Category Archives: Drug Law Reform

Character and Personality, Drug Law Reform, Happiness, Mysticism, Transcendent Compounds

Friendship, fear and freedom

Recently, I posted an article to Facebook, saying how I sometimes feel isolated because of my mysticism, spiritual use of drugs and drug law reform activism, none of which are well understood by many people I meet. At times, I’ve experienced such occasions as being “me against the world”, with little support from those around me, or those who “should” be there for me. 

I summed it up by saying that, at times I feel like like being “Tank Man” from  the Tiananmen  Square.

 

Tankman_new_longshot_StuartFranklin
Famous “Tank Man” image taken by Stuart Franklin.
Image Courtesy Wikipedia Commons.

Needless to say, despite my concluding in the post that, “I am not Tank Man, because I have the support of the people who matter (thankfully, I am blessed with having some amazing people in my life) and the laws of the land”,  I was immediately pilloried for having the temerity to even compare myself with someone as outstandingly and anonymously brave as Tank Man.

Ironically, this put me right back in the space where I once again felt like Tank Man. In mindlessly going on the attack, they had simply reinforced the feelings and imagery that I was attempting to disown. Their actions made it clear just how few people really understand, or even care, what it can be like to take the path I have chosen.

It was a classic example of how some people are ready to take the slightest offence, and go on the offense, for fairly much everything (why people feel the need to troll other people’s Facebook posts is something I’ll never understand) and how eager people are to dismiss the possibility that someone, such as myself might feel isolated by what I do and what I have sacrificed. Among these sacrifices includes my career, financial security, family and friends.
(Indeed, social isolation is a huge issue in our modern, supposedly connected, societies and one that isn’t helped by attacking anyone who might feel that way.)
Several days after the Facebook post and just a couple of days after my arrest for the possession of LSD during a peaceful protest on the steps of the Victorian Parliament House, a person that I’ve known for a number of years texted me with the following message:
 
“Hi Greg, sorry, but, I’ve decided not to associate with somebody with a criminal record. Goodbye and good luck to you.”*
This isn’t the first time that this sort of thing has happened since I went public about my use of Transcendent Compounds for spiritual purposes. In fact, there are perhaps a dozen or more people, that I regarded as friends of one sort, or another, who have refused to associate with me and made it clear that my “drug use” was a major reason for them cutting off contact. While some of them are still “friends” on Facebook, their real life rejection really hurts. 
 
It is also one of the reasons that I can often feel far more isolated than many people understand. I am considerably older than most of people in the drug law reform movement and most of those who are my age, are not being completely open and honest about their own drug use in the way that I am. Unlike younger drug law reformers, I am not surrounded by a cohort of friends who are supportive of their life choices, or blessed by a societal expectation drug use is something that young people do.
 
I had spent 15 years in the Army prior to starting down this path. Very few of my friends used drugs and when I went public, many found it far too confrontational do deal with and applied far to little empathy, or understanding to my situation.
Rather than try to manage complexity, they simply bailed.
 
In some ways, the stigma is worse for older drug users, because society generally accepts that  young people will use drugs and will “grow out of it”, so the older drug user is something of an anomaly.

Over the last Easter holiday break, while camping (as in homeless) with my dog, Saasha, I introduced myself to a group of adults in their early forties. Discussion got around to tents and I mentioned that I had bought the one I presently own in order to attend raves and doofs and would preferably use a smaller one for camping. Without any prompting on my part, they asked specifically if I used drugs while at these events and I said that I did. The response was typically hostile, as they then began to lecture me on how I should “grow up” and asked “at what point do you start to take responsibility for your life?”. 

This was especially ironic and hypocritical, because going to dance parties and taking drugs was something that they admitted to doing in their mid twenties. Doubly so, because as they were lecturing a complete stranger (they’d known me all of 30 minutes by then) on being irresponsible, they were busily sucking down on the most dangerous drug of all: Alcohol.

In my mid twenties I already had already completed four years of full time Army service (ironically enough, as a tank soldier). Despite using cannabis prior to enlistment, I made a commitment to stop using illicit drugs of any kind when I joined and maintained that commitment throughout my service.

So instead of being out, partying and taking drugs, I chose to put place myself in a highly disciplined, regimented environment, where I spent my time training and being ready to put my life on the line in defence of their sorry, judgemental arses.

