The title, “The 2010s will be to the 2060s what the 1960s are to us today” is in a sense the most uplifting quote I have heard in a long while (yeah, I know about all the bad things, too, whatever). Since the 60s also stand for quite some influence of psychoactive substances onto later influential, if not revolutionary science and technology that made especially the “2.0″ of Science 2.0 possible at all, and since indeed the 2.0 is taking off right now, as is a new wave of psychoactive activity above and underground, I found these quite fitting. Many reject that there is any connection between such and holy science, but I do insist on that this connection is totally under-appreciated. Anyways, even to those who refuse any influence going in that direction, it is certainly beyond doubt that the wave of this in my eyes to be recognized as most popular form of citizen science is strongly accelerated by 2.0.
The quote is from a talk given at the Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century conference in April 2010, published in Erowid Extracts #18 [Erowid F, Erowid E. "Connecting the Microdots: The State of the Stone 2010". Erowid Extracts. Jun 2010;18:12-18.], also available here. Below is the part most interesting for a sciency audience:
Where Science Meets Subculture
As we debated what defines this moment in time, this moment in the history of psychedelics, we contemplated the studies being sponsored and conducted by MAPS, Heffter, Beckley, CSP, and researchers around the world. Despite its philosophical, practical, and aesthetic warts, Science is definitively a major part in 2010.
Although the ethnobotanical and research chemical spectrum can seem to be a vulgar, profit-driven marketplace, taking advantage of the inexperienced, it’s also the cutting-edge of the science of psychoactive mind expansion. Many scientists working in this field are driven by their own experiences with visionary states.
Bill Richards, one of the key researchers in the Johns Hopkins psilocybin studies, was powerfully influenced in his career path by his own encounter with psilocybin in 1963, when he participated in psychological research in Germany.
Next Generation of Researchers
Like Dr. Richards, the senior researchers in their 60s to 70s today were in their 20s during the explosion of psychedelics in the 1960s. People in this age group who approach us at conferences often express that they had great experiences with psychedelics in their youth, but after college they weren’t able to stay connected with any sort of psychedelic community, so they lost interest.
The 2010s will be to the 2060s what the 1960s are to us today.
The young people going through college and cutting their teeth on widely available research chemicals today are in a different world. Every few months we hear from someone who has just received their PhD in pharmacology, chemistry, neurology, or psychology, wanting to let us know that they have been reading Erowid for years and were inspired in their career choice by their readings. In 40 years, they will be the senior researchers. They will have grown up not only with access to psychedelics, but with access to a dizzying array of psychoactives; extensive information about their effects, chemistry, and culture; and communication systems allowing them to stay connected to others interested in the topic beyond the typical recreational drug-using period of youth. It will be fascinating to see what happens with generations for whom the communications boundaries have all but dissolved. This will certainly have a significant impact on future research.
Further, in the now there are no hard lines between researchers and the subculture. Members of the psychedelic subculture have access to the same scientific understandings about psychedelics that researchers do, such as mechanisms of harms like MDMA neurotoxicity, or spiritual benefits of psilocybin documented by the Griffiths group at Johns Hopkins. The distinction between scientific researchers, pharmaceutical researchers, subculture researchers, and that chemistry geek in the college dorm are more blurry than they have been since before the explosion of psychedelics into the culture, and the backlash against them, in the mid-1960s.
Science is Subculture
Science is subculture, in that some of the substances on the research chemical market come directly out of commercial pharmaceutical labs. Remember Spice’s homolog of CP-47,497? It’s named that because “CP” is the internal code used by Pfizer pharmaceutical for all the new chemicals they synthesize. The “CP” stands for Charles Pfizer, the company’s founder. Joining the ranks of drugs like LSD and MDMA, the active chemical in a new grey-market product being used by thousands worldwide–a substance already banned in several countries–was first invented by a mainstream pharmaceutical company.
Science is Knowledge
Science can be defined as the collection and evolution of knowledge, rather than as the formal professional enterprise of academic researchers.
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This article originally appeared on Science20
Photo Credits: Flickr CC x-ray delta one and Tony the Misfit
