I have made it clear in multiple essays now how it was always a category error to place materialist doctors in charge of mind and mood medicine123. This is because materialists are behaviorists when it comes to human psychology and so are dogmatically obliged to ignore all obvious benefits of drug use. They rely instead on quantitative analyses and glimpses under a microscope. The fact that drug use has inspired entire religions is of no importance to them4. Dr. Robert Glatter volunteered himself as the poster child for this purblind outlook on drugs and drug use when he wrote an article in 2021 for Forbes magazine entitled "Can Laughing Gas Help People with Treatment Resistant Depression?"5 What a pass the world has come to when a scientist can ask such a question without being laughed off of the public stage. Of course laughing gas could help! Such incredulity on Glatter's part only makes sense when we ignore the obvious and look instead for answers under a microscope. William James certainly knew the inspirational qualities of laughing gas 6. As for myself, I can say with certainty that my depression would be cured for life if I could but intermittently use substances like laughing gas according to a strategic therapeutic schedule. There is absolutely no question about this, even if scientists cannot find a way to quantify this fact for use in a PowerPoint presentation. Such use would give me the therapeutic breaks that I would need from my depression while making the "down" times far less problematic, thanks to the therapeutic value of the anticipation that I would feel about my intermittent use.
This is all psychological common sense. It is blazingly obvious. No wonder then that scientists embrace the inhumane philosophy of JB Watson 78. If they failed to do so, they would have to protest the War on Drugs, or else realize that they were being cringing and cowardly in the face of academic censorship9. Instead, the doctrine of behaviorism throws them a lifeline by giving a veneer of "science" to their inability to see any positive uses for the psychoactive substances that our politicians have demonized as "drugs."
What I failed to realize, however, is that this category error naturally leads to the censorship of free speech about drugs10. After all, if doctors are really the experts when it comes to psychoactive drug use, then only THEY can talk about drugs "advisedly." If a layperson dares point to out that there are any positive qualities to certain drug use, they are thought to be giving medical advice and so can be censored on the grounds of public safety. I have encountered this censorship myself, from a source where I would not have expected it. The Mad in America website solicits autobiographies from those seeking to get off of dependence-causing antidepressants 11, but when I submitted my story, they refused to publish it1213. Why? Because I found that demonized medicines had benefited me in the withdrawal process. That was part of my life story. I merely reported this as the fact that it was, but this was a red flag for the M-I-A editors. They felt that my honesty could be construed as medical advice, you see. It seemed that I could only get published by lying about my life. And who did they think should be giving medical advice? Why, the very people who had gotten me started on the dependence-causing medicines in the first place: our materialist doctors!
Actually, there are at least two causes of censorship working together here. In addition to the misguided assumption that honesty about drugs is the same as medical advice, the editors were also clearly influenced by the Drug Warrior's notion that Americans are children when it comes to outlawed substances: that we have a duty NOT to educate them about such substances but rather to make them fear and loathe the substances that our politicians have ruled beyond the pale -- when used by any demographic, for any reason, at any dose, ever.
If any free speech about drugs manages to survive this censorship, then the Drug Warriors haul out their tired dictum that it is wrong to "glorify drug use," and this in a country in which Jim Beam vodka runs nightly TV ads targeted at young people1415.
This censorship is increasingly hardwired into the Internet with the help of algorithms, written apparently by philosophically clueless techies. That's why I find sites like Reddit to be creepy and Kafkaesque161718. Any criticism of drug policy that conflicts with the prohibitionist pieties of the brainwashed mainstream is subject to sudden and anonymous suppression, and this without explanation, or else with an explanation that makes no sense whatsoever. When I tried to criticize federal drug policy in a review that I uploaded to Archive.org, it was automatically deleted as "spam."19 Apparently, techies now consider inconvenient truths to qualify as spam whenever the subject is drugs. What a joke when I think how techies used to praise the Internet for bringing free speech to the world. I sent over 20 snail-mail letters by way of protest to the Archive staff at 300 Funston Avenue in San Francisco -- including Alexis Rossi, Jason Scott, Joy Chesbrough, and Mark Graham -- and not one of them bothered to reply, even by email. The court in Kafka's "Trial" was more responsive than are the mavens of censorship in the Internet age.
