"One conclusion was forced upon my mind at that time, and my impression of its truth has ever since remained unshaken. It is that our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. " --William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study In Human Nature5
Good afternoon, Professor Davis.
I enjoyed reading your article on medicalization.
At one point in that article, you ask the question, with what should we replace medicalization in cases where it is inappropriate?
I would answer that we should replace it with drug re-legalization, thereby allowing individuals to take care of their own health using time-honored medicines.
I am a 67-year-old male who has been turned into a ward of the healthcare state by the dependence-causing and underperforming meds of Big Pharma. And I was placed on those meds four decades ago only because drug prohibition had given a monopoly to the medical field when it came to dispensing psychoactive substances -- and, of course, drug prohibition gave Big Pharma a monopoly on creating such medicines. I would not have been depressed over the last four decades if I had had access merely to the plant medicines of Mother Nature, like opium and coca, to say nothing of laughing gas and the phenethylamines synthesized by Alexander Shulgin. Instead, my depression has been entirely medicalized as a result of drug prohibition, which, as I see it, has outlawed my right to heal. I am an unsung victim of drug prohibition because the depressed are never considered stakeholders in the debate over drug law.
You also refer to the elitist nature of criticizing only Big Pharma, but I don't see such criticism as elitist when it comes from a person in my situation (Note: please see footnote for important disclaimer: 7). Big Pharma has a monopoly on mind and mood medicine, after all -- so it is not a free choice that I make when I purchase their meds. In fact, it's now against my choice. I have tried in vain to get off dependence-causing Effexor, which I have found is far harder to kick than heroin, at least in a world in which we have outlawed all drugs that could help a withdrawing person to "stay the course."
I hope that you find these comments interesting. Thanks again for the interesting read.
Brian
PS It is my belief that the subject of medicalization should be discussed in light of drug prohibition. In fact, I would argue that drug prohibition has created the environment in which medicalization can flourish. The way I see it, doctors first fought to outlaw time-honored panaceas like opium and cocaine, then they started creating "illnesses" out of all of the problems created by that drug prohibition. I am not saying that life would be idyllic without drug prohibition -- I would point out, however, that no one has ever sat down and methodically attempted to create safe use protocols for a wide variety of psychoactive drugs based on best practices and historical experience and psychological common sense. This is because we have placed biochemical determinists in charge of mind and mood medicine, which I maintain was always a category error.
The main form of drug war propaganda is censorship. That's why most Americans cannot imagine any positive uses for psychoactive substances, because the media and the government won't allow that.
If opium and cocaine were re-legalized, hospital buildings would no longer be the secular cathedrals of our time. Some of that wealth would actually go to healthy people.
It is far better to "treat the symptoms" than to irreversibly modify brain chemistry in one particular way based on the theories of a financially-motivated biochemical determinist working for a pharmaceutical company.
If Fentanyl kills, then alcohol slaughters. Drug prohibition is the real killer.
Cop and detective shows are loaded with subtle drug war propaganda, including lines like, "She had a history of drug use, so..." The implication being that anyone who uses substances that politicians hate cannot be trusted.
That's the problem with prohibition. It is not ultimately a health question but a question about priorities and sensibilities -- and those topics are open to lively debate and should not be the province of science, especially when natural law itself says mother nature is ours.
The drug war is a whole wrong way of looking at the world. It tells us that substances can be judged "up" or "down," which is anti-scientific and blinds us to endless beneficial uses.
If we encourage folks to use antidepressants daily, there is nothing wrong with them using heroin daily. A founder of Johns Hopkins used morphine daily and he not only survived, but he thrived.
If America cannot exist without outlawing drugs, then there is something wrong with America, not with drugs.
When it comes to "drugs," the government plays Polonius to our Ophelia:
OPHELIA: I do not know, my lord, what I should think.
POLONIUS: Marry, I'll teach you; think yourself a baby!
(up)