[VoodooBud]

I found this article to incredibly interesting and informative, it gives an unbiased look at youth use of psychedelics(or ethegeons) all over the world, Though long its a very interesting read,I found it a long time ago and Recently In A thread I came across seemd like a great place to post a clipping pf this article, so I tracked it down and decided to post the article here in its entirety. Please tell me what you think, itll make for some lively conversation, those interested in Shamanic culture MUST READ THIS

Hallucinogen Use by Juveniles
A Cross-Cultural Perspective
R. Stuart. October 2004.
Imagine, for a moment, what it would be like if our society openly recognized and supported the right of young people to get high and seek visionary experiences. Only those who steal or harm others would be arrested. Police would go back to the business of protecting life and property. Prisons would go back to the business of rehabilitating violent and dangerous people. Real criminals, unable to traffic in drugs, would be hard-pressed to earn a living. As America did after the repeal of Prohibition, we would return to a genuine respect for the law and our democratic form of government. Young and old would no longer be at war. The Bill of Rights would be restored. Age and wisdom would be held in high esteem and the flower of youth would be blessed with the fragrance of joy and true liberation. Our young would soar like eagles: Proud, strong, brave and free. - Steve Kuby.1

Introduction
Hallucinogens, which are also called psychedelics or entheogens, have been used since prehistoric times. Despite legal prohibitions, these drugs have become popular in industrialized societies, particularly among young people. Although most modern adolescents who explore psychoactive substances do so on their own, some have done so under parental supervision. For instance, a 36-year-old single mother was initially skeptical that entheogens had any positive value. After studying more about psychedelics, she began using them for spiritual purposes. She hid this from her teenage sons because she did not want them to become interested in drugs.

However, just over a year ago, I realized that my eldest son, (14 at the time) was already investigating these things of his own accord, and I began to notice signs that he was at the very least experimenting with marijuana, and he was starting to hang out with some very rough, and very irresponsible mates. He started asking questions of a young friend of mine, about the use of LSD and magic mushrooms and when I learned that he was in fact about to consume some mushrooms, I realized that I had once again reached a growth edge that required going beyond rather than living in denial. Denial has never lead to evolutionary growth, but rather only to destructive tendency.

It was at this point that I found it very important to be open with him regarding my experiences. I gave him the information he required, factually, explaining the risks, the benefits, the manner of consumption, explained how set and setting affect the experience, and warned him about the legal implications. I agreed to let him smoke marijuana in the house with select friends whom I knew, and talked with their parents making sure that they were aware and supportive of what they were doing here. It was a huge step, and I was pretty nervous about the choice initially. However, in no time it had proven to be the right thing to do, as my son stopped hanging around with the rough crowd, who I learned later were getting involved with nasty substances such as crack and huffing aerosol, and mild crime related activity.

It was quite some time before he actually made a choice to pursue a magic mushroom trip, and he did it right here in my home where I was available to him in case he needed a guide or assistance. He took a mild dosage with his girlfriend (her mother was also aware of this) as a test and tried mushrooms that a respected friend of mine obtained for him. I felt much more comfortable with this knowing that it was coming from a reliable source. He has done it only a few times since, one of which was with myself and my boyfriend, when we took my son to his first rave... (a three day music festival, and celebration of spirit and UNITY).
These experiences have brought us closer together as parent and child, and he has become much more open and honest with me in all areas of his life. He has NOT developed any chronic interest, and has made choices to avoid substances (at least for the time being) that even I myself have partaken of (e.g. LSD, MDMA). I have also become more open with my younger son, who is very aware of what is going on. He openly admitted to trying marijuana on a couple of occasions, and has decided that these sorts of explorations are not for him, but he holds no judgment for anyone else.2
This account implies that adult support can help young people use mind-expanding substances in a responsible manner. Initiations within family and community might not only serve to prevent drug abuse, but also could be structured to serve more sophisticated functions.
Initiation in Non-Western Societies
Although problems with drugs seem particularly common in modern societies, the desire to alter consciousness appears to be universal throughout history and across cultures. Small children commonly display an inborn drive to alter their consciousness, inducing dizziness through hyperventilation, whirling, and oxygen deprivation via choking and squeezing each other's chests.3 Not surprisingly, adolescents around the world are often attracted to psychoactive drugs. It has long been speculated that certain pharmacological agents might influence suggestibility,4 and indigenous elders instilled socio-religious values by administering botanical sacraments to amplify suggestibility in young people.5 A discussion of contemporary trends in California will follow this historical survey of hallucinogen use by juveniles.

Ants
Ants, probably of the genus Pogonomyrmex, were eaten by California Indians. This ritual was practiced by the Kitanemuk, Kawaiisu, Tubatulabal, the Hokan-speaking Chumash, some Yokut groups, and the Northern Miwok. Any post-pubertal male could ingest the ants, although they were not part of a rite-of-passage. The boy fasted and purged for three days. An elder took the boy into an isolated natural setting in the hills. The initiate ingested live ants on balls of moist eagle down. His eyes turned red after swallowing several hundred ants. The elder then startled the boy so that he jolted. This caused the ants to all bite the inside of his stomach at once. The toxic venom injected during the bites caused burning pain, then unconsciousness. During the deathlike sleep, the boy acquired "dream helpers". These animal spirits bestowed supernatural power for longevity, prosperity, and avoiding danger. Upon awakening, the boy drank hot water to induce vomiting. Then the sacred ants came out alive still clinging to the feather balls. The procedure was repeated for several days, because additional dream helpers conferred greater power. Probably the boy discussed his visions with the elder so that the idiosyncratic details were reinterpreted in terms of publicly approved beliefs and cosmology. After coming to mutual agreement on the significance of the visions, the elder instructed the boy on how to solidify his relationship with the spirits by making prayers and offerings. Then, after spending days fasting in isolation under a vow of silence, a ceremony was used to reintegrate the boy into the community.6 An anonymous contemporary American stated "I've eaten a couple of hundred ants and I find that there certainly is a neurotoxic, or psychoactive effect. But as far as going into a dream state, passing out, and acquiring spirit helpers, I have yet to reach that level of saturation."7 Perhaps this researcher did not ingest enough Pogonomyrmex ants, or more likely the visionary elements of the indigenous ritual were the product of cultural expectation.

Ayahuasca
S. Hugh-Jones described the use of ayahuasca (yage) and Sabicea amazonensis berries during one aspect of the initiation of boys into manhood amongst the Barasanas in the Vaupes region of Columbia. The initiates are given:
... small pink berries of the kana vine to eat which had previously been blown over by the shaman.... During the rite, the boys were given large quantities of yage (caapi), each time served to them in a very ritualistic and formal manner. This was the first time they had ever taken yage. The yage was also much stronger than usual, - a larger-than-usual amount of leaf yage (kahi-uko) (Diplopterys cabrerana ) being used... They sit... with their knees drawn up to their chests and their arms clasped round them - a fetal position. Kana is a small vine that grows wild round human habitations... Each fruit is a heart, and the vine with the fruit is compared to a series of hearts on a string. The hearts are those of each generation connected together by an umbilical cord, the vine. This cord is said to extend out from the house and then down to the river to the east... where the sun comes from, the source of all humanity. By eating this fruit, the initiates become connected to the ancestral source of life by an umbilical cord, the river. The fruit in the shaman's gourd is compared to the heart in the space surrounding it; by blowing spells on the fruit, the shaman changes the heart and soul... of the initiate.8

Richard Evans Schultes reported that ayahuasca was used in the northwest Amazon "to fortify the bravery of male adolescents who must undergo the painful yurupari initiation ceremony."9 Schultes also recounted that among the Kofan, boys may take ayahuasca as young as age six, and "a youth will drink yage at puberty, when his nose and ears are pierced and he obtains the right to wear the tail feathers of the macaw."10 Dr. Ethan Russo observed:

Many South American indigenous groups introduce ayahuasca or other entheogens at a young age, and I saw this myself with the Machiguenga tribe in Peru.

What I can say about this is that Machiguenga children (boys) have this experience as an integral part of their religious upbringing. It is part and parcel of their world concept and manner of living. Ayahuasca (kamarampi) is a window on enlightenment, a portal to divination, and a teacher of plant, hunting and spiritual knowledge. The kids accept it in that context and none see it as a "kick" the way American youth might brag about sneaking a swig of bourbon from the old man's stash. Rather, they enjoy it for the same reason other members of the tribe do: it is a thrilling experience that binds the tribe in their philosophy and mutual interdependence to survive and thrive in an eternally challenging environment.

Do I recommend a similar experience for our youth? Certainly not! The reason is that the set and setting for too many Western people to have their first psychedelic experience is horrendously uncontrolled. Urban noise, decay, and legal paranoia serve to teach little except how scary such an experience can be. There is no substitute for a good guide in a harmonious environment to ensure the psychedelic session is "entheogenic" rather than "hallucinogenic".11

When asked why the Machiguenga encourage boys but not girls to take ayahuasca, Russo replied:
This gender role difference may be like sports vs. dolls. Many tribes have taboos against women using it before menopause. The Machiguenga don't. It is not unusual in rural Peru for woman to use ayahausca during labor! Boys start relatively young, I'd gauge at age 9.12

The mestizo congregations of some Brazilian churches continue the tribal custom of introducing children to ayahuasca. Pedro Fernandes Leite da Luz, an anthropologist from Rio, stated:

In Santo Daime cults, Brazilian mothers drink Daime (ayahuasca) from the first month of pregnancy until the childbirth during which the mother drinks a strong dose of the brew. There are no adverse effects. I personally know many 10- to 12- year-old children who have been taking ayahuasca from the womb and they seem to be more serious, responsible and sensitive than the other children. Of course, this could be just a cultural trait because people in the Daime church are like this. Just one month ago, my very close friend had her first baby. She had taken ayahuasca from the first month of pregnancy until the birth, also she took ayahuasca during the delivery. She told me that under the effects of ayahuasca she saw the spirit who had incarnated as her son, and understood the karmic relation between herself and her baby. Also in the same church, marijuana is a sacrament. I have seen some fathers blowing marijuana smoke on their babies as a blessing. Children start to smoke marijuana very early, at 7-years-old sometimes, and the only adverse effect I saw is that the children tend to be more fond of the marijuana than the adults who are more controlled. Children smoke marijuana out of the ritual context also, something the adults avoid. I personally think it's better if the pregnant mother avoids any psychoactive substance, even caffeine. You have to give your children the right to choose, wait until your children have some discernment, give them all the information you can, then let them do what they want.13

