Can Prohibitionists Admire Steve Jobs?
Quoting the New York Times obituary of Steve Jobs, Glenn Greenwald notes that the Apple impresario "told a reporter that taking LSD was one of the two or three most important things he had done in his life." In fact, "he said there were things about him that people who had not tried psychedelics—even people who knew him well, including his wife—could never understand." Greenwald suggests that "it's rather difficult to reconcile America's adoration for Steve Jobs with its ongoing obsession with prosecuting and imprisoning millions of citizens (mostly poor and minorities) for doing what Jobs, Obama, George W. Bush, Michael Phelps and millions of others have done."
I don't know about that: You can admire Steve Jobs yet think he was mistaken about LSD's positive impact, just as you might admire John Travolta's skills as an actor or Mitt Romney's skills as a venture capitalist without buying into Scientology or Mormonism. It is even possible to accept that LSD gave us the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad but nevertheless believe the damage caused by widespread availability of the drug would outweigh the benefits of such innovations. But Greenwald is right that Jobs' experience vividly illustrates how people can be highly successful not only in spite of but partly because of their illegal drug use. More generally, the life-enhancing potential of drugs—including the sheer fun of using them as well as the possibility of world-changing inspiration—must be considered in any honest cost-benefit analysis of prohibition.
Maia Szalavitz has more on Jobs and LSD at Time. Coed Magazine's list of "20 Most Notable LSD Users of All Time" includes Jobs but leaves out Nobel-winning chemist Kary Mullis and Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill Wilson.
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musically speaking, the beatles were just another pop band until lucy in the sky with diamonds.
Revolver was the revolution, not Sgt. Pepper’s.
true dat but i was speaking metphorically about their LSD use…which also influenced revolver esp the track “tomorrow never knows”
I think you mean the song “Tomorrow Never Knows”. That song was totally influenced by LSD and a Timothy Leary book.
It’s been hilarious to watch both sides of the political aisle try and frame Jobs’ life within the context of their beliefs, and how said context proves that they have it right due to Jobs’ success.
Jobs clearly had an important experience using LSD, as have many others who went on to successful business careers, but “So and So did it, so it’s not that bad” is a bad argument to make against prohibition. The argument against prohibition needs to stay firmly in the “it’s none of the governments business” argument instead of the “so and so did it, so it’s ok” argument. The latter simply diminishes the force of the former in any prohibition debate.
Indeed. The “Jobs did it so it’s OK” argument is really the complement to the former drug user who says “I couldn’t handle my shit, so no one else should be allowed to try”.
Shut up! Fee medical weed could have cured me!
Free*
Jobs clearly had an important experience using LSD, as have many others who went on to successful business careers, but “So and So did it, so it’s not that bad” is a bad argument to make against prohibition. The argument against prohibition needs to stay firmly in the “it’s none of the governments business”
This with knobs on. I always get very nervous when we start pointing to functioning heroin addicts and say, “See? It’s not that bad.”
Of course, on the other hand, we’re not getting anywhere on principle either.
I notice they left Peter Green off the list. The guy who succeeded Clapton in the Blues Breakers and made them better. LSD effectively ended his career in 1970.
LSD effectively ended his career in 1970.
I think that a better way to say that is “he effectively ended his career by taking too much LSD for his own good”. Drugs don’t do anything by themselves.
You are right – taking too much and possibly bad LSD intensified his schizophrenia, ending his career.
Danny Kirwan was in on some of that partying too – and didn’t do himself any favors. He went down to paranoid schizophrenia a couple of years later.
Meh. Schizophrenia ended his career. All other benefits or issues with psychedelics aside, giving them people who aren’t well-tethered to reality isn’t the best idea. Green was 24 in ’70, which is prime territory for schizophrenia to show up if it’s going to.
Acid is probably one of the worst things a schizophrenic can do. Talk about throwing gasoline on the fire.
Travolta’s acting skills?? What are you smoking, Jacob?
Up your nose with a rubber hose, Ska!
I was about to say…may if had said “John Travolta for his skills at convincing people he was an actor”
He played one hell of a roll…err…role on me! He should get an Oscar for our wedding day!
He was the Boy in the Bubble. And Barbarino.
Apparently, you must have missed the theatrical greatness of the Look Who’s Talking series of films.
I love Tarantino, but damn him to hell for resurrecting Travolta’s career so strongly with Pulp Fiction.
I don’t love Tarantino, which allows me to place the blame where it belongs.
watching Pulp Fiction on acid made me wonder if there was some weird Freudian shit going on w/ baby Mikey growing up to eventually kill James coming out of the bathroom…
maybe if they’d had Kirstie Alley playing that “blooberri pie” chick…anyways, that’s when the world around me turned into a giant lego set made of dinosaur bones, which was more entertaining than the movie…
pot, LSD, and mescaline made high school bearable for me. That alone gives me enough evidence to say we don’t need to restrict anyone’s use of these drugs.
Hunter Thompson?
What’s funnier to me is the hipster Apple cultists. Corporations are bad except when they make products that let me inform everyone that I am part of the cognoscenti.
+1
Tman is right. Whether one has a good or bad experiences is not the issue. The right to experience, is the issue.
Hitler was a drug addict. Do you want to be like Hitler?
You know who else was a drug addict?
