[Music]
 Time now for the Alan Watts lecture series, once again here on WFMU, brought to you every Thursday at 6 o'clock PM.
 Tonight, drug abuse.
 And it's a 50-minute lecture.
 You can check out our website at wfmu.org for the listing of upcoming shows on this lecture series.
 It's also alanwatts.com.
 Stay tuned.
 Drug abuse up next.
 [Music]
 Well, as I was saying, what I had in mind was to talk to you about an overall view of the drug abuse problem.
 And you may wonder why I, as a philosopher, am in any position to talk to you about this at all.
 Well, I became interested in it back in 1958 because my field of study is the psychology of religion,
 and therefore of the different modalities of human consciousness.
 And I heard from various people working at UCLA on mescaline and LSD,
 that these drugs appeared to produce states of consciousness very similar to what we call mystical experience or cosmic consciousness.
 And they asked me if I would be a guinea pig and come in and experiment with, particularly LSD, also mescaline,
 and find out what happened and try also to give them as accurate a description of the effects of these chemicals as I could,
 which I proceeded to do.
 I have a certain kind of gift, which they call the gift of the gab,
 and I love the challenge of describing what is supposed to be indescribable.
 They tried out dimethyltryptamine on me, which is supposed to disintegrate you completely,
 but I made a bet with the doctors that I would remain coherent, and did.
 It was difficult.
 But that's how I got interested.
 And so then I began to explore the sociology of drugs.
 And the first thing I think we must be clear about is that the word drugs is very misleading,
 because we have a harmless social institution called a drug store,
 which sits on the corner of every city street,
 and nobody feels that the drug store is a menace.
 Then we use the word drug in the word drugged, when a person is out, dopey, vague, confused.
 And among those drugs or chemicals which do alter consciousness,
 there are vastly different substances, vastly different effects,
 ranging from caffeine, aspirin, alcohol, marijuana, LSD, mescaline, DMT, psilocybin, heroin, opium, and so on.
 And we should treat each one of them separately, instead of lumping them all together, because they're quite different.
 Now, to put the cat among the pigeons, and you may know this already,
 and I may be telling no news, but I want to make a provocative statement.
 Laws of the United States and the programs government sponsored concerning the use of addictive drugs are a total failure.
 Not only a total failure, but they're making the problem worse.
 They are so stupid, that anyone supporting those laws must be either a moron or involved in the racket.
 It's that bad.
 First of all, we all know that government agencies are self-serving institutions.
 Let's face it.
 A person in a government agency wants to keep a job.
 So we'll consider the Bureau of Narcotics.
 It is in the interest of that Bureau that there be a drug problem,
 because if there weren't, the Bureau would have no reason for existence.
 And this is true of police matters on a much broader scale,
 because the drug problem is a subdivision of what we will call sumptuary laws.
 A sumptuary law is a confusion of church and state.
 It is a law against sin as distinct from crime.
 In my definition, although these definitions can always be disputed as they were on the edges,
 a crime is an offense against society in which somebody is injured and is disposed to complain.
 A person who is robbed, assaulted, simply doesn't want that to happen.
 But there are innumerable sins, you might call them, because that's an ecclesiastical term,
 or we might say crimes without victims, such as gambling, prostitution, drug taking,
 and various forms of sexual relationship.
 And when you try to regulate these things by law, you invariably enter into a super colossal mess.
 Not only is it that government agencies against these things, and they will say narcotics squads, vice squads, and so on,
 have a vested interest in their continuance, but also by prohibiting them,
 you put up the price of engaging in them.
 Take heroin, the price of heroin, and bad heroin at that is colossal.
 It's 25 bucks a day to maintain the habit.
 Therefore, this is one of the most thriving industries in the United States.
 I have been told that dollar-wise, heroin is the biggest import in the United States.
 I don't know if this is true.
 But somebody is doing very well indeed.
 The perfect sell, get the person hooked, and in order to maintain their habit, they have to become a pusher.
 Sell it, or else a robber.
 And street crime, mugging, is directly related to the necessity of maintaining the heroin habit.
 Now, once you make this a matter for police control, you corrupt the police.
 The police in the United States began to be corrupted at the time of prohibition.