In the UDV, another Brazilian ayahuasca church, young children are often given a spoonful of ayahuasca before they are considered old enough for full servings. Dr. Glacus de Silva Brito is a practicing physician in Brazil and is medical director of the UDV. He believes ayahuasca should be made generally available to teenagers to deter them from becoming susceptible to habit- forming drugs. He gave ayahuasca to his own 16-year-old nephew who was using illicit drugs in school; after two sessions the boy avoided using drugs, became more responsible, and was more committed to schoolwork.14 Jodi Lang Santry is working on an investigation entitled Hoasca and the Uniao do Vegetal (UDV): A Comparative Study with Adolescents. This project is studying UDV members aged 14 to 18 who have been taking ayahuasca since in utero. Santry was inspired to do this project after observing that the UDV children were radiant, and seemed to have experienced positive life-enhancing benefits from consuming ayahuasca in structured ceremonies. He noted "School teachers of this religious community have stated that the UDV students within their classrooms express more altruistic and creative behaviors than students who are not members of this community." Santry hopes this study will yield "significant insights into fostering healthy spiritual and psychological development for all adolescents."15

An American woman spoke of her visit to Peru in the mid-1980s:
I was nervous when I attended my first ayahuasca ceremony in Pucallpa. Two girls were seated on either side of me, one age 10 and the other 13. They told me what to expect and encouraged me not to worry. I figured that if these little kids weren't scared, then there was no reason for me to be either.16
Datura
Among the Tsonga tribe of Mozambique and northern Transvaal, the female puberty initiation ritual culminates in the ingestion of Datura fastuosa . The primary purpose of the ritual is to prevent infertility supposedly caused by the spells of witches. Preliminary training for this ceremony involves having the girls pair up to stretch each other's labias, performing tasks symbolizing women's horticultural duties, and ritual defloration with a musical kudu horn. The rite itself involves dances, songs, dramas heavily charged with sexual and obstetric symbolism, and purification. The girls lie on the ground wrapped in blankets. Older women, dressed in traditional ritual attire, bring out the potion made of Datura mixed with human fat or powdered human bone. The initiates hear voices and see visions, sometimes of ancestor deities. Thomas F. Johnston, an anthropologist, noted that the elders used the girls' drug-induced hyper- suggestibility as an opportunity for authoritative indoctrination. The ritual is evidently effective due to the older women coaching the girls into accepting certain culturally patterned motivations, attitudes, and expectations. Johnston commented "Tsonga puberty school novices emerge without exception from the Datura fastuosa ingestion rite as mature women of their group, tempered to fulfill the social role demanded of them in an exacting traditional society."17

David Jacobs, an archeological researcher and assistant anthropology professor, summarized male puberty initiation rites involving Datura among the Powhatan of Virginia, and in California among the Kitanemuk, the Pass Cahuilla, the Mountain Cahuilla, and the Luiseno. In California, adolescents of both genders participated in rites conducted by the Yokuts, Western Mono, and Chumash. Elders intervened to influence the initiate's memory during the recovery from Datura -induced amnesia. This probably facilitated ideological programming.18 Schultes reported:

The Algonkian Indians of eastern North America administered wysoccan, an intoxicating medicine containing Jimson weed, or Datura stramonium , to youths about to undergo initiation into manhood. The boys experienced a kind of violent madness for twenty days, lost all memory, unliving their former lives and starting adulthood by forgetting that they had ever been children. California and Southwestern tribes similarly employed Datura inoxia ( D. meteloides) or toloache in initiation rites. The Yumas took this drug to gain occult powers during these rituals, and the Yokuts valued it in a spring ceremony to ensure future good health and long life to adolescent initiates. The Luiseno gave it to youths who danced, screaming wildly "like animals," and finally fell into a stupor to find their adult life.19

A cluster of small tribes in southern California was collectively referred to as the "Mission Indians". Ruth Underhill, an anthropologist associated with the United States Indian Service for 13 years, recounted:
The Mission Indians wished their young men to have dreams and guardian spirits, but, instead of asking them to fast and pray for a vision, they produced it by a drink made from the pounded root of Jimson weed (Datura stramonium ). It was the tribes nearest the coast, especially the Luiseno and Diegueno, who did this, perhaps learning from older tribes, but they made of it a solemn ritual. Each boy was cared for by a man who had himself taken the drink in his youth. This guardian held his head that he might not drink too much out of the magical steatite bowl, then marched and sang with him, and finally laid him down with the others in a little inclosure, where they were to sleep and dream. Some might have dreams so powerful as to make them shamans.20

John M. Cooper, ethnographer and Catholic priest, commented on a tribe from Chile and another from Ecuador:
Among both the Mapuche-Huilliche and the Jivaro, Datura is administered as a correctional measure of last resort to very unruly children: among the former, as a mixture of crushed Datura seeds and parched maize, to produce partial intoxication, in which state the children are lectured; among the latter, in liquid form to boys after a 2-day fast in order that the spirits of their forefathers may properly admonish them in the ensuing dreams and visions.21

Pointing out an ironic contrast with U.S. norms, anthropologist Michael Harner emphasized "This is a culture where a parent may threaten to give a child a hallucinogenic drug if it misbehaves." Young Shuar (Jivaro) may also take Datura under the supervision of an elder in order to contact arutam spirits. Harner also stated that the Shuar gave a hallucinogen called tsentsema to infants.22 According to Anank Nunink, father of the president of the Shuar tribe, the correct name for this plant is tsentsemp. The fragrant leaves are crushed by rolling between the palms, then they are soaked in water. Tsentsemp is actually a powerful purgative rather than a hallucinogen, and infants are only given a small dose, a tiny drop on the tongue.23

Lophophora williamsii
Adolescents often actively participate in the Native American Church. Younger children are less likely to consume peyote at NAC road meetings. Nevertheless, one of the first Navahos to use peyote started at age ten.24 Levi Whitebear (grandson of Kiowa chief White Bear or Set-ainte or "Santana") began attending peyote meetings as a small boy.25 Each September in the Four Corners reservation, the Navahos have an annual ceremony to encourage academic success for schoolchildren in the coming year. Some of the youths consume a token amount of peyote, and others put their finger to their mouth after touching the medicine. This ceremony has been spreading to other tribes, for instance the Washo held their first ceremony for students in 2002.26

A legal case involved the right of a 4-year-old boy to consume peyote in church. Jonathan Fowler, 35, lives in Traverse City, Michigan. He is a member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. He is also a member of the Native American Church of the Morning Star, and he credits peyote with helping him to overcome alcoholism and to "come into contact with God as I know him." He separated from his wife in 1998 shortly after their son was born. In October 2000, a judge granted Fowler custody but prohibited him from giving peyote to the child due to the mother's objections. Fowler wants to rub peyote tea on his son's forehead and allow the boy to decide when he wants to ingest peyote during church ceremonies.27 Upon appeal, the judge ruled that the boy should wait until he was perhaps age 16 because "peyote is dangerous".28

Occasionally, American Indians administer peyote to young people hoping to cure an illness or injury. Guy Mount directed a now-defunct non-profit organization called Friends of the Peyote Road. He was also a teacher at Lincoln Continuation High School, which specialized in "problem students". Late at night, he received a phone call from a Navaho nurse named Ann. She was the mother of John, one of his students. John had been clubbed in a gang fight. He refused to go to a hospital because he was afraid of being forced to file a police report. Mount, who volunteered to treat the boy with peyote, recalled:

John's wound was terrible. His scalp was center-cut down the middle, down to the bone. The open wound was gray, pus-filled and street dirty, and slowly pumping blood. I gave John a button to eat and pray with, while I squeezed fresh peyote juices into the open cut. The bleeding stopped right away. The color turned from gray to pink. And within an hour John was sitting up straight, singing a song. We washed his hair and kept the wound full of juice. By dawn, Ann said the scalp scab looked better than stitches.29

In Mexico, Huichol Indians may begin taking peyote around age 6.30 The Huichol believe that the best time to begin learning how to use peyote is during early childhood. Children should have reached "the age of understanding" so they can verbally articulate their experience. Rather than fix a chronological age for initiation, the maturity and interest and personal circumstances of each child are individually considered. The Huichol find that pre-pubescent children can integrate a peyote initiation better than an adult whose mind is already rigid, or an adolescent who is disoriented by role transition and sexual maturation.31 The ability of young children to better manage small to moderate doses of hallucinogens might be due their having more flexible ego boundaries than older people. This contradicts the popular belief in the United States that only a fully developed ego can handle a psychedelic experience.

Stacy Schaefer, an anthropologist, published a photograph with the comment "this woman is 9 months pregnant and consumed large quantities of peyote on the pilgrimage. Her baby was born healthy and with no difficulties." Another photograph showed a Huichol girl, recently graduated from the 6th grade, who consumed peyote with her family.32 Schaefer described a 12-year-old Huichol boy who took peyote with his family. He lay wrapped in a blanket while having a vision of snakes slithering all over the room, completely covering him and curling around his blanket. Knowing that his family was nearby, the boy introspected during this intense experience. Schaefer commented "I would say that peyote is meaningful because it unifies family and community members; and that it serves an enculturative purpose, instilling and reinforcing the importance of cultural beliefs and values, as well as a collective shared worldview."33 She reported that children who react pleasurably to their first taste of peyote are those who are most likely to become a mara'akame (shaman), adding:

Huichols, like participants in any society, begin learning about their culture at birth. The fact that they are introduced to peyote, first while in the mother's womb, then through her milk, and finally by actually ingesting the sacred cactus, has definite effect on how children see the world, and how they learn to interpret these phenomena. I have noticed a marked change in the behavior of children after they have received small doses of peyote via their mother's milk. They become very calm, smiling often, and occasionally grabbing into the air at what I believe must be imaginary objects and colors. Several women confirmed my observations, stating that the disposition of their children does indeed change if they nurse at a time when they have been consuming peyote.

