propensity said:
Comradez said:
I just read her account of the kidnapping charges, and, I don't know, her story seems mostly plausible to me. I don't see why so many people on here are out to vilify this girl. It feels ugly, reading some of the comments on here.
She's extremely detrimental to our community
I'm not convinced that that's true. Why do you say that?
From scanning the forums, I've come up with a number of gripes people have with her. I'll go through each in turn:
1. She makes money off of selling information about psychedelics that can be gotten freely elsewhere.
This is a reason to not buy her services. It's not a reason to hate her. Many people regurgitate in published form information that can be found elsewhere. Some of these are still worthwhile to read or consult because perhaps they have uniquely organized or presented the information in a useful way. As long as she has not openly plagiarized from other sources, I see no reason to fault her for attempting to repackage information on psychedelics in an accessible way for a wider audience.
2. Her contributions are unoriginal, and she seems not that bright.
Once again, these are reasons for not personally buying her services, and for recommending that others do the same. I don't see how this constitutes reason to hate her.
3. She is publishing information on psychedelics on youtube and elsewhere vocally, which is dangerous to our movement.
This is a point on which I suspect I have a fundamental disagreement with others on this board. Many here, it seems, are perfectly content to maintain the status quo--remaining as a maligned, persecuted minority using substances and practices that, nevertheless, for the time being are able to fly mostly under the radar of the authorities. I am not content with this status-quo. To be sure, I'm not calling for a second Timothy Leary-style fanatical crusade to spread the psychedelic gospel. That didn't work. Nevertheless, I continue to hope and expect that we can slowly and patiently educate larger and larger swaths of the public (starting with our non-psychedelic-using immediate family and friends) and eventually achieve a greater degree of social and legal acceptance for our practices. Therefore, I welcome any public discussion of psychedelics that is conducted in an accurate and sympathetic manner. I understand that people worry that it will cause us to lose things like MHRB, HBWR seeds, shroom spores, etc. I share that worry as well, but in the long run I consider it counter-productive cowardice to retreat from this battle. If we remain silent, mainstream opinion on psychedelics will become even more firmly entrenched, not being challenged, and we will have nobody to appeal to if/when the government closes these options down on a whim.
To orient one's long-term strategy around the ignorance and/or benevolence of the government is foolishness, in my opinion. I really have no idea why the government doesn't ban stuff like MHRB or shroom spores already (it would be consistent with the rest of their idiotic and totalitarian policies). Every day that stuff like MHRB or shroom spores remain legal, I count as a day that we dodged the bullet. I consider it in our interest to obtain a climate of public opinion in our favor as soon as possible. The longer we delay, the more of an opportunity we give the government to following through with the logical endpoint of their drug policy, which would be banning currently grey-area alternatives like MHRB and shroom spores. The only stable solution in which we can find some peace of mind is if we develop the strength of public opinion necessary to uphold our right to these substances when challenged. Perhaps others feel differently, but I just can't remain content allowing stuff like MHRB or shroom spores to remain at the caprice of the government. It would be like removing constitutional protection for freedom of speech and allowing it remain at the caprice of the government. "Oh, maybe if we are really quiet and underground, the government won't persecute us for what we say." No, even if that strategy appears to work for a certain time, it is not a sustainable solution, or one that provides for peace of mind.
To clarify as well, I'm not saying that we need disclose to the public every little thing about our practices. I even think it is somewhat fitting if psychedelics remain a largely underground phenomenon, culturally speaking, in the West. I very much think that the template of the ancient "mystery religion" could very well fit with psychedelics--something tolerated by the broader public, but only really practiced and developed by a certain underground of self-chosen initiates. Do I want to see LSD being sold next to the Four-Loko's and 5-hour energys in the gas station? No, of course not. But do I want to face legal repercussions for manufacturing and using psychedelics? No, I do not. The public just needs to be informed about psychedelics enough to dispel government propaganda and make intelligent policy decisions.
4. She tortured someone.
See the link to her side of the story above. I find it very plausible that she was largely at the mercy of Skinner, and that there was little she could do in that situation to prevent the torture of her boyfriend. Clearly, she made some bad choices associating herself with Skinner, but so did Pickard.
5. She narc'd on Pickard.
This is perhaps the most convoluted of the points. I won't go into detail here. I'll just say that, even assuming that this is true, then this is very disappointing, but this still does not make her THE DEVIL. I understand that psychedelics are supposed to transform us into pearly-white holy spirits without any selfish impulse in our bones, but how many of us would be truly unmoved by the prospect of a life in prison? I'd like to think that I'd never narc on someone, but to be perfectly honest with myself, I'd have to say that it would depend on how loyal I was to them, and to a lesser extent, how severe the penalties for me would be otherwise. If that person was my soul mate, in whom I believed wholeheartedly, then no, you could not get me to narc, regardless of the threats to myself. Did Pickard fit these qualities? From what I have read about him, not quite. To be sure, we are grateful to anyone willing to risk his/her life to put out a persecuted sacrament onto the market. But it doesn't appear that Pickard was operating entirely from altruistic motives, which is fine, except that it is unreasonable to expect others to sacrifice everything for him when he was NOT entirely NOT in it for himself.
6. She kept on going back again and again to the DEA willingly.
This does seem a puzzle. To me, it sounds like the neurosoup girl was motivated partly out of revenge. Revenge for what? We might never fully know. Was this impulse for revenge somewhat understandable, or entirely unreasonable? Again, we don't know. It is, in any case, highly uncool to turn someone over to the DEA because of a personal vendetta, but human relationships are complicated.
Conclusion:
Here's the sense I get from her: that she knows she made some bad choices in the past and is trying to find a way to move on, make a living (her books and website), and still do a little bit of good in the process by speading information and awareness about psychedelics. Is that so unreasonable? I'm sure *some* (not all) LSD dealers are far more unscrupulous about abusing the psychedelic movement for their own material gain than she seems to be doing. At $10 a hit, there's a lot of profit somewhere down the line. In comparison, someone who tries to "cash-in" on information about psychedelics and personal experiences with psychedelics and the psychedelic movement is little worse than how someone like Terence Mckenna made a living. Was he a sell-out because he scratched a modest living from a few books on these topics? (Granted, his might have been a bit more original, but you don't have to buy the neurosoup girl's book if you don't want to).
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