 And Mr. Anslinger, who had a job under prohibition, had to find himself another job.
 So he selected drugs as the new prohibition, and did very well.
 He persuaded, by the force of the United States, its prestige, almost all other countries to cooperate in his program.
 And therefore set up, by response, by bounce, the biggest international racket going.
 One wonders sometimes if Mr. Anslinger didn't profit from it.
 We can only say that he profited by holding this eminent position.
 But somebody is making fortunes out of the trade.
 Simply because the price is high, and the price is high because it's forbidden.
 Any idiot should be able to see that.
 In the meantime, the police are neglecting their other duties.
 If you have a robbery, say, in your home, they couldn't be less interested in retrieving the stolen goods.
 I know a case that happened fairly recently where police inspectors didn't come around for two days after the robbery.
 And then they sent over a couple of goons in plain clothes.
 Real goons.
 And, you know, they sort of shuffled around and looked at things and went off.
 They don't give a damn.
 Because they've got too much to do.
 And they're underpaid.
 So my proposal is in general that the duties of police be restricted to four areas.
 One, protecting us from robbery.
 Two, protecting us from violence.
 Three, directing traffic.
 And four, giving aid to persons in distress.
 The personnel of vice squads and narcotic squads could simply be transferred to these other duties.
 Because in all conscience, there's enough to do in those four areas.
 And then you say, well, what are you going to do about these other things?
 Well, let's face it. Let's be realistic.
 There are going to be people, there always have been people, who do silly things.
 It's stupid to become dependent on drugs.
 It's pretty stupid to gamble.
 But you can't stop people being stupid by law.
 Nor can you make people moral by law.
 It's the essence of Christian ideas that morality is of no significance unless whatever is done or whatever is not done is done freely.
 In other words, it has to be your own voluntary act.
 A person who is compelled to be moral is not in Christian view moral at all.
 But merely scared.
 And therefore, we would immensely relieve some of our social problems if we took all sumptuous laws off the books.
 Legitimize prostitution, gambling, and treat drug taking as a health problem.
 I think things like marijuana, which are relatively harmless, should be available on the same basis as alcohol.
 Licensed, not sold to minors.
 As to harder drugs, I think this is a problem for physicians and health clinics.
 Not police. Definitely not police.
 So, in that case, what would happen?
 There would be at least a temporary rise, perhaps, in the use of these things.
 But freedom necessarily involves risk.
 You cannot have a free country which is at the same time a nursery.
 Now here's the FDA about to prohibit the sale of vitamins above a certain strength except on prescription.
 What are they going to interfere with next?
 As an adult male who has a fair knowledge of these things, I feel insulted by the making of these recommendations into law.
 I feel grateful to the FDA that confines itself to giving advice.
 But when laws are passed so that I can't buy what vitamins I want to buy without a doctor's prescription, I feel offended.
 I feel that my intellect and judgment are insulted.
 So I'm perfectly willing to read the books and find out what's dangerous and what isn't.
 Or what somebody's opinion is about what's dangerous and what isn't.
 Because medicine is not an exact science by a long shot.
 But when more and more laws are passed, the situation becomes intolerable.
 See, we have a very naive faith in law.
 Everybody says, "There ought to be a law against it."
 So they make a law against it.
 That makes everything more complicated.
 Because you can hardly move today without a lawyer to tell you what you may or may not do.
 Especially in business.
 And especially in small business.
 So we are surrounded with law and surrounded with officers and officials who are acting supposedly for our own good, but actually acting for their own good.
 Because it's their job.
 Now, if we took sanctuary laws off the books, we would empty the jails by at least a third of their population.
 Jails are a jam full of people who ought not to be in jail at all.
 Because they're in there for sin as distinct from crime.
 And they don't feel guilty.
 And therefore they resent being in prison.
 And the state of imprisonment merely confirms them in their hatred of society.
 In California, we're supposed to have the very best jails in the country.
 And places like Vacaville and San Quentin are supposed to be real far out.
 They are unbelievably dreadful.
 Because they're a Kafka-esque situation with people in there on one to ten year sentences.
 And you know we'll let you out if you show signs of improvement.
