I just noticed the Twitter bio of a certain NYT writer who tells us that she "quit cocaine & heroin in 1988." This got me thinking some heretical thoughts, which I formulated in the following Tweets, at the risk of a mass exodus of my five loyal followers... if five followers can be said to exit "en masse." But that's kind of like saying, "I was attacked by a horde of two, maybe three ruffians!" ... Er, but that's not important now.
Oh, and there's some notes to follow.
When people write "quit cocaine in 1988" in their bio, that's fine. That was a big moment for them given their psychological makeup and environment. For me, tho, the bio snippet would read: "Hopes to try cocaine in 2025." That makes as much sense since coke CAN be used wisely!
The problem is, many people who write that confession in their bio ("quit cocaine") figure that they've discovered a universal law: that cocaine is necessarily wrong for everybody. That evinces an unimaginative view of the psychological diversity of human beings.
I "quit valium" in 1994, but I don't include that in my bio because I don't think it's a huge thing. The only reason that quitting was "a big ask" for me was because all better drugs were outlawed -- including many that are non-addictive.
Please, nobody take offense. I just believe that in a sane world, "quitting" a given drug would not be such an earth-shattering event. When all drugs are re-legalized and used wisely, we would not find occasion to obsess about or blame any one drug.
Focusing like that on any one drug as evil (heroin, cocaine, etc.) is just the flip side of what the Drug Warrior does in demonizing them -- blaming the drug instead of prohibition, which outlaws of all of the endless alternatives to a given use pattern.
Confessions like "I quit cocaine in 1988" -- at least when featured prominently in a tiny bio -- turn cocaine into a real colossus, giving it powers to destroy that it would never have in a free world -- one in which we seek to use all psychoactive substances as wisely as possible. Again, I recognize that I do not know the person behind this particular biographical snippet, but in general, such confessions smack of the way that Drug Warriors turn drug use into a morality play. It's just, in this case, the morality play has a happy ending1 -- but the assumption behind the snippet at least seems to be that the villain of the piece was cocaine or heroin -- whereas I believe it is our failure to be adults about drugs and to learn everything we can about safe use, meanwhile legalizing the seemingly endless substances that provide the transcendence of heroin without unwanted dependence.
I would go on to state why I want to use cocaine in 2025, but that rarely spoken resolution is bound to arouse so many mistaken assumptions in the average bamboozled reader that it would take me another entire essay to unpack them. Suffice it to say, my goal in using cocaine would be to think as clearly as possible and to be productive in my work. My goal is not to go gambling in Monte Carlo with a call girl on my lap and a pocket full of blood-stained dollar bills.
Author's Follow-up: May 18, 2024
I should have mentioned, this writer actually specializes in writing on drug-related topics. With this in mind, the confession in her bio seems to be signaling the following: "I too believe that drugs are the problem and I have experience in overcoming their evil, so listen to me." So as friendly as she may be to decriminalization, she is arguing on the back foot, tacitly expressing the stubborn beliefs of the Drug War that the problem "is drugs," not prohibition and our failure to be adults and learn about substances and to use them wisely.
It's also interesting that this author specializes in neuroscience. Only in the west could a neuroscientist be deemed an expert in drugs that inspire us both psychologically and spiritually. Drug prohibition is all about limiting my ability to express myself and to live the sort of psychological and spiritual life that I want to lead. A neuroscientist has precisely zero expertise in such areas.
Someday folks will realize that there are very good reasons that one might wish to use cocaine. The idea that it can only be misused is a superstition. The superstition is basically made true, however, by prohibition, which outlaws alternatives and refuses to teach safe use.
And, of course, if all that doesn't ruin your life, then the DEA and company will do the ruining for you by putting you in a cage. That's why I say we live in the Dark Ages, where attempts to achieve great mental clarity are punished with lengthy prison stretches.
In fact, nothing against "drinkers," but there are far more good reasons to use cocaine than there are to drink whiskey. Except, of course, that whiskey drinking won't get you thrown in the pen and treated like a scumbag.
Cocaine
Cocaine can be used wisely, believe it or not. Just ask Carl Hart. Or Graham Norton, the UK's quixotic answer to Johnny Carson. Just ask the Peruvian Indians, who have chewed the coca leaf for stamina and inspiration since Pre-Inca days. You have been taught to hate cocaine by a lifetime of censorship -- and by an FDA which dogmatically ignores all positive aspects of drug use, just as they ignore all downsides to prohibition.
Laws are never going to stop westerners from using cocaine, nor should they. Such laws are not making the world safe. To the contrary, laws against cocaine have made our world unthinkably violent! It has created cartels out of whole cloth, cartels that engage in torture and which suborn government officials, to the point that "the rule of law" is little more than a joke south of the border.
This is the enormous price tag of America's hateful policy of substance prohibition: the overthrow of democratic norms around the world.
The eerie bit is that most leading drug warriors understand this fact and approve of it. Too much democracy is anathema to the powers-that-be.
So... "Is cocaine use good or bad?" The question does not even make sense. Cocaine use is a blessing for some, just a little fun for most, and a curse for a few. Just like any other risky activity.
1 Of course, even this statement is problematic. Is it really a "happy" ending merely because one is no longer using cocaine? That's a Christian Science belief, not a logical conclusion. It may well be a happy ending in a given case, but we have no reason for assuming that it is unconditionally so. (up)
Doc to Franklin: "I'm sorry, Ben, but I see no benefits of opium use under my microscope. The idea that you are living a fulfilled life is clearly a mistake on your part. If you want to be scientific, stop using opium and be scientifically depressed like the rest of us."
I will gladly respect the police once we remove them from Gestapo duty by ending the war on drugs. Police should also learn to live on a budget, without deriving income from confiscating houses and dormitories, etc.
Outlawing opium wOutlawing opium was the ultimate government power grab. It put the government in charge of pain relief.
as the ultimate government power grab. It put the government in charge of pain relief.
Typical materialist protocol. Take all the "wonder" out of the drug and sell it as a one-size-fits all "reductionist" cure for anxiety. Notice that they refer to hallucinations and euphoria as "adverse effects." What next? Communion wine with the religion taken out of it?
Drug warriors have harnessed the perfect storm. Prohibition caters to the interests of law enforcement, psychotherapy, Big Pharma, demagogues, puritans, and materialist scientists, who believe that consciousness is no big "whoop" and that spiritual states are just flukes.
Alcohol makes me sleepy. But NOT coca wine. The wine gives you an upbeat feeling of controlled energy, without the jitters of coffee and without the fury of steroids. It increases rather than dulls mental focus.
This is why I call the drug war 'fanatical Christian Science.' People would rather have grandpa die than to let him use laughing gas or coca or opium or MDMA, etc. etc.
The drug war is being used as a wrecking ball to destroy democratic freedoms. It has destroyed the 4th amendment and freedom of religion and given the police the right to confiscate the property of peaceful and productive citizens.
Researchers insult our intelligence when they tell us that drugs like MDMA and opium and laughing gas have not been proven to work. Everyone knows they work. That's precisely why drug warriors hate them.
What bothers me about AI is that everyone's so excited to see what computers can do, while no one's excited to see what the human mind can do, since we refuse to improve it with mind-enhancing drugs.
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, I hope to use cocaine in 2025: and other confessions of a drug war heretic, published on May 19, 2024 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)
You have been reading an article entitled, I hope to use cocaine in 2025: and other confessions of a drug war heretic, published on May 19, 2024 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)