Huichol children, even before they reach the age where they will eat enough peyote to dramatically change their conscious state of mind, are well clued-in to what they can anticipate to experience (Eger 1978:41-43). They learn about this when family members talk of their peyote experiences, or when they hear temple members give accounts of their inner experiences before the leading mara'akame. Brilliant peyote-induced phosphene designs surround them in their daily life in woven and embroidered clothing, belts and bags - even in the yarn and bead artwork Huichols make to sell. The fact that they actually see many of these same phosphene images under the influence of peyote gives credence to the worldview that Huichols have constructed around the peyote. Combined with this is the peyote pilgrimage itself. Mothers who are still nursing or have children two years or under, prefer to take them along wherever they may go. This includes the journey to Wirikuta, where children, like all members, become pilgrims and actively participate in the sacred rituals....

Peyote and the pilgrimage to Wirikuta have a powerful influence on unifying the family as well as the temple community and all of its members.34

Susan Eger and Peter Collings described how young Huichols are introduced to the values and traditions associated with a plant cherished by their community:
Through their observance of and participation in the ceremonies, children come to understand the sacredness of peyote and learn to esteem it at a very young age. Most children, although given peyote to taste and to play with when they become curious about it, do not actually consume it in doses large enough to produce visions until at least eight years of age. But because of the frequency with which the children attend the ceremonies and watch the performance of ceremonial duties, by the time they actually do partake of peyote, they are sufficiently clued in to be able not only to experience prototypical, expected visions but to interpret them with some degree of accuracy and to remember their significance. As soon as they are given responsibilities in the religion, they begin teaching their younger siblings. Children can begin their training toward the priesthood at the young age of ten and, if they stick to it, be fully initiated mara'akame by the age of twenty.35

Also in Mexico, anthropologist James Mooney observed a 12-year-old Tarahumara boy ingesting 6 peyote buttons.36

In the early 20th century, supporters of anti-peyote legislation vilified the cactus as an addictive narcotic that contributed to the physical, spiritual, and economic degeneration of American Indians. Then as now, various authorities deceived the public with prohibitionist propaganda. The Reverend Doctor Roe stated "We are also convinced that the offspring of confirmed users of peyote show marked nervous and brain disturbances, resulting often in early death, while the custom of administering the drug to young children must be deleterious."37 Dr. Henry Lloyd, resident physician at Uintah and Ouray Agency in Utah, fabricated claims that peyote impairs childbirth:

As to the effect of the drug peyote on the Ute Indians, I can now say, after two years of observation, that it has done more harm to them in more different ways than whisky, gambling, or any other influence. Its physical effect is appalling. Its harmful effects are most noticeable on those who are already weak and depressed from disease or age, and upon both mother and babe in parturition. Because of the profound muscular paralysis it induces, the patient already struggling against low vitality quickly succumbs to a few doses of peyote. The uterine muscle of the parturient woman is so completely paralyzed that normal contractions cease and delivery is often impossible; or if delivery does finally occur, the uterus fails to contract thereafter and fatal hemorrhage is the result.38

Gertrude Seymour, a journalist, wrote in 1916:
It is said that children of mescal-eaters die in remarkably large numbers in their first year - a fact not difficult to understand when one reads that peyote tea is given to new-born babies; is poured into the ears of children as a cure for various ailments. From even government schools the children steal away to peyote meetings, and teachers say that such children "are incapable of study, even mentally deficient, for several succeeding days."

"Its free and indiscriminate use among Indians," writes an officer of the Indian Service, "is just as bad as if in one of your white public schools children were allowed to get the cocain [sic] or opium habit."39

A high infant mortality rate on impoverished Indian reservations can hardly be blamed on peyote. If students could not study after running away from residential schools to attend the nocturnal religious gatherings, then that might be due to being homesick or tired from staying awake all night, rather than being a symptom of toxicity.
In a 1970 proceeding of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, the BNDD characterized peyote as showing "indications of harmful, somatic and mutagenic effects", and asserted that the cactus was probably "a teratogenic agent". Government expert witnesses gave official testimony asserting that peyote was highly toxic, "In pointing out the potential dangers to the individual's physical well-being, the Government lists and explores cellular death, lassitude, premature aging, decreased life span, leukemia, malignancies, and organ toxicities. The potential dangers to offspring include decreased growth rate, leukemia, fetal abnormalities, increased abortions, early abortions, infertility, and sterility."40 In actuality, there is only one published report of peyote causing physical toxicity. This was the case of an end-stage alcoholic who died from vomiting while trying to use the medicine to cure his addiction.41

Nicotiana
Tobacco, the most widely revered sacred plant in the New World, was used by some tribes in boys' puberty initiation ceremonies. The Jivaro used it to give advice to young boys.42 Tena Lowland Quichua ayahuasqueros in Ecuador chant blessings while blowing tobacco smoke into their children's hair. This introduces the children to the ritual milieu years before they actually consume ayahuasca. The Iroquois Indians administered a tea made of Nicotiana rustica "To cure insanity caused by masturbation."43 Presuming that these natives had taboos similar to those of Christian Euro-Americans, then it is likely that this treatment targeted youngsters rather than adults. Pituri (Duboisia hopwoodii) has an alkaloid profile similar to tobacco. It was chewed primarily by old male Australian aborigines. Speculations about the use of this Solenaceous plant in aborigine pubertal circumcision and subincision rituals appear to be unsubstantiated.

Psilocybe Mushrooms
In 1955, ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson went to Mexico to participate in a Mazatec mushroom velada. Maria Sabina and her daughter led this ceremony as they tried to cure a young man. A week later, Wasson shared Psilocybe mushrooms with his own wife and their 18- year-old daughter.44 Sabina had begun taking Psilocybe as a child, between the ages of 5 and 7. She had seen curanderos using the mushrooms in ceremonies, so she and her sister frequently picked and ate the fungus on their own initiative. When Sabina's mother and grandfather found the little girls "bemushroomed", they gently carried the children home, sensitive to their impressionable state.45
This contrasts with the treatment some adults in the United States have given upon finding young people in similar circumstances. Paul Stamets, a mycologist, documented that until recently:
There were some mycologists who stated publicly that it would be better for people to die from mistakes in identification than to provide them with the tools for recognizing a Psilocybe mushroom. This bizarre attitude towards Psilocybe mushrooms and the people who used them reflected a chasm between generations.
Some physicians even seemed to take a perverse pleasure in the needless pumping of stomachs of patients who had consumed psilocybin mushrooms. One doctor told me he does so to "teach them a lesson." Ill-informed doctors, intoxicated with the power of their presumed authority, gave themselves license to espouse anti-mushroom rhetoric that strayed far from the truth.46

Sophora secundiflora According to an Indian legend, 15-year-old Wichita Indian boys in Texas consumed the highly toxic Sophora seeds to induce unconsciousness during ritual initiation into the Deer Society. The visions at the end of the ordeal were probably due not to the "mescal beans", but rather to cultural expectation, deprivation of sleep and food, and prolonged ceremonial dancing, singing, and drumming.47 In recent years on a reservation in Texas, some Native American adolescents wore necklaces of boiled Sophora seeds, which they sucked on for recreational purposes.48
Tabernanthe iboga Harrison G. Pope, Jr., now a psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School, reported that boys in various African tribes used T. iboga in ceremonies supervised by their priest, fathers, and uncles.49 In Gabon, children participate in the nocturnal ngoze rituals in which members of the Fang tribe consume T. iboga.50 Giorgio Samorini, an Italian psychedelic researcher, recounted his observations from when he participated in the Bwiti religion in Gabon, "This iboga baptism may be experienced at any age, as is the Catholic baptism. Currently, in some sects there is a tendency to initiate relatives, especially their children, from ages 8 to 10, which is followed by a second initiation as adults." Initiation involves consuming a large dose of T. iboga while being supervised by temple members. Samorini noted that the Bwiti leader Owono Dibenga Louis Marie "has during the past few years created the `Iboga Youth Movement', so that the new generations may get better acquainted with the Buitist creed."51

Three French researchers explained:
The Bwiti initiation, among the Mitsogho, concerns essentially the passage from adolescence to manhood, hence the necessity of eliminating the epigenetic elements of childhood and adolescence in order to reprogram in the young man a new ego corresponding to the cultural norms of the tribe.
To achieve this, the Mitsogho call on the instrumental deprivation of sleep, as the initiation lasts for days without sleep or food, as well as on pharmacological deprivation through the chewing of iboga.
... The neophyte will have to face initiatory (or real) death that will enable him to gain access to the things of the beyond.
He can do so only if he has been properly prepared and, especially, if his motivation is sufficient.52
In 1950, a child died from an overdose of T. iboga.53

Trichocereus pachanoi
Sara Gonzales Delgado, a recently deceased curandera from the Peruvian Andes, began training her 3-year-old granddaughter in the spiritual use of both huachuma (a.k.a. San Pedro or T. pachanoi) and ayahuasca. The little girl was lovingly cradled in the curandera's arms while her grandmother chanted in Quechua and softly spoke instructions about how to transform herself into plants, animals, and minerals. Thus the child learned at an early age how to actively invoke the conventions of this pre-Columbian religious tradition.54
Numerous tribal shamans administered hallucinogens to young people within religious ceremonies, but seemingly the only modern cleric in a Western mainstream religion to suggest a similar practice was Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi. He remarked that in the right circumstances Cannabis might provide young people with a gentle inebriation that could inspire idealism that would rejuvenate world culture.55
Pregnancy, Fetal Nootropics, and Childbirth
The ethnopharmacologist Dennis McKenna commented about ayahuasca:

