he modern "addiction experts" like Gabriel Mate, refer almost all "addiction" to inner pain, but in doing so, they reckon without the Drug War. To pronounce authoritatively on the cause of addiction in the age of the Drug War is like pronouncing authoritatively on the cause of headaches in an age when aspirin is banned. In each case, the entire problem would be seen in a very different light if prohibition were not in force.
To see this more clearly, let's imagine a world that has never existed before on Planet Earth: one in which pharmacologically savvy empaths are free to use any psychoactive medicine in the world to treat (or rather "work with") clients. I say "clients" advisedly, for in such a world, the very concept of psychiatric patient would be eliminated as folks who are fighting depression access the same empath used by folks who want to increase their appreciation of music, or their appreciation of mother nature, or who just want to brainstorm positive ideas with the empath while using a pharmacological substance designed to encourage sharing and openness.
In such a world, a friendly competition would naturally develop between empaths to see who can treat problems like "addiction" most successfully, not by persuading the client to become sober -- which has been the Christian Science goal of all addiction therapy to date -- but rather by working with the client to get them ON those substances that they can use least problematically while yet being able to maximize their human potential in life.
Not only would the empath have access to all psychoactive medicines, but he or she would be able to leverage the power of human anticipation in bringing about positive results. It's a well known fact that one feels better overall when they have something specific to look forward to. This new form of psychiatry could finally acknowledge this common sense fact and take advantage of it by providing intermittent relaxation sessions, in which groups are provided with substances that give them a vacation from negative introspection and petty fears. Moreover, this therapy could be provided on a non-addictive basis, either by using non-habit-forming substances or by using potentially addictive medicines intermittently, perhaps without even informing the clients of the exact ingredients of the nostrums thus employed (thereby obviating any potential for a group member to seek out a substance for regular use).
Suddenly, we're no longer talking about the problem of drugs (i.e. psychoactive medicines) but rather the PROMISE of drugs. We are no longer vilifying substances but we are vilifying ignorance instead. For the therapeutic wonders that could be accomplished by such a new paradigm would be limited only by the creativity of the empath.
If this approach of freedom and common sense seems reckless to you, I urge you to consider the drug-war status quo: It's a world in which 1 in 4 American women are chemically dependent on Big Pharma meds for life; it's a world in which prohibition incentivizes drug dealers to sell the most dangerous and addictive drugs imaginable; it's a world in which the ideology of substance demonization keeps us from giving kids in hospice the necessary amount of pain medicine; it's a world in which we "take our loved ones off of life support" rather than letting them die peacefully with the help of morphine; it's a world in which our drug policy creates civil wars overseas completely out of whole cloth; it's a world in which 797 blacks were killed in Chicago alone in 2021 thanks to the long recognized fact that prohibition creates armed gangs.
And how does the status quo deal with addiction? As the drug-war movie "Four Good Days" makes clear, we charge the addict $3,000, toss them on a cot without any psychoactive medicine whatsoever -- "drugs" being considered the problem, ya understand - and give them shelter from the rain while the client goes through a week or so of hell.
Next step, we give them some nasty government drug to make it physiologically impossible for them to benefit from substances which have inspired entire religions in the past. And then we force them to go to a 12-step group, where they will be counseled to admit their helplessness before the boogieman called "drugs" and to seek solace in a 'higher power.' Pardon me, but this is beginning to sound a lot like Christian proselytization: teaching someone that they were powerless in themselves ("not of works are ye saved") and that the only hope is a thinly disguised Christian god known as a "higher power." The very idea that a court might REQUIRE me to attend group therapy that advocates the belief in a "higher power" (not to mention a belief in the evil of Mother Nature's plant medicines) is already problematic. It is a kind of religious indoctrination, imposed by the same judges who routinely cage Americans for using plant medicines of which botanically clueless politicians disapprove.
This is not some Orwellian dystopia that I'm describing here: it's the way things are in 2022 America: a world in which you can be removed extra-judicially from the work force if you are found to have used substances of which politicians disapprove -- a cruel and unusual punishment that we do not even inflict on paroled axe murderers.
The Drug Warriors say they want to get America off of drugs, but then why are they forever reminding grandma (or some obnoxious sibling) to "take your meds!"?
No, even Drug Warriors do not really want to get America off drugs: they want to get America ON the RIGHT drugs, as that term is defined by materialist science and Wall Street in the age of substance prohibition.
So, please, wake up, America: crack cocaine is not the problem, Fentanyl is not the problem, the poppy plant is not the problem, the coca leaf is not the problem, "magic mushrooms" are not the problem. Drugs are not the problem: it is our anti-scientific and politically charged understanding of drugs which is the problem.
And so I say to the substance-demonizing Drug Warrior, in the words of the clown in Twelfth Night:
"Madman, thou errest: I say, there is no darkness but ignorance; in which thou art more puzzled than the Egyptians in their fog!"