 Nobody knows what they're supposed to do.
 What is showing a sign of improvement?
 And will the probation officers consider that I'm merely showing signs of improvement as a pretense in order to get out?
 So that I can recommence the life of crime.
 And these then psychiatrists and probation officers have very subjective judgments about whether the person is faking or not.
 So these inmates are in the frightful position of total uncertainty as to how long they will be in there.
 Don't forget too that in the United States, prison means a lot more than being out of harm's way so that you won't harm society.
 It means sexual deprivation.
 It means the lousiest diet imaginable.
 And it is all penologists pretty much agree that our prisons are schools for crime and sovereignty.
 So when you put the rather sensitive people who tend to become addicts in these institutions, you create an abomination.
 There's no answer.
 And it merely increases the enemies of society.
 Last, March before last, the 6th Army sent its top brass to the Ethel Institute.
 Now the Ethel Institute you may have heard of, it's what's called a human potential center or a growth center in California.
 Where we study everything from religion to psychotherapy to group encounter to all kinds of things, sensory awareness training.
 And all the top brass came down there for 10 days to study what might be alternatives to drug turn-ons.
 The alternative turn-on.
 And while the public meetings were as usual talks involving an immense amount of memorandumese, there was a very sensible general there, General Tollison.
 And in these conferences you know all the valuable work is done over the coffee table and not in the public meetings.
 So at great length talking with him and with the chief psychiatrist, Colonel Livingston and other ministers, they absolutely agreed that this could not be solved by police methods.
 But the public is in such a state of panic and has such a naive faith in the law and law enforcement that a congressman who tries to overturn the situation is terrified of losing his votes.
 The drug abuse problem is a problem not of those who abuse drugs but of society at large.
 And society at large has to be educated.
 To see that those who are addicts are in fact sick, they are not criminals.
 And we must look very carefully at the British way of handling the problem on which there have been some articles recently in the New Yorker that are wonderfully well informed.
 Showing that their problem is nothing compared to ours.
 Although they still have a problem but it is a minor.
 They simply have clinics where if you tell yourself to be a heroin addict you will get your supply with the opportunity of consultation with counselors or physicians who can help you kick it.
 But you can't kick heroin like that any more than you can kick alcohol like that.
 Because you get withdrawal symptoms and all kinds of problems.
 So I think we have to consider the adoption of something like the British system and stop the racket.
 I have some wonderings in my mind as to what the Vietnam war was really about.
 And then it occurs to me that Lars is one of the biggest opium supply sources in the world.
 And whoever controls Lars is very rich.
 One remembers the opium wars when the British got control of the opium trade into China.
 And they made enormous sums of money selling opium to the Chinese.
 And there it is still sitting.
 A great prize for anyone who can capture it.
 Who gets it.
 So we have to be rather cynical about these things.
 And realize that various institutions do not exist for the good of the public.
 But for their own interests.
 And that when you prohibit something by law you automatically sweep it under the carpet or drive it underground.
 Where it festers and gets worse and worse and worse.
 Everything needs to be brought out into the open to have the sunlight on it.
 It's like for example the city streets.
 The primitive kind of city street where there are all sorts of little shops along it.
 Where mamas are sitting looking out of the window or sitting in chairs on the doorway and watch the passing crowd.
 There is far less likely to be crime in those streets than there is in the corridors of a housing development.
 Those long long empty corridors with nobody watching.
 Empty streets in nice residential apartment areas where nobody has a shop.
 That's the ideal situation for crime.
 That's why I say bring everything out into the open.
 Let everybody watch.
 And then you automatically reduce crime.
 Now those are my preliminary observations on the legal aspect of the matter and I would welcome some discussion with you.
 I have a question about legalization.
 I always thought that was the answer too.
 For example in Nevada where gambling is legal.
 In spite of it being legal it still seems the mafia has control.
 You know the gambling sources.
 I'm just wondering if something like gambling and these human needs for which people pay a huge price to participate.
 Being such a great source of wealth would that really ultimately solve the problem?
 Well Nevada is a sort of island state surrounded by states which have completely different controls and attitudes.
 And since on a nationwide basis the mafia probably controls it.
 They are pretty sure to maintain their rule in Nevada.