But women also drink hoasca, and moreover, most do so throughout pregnancy and lactation; indeed, children in the UDV are baptized with a tiny spoonful of hoasca, although they are not usually exposed to pharmacologically active amounts until at least age 13. There are many issues here worthy of study. For example, women claim that hoasca has positive benefits both in managing their pregnancy, and in assisting birth; many will take hoasca during labor to facilitate the process. The role of hoasca during pregnancy and lactation, whether adverse or positive, is just one of a score of questions which could be answered by follow- up studies using women hoasca drinkers.... Similar questions, as well as a host of sociological and developmental questions, could be addressed in a prospective study of children of UDV members who remain in the group and start to imbibe hoasca regularly in adolescence. An obvious question to answer in this context would be an assessment of children and adolescents who were exposed to hoasca in utero, to determine the impact, if any, of prenatal hoasca exposure on their subsequent neurological and psychological development. Another question germane to the possible long-term health benefits of regular hoasca use is that of whether the practice might prove to be prophylactic against alcohol and drug abuse for adolescents who consume the tea within the UDV structure.56

There are those Huichol women who use peyote throughout their pregnancies without any difficulty, but others feel abdominal discomfort during their first trimester. Some Huichol women believe they will miscarry if they consume peyote during the first trimester unless a shaman blesses both the woman and the cactus. Schaefer suggested that the use of peyote during pregnancy might provide the adaptive benefit of stimulating the development of the fetus's sensory, cognitive, and reflexive abilities, and perhaps facilitate communication between mother and unborn child.57 It would be interesting to try to measure such benefits. Mescaline does not produce birth defects in laboratory animals. A medical study, which determined that peyote does not cause chromosome damage to Huichols, also concluded, "The physician responsible for the Indians' health care is of the clinical impression that no increase in congenitally malformed offspring exists among peyote users. This despite the fact that the drug is used freely by pregnant women."58 The observations by Huichols for over 1600 years, as well as the medical evidence, concur that peyote does not injure fetuses - at least during the last two trimesters. Thus, while being cautious in administrating drugs to pregnant women, a new discipline of fetal nootropics could be developed to determine under what circumstances psychopharmacological adjuncts such as mescaline might enhance prenatal development.
A California mother stated:

I have heard a considerable number of first-person and confidential accounts from women who had taken psychedelics (mostly LSD, but some reported mushrooms, ayahuasca, 2C-B and peyote) during their pregnancies. Most ingested these substances prior to the time they knew they were pregnant (usually the first trimester) but some took them intentionally in later pregnancy. Not one woman said they regretted this or mentioned any birth defect or mental deficiency that they associated with such use and virtually every woman felt that the resulting child had a positive, special quality, usually defined somewhat loosely like "greater awareness" or intelligence. Some also mentioned that they felt a closer bond to the child as a result.
After considering the evidence and reports, I personally tend to think that occasional, low dose use of unsmoked marijuana (i.e. eaten in baked goods), and low doses of LSD (under 100 ug) would probably have little to no long-term negative impact, especially in later pregnancy. However, as a caution, miscarriages have occurred during or just after stressful, high dose (approximately 500 ug) LSD trips in very early pregnancy. I would also personally not recommend MDMA or Datura , especially in the first trimester, due to their relatively high toxicity/effective dose ratio. I would also not be tempted to risk the higher body-load psychedelics like ayahuasca, peyote or morning glories, especially in the first trimester when nausea is often enough of a challenge.

Regarding labor assistance, according to our midwives, a number of women choose to ingest or inhale marijuana to ease the pain and stress of childbirth (LSD might also be useful for this due to its pain-killing properties). Also, nitrous oxide (mixed with oxygen) has sometimes been used to reduce the pains of labor and seems quite effective in doing so.59

Entheogen researcher Jonathan Ott wrote "The morning glory seeds and LSD are strongly uterotonic, that is, they tend to cause contraction of the uterus. As such, use of these drugs should assiduously be avoided by pregnant women".60 It is true that pregnant women should avoid some ergot derivatives including those found in various Convolvulaceae. There do not seem to be any published or anecdotal reports of miscarriages occurring from low to moderate doses of LSD. Miscarriages have occurred during high dose LSD sessions, yet it is unclear whether this was due to psychological stress, pharmacological activation of uterine contractions, or if it was mere coincidence. And of course, the old scare stories claiming that LSD causes genetic mutations in the offspring of users was fabricated anti-drug propaganda.

Peter Stafford and Bonnie Golightly noted that LSD was successfully administered to at least one pregnant woman during psychotherapy, and has also been used in our modern society to assist with labor:

On a recent day a young woman gave birth to her first child, an eight-pound boy, in the privacy of her home. The birth site was her choice and her husband's.
Yet it was not the site that made this particular event something special. Rather it was this:
The mother had taken a small dose of LSD when she felt the labor pains begin.
Her husband was with her throughout. Her doctor was there, too. At her request, and with full knowledge of what she would be doing, he had consented to deliver the child.
The delivery was excellent, the baby showed no ill effects from the LSD and the mother reported it had eased her pain. But she had not taken it to avoid the pain. She had taken it for the same reason many others in this city have taken it - for the very intense, very personal experience it promised. Later she was to call the birth the most profound event of her life.61

Chumash Indian women used Datura to have courage during childbirth,62 apparently consuming the plant before pregnancy, rather than during labor. One California Amanita muscaria enthusiast took this mushroom when her children were born because it "eases the pain in childbirth."63 Women in the United States, both Native American and Caucasian, have reported favorable results taking peyote during labor.64 Mothers have used peyote during childbirth in the Kiowa, the Menomini,65 and other tribes. A 1970 study of natural childbirth practices within communes in Northern California found that Cannabis was the only drug used by mothers during labor.66 In the 1960's, a woman named Karen went into labor at the end of an LSD session. She reactivated the dwindling psychedelic effects by smoking Cannabis. The obstetrician supervising this delivery had previously worked on four or five home deliveries where the mother was on LSD. He allowed LSD to replace conventional anesthetics only with women who were unlikely to have complications, and who had already experienced psychedelics. When the mothers resisted the psychedelic effect, the contractions were painful. However, by going with the flow, the mothers' bodies automatically assumed the appropriate rhythm. Karen reported that between contractions, she relaxed by enjoying altered perception of the paintings on the wall. The LSD did not eliminate the pain, but it distracted her so that the pain did not hurt. LSD allowed her to concentrate on relaxation and breathing. The doctor coached her on how to breathe when she forgot the proper rhythm. Following the delivery, Karen felt relaxed and energized. Because no surgical anesthetics had been used, the newborn baby was not groggy and did not need to be slapped to begin breathing.67
Psychedelic Family Values

The news media and grandstanding politicians are fond of discussing "drug-related harm". Yet most of the problems around drug use are actually prohibition-related harm. The drug war has ruined millions of lives, and is the most destructive social policy that the United States has had since slavery. Still, many Americans who would otherwise want to repeal anti-drug laws suddenly support prohibition when they hear sensationalized news reports or speeches about the presumed menace that drugs pose to our youth. Most advocates for the repeal of the Controlled Substances Act insist that psychedelics should still be controlled like tobacco to keep them away from minors.68 This disclaimer is not just a political ploy; relatively few Americans believe that minors could benefit from tripping. And many parents who might wish to share their positive experiences and knowledge with their children are afraid of risking legal punishment and social censure. However, the intense emotional charge around the subject of young people and drugs may be partially due to a cultural denial of certain positive potentials. Therefore, entheogen use by modern juveniles is worth examining.

Until the late 1960s, psychedelic psychotherapy was administered to some disturbed children whose mental illnesses were so serious that the potential risks were regarded as offset by the possible benefits.69 Some minors also participated in non-clinical scientific experimentation. A 1947 Latin American pharmacological assessment of the mescaline-containing San Pedro cactus included subjects as young as 16.70 Captain Al Hubbard began administering LSD for religious purposes in 1952. He gave LSD to a few "people as young as 14 years of age with successful results."71 Between 1954 and 1962, Oscar Janiger, a Los Angeles psychiatrist, conducted a non- clinical naturalistic study of the phenomenology of the LSD experience. Five or six of his approximately 900 subjects were as young as age six or seven. All of the children participated with the consent of their parents, who were also subjects or who were familiar with the research.72 A professor of religion at Stanford University was very impressed by LSD and wanted to share the experience with his children. In 1960, Myron Stolaroff of the International Foundation for Advanced Study guided an LSD session for each of the children in the professor's home. The boy, who was about 10 or 11, did not enjoy it and Stolaroff concluded that he may have been too young to appreciate it. His older sister, who was about 14, thought the experience was wonderful. She began studying psychedelics and wrote papers for school that praised their virtues. Because there was no stigma against mind-expanding substances at that time, this did not cause any controversy.73 Although presently families must protect their privacy, our long-range goal should be to return to that sort of value system where everybody can be completely open about their explorations.

Since the 1960s, a few young people - mostly adolescents - have been allowed to explore psychedelics that they obtained from their parents. Children as young as 9-years have been given LSD.74 Other families have used MDMA,75 Psilocybe mushrooms,76 marijuana,77 or 2C- B.78 Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of young hallucinogen users in industrialized societies have been introduced to mind-expanding substances within a youth subculture. These illicit drugs have been of unregulated purity and potency. Adult society has systematically deprived young people of the preparation and supervision that are necessary to maximize benefits and minimize risks. Consequently, some young people have drug problems that could have been avoided. The anthropologist Marlene Dobkin de Rios and the psychiatrist Charles Grob noted that elders in our society do not offer young drug users "any beneficent or guiding adult presence, thus increasing the likelihood of disorganizing and dangerous consequences."79 If the resources that are currently squandered on the ineffectual prohibition of psychedelics were redirected toward establishing psychedelic training centers, then young people would at least have the option to get expert guidance on how to use these drugs in a responsible way. It is dangerous to fail to prepare a young person for their inevitable encounter with the opportunity to use entheogens. The following account is by a neuropsychologist. She helped prepare protocols for psychedelic experiments and had met many of the scientists who were involved in psychedelic research. She declined to "turn on" her son, despite being well-qualified to do so.