Only scientists can talk about drug use these days, and only when they couch their discussion in scientific terms about uptake inhibitors and chemical pathways. A passionate defense of holistic and common sense healing is tacitly illegal. This is why the Internet is full of sites about misuse and abuse of "drugs," with scarcely any sites extoling their benefits unashamedly. The impression that this censorship leaves -- and which it is meant to leave -- is that positive use of drugs is a contradiction in terms. And so Americans are indoctrinated "know-nothings" on this subject -- and all thanks to the category error of placing materialist doctors in charge of mind and mood medicine.
One well-known example of this Drug War censorship was the banning of the 2013 Ted Talk by Graham Hancock entitled "The War on Consciousness."20
Unfortunately, however, even Graham's "free" speech was influenced by Drug War propaganda. He makes it clear that he considers cocaine and heroin 21 to be beyond the pale. He thereby falls victim to the drug-warrior habit of judging drugs in the abstract without regard for details. He recognizes the folly of that approach on the subject of marijuana, making it clear that his modern distaste for the drug is not meant to be a judgment on other users of the drug. And yet he is more than happy to assume that anyone who uses cocaine or heroin is making a mistake. This, again, is the original sin of the Drug Warrior: to convince us to judge drugs rather than the uses to which they are put. The Drug Warrior opened up a Pandora's box of individual opinions about specific drugs. And yet to ask questions like "Is cocaine good or bad" is like asking "Is H2O water, steam or ice?" Such questions are nonsensical -- and even presumptuous -- until we talk about details: the person using, their goals in life, their biochemistry, their frequency of use, their goals for use, their genetics, their education level, etc. etc. etc. Instead, Graham just makes the breezy assumption that such drugs cannot be used wisely by anyone and so moves on. He thereby reminds us that Drug War propaganda has affected everyone, even those who might seem at first blush to have seen through the colonialist and anti-scientific ideology of substance prohibition.
Coca is not the problem, Graham. Nor is heroin. Nor is opium 22 . Nor is morphine . Nor is Fentanyl 23 . Nor is 'crack' cocaine .
The problem is our insistence on judging these substances in the abstract, without regard for context. All psychoactive substances have potential benefits for specific people, in specific situations, at specific dosages, alone or in specific drug combinations, etc. In other words, details matter, Graham, not just for marijuana use but for all drug use! Just as laughing gas could help me get off of Effexor24, so could the informed use of a wide variety of drugs that inspire and elate -- yes, even if they are potentially addictive in specific use scenarios. This is why it is so wrong of Graham to breezily blow off cocaine and heroin as dangerous moral snares, especially as those substances are so dangerous today precisely because of drug prohibition, which refuses to teach safe use, refuses to regulate drug supply as to quantity and quality, and refuses to re-legalize the seemingly endless alternatives to cocaine and heroin. Yet Graham gives the impression that "Mother Ayahuasca" shares our own Drug War prejudices about psychoactive substances and that she too believes that cocaine 2526 and heroin are evil and beyond the pale. (Really, Mama? At what dosages are they evil and in which situations? You're not trying to tell me that they are evil incarnate, are you???) Whereas, if that goddess understands anything, it is surely the fact that ill-advised use of any substance can be problematic -- and that the mere naming of a substance should not entail any judgment whatsoever!
Let me end by elaborating on just one common-sense way in which outlawed medicines could be used wisely in a free world -- thereby pushing back against this inane idea that our doctors are the experts when it comes to psychoactive medicines.
