Addiction Condition brought about by drug prohibition thanks to which users have limited choices and are not educated in the rules of safe drug use. This condition is aggravated by the Iron Law of Prohibition, which states that the outlawing of one drug leads to the sale of more potentially dangerous replacements on the black market1.
Drug A psychoactive substance of which racist and xenophobic politicians disapprove, chiefly because they associate its use with people whom they dislike. As opposed to "med" (which see).
Drug testing A blatant violation of Fourth Amendment rights designed to remove Christian Science heretics from the workforce. Note that this testing is not designed merely to flag impairment: instead it flags the mere trace of substances of which politicians disapprove and uses such findings as an excuse to remove the heretic from the American workforce, through a non-judicial process, without so much as a trial or even the filing of charges. This is cruel and unusual punishment, denying the "flagged" individual the right to earn a living2345.
MDMA A substance that Drug Warriors hate because it brings about nothing but peace, love and understanding, which they cannot abide67.
Med A psychoactive substance of which politicians approve because it turns users into wards of the healthcare state without empowering them to live large8.
Opioid Use Disorder The correct name for this condition is actually Prohibition Disorder, but our government is in denial. Our country does everything it can to make drug use as dangerous as possible and then turns around and blames the victim when they have issues with use: nay, they invent entire new diseases to account for the problems that they themselves are causing with their drug prohibition, their refusal to educate, and their refusal to regulate product as to dosage and quality91011.
Self-censorship Practiced by almost all American authors, especially in the non-fiction genre. This is why one can enter an American library and search in vain for books that speak positively of time-honored panaceas like coca and opium1213.
The DEA The American Gestapo. The DEA uses America's ignorant terror of psychoactive medicines as an excuse to wreck houses, confiscate property and throw otherwise law-abiding citizens in jail141516.
The media called out Trump for fearmongering about immigrants, but the media engages in fearmongering when it comes to drugs. The latest TV plot line: "white teenage girl forced to use fentanyl!" America loves to feel morally superior about "drugs."
That's how antidepressants came about: the idea that sadness was a simple problem that science could solve. Instead of being caused by a myriad of interrelated issues, we decided it was all brain chemistry that could be treated with precision. Result? Mass chemical dependency.
Today's war against drug users is like Elizabeth I's war against Catholics. Both are religious crackdowns. For today's oppressors, the true faith (i.e., the moral way to live) is according to the drug-hating religion of Christian Science.
Americans are starting to think that psychedelics may be an exception to the rule that drugs are evil -- but drugs have never been evil. The evil resides in how we think, talk and legislate about drugs.
The DEA conceives of "drugs" as only justifiable in some time-honored ritual format, but since when are bureaucrats experts on religion? I believe, with the Vedic people and William James, in the importance of altered states. To outlaw such states is to outlaw my religion.
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 Hindu religion was inspired by drug use.
Someday the world will realize that Freud's real achievement was his discovery of the depression-busting power of cocaine.
I can't imagine Allen Ginsberg writing "Howl!" while under the influence of mood-damping drugs like Inderal and Prozac -- but then maybe that's the point: the powers-that-be do not want poets writing poems like "Howl!"
Unless otherwise indicated, no AI is used in the creation of site content. These essays represent the original ideas of their author and not the ideas that the author SHOULD have based on an algorithmic parsing of existing data. For more on this subject, consider the AI-related viewpoints to which the author subscribes as delineated in the New York Times opinion piece entitled "What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity" by Rebecca Winthrop of the Brookings Institution.
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