"The substantial reason for rejecting a philosophical theory is the 'absurdum' to which it reduces us." --Alfred North Whitehead, Concept of Nature3
My argument here can best be summed up by the following dictum: that saying things like "Fentanyl 4 kills" -- the superstitious claim with which Philadelphia billboards5 are plastered even as we speak -- is philosophically equivalent to saying things like "Fire bad!" as did our paleolithic forebears. Both statements would have us fear dangerous substances rather than learn how to use them as wisely as possible for the benefit of humanity."The right to chew or smoke a plant that grows wild in nature, such as hemp (marijuana), is anterior to and more basic than the right to vote." --Thomas Szasz, Our Right to Drugs --p xvi13
"Imagine how many people would have benefited during the past half-century had the government respected their autonomy and their right to self-medicate." --Jeffrey A. Singer, Your Body, Your Health Care --p. 9714
"Lacking the usual grounds on which people congregate as a nation, we [Americans] habitually fall back on the most primitive yet most enduring basis for group cohesion, namely, scapegoating." --Thomas Szasz, Our Right to Drugs --p 3217
This is why so many smart Americans are ignorant about the Drug War. They sense at some level that a critical investigation of that inherently racist project would reveal lie after lie, as in the peeling of an onion, and they do not want to go down that rabbit hole. They know that to do so would make them an outsider in brainwashed America -- a minority of one -- and probably piss them off into the bargain. Who needs that agony? Better to simply play along with the injustices of the Drug War -- like, for instance, mandatory urine testing for employment18, which has nothing to do with impairment but is rather all about "outing" those workers who dare to use substances of which our beer-swilling and gun-toting politicians disapprove. Strategic ignorance about such things makes life easier for Americans. Were they to allow themselves to think critically, they would soon come to the infuriating conclusion that drug prohibition has thoroughly censored academia, to the point that most authors today pretend that outlawed drugs do not even exist, and therefore ignore all the inconvenient truths about which drug use could inform them -- like the fact that cocaine 19 is a cure for depression (as Freud well knew20) and that it causes infinitely less dependencies than those fostered by Big Pharma drugs -- or that only 5% of American soldiers who used heroin in Vietnam had trouble getting off the drug when they returned to the States21. 5%. Consider that statistic in light of the fact that Big Pharma drugs like Effexor cannot be kicked AT ALL by the long-term user, not AT ALL!22 Okay, maybe 5% can manage to stay off the drug for three years, but only at the price of their ability to think straight (thanks to the way the drug irreversibly scrambles brain chemistry).
Someone tweeted that fears about a Christian Science theocracy are "baseless." Tell that to my uncle who was lobotomized because they outlawed meds that could cheer him up -- tell that to myself, a chronic depressive who could be cheered up in an instant with outlawed meds.
We have to deny the FDA the right to judge psychoactive medicines in the first place. Their materialist outlook obliges them to ignore all obvious benefits. When they nix drugs like MDMA, they nix compassion and love.
This is why "rock stars" use drugs: not just for performance anxiety (which, BTW, is a completely UNDERSTANDABLE reason for drug use), but because they want to fully experience the music, even tho' they may be currently short on money and being hassled by creditors, etc.
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.
Today's Washington Post reports that "opioid pills shipped" DROPPED 45% between 2011 and 2019..... while fatal overdoses ROSE TO RECORD LEVELS! Prohibition is PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE.
Freud thought cocaine was a great antidepressant. His contemporaries demonized the drug by focusing only on the rare misusers. That's like judging alcohol by focusing on alcoholics.
If the depressed patient laughs, that means nothing. Materialists have to see results under a microscopic or they will never sign off on a therapy.
Irony of ironies, that the indignant 19th-century hatred of liquor should ultimately result in the outlawing of virtually every mind-affecting substance on the planet EXCEPT for liquor.
More materialist nonsense. "We" are the only reason that the universe exists as a universe rather than as inchoate particles.
They still don't seem to get it. 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.