 I think too the power of the breweries in Germany.
 They own almost every restaurant in Frankfurt.
 For example one brewery or another.
 You can get everyone started.
 The person doesn't sell their beer they throw them out.
 Well of course this is another problem that's really separate from it.
 It's the problem of the mega corporations which are bought up by other corporations.
 They are finally owned by finance companies which is an absentee ownership.
 And they are interested in nothing but making money.
 Because they don't give a hoot in hell as to the quality of the product.
 They have no pride in it.
 They just want to be sure that it makes money.
 And since they get all this money they have nothing to buy with it except other people's shoddy products.
 [Laughter]
 What do you think about the concept of punishment as a deterrent to say non-sanctuary crimes?
 I don't think it works very well.
 You know 75% of crime in San Francisco goes undetected.
 And if they did detect it all, all the hotels in town would not hold the prisoners.
 So punishment doesn't seem to be a deterrent, especially capital punishment.
 I think we have evidence from states or countries where it doesn't exist that they may perhaps have a little less murder than countries where they do.
 But I don't think it's any answer.
 There are a lot of problems that are solved by doing nothing about them.
 Does the idea of punishment find its source in say Judeo-Christian thinking or is this something that's common to...
 Oh no, it's not confined to that tradition.
 Punishment is revenge.
 It's authorized revenge.
 And let's face it, that's what it is.
 Now the Department of Corrections in California makes a great hullabaloo about rehabilitation.
 And so there are social service workers and chaplains and this, that and the other in the jails.
 But it's so obviously the fact of the matter is that it's punishment.
 And you cannot synthesize punishment and rehabilitation.
 It just doesn't work.
 We live in a society which has many self-confidentiary institutions like marriage, which is supposed to be based on romantic love but is nevertheless a legal contract based on the old-fashioned arranged marriage.
 The two don't go together.
 So there's a mess.
 And we don't realize too that the proliferation of government is as great a menace to society as overpopulation, pollution and nuclear energy.
 There's a parable in the Bible somewhere, I think it's in the book of Proverbs.
 There had to be found for some reason a tree or plant which would become king of the forest.
 So they first went to the noble oak and said, "Would you please become king of the forest?"
 And the oak said, "Well, I don't really have time for that sort of work. I'm not good at administration.
 And my work is to produce this excellent and solid hardwood."
 So then they went to the pine and the pine said, "Well, I don't think I'd be any good at that.
 My business is to produce this lovely perfume in the forest and to also be useful for lumber."
 So they went round to all the trees and all had excuses. The vine was busy producing grapes, apple trees, apples and whatnot.
 They finally went to the bramble.
 And the bramble said, "Hmm, I have nothing special to do. I'll take it over."
 So the bramble grew and grew and grew and strangled the whole forest.
 And that's what government's doing today.
 And police.
 And it's been to the military.
 Stay tuned, we take a quick break and we'll get to part two of tonight's lecture from Alan Watts.
 Drug abuse. And you can write to us for more information here at WFMU, Care of Alan Watts, PO Box 2011, Jersey City, New Jersey 07303.
 Be back in a second. Joe Frank is at 7 o'clock tonight, folks. Stay tuned.
 [Music]
 Dr. Watts, you mentioned that the drug problems should be taken out of the hands of the police.
 And I agree that laws will only affect the behavior, not the attitude of the person.
 Whose hands do you think it should be put into?
 The hands of physicians.
 It's a health problem.
 Just like if it were to be tuberculosis or leprosy or whatever.
 Do you feel that the drug problem in the United States is on such a larger scale that it couldn't be handled the same way the British handled it?
 Well, I think it could be handled that way.
 You think it could?
 Yes.
 I mean, it would mean a bigger organization of tenants.
 But I think that's the way to go about it.
 Now, part of the reason for there being a drug problem
 is a failure of religion.
 It used to be said, you know, what this country needs is a good five cent cigar.
 I would say what this country needs is a credible religion.
 Also, one that does something that neither, none of the religions, or standard brand religions are doing at the moment, you see.
 What they do is all talk.
 You go to a church service and what happens?
 You spend a long time telling God what to do as if you didn't know.