When I was a teenager in the 1960's, I decided I wanted to try LSD after reading about it in Life magazine. I took acid for the first time when I turned 16; it was a birthday gift from my brother. I had a wonderful trip in my family's house. By the time my son became a teenager, I had read a lot about psychedelics and was well- informed on the subject. When my son became interested in drugs, I wanted to turn him on. But that was back when the Drug War was in full force; the DARE program was training kids to turn in their parents to the police. I was afraid if I gave him supervision, he might say something to somebody that could get me arrested or cause my license to be revoked. But he went ahead and did it on his own. First he smoked pot. When he took one puff of pot he felt good, when he took six puffs of pot he felt even better. He felt good when he took one hit of acid, so he took six hits hoping to feel even better. Then he had a horrible trip. He was howling at the moon when the police picked him up. He spent the night in a psychiatric ward and was treated horribly by the staff. He was okay the next day, but the whole terrible scene could have been avoided if I had been allowed to turn him on.80

Some parents are willing to provide the guidance necessary to protect the well-being of their children. Consider the following examples from California families that were interviewed in the 1990s. These families were middle to upper-middle class, with highly educated parents. To protect the families, publication of these interviews was delayed until all children had reached age 18.

A university employee, the author of books about sacramental plants, stated:

My daughter always knew that I used psychedelics because there are books about them all over the house, and I regularly attend conferences and seminars on the topic. When she entered junior high school, we made it clear to her that the biggest lie she would ever encounter was the propaganda that the schools teach about drugs. So she understood that the government's Drug War is a pernicious scourge: a Mafia-style campaign to exploit people. When she became a teenager, I asked her to inform me if she ever decided to take one of these drugs. I told her that I could help her prepare, not in an intrusive way, but in a manner that would enable her to take it in the best circumstances so it would be useful. The first time can be definitive in establishing a person's relationship with that state of consciousness. I told her that it was important to take it in the intimate company of people she trusted, not in some noisy public situation like a rave. Our family would never take psychedelics together, because the parent/child boundaries are established on other bases. For myself, the psychedelic experience is so overwhelmingly sexual; it would be a distraction for me to take it with my daughter. Anyway, about six months after my wife died, my daughter called me from a state park where she was camping with her boyfriend. She said that they were planning to take MDMA together. She was calling because she had promised to let me know. I told her that sounded like an acceptable situation. It turned out that what they took was not real MDMA. From their description of its effects, I assume it was some kind of speed. She needed to have access to reliable material, so I gave her most of my personal supply of MDMA for her twentieth birthday. She had a mellow experience with her boyfriend. She does not drink because she considers alcohol to be an inferior drug. In contrast to the way I was at her age, she has no curiosity about different mental states. For her, MDMA was just helpful for getting a more honest relationship with her boyfriend. If she is ever ready to go deeper, we can work together so she can try LSD. She understands that I am a good source of information. In fact, I'm surprised at how little her friends know about psychedelics.

An U.S. federal prosecutor recounted:
I was having trouble communicating with my teenage daughter. We took MDMA together, hoping it might help our relationship. My daughter started crying. She said I never really listened to her. Wagging my finger at her, I adamantly insisted that I was always receptive to hearing what she had to say. Suddenly, I realized that I had interrupted her. Then I admitted that I had not really listened to her. After that, we began to work more closely on the specific things that were interfering with our intimacy.

A 39-year-old man fondly remembered:
My father was a successful Chicago attorney. Then after taking LSD, he moved our family to Los Angeles and opened a metaphysical bookstore. Around 1974, when I turned 13, I had my bar mitzvah. Afterward, my father told me "Now I will show you a real bar mitzvah." We went to a mountaintop in Colorado. He spent a few hours explaining what to expect from LSD, and how to handle its effects. He emphasized that this was a spiritual experience. On top of the mountain with my father, the LSD was very, very, powerful. We watched the clouds move and open up. My heartbeat seemed synchronized with everything in the natural environment. This rite-of-passage was very beautiful. From then on, I only took LSD for spiritual purposes. I could not understand why other kids used it recreationally, casually tripping at Disney World. My father and I shared many other trips in the coming years. In a strange twist of events, I eventually introduced him to MDMA, which greatly pleased him.

The 23-year-old son of a psychiatrist recalled:
At the time when MDMA was becoming stigmatized as an illegal drug, I was about 11-years-old. That is when I became aware that my dad was involved with it in a professional capacity. He was using it to treat patients in our home. I grew up around MDMA, so it was never strange to me. My parents were very straightforward and honest. When I became worried about the things I heard at school, my dad gave me a medical explanation about the effects of MDMA. He sat me down, and said, "Not everything you learn at school will be true. Some things they teach you will be good, and some things will be bad. Even though we understand that MDMA is good, many people outside our family will think it is bad. So you can't tell people about what we do at home." That was okay with me. My impression was overwhelmingly positive when my parents used MDMA themselves. I enjoyed hanging around them when they did it. I would be hard pressed to think of anything bad about it. It was always an option for me to use it. My parents told me that they would prefer I either did it with them, or at least did it in the house, and that I use their stuff.
I used to rebel against my parents by staying away from psychedelics. I was real "straight-edged". I did not have peer group pressure to trip; I had parent pressure. Because my parents were interested in it, I was non-interested - my way of rebelling. Then in my freshman year of college, I encountered other students who were tripping. I became open to the idea. My first drug experience was with my girlfriend. We had been seeing each other for about four or five months, and have been in and out of each other's lives ever since. I asked my father for some MDMA. He gave it to us, and left us with the home to use. We had a wonderful experience. Our experience was very sensual, very sexual, very physical. Very connecting. We did not take the trip with the thought of reconnecting, but it did serve to bring us closer and helped us through a rough time. It was centering. It cut through all the barriers and restored us back to the heart. Very tactile. For me, MDMA does not interfere with sexual functioning; I'm one of the few men I know like that.

I did a lot of trips on MDMA after that. Then some mushrooms. I've never tripped alone. My dad and I rented a traditional 16th-century villa in a remote mountainous region of southwestern Japan. We were totally by ourselves. We tripped on acid and watched the colors in the rice fields. It was a cool experience. Last year, we did a few 5-methoxy-DMT trips. This was with an experimental group run by [a psychologist]. Very cool. I'd just turned 21; I was the youngest in the group. That experience was in many ways more powerful for my father than for me. It was bonding for us. He enjoyed having me there. It helped him to see me as a man. He was impressed with my reaction to the 5-methoxy. He considers himself to be an explorer. Yet he approaches these things with a certain amount of fear, and he told me that his initial experiences with 5-methoxy were somewhat frightening. Recently, I took mushrooms with friends when my dad was around, but he wasn't tripping.

Earlier this year, I took MDMA with my mom. My mother and I have such a good relationship that I don't think anything could make us closer, but it was a good experience. For her birthday present, she wanted to trip with me. That's what we did for her birthday. We talked and talked and talked and hugged. It was very sweet, very easy. Absolutely, I think tripping has been a positive thing for our family.

When I was growing up, tripping wasn't a mystery; that gave it a good light. My attitude has always been to go farther with my mind. My parents embarked on these things in an open fashion, so they could not help but be open in other ways. They taught me to be open-minded toward all things. Looking back on my childhood, my parents never said, "I don't want you doing that, that's bad", except when it came to hurting people. Tripping was never forbidden, never taboo or mysterious. Therefore I came to it in my own time.

A freshman high school student asked her parents if she could try marijuana and MDMA. The parents were doctors who had used hallucinogens for decades. They hosted ayahuasca groups in their home, and many entheogen researchers and psychedelic therapists frequented the house. The daughter had a B+ average, anticipated making the state championship in school athletics, and was involved in student politics. Everything was going well in her life. Consequently, her parents provided the requested experiences. Her father did not think she would receive much benefit from the Cannabis, although he considered MDMA to be ideal for initiating a young person. A few weeks after trying marijuana, the young woman had an open-ended exploratory session with MDMA. When the effects first began, she initially felt anxious. Hugging her parents did not provide any relaxation. However, hugging her dogs infused her with a sense of equanimity. She spent the entire day playing with her pets. She became attuned to the jealousy that some of the dogs felt while she was giving affection to the others. A week after the session, she reminisced:

I had spent almost the entire trip bonding with the dogs. That night, I was tired. My limbs were no longer tingling. I was getting grounded again. Throughout the evening, none of our cats were around. I went to my bedroom and my cat was waiting for me. We are close. I raised her from a kitten. She did not want to be petted. I lay in bed to go to sleep. Then she leapt on my stomach and it was a full climax - I was peaking again. All of a sudden, the MDMA came back, just as if I had taken a booster. I had even more jaw clenching than I'd had that morning.

A mother, who had attended many ayahuasca groups and peyote ceremonies, remarked:
It is an interesting topic, entheogens and young adults. We are about to do a family trip sometime soon, my husband, myself, my 13-year-old, 18-year-old, 23- year-old and maybe my 27-year-old. My husband just did a trip with my 18-year- old and plans one with my 13-year-old.
A high school student commented, "I'm really excited. Tonight my dad is taking me to his ayahuasca group. This will be my first ayahuasca trip." His father was a pharmacist on federal payroll who specialized in treating substance abuse.
Discussion

Most of the preceding accounts involve unstructured sessions, although two of the young people attended a group setting with a formalized ritual. The children all gave the impression of being well adjusted and high functioning, and apparently none has had any problems as a result of using psychedelics. Each interviewee was explicitly asked if they knew of anyone who had suffered from being introduced to psychedelics by their families, and none had heard of any such difficulties. The factors involved in the success of these families are:

1) The children participated out of their own internal motivation. Curiosity and personal desire were the reasons for the sessions, rather than external pressure, macho one-upmanship, or expectations based on chronological age.

2) The parents had a sophisticated understanding of psychedelics due to extensive personal experience and literature research. The parents were attuned to each child's individual needs.

3) The families had a network of sympathetic friends. This community support offset any feelings of isolation that might have resulted from evading counterproductive laws against using psychedelics.

4) The children were given appropriate amounts of pure materials on an infrequent basis. They were trained to avoid overindulging both in frequency and dosage.

5) Given the prohibitionist laws in the United States, families and communities were "security conscious". If the authorities ever became aware that parents were assisting their children to consume psychedelics, then the parents would lose custody of the kids. It is ironic that while the parents would be prosecuted for "contributing to the delinquency of a minor", the police or child protective service would inflict genuine trauma by removing the children from their homes. On a similar note, both parents should support the psychedelic use, lest one ever make an issue of it in a custody dispute if they ever divorced.

