drugs and sanity

Organizations like DARE promote misinformation about drugs to keep people from using them, but such an attitude is very harmful. They often say Salvia Divinorum is nothing more than a placebo, for example. Not only is this wrong, it's also dangerous. Unsuspecting kids try it with low expectations and then get freaked out when it blows their minds away.
This example is sadly symbolic of greater contemporary mainstream views—nearly every aspect of society reinforces the notion of normalcy. Magic can be scientifically explained, if you can't see it then it's not real, stoned ravings are only that—ravings. People don't actually have shakras, nor do they possess psychic abilities. Out of body experiences are the products of the imagination and hallucinations are either the products of psychedelics or clear signs of mental illness.
There is a clear and rigid concept of normalcy and everything beyond its framework is nonsensical and illusory madness. This madness is categorized under various terms, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, ADHD...the list goes on. Conveniently, drugs are made available to treat these illnesses; not etheogens of course, since those are bad, but government-approved ones mass produced by the wealthy pharmaceutical industry.
But what is sanity? http://deoxy.org/evasion/toc.htm
Religious devotees believe in an omnipotent entity that is the source of all existence. Science posits the existence of alternate dimensions and theorizes that time doesn't really exist. Mystics tell us of distant lands to which they travel from the confines of their minds. Truly enlightened individuals tell us that nothing but change is certain and that numerous alternate realities exist.
Notice that religious devotees remove themselves from the world in favour of nun- or priesthood. Followers of the Buddha adopt a similarly ascetic way of life. Mystics are only partly in this world, and partly in others. Science, alone, remains fixed in the material world of society, thanks to their inability to ever go beyond a theory and accept their wild ideas as reality.
Yet people call etheogens harmless, consume them, and expect to remain sanely rooted in society's reality of normalcy.
Some people are naturally predisposed to possessing open minds. All brains working as reducing valves, theirs permit a greater influx of information than that of the average person. Such gifted individuals were the shamans, healers, and mystics of the ancient world...but they're today's psychotics!?When self-realized, such people are free of their egos. They naturally possess the same knowledge that's bestowed upon the average person during psychedelic experiences—that the ego is illusory. Yet in today's society where people are taught to follow mindlessly as drones to a hive collective, the ego plays a key role. Instead of being their own gods and self-governing, people do as their egos, manipulated in turn by those in power, instruct. We aren't encouraged to be free and awakened individuals.
Whereas the ego-loss quality of the etheogenic experience teaches us that the ego is illusory, society tells us, so we remain followers, that it's real and necessary. Most people believe the latter and preach it as the truth to reassure themselves; they carry out the government's misinformation campaign without even knowing it, supporting the very lie which pushes them to do so.
Clearly, contemporary society is a very poor setting for drug use. People who open their minds through the etheogenic experience are persecuted against and made to believe they have mental problems. But who's really crazy?You can't take drugs and expect your social life to remain the same. As you discover the illusory nature of society and your ego you will undoubtedly act differently. That is, if you recognize these changes to be positive. People who don't know they're being lied to in the first place often look at the changes taking place inside themselves negatively and try to suppress them."A warning sign that your child smokes marijuana is that he'll begin to care less about his appearance." Ha... it's not good to care what other people think of your appearance too much! "He'll become less motivated." He realizes the futility and absurdity of striving to gain illusory success like money, popularity, and material possessions! "He may show signs of depression." It's depressing to realize everything you've been brought up to believe is a lie and then, to compound matters, to have everyone treat such realizations as nonsense! "Irrational behaviour." Downright insane behaviour, if sanity is all that it's hyped up to be.
Just like the kids get freaked out when the Salvia DARE says is inactive is quite the opposite, people get freaked out when phenomenon society labels as imaginary are more real than society itself.
Mental illness results from understanding the illusory nature of the ego on one hand while clinging desperately to the ego for safety and reassurance on the other. People who are naturally predisposed towards gaining transcendent insight must take care to realize that these insights are true and must be willing to leave behind their former reality as it becomes understood as a lie. If you simply take drugs to get 'f**ked up' or to escape from your problems then you may discover more than you bargained for.
The etheogenic experience will change you. If you gain insight internally but refuse to change your external routine, you'll get frustrated quickly; if you refuse to even accept the insight internally then you're liable to go crazy. Don't be afraid of the insight! The void is merely infinite bliss misunderstood so totally that it's perceived from a perspective of fear.
The path to enlightenment is a tricky one, especially if you don't realize you're walking it, as is the case with people who treat the etheogenic experience as a fun little distraction. Drugs are tools and must be respectfully used as such. Of course it can be fun, too—what could be better than discovering the joy of being innate within us all?I'm not saying everything you experience while tripping is real. The influence of society and the ego seriously perverts the truth as it is perceived by you. But everything you perceive while tripping is real, to the extent that you perceive it. If I see colours then these colours must obviously exist on some level since I would otherwise not see them at all. But much of what is experienced is symbolic in nature, and egocentric distortions tend to remove this symbolism quite far away from the truth which it symbolizes. This is where the work lies, to see past the ego's fog towards the fundamental truth.
If you fear for your sanity, then you've necessarily already begun walking the path of enlightenment. Such is the truly sanest way of looking at it. Indeed, it is said in Eastern spirituality that one of the most difficult obstacles to overcome on the path of enlightenment is accepting the true nature of one's mentality.

Thoughts?