In rejecting me because I am a drug user, or have been arrested for the possession of a drug, people aren’t judging me for who I am and what I represent, but instead because of something I do that has zero impact upon them.

That is sad, on so many levels!

Knowing the friend who sent the text, I understand that their response is based on fear. They’ve never even linked to me on Facebook, because they were afraid of being seen by friends and family as being associated with a “druggie”. Similarly, last year a potential girlfriend said (after admitting that she was attracted to me), “my friends would never understand me going out with a drug user”.

For too many people, all I am and all I’ll ever be is summed up by the toxic and stigmatising label: Drug User.
 

This is the reality of the stigma that people like myself experience on a daily basis. But the oppression inherent in this attitude poisons the lives of literally millions of Australia’s illicit drug users, who have yet to come out about their life choices and have instead chosen to live their lives in the shadow of their fear.

But fear works both ways and it is the worst thing to give into. I say this after having spent decades of my life allowing my fears to dominate who I was, and who I could become.

Certainly, in many ways, I always been far less fearful than many of my peers, doing things such as joining the army, rappelling from tall buildings and any one of a number of stupid and dangerous things that could have gotten me killed.

But when I look back at my life until even a couple of years ago, I my experience is of a man paralysed with fear in so many different ways, especially when it came to relationships and friendships. By far, the emotion that has lead to the worst regrets of my life has been fear. Inevitably it seems that when I’ve acted badly towards others, the underlying problem has been a because I was afraid that if I communicated, or acted honestly, I would be rejected or hurt.

Without my even realising it, FEAR ruled the first 40 years of my life. So, I never discovered that if we never face our fears, we never learn that they are figments of our imagination, rather than actual slices of reality. 

And then one day, during 2010, I felt “Enough!”

I was sick of pretending to be someone who I wasn’t, so went public about who I really was. For once, I faced my fear. But in facing my fear, I discovered my True Self!

I discovered that giving into the fear is the one thing that gives them power over us. Once we challenge them, we discover that, while they contain a hint of truth, fears are most often illusions of our own creation. Once we see them for the trap they are, we can see that there is a reality that we can create that exists beyond those fears.

And it is Beautiful! 🙂

Ironically, much of what I had feared has come to pass. I am unemployable in my chosen profession (counselling; who wants a counsellor who is a “druggie”?) and unable to complete a Masters degree in Psychology. I have been rejected by some of those who I cared about the most. At times, I have felt more isolated than I could ever have imagined.

But, despite everything, my life has a story and that story is filled with meaning and purpose. Intriguingly, despite all the setbacks, I’ve never once doubted that my path is the one that I am supposed to be on and that the story I am telling, through my actions and deeds, is one that needs to be told.

But fear isn’t something that ever disappears. Like some terrible phoenix, new fears always arise out of the ashes of the old. My recent fear of getting arrested was only the latest to crumble before the reality of its occurrence. My fear of going to prison shimmers before me and who knows what other fears will loom ahead?

The difference between who I was and who I am today is that I recognise that to give into fear is to give up hope and to give up growth. Today, I’m so poor that church mice lend me money (banks stopped doing that ages ago…) and things are often very difficult, but my life has been enriched in ways that even I still don’t fully understand.

Granted, I’m hardly the poster child for not allowing your fears to govern your life. But if it came down to a choice between being isolated because of who I am and what I believe, or living a life of fear and lies, I am more than happy to be the man in my shoes!

Fear robs us of far more than the opportunities to enrich our lives through facing the challenges life throws at us.

By giving into fear, people like my friend who sent the text, are going to spend their Eternity never being friends with the truly admirable people who have been arrested because they sought to stand up for freedom from oppression. Without the courage to confront their fears, such people will dump some of the greatest human beings in their lives and will be diminished accordingly.

My friends will never allow themselves to know Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr, Lady Constance Georgina Bulwer-Lytton, Martin Niemoller**, Ghandi, or any of the millions of wonderful, but nameless people I could mention, if only history had bothered to record their sacrifice. Heck, more than half the world’s population literally worship a guy who got arrested!

Now, lest should the mindless hordes of Social Media take offence that I should be comparing myself to these great people, I would simply say that as of 19 April, 2016, I now share with each of these worthies the distinction of having being arrested in the course of fighting against bigotry and for freedoms that others in my society already enjoy.

