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Carl Sagan, as "Mr. X," Extolled Benefits of Marijuana
New submitter Colin Castro writes with an exceprt from the San Francisco Chronicle that reveals a different side of Carl Sagan: MarijuanaMajority.com founder Tom Angell spent a few days this summer in the Library of Congress researching the iconic American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist and author and has come away with a bounty. Angell says he found some never-before-released writings on marijuana policy from the author of classics such as 'Contact' and the TV show 'Cosmos', which is the most widely watched series in the history of American public television. ... I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, unavailable to us without such drugs,' Sagan wrote in 1971, under the name Mr. X.
You must be high.
Carl Sagan has 168 scientific publications, 10 of which have been cited more than 100 times. Many of them are in exceptionally high impact journals (e.g., Nature, Science).
Yeah, I knew that. I heard Lester Grinspoon give a lecture in which he talked about Carl Sagan smoking pot. It might have been in 1996.
http://motherboard.vice.com/bl...
Funny thing is, I went to Colorado this March for a medical conference which actually had a panel on marijuana. Denver is a great place, finally pot is legal, people were offering me grass, and I couldn't smoke any because I had to work.
Useful tip: Leela's European Cafe is a great bar.
Another useful tip: The Colorado newspapers checked and no one has ever been arrested in Denver airport for trying to bring pot home, airport screening notwithstanding.
LD50 of Tetrahydrocannabinol (active ingredient found in Cannabis): 3000 mg/kg in dogs and monkeys.
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wi...
Same page says Oral LD50 of Table Salt: 3000 mg/kg in rats. So, marijuana is roughly on par with potato chips.
The number from your rectal studies institute is probably more correct. The total number of people that have been imprisoned is likely much less than the number currently in prison.
He once inserted random mutations into his code, just so he could have the experience of debugging.
http://science.slashdot.org/st...
Silence is a state of mime.
Hmmmm...I'm a scientist. Your comments trouble me.
Perhaps you haven't noticed, there's a strong anti-intellectual and anti-science force in America. It frequently obscures the fruits of our scientific labor, it weakens our laws and culture, and it endangers people's lives through ignorance.
Sagan, et. al., are useful to society because they bring scientific ideas and theories to the mainstream. They explain it to the layperson. You know, the lay person, who in a democratic society...has the power to vote. If the masses don't understand science, they will vote against it.
So thank you Sagan, thank you for giving science the "marketing" it needs in order to help make the world better.
Even more important, his Erdos Bacon number is 7
More music, fewer hits
What's even worse is that a story like this is still even news.
I was a senior in high school in 1997 when I did my own research and found the evidence that marijuana prohibition has cost our society dearly. I knew it as truth back then; my paper was called "Be Wise, Legalize".
It's taken over 15 years since then for us humble folks from the cowtown that is Denver to change things. If you've been here even for just the last 3-4 years, you've seen the amazing economic benefits of legalizing cannabis.
How did it take this long to realize this, and why is a 40+ year old quip from a smart person regarding cannabis reform still fucking newsworthy? Has nobody been paying attention?
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.