Stand Up For Your Rights!

Be Proud of the Shaman that We All Are...

by Krystle Cole - May 5, 2009

 

It has come to my attention that some people within the psychedelic community believe that my YouTube videos raise too much awareness about certain legal entheogenic plants. These people believe that, by sharing information, the government will "find out" and make these substances illegal. They also believe that we should hide, who we are and what we are about, in order to keep these substances legal.

I have received hate mail, death threats, and general wishes of ill-will for quite some time now. At first, I just ignored their comments. I brushed them off because I realized that the government already knows about these substances and, regardless of my videos, the public will eventually find out about them. Long before I ever started doing videos there were websites, like Erowid, putting out information. Beyond this, nationally syndicated talk shows, news shows, and radio shows feature information often. Therefore, my YouTube videos are simply one more rain drop in an ever expanding puddle of information. With the digital age and the Internet, the dissemination of information cannot be stopped. If you don't realize this you are very naive.

After further reflection, I have come to realize that these people might not understand the big picture; so let me explain. We should no longer hide in the dark shadow of our dominant culture out of fear of the drug war. In order to change the drug laws and the public's view of entheogen use we must stand up and be the shaman that we all are deep inside. We need to show the "light side" of psychedelics by publicly walking the walk, that we all talk about.

We must show that the use of entheogens can help people grow to be healthy, productive members of society. If you look at it from the dominant cultures perspective, we are a dark part of society. They have labeled us as "drug users" and believe that we are bad. This is mainly because of the stereotypes that are wrongfully placed upon us. These stereotypical views are reinforced by the fact that, whenever the public sees a psychedelic user, it is usually when the user is getting busted or getting into trouble for some reason. In order to change the public's opinion of us, we must come out in numbers. We must show the truth about who we really are and what we really are all about.

Why change the public's opinion? Because "the public" makes up the majority of the voters. The voters elect the legislators and the legislators vote on the laws. If you want to change the drug laws in regards to psychedelics you must first change the public's opinion of psychedelic users. We must make them realize that we are not "drug users" in the traditional and stereotypical sense. There is no better way to do this than by coming out and being open about who we are. We should be proud of the roads the we have traveled; we should not need to hide them.

Many entheogen users are productive members of society, yet they are afraid to come out and let the source of their inspiration and spirituality be known. We must no longer hide in fear. We are not drug abusers; we are spiritual people that are active members of society. We are business owners, neighbors, volunteers, parents, writers, co-workers, teachers, children, doctors, computer programmers, psychologists, scientists, musicians, attorneys, inventors, artists, and we are all around the world.

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