However, my courage in doing so is greatly diminished by the obvious fact that unlike each of these people, I am not fighting a dictatorial system and it is highly unlikely that anyone is going to beat, or kill me (although I have been abused on several occasions) for standing up for freedom. So, no in the courage department, I am definitely not in the league of these great men and women.

However, the point of this post isn’t to bitch about how poorly some people might treat me***, nor is it to bask in the glow of other’s achievements. Its not even about trying to convince others to “come out of the closet” and join me in openly, honestly and fearlessly proclaiming who they are (Although that wouldn’t be such a bad thing if we all went public. They can’t arrest 15% of the population!)

Rather, I simply seek to point out the truth that if you allow your fears to rule your life, you’ll be missing out on the very best that Eternity has to offer.

In 2012, before I began my 28 day hunger strike one of my former colleagues said that she despaired for what had happened to me and my career in the two years since I had gone public. She asked me what I would think if on my deathbed I looked back and all I had to show for my life was failure and unfulfilled potential.

My reply was that if I were on my deathbed, my biggest regret would be if I lived the “normal” life, because I was rendered inert by my fears and failed to take the difficult path that I knew in my heart to be the right one.

A life worth living isn’t a life of popularity, ease, wealth, or even “success” however it is defined by society, or even the self. It is a life of meaning and purpose, spent facing down your fears and finding the strength to overcome the challenges that are inevitably thrown your way. Live your life being controlled by your fears and you’ll not only be living a life not of your own choosing, but you’ll never have the courage to see the very best of yourself and your own potential for greatness.

Facing your fears is risky for all sorts of reasons, but do you really want to spend Eternity trapped inside them? Doesn’t that sound a lot like Hell?

So, in the words of Susan Jeffers “Feel the fear and do it anyway”! ****

 

*NOTE: As of the time of this writing, I do not actually have a “criminal record”. While I have been arrested and charged with the possession of LSD, any conviction is months, or even years away.

 

**Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for the quotation:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

 

***OK. Maybe just a little! 😉

 

****Ironically, I read this book when it first came out and have spoken about it endlessly with dozens, if not hundreds of people, without ever realising just how little I had grasped its true meaning. Or perhaps I did, but was far too successful a hypocrite to ever notice my own lies to myself.

Drug Law Reform, Religion, Transcendent Compounds

Putting drug policy on Trial after LSD arrest

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Last week, on 19th April, 2016, I was arrested for the possession of LSD as I went to celebrate Bicycle Day, by taking a single tab of LSD on the steps of the Victorian Parliament House, much as I have done on four previous occasions. As always, the intent of the protest is “to achieve regulated access to Transcendent Compounds for spiritual and religious use” and my actions are in protest of the Victorian Government’s continued denial of fundamental Human Rights that are available to Victorians of fairly much every other spiritual and religious belief.

 

Saasha after Greg Kasarik's Arrest for LSD possession

Greg Kasarik’s Golden Retriever, Saasha waits patiently for his return after his arrest for LSD possession. In the background is the sign he bought with him on the day, which is titled, “Tripping on the Steps with LSD”

Now that I have been arrested myself and other members of Community of Infinite Colour (Australia) Incorporated along with other supporters will be using it as an opportunity to put the Victorian Government’s drug policies on trial!

Given our past experiences, none of us expected me to be arrested and initially, there was some fluffing about by the Protective Service Officers, as they seemed unsure as to whether the best course of action. I made it clear that I was cool if they arrested me, but I would rather take my tab, make our protest and enjoy and afternoon of sunshine, chilled music and chatting with people.

This came to an immediate end, once a uniformed Police Sergeant came on the scene and was informed of my intention to take LSD, at which point he made an immediate, unhesitating decision to arrest and my fate, was sealed!

I was in possession of two tabs of LSD. One which I have been carrying around with me for the last several years, so that if the politicians ever got off their arses I could be arrested at any stage.

This was also the tab that I carried into police stations on three separate occasions, in 2013, when I sought to inform the police of what I did and to invite them to arrest me if they so wished.  On each occasion, the police made it clear that they had better things to worry about than someone who is actually admitting to a crime!

Not that anyone can really blame them. LSD is not a nasty drug like alcohol and doesn’t have the same disastrous impacts on emergency service members, as they strive to keep our citizens and communities safe and well.

