This blog is a follow up to the September 9, 2019 blog “Let’s Get Chemical” and it carries the warnings and advisories of the June 29, 2021 blog “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. So you might want to read these before reading further.
Rick Perry besides being the governor of the State I’ve lived in almost half my life but never claimed to be of or from is to me the Dudley Do-Right of both conservative politics and Protestant Christianity. He is sincere and earnest at both and blissfully unaware that sincerity is no proof of being right and you can be earnestly wrong.
In 2007 he tilted at the scourge of cancer by mandating all 6th grade Texas girls be vaccinated against HPV. Four things I will tell you about the human papillomavirus, and this vaccine. The rest you’ll have to research. 1) Not all forms of HPV cause cancer. 2) The vaccine might not be effective against the one you’re exposed to. 3) As IV dope use is the major risk factor for Hep C, so early sexual activity is the major risk factor for HPV. 4) The conservative Texas legislature blocked this bone-head move by our Dudley till he “rethought” the mandate in light of running for president.
Well, the former governor and now former Secretary of Energy is back at it. An article in the June 2022 Texas Monthly is titled: “Rick Perry, Drug Pusher”. But the tie into my aforementioned blogs is in the subtitle: “How did the former governor become a leading advocate for psychedelics?” (Emphasis theirs. “I told you so” all mine.)
The article goes on to tell how Perry’s meeting and almost an accidental extended relationship with the Navy Seal in the true story Lone Survivor led to his advocacy of this. Perry came back in April 2021 to the Texas Legislature to endorse a bill by Democrat Alex Dominguez “that called for state-funded clinical study on the use of psilocybin mushrooms and ketamine to treat PTSD in veterans” (99).
Texas Monthly is no friend of Perry’s and their bias is evident in the story. They report that Perry declined to comment when asked if anyone in his family stands to profit from the decriminalization of psychedelic drugs. This question stems from the fact that he also spoke in favor of anti-COVID air filtration systems and was later revealed to be a salesperson for the company working on commission. This is his irrepressible Dudley Do-Right coming to the surface.
The magazine notes that so far the only real ‘evidence’ to the benefit of psychedelics is anecdotal and not scientifically rigorous (104). But, the article also notes, the effort to do the latter “has begun in earnest”. In December 2021, the University of Texas launched the Center for Psychedelic Research and Therapy (Ibid.). Read How to Change Your Mind, for a 2019 book all-in on this approach. It didn’t change my mind.
Watch with me how quickly this is going to bloom or infect, depending on your viewpoint. From AA who thinks the moral problem of drunkenness is really a physical illness, to all those who think depression is a disease to be treated with chemicals, and on to anyone who thinks the material world is either the only real world or the ultimate key to the spiritual, this is their gospel. Timothy Leary is their prophet; Rick Perry is their Moses to lead them to the new Promised Land which will be found to be 1969 Star Trek’s Eden. Meanwhile, White Rabbit plays (warns) in the background.