 And a preacher gets up and tells you what to do.
 As if, you know, you could just do it like that.
 Be unselfish.
 Yeah.
 Why do you want to be unselfish?
 Obviously, because you want to have a better opinion of yourself.
 Which is, of course, selfish.
 There's no way of making yourself unselfish on purpose.
 It's like saying, you must love me.
 So, alright.
 So, I'm married for some time and my wife says to me, "Oh darling, do you really love me?"
 Well, I say, "I'm trying my best to do so."
 So, there's no point in telling people what to do if they don't have the power to do it.
 And in order that they have the power to do it, you've got to change their state of consciousness.
 And what does that mean?
 It means overcoming the sense of alienation between the ego and the rest of the universe.
 So that you feel one with nature and with society, instead of cut off.
 Now, certainly a psychedelic chemist would do exactly that.
 And of course, sometimes that is terrifying to people.
 Because, say under LSD, it's very easy indeed to get the impression that what you do and what happens to you is the same process.
 Very.
 Well, that can be scary.
 Because when you suddenly find that there's just a happening going on, you say, "Who's in charge around here?"
 So you may think also that you're God, that you're doing everything.
 But that's a terrible responsibility to be God.
 There was a young man who turned himself into the Los Angeles police on a bad trip, with a note which said, "Please help me, signs Jehovah."
 Or else you may think the opposite. That you're simply a puppet with no influence on anything.
 Well, these are two ways of looking at the same state of consciousness.
 And when this happens to a person who doesn't know anything about the psychology of religion, they are as scary as all get-outs.
 But when a person does have some comprehension, this is a surrogate mystical experience, like swimming with water winds.
 And which he finds enormously interesting.
 And so it is really for religious reasons, fundamentally, when people take consciousness-changing drugs.
 Same goes for alcohol.
 Someone might have once remarked in England, on Sunday mornings, there's more Christianity in the pub than in the church.
 Human conviviality, let us say.
 So, there are so many different angles to work on this, that the chaplains will never help in the problem.
 So long as they're just moralizers.
 Our religion has to do something far more effective than moralizing.
 Now, Tom, what do you feel about this?
 Other chaplains here?
 One right here.
 You are?
 So the country needs a credible religion, is that possible?
 I don't know why not.
 It wouldn't have to be organized necessarily.
 The country is in fact trying to work one out.
 Dr. Watts, doesn't the country have a credible religion?
 No.
 I don't think so.
 I don't know what it would be.
 The country has two kinds of spoiled Christianity.
 And Judaism, which for all practical purposes God is grandfather.
 And not to mention mama.
 I mean, I'm not talking about Hasidic mystics and fascinating people of that kind.
 That doesn't affect the country at large at all.
 I guess what I'm saying is that, what I would say is that sure, observably, in many respects, maybe we don't have a credible religion.
 But in reality, there is a credible religion.
 It's there for anyone who wants to experience it and to live it.
 What is it?
 Christianity.
 Yes, but you see, the difficulty is that that's your opinion.
 You say that Christianity is the credible religion.
 In reality, though most people don't know about it, well...
 And likewise, it's your opinion that it is credible.
 Oh yes, of course it is.
 Because I think one of the first things that is required of a credible religion is that it come out frankly and say that all authority is your own.
 In other words, if you believe the Bible to be true and set it up as authority, well you did it.
 That was your opinion.
 Or if on the other hand, like Roman Catholics say, well Protestants believe their own ideas about the Bible, but we interpret the Bible by the authority of the church.
 And the right church just puts the problem one step back, so you bought the authority of the church.
 So long as you have an authoritarian system, you're always deceiving yourself.
 If God is authoritarian, then we're deceivers.
 Well you see, if you believe that God is authoritarian in the sense of the monarch of the universe, I don't see how you can be a loyal citizen of the Republic of the United States and believe that the Republic is the best form of government.
 Why is that?
 Because if the universe is a monarchy, obviously a monarchy is the best form of government.
 See, that's the root of social strife here in the United States today.
 Which I wouldn't really disagree with. It depends on who the monarch is.
 Of course it does. But we have a republic.
 That means democracy in the kingdom of heaven.
