or, why Big Pharma is justifiably afraid of psychedelic medicine
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
October 13, 2024
Author's note: I received immediate feedback to this post stating that psilocybin does not cause flashbacks. But I was not using "flashback" in the pathological sense of that term. For me, a flashback (in the positive sense) is a relevant reminiscence that is vouchsafed the individual, as if by miracle, at precisely the time in their life when that information is crucial to them. I am not talking about a classic "Wayne's World" flashback in which past events materialize gradually in the ether as Mike Myers makes silly noises. I was instead on a low dose of a medicine that sharpened my mind to the point that the information I needed from the past was suddenly present to me at the precise moment that I needed it. That is a "flashback" in the positive sense of the term, before Drug Warriors redefined it to apply only to pathological instances of sudden unwanted recall.
I would retitle the article to lose the reference to "flashback" -- except that I refuse to give up that word just because Drug Warriors have claimed it for their own as a pejorative, just like they have turned "drugs" into a pejorative term, which has led to great terminological confusion in the debate about psychoactive substances ever since.
I had a flashback tonight under the influence of psilocybin. I suddenly recalled a summer afternoon in the 1970s when I walked into my bedroom and tore down a long strip of colorful international flags with which I had decorated my walls just one week previous. I was 16 years old at the time and something had just "happened," as they say, something that caused me to suddenly and decisively sour on life. Tonight, 50 years later, I realized that the day in question marked the beginning of my lifelong depression, a fact of which I had never been consciously aware during my many years of psychotherapy as a young adult. It seems that some things are just so obvious that the mind refuses to recognize them, kind of like that guy in the gorilla suit who walks by college students unnoticed in those 20th-century experiments about "inattentional blindness" at American universities.
But put your hankies away, folks. I won't be going into detail here about that psychological belly-punch of yore. Nor do I seek any retroactive pity, especially since I am by no means sure that I would deserve any. True, I can imagine a good filmmaker convincingly portraying my teenage self as a clear-cut trauma victim. I can even see Jack and Jill America leaving the theater in tears on behalf of the former "me." Yet I fear that an even better filmmaker would dig through my adult archives and produce a movie to demonstrate convincingly that I deserved everything I got back then, and then some.
My point here is merely this, that this long-forgotten U-turn in my life came to mind tonight under the influence of psilocybin, as I was doing something quite unusual for myself as a chronic depressive: namely, creating a colorful display for my office walls not unlike the one that I had torn down in abject despair half a century ago.
I trust the reader grasps the significance of that last remark: Not only did the consumption of a mushroom reignite my passion for colorful decoration tonight, but it "tipped me off" to the specific event in my life that quelched my interest in eye-catching interior design in the first place.
No wonder Paul Stamets says that Big Pharma is worried about psilocybin. It actually works! It accomplishes in one night what psychiatrists try in vain to accomplish in an entire career.
These are just simple psychological truths that drug war ideology is designed to hide from sight. Doctors tell us that "drugs" are only useful when created by Big Pharma, chosen by doctors, and authorized by folks who have spent thousands on medical school. (Lies, lies, lies.)
The existence of a handful of bad outcomes of drug use does not justify substance prohibition... any more than the existence of drunkards justifies a call for liquor prohibition. Instead, we need to teach safe use and offer a wide choice of uncontaminated psychoactive drugs.
The drug war is the defeatist doctrine that we will never be able to use psychoactive drugs wisely. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy because the government does everything it can to make drug use dangerous.
High suicide rates? What a poser! Gee, I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that the US has outlawed all substances that elate and inspire???
In "Four Good Days" the pompous white-coated doctor ignores the entire formulary of mother nature and instead throws the young heroin user on a cot for 3 days of cold turkey and a shot of Naltrexone: price tag $3,000.
We need to start thinking of drug-related deaths like we do about car accidents: They're terrible, and yet they should move us to make driving safer, not to outlaw driving. To think otherwise is to swallow the drug war lie that "drugs" can have no positive uses.
Pro-psychedelic websites tell me to check with my "doctor" before using Mother Nature. But WHY? I'm the expert on my own psychology, damn it. These "doctors" are the ones who got me hooked on synthetic drugs, because they honor microscopic evidence, not time-honored usage.
America is insane: it makes liquor officially legal and then outlaws all the drugs that could help prevent and cure alcoholism.
All the problems that folks associate with drugs are caused by prohibition. Thousands were not dying on the streets when opioids were legal in America. It took prohibition to bring that about.
If there is an epidemic of "self-harm," prohibitionists never think of outlawing razor blades. They ask: "Why the self-harm?" But if there is an epidemic of drug use which they CLAIM is self-harm, they never ask "Why the self-harm?" They say: "Let's prohibit and punish!"
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You have been reading an article entitled, My Psilocybin Flashback: or, why Big Pharma is justifiably afraid of psychedelic medicine, published on October 13, 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, My Psilocybin Flashback: or, why Big Pharma is justifiably afraid of psychedelic medicine, published on October 13, 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)
