I'm as against restricting access to drugs as I am to…

“I'm as against restricting access to drugs as I am to burning books. It offends me in the same way.”

Terence McKenna

About This Quote

This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation.

Both censorship of ideas and prohibition of substances suppress freedom of thought.

In simple terms: Censoring ideas and drugs both limit freedom.

Key Takeaway

Defend intellectual and personal liberty.

Themes

freedom censorship personal autonomy

Mood

critical thought‑provoking

Type

political ethical

When to use this quote

education
publishing
healthcare
legislation

Key Concepts

political philosophy drug policy

Questions to Reflect On

Is all restriction harmful?
How to protect society without stifling freedom?

A Different Perspective

Balancing safety with liberty is complex.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

Access Book Books Burning Books Drug Restricting Wine

More by Terence McKenna

History was an incredibly damaging experience, and now it's over . . . in a sense.

Terence McKenna

We are somehow the children of the planet, we are somehow its finest hour; we bind time, we bind the past, we anticipate the…

Terence McKenna

The history of man that you don't know is what your unconscious is made out of. Just as the history of yourself that you…

Terence McKenna

We are consciousness. We may not always be monkeys.

Terence McKenna

What is happening here is we are living past the age, by the millions, living past the age where cultural values make any sense…

Terence McKenna

What history is, essentially, is a careening, out-of-control effort to find our way back to this state of primordial balance.

Terence McKenna

And what is the primary datum? It's the felt presence of immediate experience. In other words, being here now is the primary datum.

Terence McKenna

Our culture difinitely takes an egocentric dominator view. The fear of the psychedelic experience is quite literally the fear of losing control. Dominator types…

Terence McKenna

Every step into freedom contains within it the potential for greater bondage.

Terence McKenna

This is the message of your life and my life - it’s that nothing lasts. Heraclitus said it: Panta Rhei. All flows, nothing lasts.…

Terence McKenna

I often like to think that our map of the world is wrong, that where we have centered physics, we should actually place literature…

Terence McKenna

Knowledge, or verbal facility, is no proof that you know what you're talking about.

Terence McKenna

No culture on earth is as heavily narcotized as the industrial West in terms of being inured to the consequences of maladaptive behavior. We…

Terence McKenna

Man was not put on this planet to toil in the mud. Or the god who put us on this planet to toil in…

Terence McKenna

If you take psychedelics and the Internet and music and put all of that together you have the basis for a new community that…

Terence McKenna

Explore all 745 Terence McKenna quotes

More Access quotes

Conservatism is not about leaving people behind. Conservatism is about empowering people to catch up, to give them the tools at their disposable that…

Marco Rubio

You can disseminate your art, and it's all such easy access now. The upside to it is that more people are creating than ever…

Stanley Clarke

It's the same with this idea of a literate public, and also of a democracy in which people have access to and really read…

Robert Hass

My hope is that if people have the knowledge, and if they actually see where their food comes from and have access to the…

Michael Pollan

I don't think it's always a sign of respect for persons (inside or outside of fiction) to pretend to be able to represent, to…

Ben Lerner

Leslie Stein's comics give readers privileged access to a complete and wholly original world of gently skewed wonders.

Jim Woodring

The best way to fight poverty is to empower people through access to quality education

John Legend

Because the Internet's there, I have access to a lot of the legends, like Fela Kuti. I used to watch a lot of Fela…

King Krule

There needs to be some regime that is overseeing access to broadband to make sure we have openess; otherwise, there is a risk it…

Vint Cerf

While it's wonderful that investors have access to all the data now available to them, it has become a full-time job to sift through…

Maria Bartiromo

It is truly vital for the United States to assure that it is not attacked with weapons of mass destruction; to prevent wars in…

Stephen Kinzer

Now that I'm more middle class, I have access to consumer goods. I do enjoy feminine frippery, feminine doo-da, stuff like that.

Shirley Geok-lin Lim

Schools have never been about getting access to information. That's the job of libraries. Schools and universities have nobler missions as gentle gatekeepers. Their…

Andrew Nikiforuk