Take me, again. In a free world, I would get the help of what I call a "pharmacologically savvy empath"27 to get off of the Effexor that I am currently on. The withdrawal schedule would be gradual -- something that is actually impossible without seeking out the help of a compounding pharmacist, but that's another story. During the withdrawal process, I would have regular strategically spaced mental "vacations" on drugs that inspire and elate, whether for 30 minutes or for an entire afternoon. On Day 1, I might use the phenethylamine that prompted the following user report in "Pihkal" by Alexander Shulgin:
"The entire experience was exquisite. Next day, same sense of serene, quiet joy/beauty persisted for most of the day. A true healing potential."28
On day 7 -- a particularly sunny day -- I might even use morphine to help me appreciate Mother Nature a la the character Augustus Bedloe in "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains," a short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
"In the meantime the morphine 29 had its customary effect- that of enduing all the external world with an intensity of interest. In the quivering of a leaf- in the hue of a blade of grass- in the shape of a trefoil- in the humming of a bee- in the gleaming of a dew-drop- in the breathing of the wind- in the faint odors that came from the forest- there came a whole universe of suggestion- a gay and motley train of rhapsodical and immethodical thought."30
A random variety of such inspiring drug use would take place with the goal of keeping me on the path of Effexor withdrawal, without giving up. This is crucial, because in the old days, I would relapse thanks to just one or two hours of intense existential angst -- whereas such angst could be avoided and obfuscated with the use of drugs that inspire and elate. Again, this is all psychological common sense -- even though it will clash with the behaviorist notion that only the lab-coated behaviorist can tell me what will work for my own mind and mood concerns.
It is just as if America had placed Dr. Spock of Star Trek in charge of determining the propriety of drug use. I may tell him that I find common-sense relief in the occasional use of a wide variety of demonized substances, but he will respond dispassionately as follows:
"That is highly illogical, Brian. I need to look at your biochemistry before I can agree with you that you are REALLY feeling any relief whatsoever."
Then if I say, "But look at me, Spock, I am laughing out loud!"
"Yes," Spock will say, "but are you REALLY being helped with your depression? That will take me years of well-funded studies to determine scientifically. Meanwhile, please stop embarrassing me with your unscientific laughter."
"And what about my life story in the 'Galactic Times'?"
"We obviously cannot publish that, Brian, since your positive use of laughing gas 31 might give people ideas. We do not want other patients to begin thinking that they can be cured without the help of medical science."
This is why we would rather have a depressed person commit suicide than to use "drugs" -- because drugs, after all, are not dealing with the "real" problem. The patient may SAY that drugs make them feel good, but we need microscopes to find out if they REALLY feel good.
Two weeks ago, a guy told me that most psychiatrists believe ECT is great. I thought he was joking! I've since come to realize that he was telling the truth: that is just how screwed up the healthcare system is today thanks to drug war ideology and purblind materialism.
Countless millions suffer needlessly in silence because of America's fearmongering about drugs.
This is why America is creeping toward authoritarianism -- because of the prohibitionists' ability to get away with everything by blaming "drugs." The fact that Americans still fall for this crap represents a kind of collective pathology.
We throw people out of jobs for using "drugs," we praise them for using "meds." The categories are imaginary, made up by politicians who want to demonize certain substances, but not cigs or beer.
But that's the whole problem with Robert Whitaker's otherwise wonderful critique of Big Pharma. Like almost all non-fiction authors today, he reckons without the drug war, which gave Big Pharma a monopoly in the first place.
Trump is the prototypical drug warrior. He knows that he can destroy American freedoms by fearmongering. He has seen it work with the Drug War, which got rid of the 4th Amendment, religious freedom and is now going after free speech.
There are times when it is clearly WRONG to deny kids drugs (whatever the law may say). If your child is obsessed with school massacres, he or she is an excellent candidate for using empathogenic meds ASAP -- or do we prefer even school shootings to drug use???
Americans believe scientists when they say that drugs like MDMA are not proven effective. That's false. They are super effective and obviously so. It's just that science holds entheogenic medicines to the standards of reductive materialism. That's unfair and inappropriate.
The best harm-reduction strategy is to re-legalize drugs.
This is why we would rather have a depressed person commit suicide than to use "drugs" -- because drugs, after all, are not dealing with the "real" problem. The patient may SAY that drugs make them feel good, but we need microscopes to find out if they REALLY feel good.
