GINSBERG ON DRUGS

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I have seen a statement by Harvard officials on LSD and other drugs, and offer these few comments based on several dozen experiences (with LSD-25, mescaline, psilocybin, peyote and banisteriopsis caapi) spaced out over the last decade. Circumstances of ingestion varied from solitary trial to controlled academic setting at Stanford U. and Harvard to watchful supervision by native curanderos in the Peruvian Amazon.

The Harvard statement is marred by faulty terminology: to label the above substanoes "mind-distorting drugs" is to make a basic mistake which thereafter confuses thinking on the subject. It's an inaccurate epithet; it's not precise language at all.

More accurate to write "mind-expanding" or conseiousness-widening drugs' in conformity with the experience as reported y almost all who have tried them. There's sufficient, mass of data published and unpublished to bear this out.

Wiser still to adopt a neutral label, if a label is necessary: "consciousness-altering drugs." The phrase "mind-distorting drugs" pushes forward an arbitrary and unscientific evaluation. It's unnecessarily prejudicial. The Harvard statement should be amended to exclude this impropriety of phraseology.

The circumstances under which these drugs as taken inevitably affect the subjective experience. Unfortunately the formal warning against "mind-distorting" drugs is now part of the situation at Cambridge. The echo of this official Sound will cause all sorts of nervous crises, not the drugs.

Good intentions abound: and alteration in only the direction of official concern is in order. It would make sense for Harvard to provide the situation where those interested in the effects of the consciousness-altering drugs may have their experiences in an open, secure and friendly atmosphere.

One concludes that although many circumstances such as final examinations, Ph.D. theses, love affairs or the reading of poetry also "may result in serious hazards to the mental health and stability even of apparently normal persons," it will not be found necessary to warn Harvard men off limits in these areas.

With good cheer to all, Allen Ginsberg.