The second tab of LSD was carried in a book called “Why Good Things Happen to Good People“, by Dr Stephen Post.* More specifically, it was at the beginning of Chapter 6, which discusses “The Way of Courage: Speak Up, Speak Out”.  Hopefully, in deliberately getting arrested, when I could have simply stayed home, I have shown some small degree of courage.

After my arrest, I was taken to the police precinct in Docklands, interviewed, fingerprinted and released on bail, with a court date of 28 September 2016.

All in all, I couldn’t have been more impressed with the courtesy, respect and good humour demonstrated by the police during my time in custody. Although I suspect that they were more than a bit bemused the circumstances of it all and grateful for my own willing participation in their processes.

I should also express thanks to the PSOs, who looked after my wonderful dog, Saasha and my friend Nick Wallis from Enpsychedelia, and a certain gent by the name of Adam, who took her under their care until I could pick her up.

Upon release from court, I was in contact with members of the scientific and Alcohol and Other Drug research community who were happy to let me know that I had their support and that they’d make sure that when I face the supreme court, I have the appropriate expert witnesses on my side.

At the international level, I have been in touch with the founder of one of the world’s leading research organisation and informed that we have his “full support!!” (for clarity, the exclamations are his!!)

As I’ve made clear in a number of previous posts, the scientific consensus regarding Transcendent Compounds, is clear. And getting clearer by the day!

With the scientific research community expressing support, from here, we will be looking at obtaining competent legal advice. Prior to my arrest, I was in contact with a couple of high profile lawyers, but they have expressed concerns as to whether I would be successful in obtaining a referral to the Supreme Court on religious, or spiritual grounds. However, if needs be I will defend myself in court, as the facts of the matter are both straightforward and uncontestable.

We will be using the legal argument that I have developed over the last five years and it is our intention to make full use of the Victorian Charter of Human Rights Act (2006) and its protections of:

“the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief, including- … the freedom to demonstrate his or her religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching, either individually or as part of a community, in public or in private.”

Personally, I believe that we will have no issues with allaying the concerns of the lawyers. The spiritual and religious use of Transcendent Compounds is an ancient practice that predates the Government’s “War on Drug Users” by thousands of years and will, if we have any say in the matter, still be a crucial aspect of religious practice tens of thousands of years after the small minded, bigoted instigators of this useless, intolerant “war” (and myself for that matter) are all forgotten in the dust of archeology.

During my interview with the police, I specifically requested that the police prosecutor on the day of my appearance at the Melbourne Magistrate’s Court support referring the case to the Victorian Supreme Court, because if I am merely convicted and sentenced on that day, then on the very next day, I (and possibly others) will be back on the steps for a rinse and repeat and will keep it up until such a time as I am able to get to the Victorian Supreme Court and put the Victorian Government’s discriminatory drug policies on trial!

Fact is having being arrested once, its a bit of “been there, done that” and any further arrests will be more of a nuisance than anything.

We will be keeping everyone up to date on developments both here at kasarik.com and through social media and whatever other outlets we can.

However, one exciting bit of news is that in the coming months, the religious not-for-profit, “Community of Infinite Colour (Australia) Incorporated” will be opening its doors to the public in the Melbourne suburb of Bayswater.

While it is our intent to offer the kinds of counselling and pastoral services found in any religious organisation, we’ll also be conducting happiness workshops and helping people to discover their own special niche within the Infiniverse!

As a post-dogmatic religion and based on the “Principles” Community’s role isn’t to tell you what to believe, but rather to help you discover what most makes sense to you and to help you become the most fulfilled, compassionate and joyous person that you can be.

We also don’t take ourselves too seriously, which is why my official title (as spiritual leader) within the group is “Herder of Cats“. Which actually describes what I try to do quite well indeed! 🙂

However, one of our purposes states that we will:

“Promote, foster and facilitate the safe use of Transcendent and Sacred Compounds as individually valid, although not communally necessary, expressions of spiritual practice and Divine connection”.

So, despite the fact that we won’t be distributing Transcendent Compounds on the premises, it probably won’t be terribly long before the whole “psychedelic religion” thing gets picked up by the media and things get interesting once more! 🙂

Stay tuned for more! 🙂

*NOTE: Not sure if Dr Stephen Post will appreciate the sublimity surrounding his inclusion in the days festivities.

I encourage everyone to buy and read his book, which is all about how being generous is, in and of itself, a huge contributor to the health and wellbeing of generous people.