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April 24, 2007 10:42 PM

Entheogens and Psychotherapy.A 2001 paper by Canadian psychotherapist Andrew Feldmar on the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelics and his own experience with LSD. Now, because of this paper, he is no longer allowed to enter the U.S. [Via MindHacks.]
posted by homunculus (20 comments total)

achewood psychedelic decision-making flowchart
posted by anthill at 10:50 PM on April 24, 2007

from a song of mine (but not yet posted to MeFiMusic), called "Oh Yes":

I took my share of LSD
I believe it helped to free my mind
but they'll put you into jail for that
that kind of freedom is a crime
posted by flapjax at midnite at 11:26 PM on April 24, 2007

Gah, what a wussified country the Home of the Brave has become.
posted by orthogonality at 11:38 PM on April 24, 2007

"Persons with AIDS, tuberculosis, infectious diseases are inadmissible," Milne said. And then there is Section IV. "Anyone who is determined to be a drug abuser or user is inadmissible. A crime involving moral turpitude is inadmissible and one of those areas is a violation of controlled substances."

This is stomach-turning. How does someone's opinion of something as nebulous as moral turpitude become a crime which gets one barred from entering the country?
posted by unmake at 11:58 PM on April 24, 2007

How does someone's opinion of something as nebulous as moral turpitude become a crime which gets one barred from entering the country?

Republicans. That's how.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 12:23 AM on April 25, 2007

Long haired commie hippie punks and their LSDee! Not gunna lettem in this here UnitedStates of christianity, no sir! No Sir-ee Bob!

Damn Canadians are all a buncha damn freaks! That's what it is! Damn drug totin' freaks!

/inner redneck.

So, like, anyone wanna push for, like, common sense in . . . oh nevermind
posted by From Bklyn at 12:49 AM on April 25, 2007

Booo-S-A.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 1:35 AM on April 25, 2007

Ok, moral turpitude is mediaeval.

But an "ideological exclusion provision"?

WTF America?
posted by dreamsign at 2:19 AM on April 25, 2007

This is ironic, since Bush is a former cocaine fiend. Of course, he's never been honest about the shit he's done, unlike this poor guy.
posted by Deathalicious at 2:23 AM on April 25, 2007

It's not like it's difficult to get yourself barred from the US, anyway.

The US, like only two other countries in the world (The Philippines and Eritrea), insists on taxing its citizens abroad. And if you try to renounce (say, because you don't want to pay taxes on lands you have in France that you would like to pass along to your French children), they will treat you like a tax dodger, with sanctions including blacklisting you in the Federal Registry, denying you reentry into the US indefinitely, and taxing your projected US earnings for the next ten years after renouncing.

I'm due for a pay rise, and I will not submit to being taxed twice on my income (call me unpatriotic, but that shit is just fucking outrageous). So, should I renounce my citizenship? Enquiring minds want to know.
posted by chuckdarwin at 4:36 AM on April 25, 2007

Damn it. Did anyone read the whole article?

"Following this initiation, I traveled to many regions many times with the help of many different substances. I took peyote, psilocybin mushrooms, cannabis, MDMA, DMT, ketamine, nitrous oxide 5-MEO-DMT, but I kept coming back to LSD."

Not exactly "took LSD twice in the 60s". The real story here isn't about keeping out "undesirables" (all countries get to do it - the UK just denied Snoop Dogg a visa), it's that border guards are basing their decisions on Google searches. WTF?
posted by Leon at 4:41 AM on April 25, 2007

No, but it is "experimented with hallucinogens 40 years ago".

And yeah, Google searches. So confidence-inspiring. And gee, I hope they like my latest short story. I really want to visit my aunt in Illinois.
posted by dreamsign at 4:55 AM on April 25, 2007

The desire to seek within is more and more lacking in our current world...

Can a man who has looked into his own soul respect himself? Can he respect weakness, triviality, shame and fear?...one meets oneself, with all one’s doubts, pretensions, heroics, defenses, habits, hopes and paranoias.

The worst trauma is betrayal. I have been betrayed and I have betrayed. Each time it happens, we contract, tense up and defend ourselves from further let-downs. And we begin to die of our defenses.

In past discussions of War on (some) Drugs insanity, someone usually brings up the alcohol/tobacco vs. "illegal" drugs hypocrisy of western culture. Entheogens and Psychotherapy offers insight into that which the powers that be are most afraid - seeing themselves as they really are. The ego-maniacal self-willed cancers that run the circus can't stand the idea that someone might see their true inner desolation, nor can they allow a substance that might allow people that power.

And we begin to die of "our" defenses.

Ideas are more powerful than guns. We don't let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?-Joseph Stalin
posted by Enron Hubbard at 5:14 AM on April 25, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

How does someone's opinion of something as nebulous as moral turpitude become a crime which gets one barred from entering the country?

It doesn't. What you read doesn't say that. It says that some crimes involve moral turpitude, and others don't. CIMT usually means that the crime in question has fraud, theft, or intent to harm at its core.

Feldmar didn't get nailed under the CIMT provision in any case. He got nailed under the drug-abuser provision. Contrary to what the USCIS spokesman in the article said, they're two different things; they just have the same effect.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:50 AM on April 25, 2007

"the ideological exclusion provision". WTF? Doubleplus good USA!
posted by lalochezia at 8:08 AM on April 25, 2007

Jesus Fucking Christ, using Google searches at the border?!

Well, I just checked and luckily Google doesn't seem to find ANY of my inflammatory political postings -- probably because they're all on blogs and such. I seem to be a harmless academic, that's fine by me!

But damn. When do we get the good news?! When do we get our freedoms back?

Frankly, I'd throw all the security crap away and take my chances with the terrorists at this point.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 4:31 PM on April 25, 2007

BTW, TIME has a companion piece to the one I linked in the FPP: When the Elite Loved LSD.
posted by homunculus at 10:08 PM on April 25, 2007

That's what you get when you elect a former coke head.
posted by cdavidc at 10:44 PM on April 25, 2007

Canadian Psychologist Who Used LSD Forty Years Ago Permanently Barred from Entering U.S.
posted by homunculus at 12:11 AM on April 27, 2007

Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants
posted by homunculus at 12:51 AM on April 30, 2007