First Psychedelic Era in the West

Howard Becker cultural experience & Cultural Appropriation through the eyes of the indigenous people in the West (First psychedelic era):
The scientists of the First Psychedelic Era would look at the indigenous people as primitive and savage;
The scientists of the First Psychedelic Era would divide drug use into the “intellectual” and “savage” drug users;
The types of drugs had evolved, so the scientists started to experiment with all kinds of new drugs;
The scientists of the First Psychedelic Era didn’t fully understand the importance of drugs for the indigenous people and looked at them without the context of traditions, cultural values and their ritualistic use;
The scientists of the first Psychedelic era racialized drug use a lot (“The white hallucinogenic subjects mind became both a vast, unique, enchanted realm and the powerful means of exploring it”) .

Explanation of how the issues discussed in the second part of the presentation are or are not still part of contemporary society:
The look at drug use doesn’t take into account the race of the drug user as much in the contemporary society (even though not entirely);

The contemporary society has a clear distinction of what is “sane” and “insane” and that’s why many people are still scared to use drugs, because of the fear of becoming “crazy” or labelled as “drug addicts”;

Drug use has become less medicalized, because there are more treatment of drug use available nowadays, the doctors are more educated and there are more information about the reasons why people are using drugs and drug use in general.

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