When the time came later on in life that it was available to me, I was extremely confident that I could handle it, thanks to that research.

But I've never heard of LSD causing brain damage directly. I know it can cause a psychotic break if you're already mentally fragile (and I don't see that as a necessarily hidden risk either; people with depression or other mental illnesses shouldn't mess around with psychedelics, that really is self evident) and as for allergic reactions... really? I can't see that. I mean, LSD is active at the thousandth-of-a-gram scale - 25ug is what I read is the threshold, although I'd say you'd only feel it at 50ug+. Hardly any substances can affect the body so powerfully at that kind of microscopic dose - including poisons etc., so even if someone takes some 'bad acid' (ie. another harmful chemical falsely sold as LSD) the dose will be too small to do any real damage to them.

I mean we could argue about this forever really but I think we're basically on the same side. And for every study that says LSD causes brain damage there's going to be another that says it doesn't. Again, I'm really really really not telling people to go out and take LSD. I was just trying to say, I honestly think it has a valid place in our society. Somewhere :-)

Western society does have a history of psychedelic sacrament in religion (around 2-3,000 years ago).

Anyway, you removed your post because of one, single person who has an impaired perception of things? (see jp-30's link)

Pah! I'd hate to know what ATMachine thinks about the Sam and Max games (too risqué?). Maybe he just likes staring at the colours.

That post is by far the best thing I've read on Mojo, and I agree with the entirety of it.

You shouldn't have had to edit your news post, either... It was a harmless bit of fun, despite how the more closed minded among us may perceive it.

Yeah, I liked it a lot as well. I'm anti-drugs as far as it goes -- that is, I think it would probably be better if we did without them -- but the post made me see the positive side to LSD. As a Christian, I think there are better ways of experiencing realities outside of ourselves -- but as other things go, LSD is not at all bad for that role! It seems very effective, in fact. The post wasn't about convincing people to take LSD or to make this site approbate their usage -- it was just to give it a bit of positive press, which I think is fair.

And it was even made "relevant" to LucasArts+! And anyone who says that isn't Mixnmojo obviously doesn't remember the days of Spaff! (I still hope Spaff will make a glorious return some day...)

In summary: elTee should be knighted!

It was all an elaborate sting operation to get you out of hiding so that you can write a bunch of obscure trivia for our Secret History articles. Now help us out.

Not while this is the first and foremost article on the site. I'm nowhere near supporting the inane policies of the US government on drug use, but the Mojo front page is not at all the appropriate place for airing such views. Despite what some here might think, the word "Mojo" actually refers to a locale in Monkey Island 2 and not to mood-altering substances.

Mojo is serious business!

To be fair, ATMachine does surface periodically to complain about the current state of Mojo.

ATMachine is alive! :O

*drums fingers on table*

three years later I still haven't played it

>.<

At first I cried "So what!".

Then I followed the Wikipedia links... May one assume that the post too wouldn't have existed without LSD?

I am certainly an advocate of LSD, I think it's an incredible chemical that is a gift to science and humankind in general, it's just a shame that prohibition has given it such a bad reputation. I don't think you need to be a fan of a drug (or a user of it, even) to acknowledge its importance.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is this: I'm not on LSD, I just feel strongly that it is important to try and give it some positive press whenever it's legitimate to do so. If you look for articles about it online you'll find plenty of evidence that it has been an extremely beneficial chemical.

Mort's the acid-head around here. Well, him and Serge anyway. I should have included that in the news-post!

"Without LSD there would be no ScummVM and our community would be composed entirely of people over the age of 18 - apart from the weird EMI fans, who are a blight upon the entire thing."

Poor Mort. What has he become! I cry for him.

Teeeee. A superb post!

You don't post often, elTee, but when you do, you make it count.