Possibly he wanted a subjective understanding of the effects of drugs?
I tried lsd back in late 60's, early 70's. I tried other stuff too, but lsd was interesting to me. What lsd does (in my opinion) is push a person straight thru his case to exteriorize. So, he experiences exteriorization (which feels good), but he activates whatever pictures he had to push thru. Thus a person can hallucinate space ships or ancient Egypt, or whatever.
I have often wondered what effect lsd would give me today, with so much auditing behind me. But I don't "wonder" enough to go find some. Also, I don't want to mess up my sessionability.
All the drugs seem to have some piece of case they APPEAR to make better. And also some case they give you. Heroin, for instance suppresses pain, fear, and wanting. Methedrine suppresses lethargy. Those things, tho, key in greater when the drug wears off.
I can see some very inquisitive resercher wanting to study drugs on an intimate level, possibly try to flatten all rsponse to some drugs. Unadvisable, but Ron never accepted limits when he did something.
I'm not saying it happened that way, just offering an alternative possibility.
Dove
I find that an interesting comment, although I wonder about it's applicability to all classes of drugs. I have suffered (unknowingly) since 3 years age from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Once it really takes hold, pain is a way of life.
Heroin is an addictive drug, as is well documented. Methodone is a synthetic replacement intended to reduce the withdrawal from Heroin--yet addicts seem to take years of the stuff to kick the habit, or in some cases they sell their methodone in order to buy more heroin.
Methodone in its own right is supposed to be non-addictive and I have heard of it being prescribed to CFS patients to deal with the ongoing pain--in this case it is supposed to be non-addictive but a brilliant pain-killer (haven't tried it myself, doctors where I live are too conservative).
I found that even at Div6 level, $cn seemed to mostly attract people who already had at least a passing interest in SF*, and it occurred to me that many activities are people chasing "positive" restimulation. SF fen chase the "restimulation" of "space travel, ships, etc.", Rugby/gridiron fen are chasing the "restim" of gladiatorial blood sports while the participants must be dramatizing aspects of being in the same arena.
*Actually it was the suggestion that all this SF stuff was genuine that kept me attached to Nerd Central. But I did propose that some people were chasing "postive" restimulation.
Perhaps Soccer hooligans are re-enacting the Crusades?
This is an incoherent mixture of opinions, I'm not intending to "evaluate" for earthlings.
Sorry if my spelling is out of whack, but I'm under the influence of sleepers, and trying to type this in the dark. Perhaps when I wake up again, I'll be full of glycol and frozen in a block of ice...
Agaom. apologies for spelling from typing in the dark under the effect of sleepers...