Author's Follow-up: October 14, 2022
Modern psychiatry can't afford to recognize the power of anticipation in boosting one's mood, for once they do so, they are forced to acknowledge that opium and coca -- indeed even crack cocaine and methamphetamine -- can be used wisely merely by ensuring that one's use is intermittent. But the Drug Warrior paints such drugs completely black and infantilizes humans by teaching them that no safe use is possible. If a criminalized drug CAN be addictive, it HAS to be addictive, according to the fearmongering logic of the Drug Warrior. This is absolute anti-scientific nonsense, for even the deadly toxin Botox has positive uses. Indeed, there is no substance on earth that cannot be useful in some way, at some dose, for some people, in some circumstances. But the Drug Warrior teaches us to believe that demonized substances are pure evil, which is actually a superstition when one considers that substances are amoral and are so not appropriately labeled "good" and "bad." What's good or bad are people and how they are -- or are not -- educated with respect to psychoactive medicine, and it is Drug War strategy that makes drugs dangerous by teaching us to fear such substances rather than to understand how to use them safely.
In scaring us, the Drug Warrior gladly employs lies, by telling us that medicines like coca fry the brain -- as if Sherlock Holmes' brain was fried by his use of cocaine, or Benjamin Franklin's by opium, or HG Wells' by Coca Wine. Ironically it is the Drug War that REALLY fries brains, first by addicting 1 in 4 American women to mind-numbing big pharma meds. Secondly, it fries brains LITERALLY by forcing the severely depressed to undergo brain-damaging shock therapy, simply because anti-scientific America has outlawed all the psychoactive medicines that could have helped the so-called hopeless patient laugh again.
This latter example shows how fanatical the Drug War ideology is: American's would literally prefer to fry the brains of the depressed than to let them use drugs that would make them happy. We see this also in the fact that some states and some countries have legalized Euthanasia, and yet those same states and countries outlaw godsend medicines that can make people WANT to live. Do you see what this means? It means that doctors do not have the right to make you feel better, but they do have the right to kill you if you become too depressed.
Such Drug War ideology should be listed as a disease in the DSM as a clear sign of mental illness.
Fearmongering
Saying things like "Fentanyl kills!" makes just as much sense as saying "Fire bad!"
The drug war is the ultimate case of fearmongering. And yet academics and historians fail to recognize it as such. They will protest eloquently against the outrages of the witch hunts of yore, but they are blind to the witch hunts of the present. What is a drug dealer but a modern service magician, someone who sells psychoactive medicine designed to effect personal ends for the user? They are simply providing an alternative to materialistic medicine, which ignores common sense and so ignores the glaringly obvious value of such substances.
This is why it's wrong to dismiss drugs as "good" or "bad." There are endless potential positive uses to psychoactive drugs. That's all that we should ask of them.
The most addictive drugs have a bunch of great uses, like treating pain and inspiring great literature. Prohibition causes addiction by making their use as problematic as possible and denying knowledge and choices. It's always wrong to blame drugs.
There are no recreational drugs. Even laughing gas has rational uses because it gives us a break from morbid introspection. There are recreational USES of drugs, but the term "recreational" is often used to express our disdain for users who go outside the healthcare system.
The drug war encourages us to judge people based on what they use and in what context. Even if the couch potato had no conscious health goals, their use of MJ is very possibly shielding them from health problems, like headaches, sleeplessness, and overreliance on alcohol.
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.
The FDA should have no role in approving psychoactive medicine. They evaluate them based on materialist standards rather than holistic ones. In practice, this means the FDA ignores all glaringly obvious benefits.
First we outlaw all drugs that could help; then we complain that some people have 'TREATMENT-RESISTANT DEPRESSION'. What? No. What they really "have" is an inability to thrive because of our idiotic drug laws.
3:51 PM ยท Jul 15, 2024
Drug use is judged by different standards than any other risky activity in the western world. One death can lead to outrage, even though that death might be statistically insignificant.
I know. I'm on SNRIs. But SSRIs and SNRIs are both made with materialist presumptions in mind: that the best way to change people is with a surgical strike at one-size-fits-all chemistry. That's the opposite of the shamanic holism that I favor.
Timothy Leary's wife wrote: "We went to Puerto Rico and all we did was take cocaine and read Faust to one another." And there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with that!!! The drug war is all about scaring us and making illegal drug use as dangerous as possible.
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, Ignorance is the problem, not drugs: Toward a new psychiatric paradigm, published on September 4, 2022 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 modern "addiction experts" like Gabriel Mate, refer almost all "addiction" to inner pain, but in doing so, they reckon without the Drug War. To pronounce authoritatively on the cause of addiction in the age of the Drug War is like pronouncing authoritatively on the cause of headaches in an age when aspirin is banned. In each case, the entire problem would be seen in a very different light if prohibition were not in force.
You have been reading an article entitled, Ignorance is the problem, not drugs: Toward a new psychiatric paradigm, published on September 4, 2022 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)
