Hamilton Morris (from Twitter account)
Reason magazine's Nick Gillespie has an interview with Hamilton Morris, "the 32-year-old host of Hamilton's Pharmacopeia, a documentary series that has aired for two seasons on the Viceland cable channel. The show explores the variety of drugs that are available, how they work, and how we might best use them to fulfill our hopes and dreams." Gillespie says Morris is a "psychonaut," a term I learned reading Erik Davis' High Weirdness book. Davis labels Terence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson and Philip K. Dick "psychonauts."
It's an interesting interview, not the same old, same old. Excerpt:
Q: What do you think of food writer Michael Pollan's How To Change Your Mind?
A: I was amazed by his restraint. He created this extremely palatable, sterile history of psychedelics where, if you read the book cover to cover, it's very hard for any reasonable person to think psychedelics are bad. So on that level, I think it's fantastic.
On a more pedantic level, I resent how much emphasis is placed on the clinical use of these things. They should be legal regardless of whether or not they're viable treatments for depression, or [obsessive-compulsive disorder], or anxiety, or end-of-life pain.
Also: Mark Kleiman has died. His book on marijuana, Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know, co-written with a couple of other authors, is very good. Jacob Sullum wrote a good piece about him.
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