Obviously, there would be a greater likelihood of untoward results in circumstances where these safeguards are not in place. It would be better for the custom of initiating young people to spread properly, rather than too quickly and haphazardly. An exhaustive literature review has unearthed only two mentions of situations where parents supposedly administered a hallucinogen to their children in an irresponsible manner. Michael Starks commented on a South America use of florispondio seeds
(Datura sanguinea , now in the genus Brugmansia):

The Indians of Darien, as well as those of Choco, according to Seemann, prepare from its seeds a decoction, which is given to their children to produce a state of excitement, in which they are supposed to possess the power of discovering gold. In any place where the unhappy patients happen to fall down, digging is commenced; and as the soil nearly everywhere abounds with gold dust, an amount of more or less value is obtained. In order to counteract the bad effects of the poison, some sour chica, a beer made of Indian corn, is administered.81

Dr. Sidney Cohen remarked:
Another group who really ought not be given LSD is children.... It is, therefore, chilling to read in a recent issue of Life (March 25, 1966) the following quote: "When my husband and I want to take a trip together," says the psychedelic mother of four, "I just put a little acid in the kids' orange juice in the morning and let them spend the day `freaking out' in the woods." Here, at least, is a refreshing absence of pretense that it will do them any good; it's simply a pharmacological baby sitter."82
There was also a father who administered various drugs to his children in a haphazard manner that seem to have amplified the instabilities of his dysfunctional family. The television documentary Small Town Ecstasy, produced by Allison Grodner and Arnold Shapiro, told the story of Scott Meyers, a 40-year-old father in Calaveras County, California. Meyers took his three children - aged 13, 15, and 18 - to raves and parties where he gave them alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, and MDMA. This caused him to lose custody of his children and to be convicted of misdemeanor drug possession.83 After the documentary was broadcast in 2002, he was arrested on two felony charges of child endangerment.84

If the Controlled Substances Act and the state anti-drug laws are eventually repealed then existing state statutes against child abuse and neglect could still curtail these types of scenarios. At the minimum, psychedelics should have the same sort of legal exemptions that some states currently offer for alcohol. Generally, it is illegal for anybody under age 21 to consume alcohol in the United States. However, 23 states permit parents and legal guardians to provide alcohol to their minor children or wards. Eight states allow people age 21 or older to provide alcohol to their underage spouse. Nine states permit alcohol to be served to minors in religious services (and actually minors drink wine at Catholic and Jewish services in every state). Eleven states permit alcohol to be given to minors as part of medical treatment, and in three states it can be given to minors by educational institutions in connection with being a student or for educational purposes.85 Our goal is to attain statutory acknowledgement of the inalienable right of minors to volunteer for well-regulated psychedelic sessions conducted by their family or their church.

Compulsory prohibitionist drug education in the public schools of the United States has continued unabated since the 1880s when the Women's Christian Temperance Union promulgated "Scientific Temperance Instruction".86 Although early temperance policies were well intentioned, after almost 125 years of failure it is malicious to continue enforcing abstinence as the only viable approach. Today's "zero tolerance" style of drug education pathologizes normal adolescent experimentation and trivializes the factors underlying drug abuse. Research at the University of California at Berkeley indicates that moderate use of marijuana and other illicit drugs is normal for U.S. teens. Adolescents who occasionally experiment with drugs are emotionally healthier than both their peers who abstain from all drug use, and their peers who overindulge. When drug problems do develop, they are a symptom - rather than a cause - of personal and social maladjustment. The researchers stated:

Given current understandings of personality development, it would seem that the psychological triad of alienation, impulsivity, and distress would be better addressed through efforts aimed at encouraging sensitive and empathic parenting, at building childhood self-esteem, at fostering sound interpersonal relationships, and at promoting involvement and commitment to meaningful goals. Such interventions may not have the popular appeal of programs that appear to tackle the drug problem "directly," but may have greater individual and societal payoff in the end.87

Although these findings are from 1990, zero tolerance remains the primary way that U.S. schools and youth programs teach about drugs. It is currently illegal for drug prevention programs that receive federal or California State funding to provide accurate information about the beneficial uses of illicit drugs. 20 U.S.C. 7142 (United States Code) says that illegal drug use must always be portrayed as "wrong and harmful". CA Health & Safety Code 11999.2 and 11999.3 prohibit educational messages about "responsible use" of illegal drugs.88 The federal government made "style sheets" for conforming terminology in drug education literature that "aims to prevent use - not abuse - of alcohol and other drugs by youth", "since there is risk associated with all use", and "all illicit drugs are harmful".89

As an honest and pragmatic alternative to prohibitionist education, drug education in the public schools should be oriented toward harm-reduction. Students should be given age-appropriate information on the risks and benefits of commonly used psychoactive materials. In one possible scenario, elementary schools could have a medicinal herb garden. Students would cultivate Cannabis, peyote, coca bushes, opium, and iboga. The students could be instructed on how to prepare these herbs, and could deliver them as gifts to people who needed them. The kids would donate medical marijuana to patients with AIDS and cancer. They could take home cough syrup that they manufactured out of poppies. They would do rotational harvesting of iboga roots, which would be delivered to substance abuse treatment clinics. Peyote buttons would be cut and presented as sacraments for certain churches. This hands-on approach would imbue a sensibility in the young people that, when properly used, these medicines can have benefits. At the same time, the teachers would emphasize that, like many things (fire, motor vehicles, etc.) these tools can have a destructive impact if misused.
L. Zoja proposed that all humans possess an innate archetypal need for initiation but modern life denies access to this type of ritual integration. Although Zoja believed the use of addictive drugs is a futile substitute for initiation among Western youth,90 modern psychedelic initiations could help young people to solidify their identities, to develop allegiance to wholesome core values, and to aspire toward becoming productive citizens upon reaching maturity. A fictional example of this is found in Aldous Huxley's novel Island (1962), wherein modern young people used a sacramental mushroom in coming-of-age ceremonies.91

In some primitive tribes, puberty initiation rituals transform the adolescent into a young adult ready to work, procreate, and perhaps fight in battle. In contrast, our industrialized technocracy delays adult responsibilities and privileges in order to extend education as preparation for employment in a complex economy. Living in limbo, modern teenagers are often unable to achieve fulfillment through after-school retail and food industry jobs and through church- sponsored vows of sexual abstinence. Some of these alienated youths rebel against their meaningless existence by seeking inebriation. Millions of concerned parents wring their hands in despair, lamenting that their troubled teens are hooked on dope. Educators, social scientists, and mental health professionals scratch their heads, befuddled by the insurmountable array of deplorable social problems. The boldest of these experts, perhaps fearing that their careers would be ruined if they challenged the vested interests of the prison-industrial complex, can only propose that some sort of non-drug rite-of-passage be designed for modern adolescents.92 It is true that many indigenous groups used non-drug initiations, although some of these rites resorted to painful intergenerational hazing instead.

Harvard drug policy expert Mark Kleiman warns that young people are more vulnerable to damage from the toxic addictive drugs, and often make immature judgments leading to misconduct.93 For these reasons, young people should be encouraged to only use non-addictive drugs that are non-toxic at normal doses, and should be offered a wholesome context wherein proper preparation and competent supervision is provided by appropriately trained adults. LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, ayahuasca, and many other psychedelics are not addictive and are entirely non-toxic in ordinary doses. A few psychedelics do have potential physiological dangers. Numerous young people in the United States have been poisoned by taking Datura in imitation of Castaneda's Don Juan. Psilocybe mushrooms should be harvested only by people who are thoroughly trained in how to distinguish them from poisonous species. The gentle effects of MDMA and related compounds usually elicit an easily-managed experience that would be ideal for novices. However, anybody who is considering taking MDMA should pass a heart exam and liver panel, and even then there is a remote possibility of idiosyncratic adverse reactions. Of course, MDMA and Tabernanthe iboga and ayahuasca can each have fatal interactions with certain medications, and possibly if mixed with each other. Iboga alkaloids can on rare occasions produce medical crises even in properly screened individuals. Ketamine would not be an appropriate hallucinogen for juveniles because children and young adults experience a greatly reduced incidence of psychedelic reactions to this NMDA blocker,94 presumably because the glutaminergic fibers of NMDA receptors are not fully mylinated until late adolescence. Additionally, Ketamine can be habit forming, so it should be avoided except for medical purposes.

Individual families can decisively resolve the drug problem using creative solutions derived from successful prototypes in other societies. And this cultural evolution will have to originate at a grass-roots level, since our governing institutions are incapable of proactive change. The design of meaningful rituals for modern adolescents might incorporate induction procedures from the indigenous repertoire of fasting, sleep deprivation, physical isolation, chanting, singing, sonic driving (drumming), dancing, and drugs. The setting would accommodate whatever purpose is intended. Internalized sessions (lying down in darkness) might be structured to provide intense death/rebirth experiences that could be particularly helpful for adolescent boys needing to sublimate aggressive impulses. When LSD was still legal, one college in the United States had an LSD session for the students as part of the course work on broadening educational interests,95 and there are indications that psychedelics can facilitate the acquisition of various skills.96 Today, a well-disciplined adolescent might use the psychedelic state for such tasks as learning a language, working on a computer, or practicing a musical instrument. There is anecdotal evidence that MDMA can facilitate bonding, such as when a mother and her rebellious teenage daughter had cuddling and intimate conversation during the afterglow of the mother's MDMA experience.97 This suggests that psychedelic sessions with hugging by family members can bolster loving relationships, and if conducted seasonally from early childhood, might deflate tensions that are often left unacknowledged during the children's adolescence.

Psychedelic initiations could be used to inculcate a salubrious value system while young people are in the suggestible state occasioned by the transcendental ecstasy. This value system should idealize art, science, and healthy relationships - the hallmarks of true civilization, which should not be relegated as handmaidens of industrialized mass consumer culture. Of course, the integrity of the guides is critical because core moral values (environmental responsibility, honesty, and respect for life and property) can only be passed on to a young person if they are already firmly entrenched in the elders overseeing the rite-of-passage.

