Social Research articles from September 2001

Social Research archives from September 2001

Editor's introduction.
September 22, 2001... Over the last several decades there has been a growing wave of concern over the use and abuse of mind-altering substances that has left in its wake increasingly large expenditures for what is familiarly called the "War on Drugs," despite the...

Introduction: altered states.(Brief Article)
September 22, 2001... WHEN is a state of consciousness an "altered" state of consciousness? Religious ecstasy, alcohol intoxication, hypnotic trance, an opium-induced dream, musical reverie.... The premise of the Altered States of Consciousness conference is...

The rhetoric of consciousness.
September 22, 2001... WHAT are some of the ways in which both ordinary language and the extraordinary language of literature--of lyric poetry in particular--contrive, in first-person accounts, to represent various states of consciousness to other minds, and to...

Altered States of consciousness.
September 22, 2001... EVERYONE would claim to be an individual; everyone would claim they were different from everyone else. And yet the macabre idea is that if we all took our brains out, they would look pretty much the same. Just looking at the brain is not very...

The etiquette of consciousness.
September 22, 2001... WHAT are the social, cultural, and discursive conventions--the etiquette--that surround consciousness and its alterations? "Etiquette" refers generally to the practices and forms, most commonly of behavior, that are prescribed by social and...

Introduction: drug ways.(Brief Article)
September 22, 2001... EACH of the papers presented in this section places drug use in an historical and interdisciplinary context, opening the debate over the implications of national and global drug policy. These papers, and the Altered States of Consciousness...

Altered States: opium and tobacco compared *.
September 22, 2001... SUCCESSIVE media commentators on British drug policy who have come across my research on nineteenth-century opiate use have found it fascinating that a society that now has quite restrictive policies toward drugs once had no policies at all....

Psychedelics as catalysts of insight-oriented psychotherapy *.
September 22, 2001... HERE is some evidence that the psychotherapeutic process can be enhanced by the use of drugs that invite self-disclosure and self-exploration. Such drugs, called psychedelic (meaning "mind-manifesting") might help to fortify the therapeutic...

Mind and medicine drug treatments for psychiatric illnesses.
September 22, 2001... Psychiatric Disorders as Medical Illnesses PSYCHIATRIC illnesses are conditions of the brain that lead to alternations in thinking, mood, and behavior. These illnesses are observed in cultures throughout the world and are probably at least...

Magnetic mockeries.(mesmerism)
September 22, 2001... ON a short visit to France in 1784, the Scottish novelist Henry MacKenzie recorded in his diary that "all Paris at present is mad about a Monsieur Mesmer, who pretends to cure all illnesses by magnetism." The "man of feeling" goes on to report...

Introduction: other ways.(Brief Article)
September 22, 2001... AT first glance, little seems to link the three papers in this section by Al Alvarez, Frits Staal, and Irving Kirsch. Alvarez is a literary critic who appreciates the poetry of Coleridge, even though it was produced under the influence of...

How a psychoactive substance becomes a ritual: the case of Soma.
September 22, 2001... Introduction: Vedic Peoples THE Rigveda, the earliest of the four Vedas, describes Soma in three forms: as a God, a plant, and a beverage extracted or pressed from that plant. (1) All are endowed with extraordinary powers. A few centuries...

Drugs and inspiration.
September 22, 2001... I WANT to discuss two periods in English literature when drugs and inspiration seemed to go together. The first was the Romantics' furtive flirtation with opium around the close of the eighteenth century; the second was in the 1950s and 1960s,...

The altered states of hypnosis.
September 22, 2001... HYPNOSIS has traditionally been thought of as an altered state of consciousness--a trance state in which some people experience profound alterations in perception, memory, and overt behavior. Beginning in the 1920s, it became a topic for...

Introduction: legal and economic aspects.(Brief Article)
September 22, 2001... How to handle the drug problem is a complex matter of great importance to our national well-being. The two contributors to this section address the legal and economic aspects of drug use and legalization from the vantage points of their...

Addiction and responsibility.
September 22, 2001... THE subject of addiction has attracted increasing interest over the past decade from moral philosophers (Watson, 1999; Wallace, 1999), legal theorists (Corrado, 2000a, 2000b; Morse, 1999), and, most intriguingly, from economists (Becker, 1992;...

The economics of drug prohibition and drug legalization.
September 22, 2001... I. Introduction AROUND the world, the legal status of commodities such as marijuana, cocaine, and heroin differs dramatically from that of nearly all other goods. Most commodities are subject to substantial regulation and taxation, but the...

Introduction.
September 22, 2001... As the moderator of this panel discussion on drug policy, it would be inappropriate for me to expound at length on my own views about policies, either past or present. However, I do want to put into brief historical context the divergent...

Reforming United States drug control policy: three suggestions.(Brief Article)
September 22, 2001... United States drug policy should be grounded in a public health framework. It should not be based on a libertarian premise (under which a person's choices about whether to use drugs are of societal interest only if they endanger others) or on...

Prohibition and legalization: beyond the false dichotomy.
September 22, 2001... Intoxication and addiction weaken self-control, which leads some drug users to engage in damaging behavior--behavior that would not occur but for their drug use. Government efforts to restrict drug use swell public budgets, restrict liberty,...

A judge's view.
September 22, 2001... Above the bench in my courtroom engraved in large letters is a simple statement: "Justice." That word is emblazoned in most courtrooms throughout the United States. It is a worthy goal; it is one that all in the court family should strive for,...

End the drug war.
September 22, 2001... What principle ought to drive drug policy and what changes should we make in current policy consistent with that principle? We should strive to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. If that is our goal, we should end drug...

The harmfulness tax.(taxation of recreational drugs)
September 22, 2001... In the era of the Volstead Act, H. L. Mencken said of the alcohol problem that, between the distillers and saloonkeepers on the one side and the prohibitionist on the other, no intelligent person thought there was any solution at all. The same...

Toward practical drug control policies.
September 22, 2001... Basic Principles The use of intoxicating substances can generate harms to users and others. Not only does intoxication challenge individual self-control and thereby create the threat of accident and crime, but drug-taking itself is an...

The "war on drugs": a view from the trenches.
September 22, 2001... When I listen to the arguments advanced by advocates for the legalization of drugs, I am reminded of the manufacturer who sells his product at a loss. When asked how he expected to make a profit if he takes a loss on each sale, he cheerily...

The war on drugs is a war on racial justice.
September 22, 2001... More than 300 years ago, millions of African men, women, and children were forcibly removed from their homes and villages and exported to the European colonies as slaves. For many of their descendants living in the United States, the "war on...