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.

Comments

Re:Argument from authority

[i kan reed]

Well, it's more valid than the status quo that imprisons millions of people for dumb-as-hell reasons derived from 1960s moral panics and 1920s racism.

But if we change, who will provide cheap prisoners

[WillAffleckUW]

Nobody thinks of the economic impact of freeing millions and millions of American citizens from indentured servitude.

How will the prison industrial complex get cheap labor if we legalize MJ, which is used to imprison non-whites and seize all their assets without warrants?

If the South has to give that up, it could be the end of the plantations!

Re:Prove him right some more

[Mr. Slippery]

This is not a new kind of perception, it's a chemical illusion

And what sort of perception is not "a chemical illusion"? Is the feeling you get when you comprehend Cantor's diagonalization proof an illusion? The feeling you get from listening to the music of Bach? The feeling you get when you look up and see a meteor streak by? Everything you experience supervenes on neurochemistry, and a cannabis experience is no less valid on that basis than any other.