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Who's your favorite pothead of all time?


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Carl Sagan

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The late astronomer and author, Carl Sagan was a secret but avid marijuana smoker, crediting it with inspiring essays and scientific insight, according to Sagan's biographer.

Using the pseudonym "Mr. X'', Sagan wrote about his pot smoking in an essay published in the 1971 book "Reconsidering Marijuana.'' The book's editor, Lester Grinspoon, recently disclosed the secret to Sagan's biographer, Keay Davidson.

Davidson, a writer for the San Francisco Examiner, revealed the marijuana use in an article published in the newspaper's magazine Sunday. "Carl Sagan: A Life'' is due out in October.

"I find that today a single joint is enough to get me high ... in one movie theater recently I found I could get high just by inhaling the cannabis smoke which permeated the theater,'' wrote Sagan, who authored popular science books such as "Cosmos,'' "Contact,'' and "The Dragons of Eden.''

In the essay, Sagan said marijuana inspired some of his intellectual work.

"I can remember one occasion, taking a shower with my wife while high, in which I had an idea on the origins and invalidities of racism in terms of gaussian distribution curves,'' wrote the former Cornell University professor. "I wrote the curves in soap on the shower wall, and went to write the idea down.

Sagan also wrote that pot enhanced his experience of food, particularly potatoes, music and sex.

Grinspoon, Sagan's closest friend for 30 years, said Sagan's marijuana use is evidence against the notion that marijuana makes people less ambitious.

"He was certainly highly motivated to work, to contribute,'' said Grinspoon, a psychiatry professor at Harvard University.

Grinspoon is an advocate of decriminalizing marijuana.

Ann Druyan, Sagan's former wife, is a director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. The nonprofit group promotes legalization of marijuana.

more....

US: Billions and Billions of '60s Flashbacks

By Keay Davidson — 22 Aug 1999, San Francisco Examiner

[Davidson is Carl Sagan's Biographer]

For young people of the '60s and '70s, marijuana use was a rite of passage. To the very youngest, smoking the illegal drug was the boldest way to rebel against parental and governmental authority. But many young adults used "weed" too.

The term "groves of academe" took on a new meaning in universities, where the spiky-leaved plants grew vigorously and covertly under ultraviolet lamps in dormitory closets. Carl >Sagan had been a regular marijuana user from the early '60s on. He believed the drug enhanced his creativity and insights. His closest friend of three decades, Harvard psychiatry professor Dr. Lester Grinspoon, a leading advocate of the decriminalization of marijuana, recalls an incident in the '80s when one of his California admirers mailed him, unsolicited, some unusually high-quality pot.

Grinspoon shared the joints with >Sagan and his last wife, Ann Druyan. Afterward >Sagan said, "Lester, I know you've only got one left, but could I have it? I've got serious work to do tomorrow and I could really use it."

Grinspoon's 1971 book "Marihuana Reconsidered" included a long essay by an unidentified "Mr. X," who described his happy experiences with the drug. The essay identified Mr. X as "a professor at one of the top-ranking American universities" but disguised his identity by saying he was "in his early forties."

...please read more....:)

http://www.druglibrary.org/think/~jnr/sagan.htm

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Carl Sagan

sagan.gif

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The late astronomer and author, Carl Sagan was a secret but avid marijuana smoker, crediting it with inspiring essays and scientific insight, according to Sagan's biographer...

Wow. I admire this guy so much. Some of my all-time favorite quotes are from Sagan... my long-abandoned career pathway (now turned hobby) was astrophysics. Thanks so much for your post!

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