This fanciful cartoon incorrectly states that hippies gave LSD to infants, and inaccurately portrays Indian Hindus as using LSD. The cartoon was published in Whatever Happened to Timothy Leary? (1980) by John Bryan, Renaissance Press, San Francisco, p. 345.
"Molding young minds: Tenderly, a father anoints his son's face with symbols of the blossom of peyote..., a cactus sacred to the Huichols. Later the boy will eat a small piece of the bitter plant."
This picture and caption was published in "The Huichols: Mexico's People of Myth and Magic" by James Norman and Guillermo Aldana E., June 1977, National Geographic 151 (6): 836-7.

References
1 Kubby, Steve. 1995. The Politics of Consciousness: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom. Loomanics Unlimited. Port Townsend, WA. p. 90.
2 Excerpt from email from parent to Fire Erowid.
3 Weil, Andrew. 1972. The Natural Mind: An Investigation of Drugs and the Higher Consciousness. Houghton Mifflin Company. Boston; New York. p. 19.
4 Regnard, Paul-Marie-Leon. 1887. Sorcellerie, Magnetisme, Morphinisme, Delire des Grandeurs. E. Plon, Nouritt. Paris.
Regla, Desjardin de, Doctor. circa 1900. Le Haschisch et la Suggestion. Societe d' Hypnologie: 24-29.
5 Dobkin de Rios, Marlene; Grob, Charles S. 1994. Hallucinogens, Suggestibility & Adolescence in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Yearbook for Ethnomedicine 3: 113-132. pp.115, 117.
6 Groark, Kevin P. Summer 1996. Ritual and Therapeutic Use of "Hallucinogenic" Harvester Ants (Pogonomyrmex) in Native South-Central California. Journal of Ethnobiology 16 (1): 1-29.
7 Antonopoulos, Spiros. Winter 2003. Inna bug conference: Insectoidal nourishment and the Bad Shaman. Trip: The Journal of Psychedelic Culture 10: 12-15. Resonant Media. Seattle, Washington. p. 13.
8 Schultes, Richard Evans; Raffauf, Richard. 1990. The Healing Forest: Medicinal and Toxic Plants of the Northwest Amazonia. Dioscordes Press. Portland, Oregon. pp. 399-400, 402. Citing: Hugh-Jones, S. 1979. The Palm and the Pleiades. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, England.
9 Schultes, Richard Evans. 1972. An Overview of Hallucinogens in the Western Hemisphere. pp. 3-54 in Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens. Peter T. Furst (ed.). Praeger Publishers, Inc. New York. p. 35.
10 Davis, Wade. 1996. One River: Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rain Forest. Touchstone. New York. p. 226.
11 Ethan Russo, M.D. 1999. internet posting.
12 Ethan Russo, M.D. 1999. personal communication.
13 Pedro Fernandes Leite da Luz. 1998. internet posting. Note: text was corrected because the author was not a native-speaker of English.
14 The Unexplained: Psychedelic Science. 1997. Produced by Bill Eagles. A BBC/A&E Network Co-production. Broadcast on television 28-August-1997.
15 Sandry, Jodi Lang, M.Ed., M.A. Autumn 1996. Hoasca and the Uniao do Vegetal (UDV): A Comparative Study with Adolescents. Maps Newsletter 6 (4).
16 anonymous. 2002. personal communication.
17 Johnston, Thomas F. 1972. "Datura fastuosa: Its Use in Tsonga Girl's Initiation". Economic Botany 26: 340-351.
18 Jacobs, David. 1996. The Use of Datura Species in Rites of Transition. Yearbook of Cross-Cultural Medicine and Psychotherapy 1995: 341-351. VWB - Verlag fur Wissenschaft und Bildung. Berlin. Michael Winkelman & Walter Andritzky (eds.).
19 Schultes, Richard Evans. 1972. An Overview of Hallucinogens in the Western Hemishpere. pp. 3-54 in Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens. Peter T. Furst (ed.). Praeger Publishers, Inc. New York. pp. 46-47.
20 Underhill, Ruth Murray. 1953. Red Man's America: A History of Indians in the United States. University of Chicago Press. Chicago. p. 277, also see 275 & 283.
21 Cooper, John M. 1963. Stimulants and Narcotics. Handbook of South American Indians V: 525-558. Julian H. Steward (ed.). Cooper Square Publishers, Inc. New York. pp. 555.
22 Harner, Michael J. 1972. The Jivaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls. University of California Press. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London. pp. 84, 90 (quote), 137-138.
23 Anank Nunink. January 2002. personal communication.
24 Aberle, David F.; Stewart, Omer C. March 1957. Navaho and Ute Peyotism: A Chronological and Distributional Study. University of Colorado Press. Boulder, CO. p. 113.
25 Howard, James H. January-February 1967. Half Moon Way: The Peyote Ritual of Chief White Bear. Museum News 28 (1-2): 3. Dakota Museum, University of South Dakota.
26 anonymous. 2002. personal communication.
27 Prichard, James. 23 Nov 2002. Man Seeks Right to Give Son Peyote. Anchorage Daily News. [http://www.adn.com/24hour/weird/stor...4851330c.html] defunct url.
28 No author. 23-April-2003. Spiritual Rights: Judge says boy must not ingest peyote. Traverse City Record Eagle. [http://www.record-eagle.com/2003/apr/23peyote.htm] accessed 27-September-2004.
29 Mount, Guy (editor). 1993. The Peyote Book: A Study of Native Medicine 2nd edition. Sweetlight Books. Cottonwood, CA. pp. 29, 83.
30 Dorrance, David L., M.D.; Janiger, Oscar, M.D.; Teplitz, Raymond L., M.D. 20 October 1975. Effect of Peyote on Human Chromosomes: Cytogenetic Study of the Huichol Indians of Northern Mexico. Journal of the American Medical Association 234 (3): 299-302. p. 299.
31 Negrin, Juan. 1990s. personal communication.
32 Schaefer, Stacy. 1995. The crossing of the souls: Peyote, perception and meaning among the Huichol indians of Mexico. integration: journal for mind-moving plants and culture 5: 34-50. bilwis verlag eschenau publisher. Knetzgau, Germany. pp. 38, 43.
33 Schaefer, Stacy B. Spring 1996. The Crossing of the Souls: Huichol Perceptions of Peyote. Shaman's Drum 41: 29, 34.
34 Schaefer, Stacy B.; Furst, Peter T. 1996. People of the Peyote: Huichol Indian History, Religion, & Survival. University of New Mexico Press. Albuquerque NM. pp. 161-162.
35 Eger, Susan; Collings, Peter R. 1978. Huichol Women's Art. pp. 35-53 in Art of the Huichol Indians. Kathleen Berrin (ed.). Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco / Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers, New York. p. 43.
36 Kluver, Heinrich. 1966. Mescal and Mechanisms of Hallucination. University of Chicago Press. Chicago. p. 11.
37 Newberne, Robert E.L., Dr.; Burke, Chas. H. 1922. Peyote: An Abridged Compilation from the Files of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Government Printing Office. Washington, D.C. p. 15.
38 Welsh, Herbert. 1918. Peyote - An Insidious Evil. pp.1-6. p. 2-3.
39 Seymour, Gertrude. June 1916. Peyote Worship - An Indian Cult and a Powerful Drug: By Gertrude Seymour, in The New York Survey. The Red Man: An Illustrated Magazine Printed by Indians. pp. 341-351. p.347. Note: "cocaine" is misspelled in the original article.
40 Garfield, Frederick M. Depressant and Stimulant Drugs: Use of Peyote for Religious Purposes. 12 February 1970. Federal Register 35 (30): 2874-2877. p. 2875, 2876.
41 Nolte, Kurt B., M.D.; Zumwalt, Ross E., M.D. June 1999. Fatal peyote ingestion associated with Mallory-Weiss lacerations. Western Journal of Medicine 170: 328.
42 Dobkin de Rios, Marlene. 1984. Hallucinogens: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. University of New Mexico Press. Albuquerque NM. p. 45, and p. 46. Citing:
Karsten, Rafael. 1935. Headhunters of the western Amazonas: Life & Culture of Jibaro Indians of Eastern Ecuador and Peru. Societas Scientarum Fennica. Helsinki. pp. 241- 242 or 293-294. Note: "Jibaro" is an alternate spelling for Jivaro.
43 Herrick, James W. 1995. Iroquois Medical Botany. Syracuse University Press. Syracuse NY. p. 200.
44 Wasson, R. Gordon. 13 May 1957. "Seeking the Magic Mushroom". Life Magazine. [http://www.imaginaria.org/wasson/life.htm] accessed 31-September-2004.
45 Estrada, Alvaro. 1981. Maria Sabina: Her Life and Chants. Ross-Erikson Inc., Publishers. Santa Barbara. p. 40.
46 Stamets, Paul. 1996. Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World. Ten Speed Press. Berkeley CA. p. 3.
47 Hatfield, G.M.; Valdes, L.J.J.; Keller, W.J.; Merrill, W.L.; Jones, V.H. July-August 1977. Investigation of Sophora secundiflora Seeds (Mescalbeans). Lloydia 40 (4): 374- 383. pp. 380-382.
48 anonymous Native American physician. 1985. personal communication.
49 Pope, Harrison G., Jr. April-June 1969. Tabernanthe iboga : an African Narcotic Plant of Social Importance. Economic Botany 23 (2): 174-184. p. 180.
50 Samorini, Giorgio. 1993. "Adam, Eve and Iboga". integration: jounal for mind- moving plants and culture 4: 4-10. Bilwis-Verlag Eschenau. Knetzgau, Germany. p. 8. Note: The word "Fang" is properly pronounced "Fong".
51 Samorini, Giorgio. 1995. The Buiti religion and the psychoactive plant Tabernanthe iboga (Equatorial Africa). integration: journal for mind-moving plants and culture 5: 105 -114. Bilwis Verlag Eschenau Publisher. Knetzgau, Germany. pp. 109, 112. Note: "buiti" is an alternate spelling for "bwiti".
52 Goutarel, Robert; Gollnhofer, Otto; Sillans, Roger. 1993. Pharmacodynamics and Therapeutic Applications of Iboga and Ibogaine. Psychedelic Monographs and Essays 6: 70-111. Online at: The Ibogaine Dossier [http://www.ibogaine.org/bwiti1.html] accessed 26 January 2002.
