In response to "Are We Overlooking Homicidal Ideation in Psychiatry?" by Jordyn Tovey1COMMENT: Thank you for your article. I have just two thoughts regarding issues that were not raised.
1) I know that in America, confidentiality can no longer be assumed to be operative in conversations with a “professional,” whether we’re talking about a conversation with a priest or a psychiatrist. This creates an uncertain climate for the “patient.” They will be less likely to be honest about their anger precisely to the extent that they “plan to do something about it.”
2) There are a class of drugs called entheogens, which includes MDMA. America has been too busy hating drugs to notice that such drugs help inspire compassion. In a sane world, surely we would be using entheogens in counseling sessions to help angry patients “feel” for their perceived enemies.
The use of Ecstasy (the street version of MDMA) in the British rave scene of the 1990s resulted in unprecedented peace on the dance floor. Unprecedented! But MPs cracked down on the drug, and dancers switched to alcohol, a drug that kills 178,000 a year in the US alone. After the crackdown, the dance floors erupted into violence, all “justified” by the fact that a few young people had died after using Ecstasy. Why? Because drug prohibition had denied them regulated product and information about safe use.
These are drugs that help people feel compassion! Surely, this is hugely relevant to the topic of counseling angry patients. Consider the following quotations from DJs in Britain, as they describe the peaceful 1990s rave scene that existed with the help of Ecstasy. The following quotes are from the 2020 documentary by Terry Stone entitled “United Nation: Three Decades of Drum & Bass.”
“It was the first time that black-and-white people had integrated on a level… and everybody was one.” — DJ Ray Keith.
“It was black and white, Asian, Chinese, all up in one building.” — DJ MC GQ.
“Everyone’s loving each other, man, they’re not hating.” – DJ Mampi Swift.
And MDMA is just one of endless phenethylamines that could exist in a free world. Chemist Alexander Shulgin had the rare freedom to synthesize hundreds of phenethylamines in the 1990s, resulting in user reports such as the following:
“The feeling was one of great camaraderie, and it was very easy to talk to people.”
“I was able to go through and resolve some judgments with particular persons.”
“No more axes to grind. I can be free.”
I knew democracy was in trouble when most Americans in the '80s saw no problem with allowing drug testers to go on a fishing expedition in their bodily fluids for substances of which politicians disapprove.
Psychiatrists never acknowledge the biggest downside to modern antidepressants: the fact that they turn you into a patient for life. That's demoralizing, especially since the best drugs for depression are outlawed by the government.
My consciousness, my choice.
Who would have thought back in 1776 that Americans would eventually have to petition their government for the right to even possess a damn mushroom. The Drug War has destroyed America.
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.
"Those gentlemen who adopt the anti-opium doctrine... are only comparable to the monomaniac, who, sane upon every subject but one, is thoroughly daft upon that." --William Brereton
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.
Ketamine is like any other drug. It has good uses for certain people in certain situations. Nowadays, people insist that a drug be okay in every situation for everybody (especially American teens) before they will say that it's okay. That's crazy and anti-scientific.
The DEA should be put on trial for crimes against humanity for withholding godsend medicine from the depressed. Here is just one typical drug-user report that appeared in "Pihkal": "A glimpse of what true heaven is supposed to feel like..."
After a long life, I have come to the conclusion that when all the establishment is united, it is always wrong. (Harold MacMillan)
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