 And that would be considered subversion.
 Those who believe that the universe is a monarchy.
 See, this is the problem Jesus ran into.
 He had cosmic consciousness. He knew he was one with God.
 How on earth was he to say that in the context of Hebrew religion?
 Which adopted his picture of God, which is incidentally idolatrous, from the pharaohs of Egypt and the messiahs of Persia.
 The biblical God is a near-Eastern monarch of ancient days.
 King of kings and lord of lords is the title of the Persian emperor.
 I am the church of England. I happen to be an Anglican priest under cover.
 The preacher gets up and says, "O mighty and everlasting God, king of kings and lord of lords, the only ruler of princes,
 who does from thy throne behold all that dwelleth upon earth.
 Most heartily we beseech thee with thy favor to behold our sovereign lady Elizabeth the queen
 and all the royal family, etc, etc, etc."
 Well, now that's the language of court flattery.
 And, I mean, although the president of the United States is fast becoming a sort of royal figure,
 we are supposed to have a republic.
 And the constitution of the United States derives to a great extent from the thinking of Christian mystics
 from running from the 14th through the 17th centuries,
 including such groups as the Quakers, the Levellers, the Anabaptists, the Brothers of the Free Spirit,
 George Fox's teaching of the inward light, God in us.
 And so if Jesus had lived in India and said, "I am the father, I am one," everybody would have said, "Of course.
 Congratulations, you found out."
 So, here's the problem, you see.
 Christianity made a mistake by claiming to be the only true religion, or at least the best religion, or top religion.
 And people claim this has never started the others at all.
 How can they possibly know?
 And it would become a far more credible religion if it would admit to being a member of the great fraternity.
 And this is going to happen, because now we've got Hindu Catholic priests,
 and a very interesting group of people they are.
 But I think you see, the point is that the real Christianity is not the religion about Jesus, but the religion of Jesus.
 And that the gospel is not a lot of talk about Jesus,
 but catching on to the experience of Jesus, his own inner consciousness.
 St. Paul puts it in this way, "Let this mind be in you, or let this state of consciousness be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,
 who being in the form of God, thought not identity with God a thing to be grasped,
 but humbled himself and made himself of no reputation, was found in passion as a man, and became obedient to death."
 See, so he's always trying to say, "Be in the same state of consciousness as Christ."
 I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, but not I, but Christ lives in me, he becomes "Alter Christus," another Christ.
 And that means an alteration in one's state of consciousness.
 So it's no longer this miserable little ego, but an incarnation of God.
 Then you're really getting into the good stuff.
 Could you talk a little bit about your term of "Christian religion"?
 It has to be based on experience, instead of on talk.
 And you remarked a while ago that you felt there was a struggle going on to achieve this.
 Yes, right.
 How did you achieve it? And I'm just going to talk a little bit about that.
 Well, there are ever so many manifestations of it, going in all sorts of directions, especially among young people.
 There's a tremendous awakening of interest in oriental philosophy and religion, marked by the sale of books,
 which are a fairly accurate standard of what's going on, and the proliferation of cults.
 After all, in San Francisco we have the biggest Zen monastery in the world.
 I may be seeing odd.
 And all the yoga groups, there's yoga on television.
 There are courses at Harvard University, University of California on meditation.
 Transcendental meditation, as it's called, has been taken up by millions of people.
 You can get credit for Kundalini yoga at UCLA.
 And I thought the drug problem is a symptom of the same thing.
 Do you think that drugs are something to come of this striving, or however you might term it?
 Do you think it's because the need is becoming so great?
 Yes.
 That it's only really out of a great need that such a thing could possibly come.
 But the need is becoming very great.
 Because after all, a young person who's been at least a bit thoughtful or sensitive today, sees no future.
 Look at all the pileup of problems, any one of which taken alone would be appalling.
 But this population, famine, the bomb, pollution, destruction of the environment, deterioration of products.
 You know, we're practically eating plastic.
 Wonder Bread is undoubtedly plastic.
 [laughter]
 [music]
 [music]
 Concluding tonight's Alan Watts lecture here on WFMU, drug abuse.
 Alan Watts brought to you every Thursday between 6 and 7.


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