53 Fernandez, James W. 1972. Tabernanthe Iboga : Narcotic Ecstasis and the Work of the Ancestors. pp. 237-260 in Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens. Peter T. Furst (ed.). Praeger Publishers. New York; Washington. p. 248.
54 Katia Torelli-Delgado. 1990. personal communication.
55 Schachter-Shalomi, Zalman. 1998. Pre-conference interview for Gathering of the Elders: An Invitational Conference sponsored by the Institute of Noetic Sciences and the Fetzer Institute. 19-22 November 1998. Kalamazoo MI. p. 15.
56 McKenna, Dennis J., Ph.D.; Callaway, J.C., Ph.D.; Grob, Charles S., M.D. 1998. The Scientific Investigation of Ayahuasca: A Review of Past and Current Research. The Heffter Review of Psychedelic Research 1: 65-77, 73.
57 Schaefer, Stacy. 1999. Pregnancy, Children and Peyote in Huichol Culture. Botanical Preservation Corps. Sebastopol CA. Cassette tape of lecture at San Francisco Entheobotany Conference.
58 Dorrance, David L., M.D.; Janiger, Oscar, M.D.; Teplitz, Raymond L., M.D. 20 October 1975. Effect of Peyote on Human Chromosomes: Cytogenetic Study of the Huichol Indians of Northern Mexico. Journal of the American Medical Association 234 (3): 299-302. p.302.
59 Dee, Alice. 15 February 2002. personal communication.
60 Ott, Jonathon. 1993. Pharmacotheon: Entheogenic drugs, their plant sources and history. Natural Products Co. Kennewick, WA. pp. 140-141.
61 Stafford, P.G.; Golightly, B.H. 1967. LSD: The Problem-Solving Psychedelic. Award Books, New York; Tandem, London. p.118-119. The quote is reprinted from an article on LSD by Jay Levin in The New York Post, June 1966.
62 Appelgate, Richard B. Summer 1975. The Datura cult among the Chumash. Journal of California Anthropology 2 (1) 7-17. p. 9.
63 Hanna, Jon. Winter 2002. Sources. Entheogen Review XI (4): 141-147. p. 145. Citing: Rex; Venus. 2002. Red Angels. Mars Antrim. Lakeport, CA.
64 Mount, Guy. 1987. The Peyote Book: A Study in Native Medicine 2nd edition. Sweetlight Books. Arcata CA. pp. 22-27.
65 La Barre, Weston. 1975. The Peyote Cult. 4th edition enlarged. Archon Books. New York. p. 28, 206.
66 Smith, David E., M.D.; Sternfield, James L. September 1970. Natural Childbirth and Cooperative Child Rearing in Psychedelic Communes. The Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 3 (1): 120-124. p. 122.
67 Harvey, Karen & Ronald. 1968. Ecstatic Childbirth. Chapter 20 (pp. 224-253) in The Ecstatic Adventure. Ralph Metzner (ed.). The MacMillan Company. New York.
68 It is necessary to repeal the Controlled Substances Act and its derivative state statutes, rather than to merely make a new law legalizing drugs, in order to emphasize the illegitimate nature of the original laws and to negate Congress's pretense at having authority to regulate psychoactive substances.
69 Rhead, John C., Ph.D. April-June 1977. The Use of Psychedelic Drugs in the Treatment of Severely Disturbed Children: A Review. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 9 (2): 93-101.
70 Trout, K. 1997. Trout's Notes: Sacred Cacti and Some Selected Succulents: Botany Chemistry Cutivation and Utilization. Narayan Publications. Sedona, AZ. p. 92. Citing: Gutierrez- Noriega, Carlos; Cruz Sanchez, Guillermo. 1947. "Alteraciones mentales producidas por la `Opuntia cylindrica'." Revista de Neuro-Psiquiatria 10 (4): 422-468. Note: Opuntia cylindrica was a misnomer for Trichocereus pachanoi .
71 Blewett, D.B., Ph.D.; Chwelos, N., M.D. 1958 (no date given). Handbook for the Therapeutic Use of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide 25: Individual and Group Procedures. Privately published in Canada by photocopying typewritten manuscript. pp. 9, 18.
72 Doblin, Rick; Beck, Jerry, Ph.D.; Obata, Kate; Alioto, Maureen. Spring 1999. "Forty Year Follow-Up to Dr. Oscar Janiger's Pioneering LSD Research". Maps Bulletin IX (1): 4-23. p. 10.
73 Myron Stolaroff. personal communication. 31-March-2002.
74 Soames, Charles; West, Arnold. 1968. The Eyes of Wonder. Chapter 21 (pp. 254-261) in The Ecstatic Adventure: Reports of Chemical Explorations of the Inner World. Ralph Metzner (ed). The MacMillan Company. New York.
Kubby, Steve. 1995. The Politics of Consciousness: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom. Loomanics Unlimited. Port Townsend, WA. pp. 123-125.
75 Leen, Jeff. 1 September 1985. XTC. Tropic (magazine insert for The Miami Herald). p. 8.
Rough draft of manuscript by Nicholas Sanders, 1993. Section 188.
anonymous. Winter 1996-97. The Rite of Passage: A Family's Perspective on the Use of MDMA. Maps Newsletter 7 (1): 40-45.
Moore, Jeff. Broadcast: 6-, 13-, 20-December-1999. Demon Drugs. Ideas on CBS Radio One. Produced by Max Allen. [http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/demon/index.html] accessed 31-September-2004.
76 Foldes, Andrei; Morton, Amba ; Johnson, Eric; et al. Autumn 1995. Youths and Entheogen Use - A Modern Rite of Passage? Maps Newsletter 6 (1).
77 B., Alice. Winter 1996-97. Stumbling on His Stash. Maps Newsletter 7 (1): 37-39.
78 anonymous. Spring 1994. A Son s Report: 2-CB. Maps Newsletter 4 (4): 57.
79 Dobkin de Rios, Marlene; Grob, Charles S. 1994. Hallucinogens, Suggestibility and Adolescence in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Yearbook for Ethnomedicine and the Study of Consciousness 3: 113-132. Dr. Christian Ratsch & John R. Baker (eds.). pp. 127-128.
80 anonymous. 1999. personal communication.
81 Starks, Michael. 1981. The Fabulous Illustrated History of Psychoactive Plants or Great Grandma's Pleasures. Loompanics Unlimited. Mason, Michigan. p. 185. Lacks bibliography, so no citation, which apparently refers to the botanist J.R. Seemann.
82 Alpert, Richard, Ph.D.; Cohen, Sidney, M.D.; Schiller, Lawrence. 1966. lsd. New American Library. New York. p. 71.
83 Curiel, Jonathan. 25 April 2002. Midlife high: Northern California dad takes ecstasy and gives it to his kids in HBO documentary. The San Francisco Chronicle. [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...2/04/25/DD2334 58.DTL] defunct url.
84 Coleman, Jennifer. 13 June 2003. Calaveras County man arrested over drug parties featured on HBO. SFGate.com. [http://c1.zedo.com//ads2/f/9466/3853...3/0/167/11/zz- blue1.html] defunct url.
85 anonymous. April 2003. Alcohol Beverage Control Enforcement: Legal Research Report. Division of Legal Analysis and Enforcement, Center for Policy Analysis and Training, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration contract # IDC DTNH22-98-D-35079. p. 17.
86 Beck, Jerome. February 1998. 100 years of "Just Say No" versus "Just Say Know": Reevaluating drug education goals for the coming century. Evaluation Review: A Journal of Applied Social Research 22 (1): 15-45. Special issue: Zero Effects of Drug Prevention Programs: Issues and Solutions. SAGE Periodicals Press. Thousand Oaks; London; New Delhi.
87 Shedler, Jonathan; Block, Jack. May 1990. Adolescent drug use and psychological health. American Psychologist 45 (5): 612-630.
88 Federal and California Drug Education Laws. Available online at Erowid: [http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/...ucation.shtml] accessed 27- January-2002.
89 Office for Substance Abuse Prevention (OSAP). undated, 1991 or earlier. Style Sheet on Alcohol and Other Drug Terminology. National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information. Rockville MD.
90 Zoja, L. 1989. Drugs, Addiction and Initiation, The Modern Search for Ritual. Sigo Press. Boston.
91 Huxley, Aldous. 1962. Island. Harper & Row Publishers. New York, etc. pp. 162- 174.
92 Grob, Charles; Dobkin de Rios, Marlene. Winter 1992. Adolescent Drug Use in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Journal of Drug Issues 22 (1): 121-138.
93 Kleiman, Mark A.R. October 1991. Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results. Basic Books. [prepublication draft]. p. 85.
94 Marchall, Bryan E.; Wollman, Harry. 1980. General Anesthetics. Chapter 14, (pp.276-299) in The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics 6th edition. Alfred Goodman Gilman, M.D., Ph.D.,; Louis S. Goodman, M.A., M.D., D.Sc. (Hon.); Alfred, Gilman, Ph.D., D.Sc. (Hon.); (eds.). p. 121.
95 Stafford, P.G.; Golightly, B.H. 1967. LSD: The Problem-Solving Psgychedelic. Award Books, New York; Tandem, London. pp. 131-137.
96 Harman, Willis W.; Fadiman, James. 1971. Selective Enhancement of Specific Capacities Through Psychedelic Training. Psychedelics: The Uses and Implications of Hallucinogenic Drugs. Bernard Aaronson & Humphry Osmond (eds.). Schenkman Publishing Company. Cambridge, London. pp. 239-276.
Copeley, Bernard. 1962. Hallucinogenic Drugs and their Application to Extra-Sensory Perception. Hypnosophic Institute. Joshua Tree CA. pp. 28-32.
Roseman, Bernard. 1963, 1967 edition. LSD: The Age of Mind. Wilshire Book Co. Hollywood CA. pp. 96-104. Nez, Hosteen. 1990. Certain Exotic Neurotranmitters as Smart Pills: or Compounds that Increase the Capacity for Mental Work in Humans. 2nd edition. privately printed.
97 Saunders, Nicholas; Doblin, Rick. 1996. Ecstasy: Dance Trance & Transformation. Quick American Archives. Oakland CA. p. 103.


Here is the orignal link http://www.maps.org/ritesofpassage/youngpeople.html