"How many vermin are infesting our high schools and colleges?"
'Rep. Hanley here uses the same metaphor for condemning persons who use or sell illegal drugs that the Nazis used to justify murdering Jews by poisoned gas -- namely that the persecuted persons are not human beings but "vermin."' [See ]
Prohibition turned habituation into addiction by creating a wide variety of problems for users, including potential arrest, tainted or absent drug supply, and extreme stigmatization.
Philip Jenkins reports that Rophynol had positive uses for treating mental disorders until the media called it the "date rape drug." We thus punished those who were benefitting from the drug, tho' the biggest drug culprit in date rape is alcohol. Oprah spread the fear virally.
Someday the world will realize that Freud's real achievement was his discovery of the depression-busting power of cocaine.
In 2017 alone, 1,632,921 drug arrests were made with 85.5 percent of those solely for possession. -- War On Us
Racist drug warriors make cities dangerous with drug prohibition -- then they use that danger as an excuse to send in the National Guard.
If NIDA covered all drugs (not just politically ostracized drugs), they'd produce articles like this: "Aspirin continues to kill hundreds." "Penicillin misuse approaching crisis levels." "More bad news about Tylenol and liver damage." "Study revives cancer fears from caffeine."
People are talking about re-scheduling psilocybin, but they miss the point. We need to DE-schedule everything. It's anti-scientific to conclude in advance that any drug has no uses -- and it's a lie too, of course. End drug scheduling altogether! It's childish and wrong.
Some outlawed drugs grow new neurons in the brain. To refuse to use them makes us complicit in the dementia of our loved ones!
Psychiatrists never acknowledge the biggest downside to modern antidepressants: the fact that they turn you into a patient for life. That's demoralizing, especially since the best drugs for depression are outlawed by the government.
Ann Lemke's case studies make the usual assumptions: getting free from addiction is a morality tale. No reference to how the drug war promotes addiction and how banned drugs could solve such problems. She does not say why daily SSRI use is acceptable while daily opium use is not. Etc.
(up)