Herman Goering.
My use of cannibis has lead me to a place where I look more kindly toward my fellow man. Ironically, my cannibis usage causes some of my fellow man to look less kindly at me. Go figure.
Zero-sum gain, bitches!!!!!
If we own our own bodies (and minds), then the state has no right to restrict what we can ingest.
u mean our jihadists can ingest smallpox & walk around grand central station? allah akbar babiee 11111!!!1
Derp
the possibility of world-changing inspiration?must be considered in any honest cost-benefit analysis of prohibition.
I have a small problem with this premise Sullum. Love ya to death, but how does one effectively measure “inspiration” or the claim that psychoactive drugs are demonstrably creativity enhancing.
With Jobs, we can measure after the fact by proxy of his success in creatively marketing (and arguably some bamboozling then developing further) his products, but we have chicken/egg conundrum here: How can we actually know whether psychoactive substances actually demonstrably enhance “inspiration” and creativity? What about the countless amount of creative people who have not indulged in psychoactive drugs, yet have produced remarkable works of art and led remarkable lives?
The first example that came to mind was Samuel Taylor Coleredge and his account of writing “Kublai Khan”, specifically his ingestion of psychoactive substance and only able to write the stream of consciousness while under its influence.
I think it’s quite a bit of wishful thinking to suggest that level of promise in an aggregate and smacks (no pun intended) of correlation without causation.
It’s true that altered states of consciousness can allow for the neural pathways, bio-circuitry as I colloquially call them, to travel different avenues and perhaps potentiate a different way of approaching a given problem, but to try and qualify and quantify an economic result before ingestion, rather than after, is a bit of a stretch.
“How can we actually know whether psychoactive substances actually demonstrably enhance “inspiration” and creativity?”
Inspirations created or saved…
And if cost-benefit analysis is bad in determining essential benefits in healthcare, it’s bad in determining essential benefits prohibition.
Acid didn’t ever hurt me.
Yes it did.
Shut up you left hemisphere of my brain!
My ground was never this soft at home.
That was 1 time I said that. 1 time. And it was true.
Still, acid made part of your brain think that. Now it’s there forever.
Yeah, so. It cost $5 and lasted 13 hours. That’s a great return on investment, drug wise. And, only minimal (as you can see) long term effects.
Thanks for reminding me to score some acid next time the medicine man comes along
You can admire Steve Jobs yet think he was mistaken about LSD’s positive impact,
Of course, you would have absolutely no basis for thinking he was mistaken. Who would know better than Jobs, after all? Certainly not someone who never even met him.
From what I have read, the vast majority of people who met him during his first stint at Apple thought he was a complete dick.
But think how much more of a dick he’d have been if not for the acid!
Government Experts?
any honest cost-benefit analysis of prohibition
What a strange premise, that there should be a cost-benefit analysis and that it should be honest at that.
Francis Crick/Steve Jobs and Chris Farley on the same “notable” list?!
For that matter, why even bother with all the entertainers; they’re pretty much a given, aren’t they?
Obligatory link: http://www.amazon.com/What-Dor…..0670033820
I wonder if Greenwald agrees that someone couldn’t possibly admire Steve Jobs without agreeing with his extreme position against teachers’ unions?
Take Jobs’s arguments on their own merits, but arguing from anecdote or from the idea that you have to 100% agree with everything about someone you admire is silly.
Don’t forget about this guy:
http://marijuana-uses.com/mr-x/
Another item that should be included in the cost/benefit analysis of prohibition: the fact the promised benefit of preventing access to the banned substance never materializes. We get the crime and corruption endemic to any large scale prohibition, while the banned substance remains readily available to those who seek it.
A co-worker told me that Job’s LSD use was the cause of his pancreatic cancer. He backed up said claim when I questioned it with “NUH-UH UR WRONG”.
My husband Cary Grant force-fed me LSD and it nearly killed me say Dyan Cannon. One interesting bit from the article: Grant was turned on to LSD by his third wife Betsy Drake, who would be in the running for Least Likely Acidhead.
Many people who have taken LSD and other psychedelics believe that using these has had a very positive influence on there lives and I don’t doubt that it’s true. In fact, I believe many drugs, now illegal, could serve as significant boon to the well being of mankind in general.
I don’t think Zyklon-B counts as a drug, Nazi.
Mushrooms were probably responsible for the creation of language.
No they weren’t, ya stinkin’ hippie!
Joe Rogan swears by the transformative power of mushroom. I would love to try thing if I had a partner to look after me and make sure I don’t go ape shit. I didn’t understand Warty’s comment above. Now, I don’t consider Joe to be a particular expert on anything, but he swears the this kind of drugs will transform your outlook in a good way. I know they have given mushroom to people with terminal illnesses and it brought them a peace they couldn’t have imagined before. Lord knows I could use something to change my outlook.
The key to having a successful mushroom experience is to, eat while consuming them and keep your body temperature down. Getting heat exhaustion while on mushrooms is a very bad trip.
Lightweight.
I have looked into growing them – you can purchase the supplies easily – but the who process is pretty arduous, although they make kits to make it as fool proof as possible. Apparently liberty caps are pretty easy to come by in most of the US, then you need to dry them and stuff. I would really need somebody who knows what they are doing. Not sure my wife would go for it either.
thanks