he interests of capitalism dictate what politician-led Americans can think about substances. Psychoactive plant medicine need merely cause a problem for one demented youth and our politicians easily convince us that the substance must be eradicated from the face of the earth. Meanwhile if a Big Pharma antidepressant causes weight gain and suicide, we dismiss these as "bad reactions," essentially blaming the victim for their oddball reaction to the drugs, while insisting that the substance in question is a godsend for the vast majority of the depressed.
This is not surprising since unfettered capitalism has a history of keeping problems from being solved if the solution would negatively affect stock values. That's why we have no quick answers to heart problems and cancer, since the obvious solution would be for Americans to cut back drastically on red meat, and yet the American Heart Association is supported by precisely those industries that would lose out given such a truly scientific approach. Therefore such agencies are like OJ Simpson vowing to spend his life searching for the guy who killed his wife. If they truly wanted to find the reason for heart disease (etc.) in America, they'd take one long look in the mirror.
We'd have been driving electrically powered cars a century ago, using free electricity and cell phones too, except that capitalism quashed these inventions because they merely empowered humanity rather than the all-important stockholder.
Author's Follow-up:
It seems that capitalism requires a Drug War to exist. Capitalism depends on the glorification of things and the money to buy them -- and if we legalize the sorts of medicine that inspired the Hindu religion, God knows how American priorities would change. Surely, the need to keep up with the Jones's would be jettisoned.
In "The Man in the Crowd," Edgar Allan Poe quoted the philosopher La Bruyère to the following effect:
"Ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir être seul."
In other words, the main problem with today's Homo sapiens is their inability to be alone, that is, to live with themselves. I think of this quote whenever I see male protestors on the street wrecking the place in the name of doubtful causes. It is interesting that these are usually males, by the way, that women generally seem to be able to live with themselves and stay at home without feeling that they are missing out. These arsonists and vandals are people who never feel so alive as when they are in a crowd and acting up -- but place them at home alone with themselves with time on their hand, and they go crazy.
Now, drugs that elate and inspire can actually change that status quo. If you allow a human being to see a world in a grain of sand -- or simply to see mother nature more clearly and profoundly -- their need for superfluous commodities would be mitigated -- or rather they would suddenly be aware of the superfluous nature of many if not most of the commodities that the capitalist requires them to purchase.
No wonder capitalism outlaws drugs that elate and inspire. Such drugs inspired the Hindu religion. The capitalist does not want their potential customers to reimagine the world in a way that money and products matter less. Hence the obvious connection between capitalism and the Drug War.
This is something that you can bet is not covered in most political science classes: i.e., capitalism's inherent antagonism to the legalization of psychoactive medicine. But the connection is obvious and has consequences. Just go into any drug store and check out the shelves: what you will see there are treatments for discrete human ailments based on a totally non-holistic and disease-mongering approach to human illness, one that ignores the ability of holistic-working psychoactive substances to improve overall health. Capitalism has to ignore such holism, otherwise these drug-store shelves would disappear, and all the profits with them.
Capitalism requires disease-mongering -- and disease-mongering requires the suppression of medicines that work holistically, that work by improving mood and elating the individual AND THEREFORE improving their health overall.
I can think of no greater intrusion than to deny a person autonomy over how they think and feel in life. It is sort of a meta-intrusion, the mother of all anti-democratic intrusions.
There are neither "drugs" nor "meds" as those terms are used today. All substances have potential good uses and bad uses. The terms as used today carry value judgements, as in meds good, drugs bad.
Only a pathological puritan would say that there's no place in the world for substances that lift your mood, give you endurance, and make you get along with your fellow human being. Drugs may not be everything, but it's masochistic madness to claim that they are nothing at all.
It's an enigma: If I beat my depression by smoking opium nightly, I am a drug scumbag subject to immediate arrest. But if I do NOT "take my meds" every day of my life, I am a bad patient.
Another problem with MindMed's LSD: every time I look it up on Google, I get a mess of links about the stock market. The drug is apparently a godsend for investors. They want to profit from LSD by neutering it and making it politically correct: no inspiration, no euphoria.
Alcohol is a drug in liquid form. If drug warriors want to punish people who use drugs, they should start punishing themselves.
Prohibition is a crime against humanity. It forces us to use shock therapy on the severely depressed since we've outlawed all viable alternatives. It denies medicines that could combat Alzheimer's and/or render it psychologically bearable.
Kids should be taught in grade school that prohibition is wrong.
If our loved ones should experience severe depression and visit an emergency room for treatment, they will be started on a regime of dependence-causing Big Pharma drugs. They will not be given any drugs that elate and inspire.
The "scheduling" system is completely anti-scientific and anti-patient. It tells us we can make a one-size-fits-all decision about psychoactive substances without regard for dosage, context of use, reason for use, etc. That's superstitious tyranny.
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, Capitalism and the Drug War published on April 15, 2021 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
he interests of capitalism dictate what politician-led Americans can think about substances. Psychoactive plant medicine need merely cause a problem for one demented youth and our politicians easily convince us that the substance must be eradicated from the face of the earth. Meanwhile if a Big Pharma antidepressant causes weight gain and suicide, we dismiss these as "bad reactions," essentially blaming the victim for their oddball reaction to the drugs, while insisting that the substance in question is a godsend for the vast majority of the depressed.
You have been reading an article entitled, Capitalism and the Drug War published on April 15, 2021 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
