My Realistic Plan for Getting off of Big Pharma Drugs and why it's so hard to implement
an open letter to Mad in America
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
July 23, 2024
Author's Follow-up:
October 12, 2025
Please consider this essay as an historical relic. It turns out that NO ONE can get off of Effexor (aka Venlafaxine) -- not if they have been using the drug for years. My psychiatrist told me that 5% of those who attempt to do so might succeed... but at what cost! I myself got "off" the drug for several months... but then I realized that I could no longer THINK straight. My brain chemistry had been changed and it was apparently in no hurry to snap back to normal. This is what happens when hubristic medical science tries to CURE a psychological problem rather than to give humanity the freedom to correct it symptomatically, as we do, for instance, with beer when we "throw back a cold one" to reduce anxiety after a long day. Freud ended his depression with cocaine 12 . He ENDED it. We only know of him today because he was able to publish prolifically under the influence of that substance which gave him what he described as a fully natural elation. And yet self-interested materialist science was terrified by the idea that a panacea might reach the market and put them out of business. So they judged Cocaine based on its worst possible use -- as if we were to judge alcohol by studying drunkards. Medical science had to be in charge in order to profit from depression. And so scientists had an opportunity to SHOW OFF -- so they created drugs like Effexor, bragging that they were going to "cure" human sadness." And what was the result? They thereby turned millions of Americans (and 1 in 4 American women) into patients for life!
They thought they could "cure" depression for the same reason that Harland and Wolff thought that they could build an unsinkable ship: because they had a far too high opinion of their own capabilities. Unfortunately, the millions of the scientists' still-depressed victims suffer in silence behind closed doors. The mere 1,500 victims of the Titanic disaster, on the other hand, received massive media coverage and condolences.
Yet the scientists were far more culpable, because their hubris was based on a shallow and mischief-working assumption: namely, the materialist presupposition that human beings are interchangeable biochemical widgets amenable to one-size-fits-all "cures" for conditions as manifold and multiform as human sadness. In reality, it was always a category error to place materialists in charge of matters of mind and mood in the first place -- and the proof of that assertion is extant given the absurd consequences to which it has led America. For we have an FDA that promotes brain-damaging shock therapy while refusing to approve of drugs whose use could make that shock therapy unnecessary! We have an FDA that outlaws the use of substances like laughing gas 3 whose wise use could keep the depressed from killing themselves. We have an FDA that promotes the use of drugs that turn the users into patients for life, while denying them the use of substances that can inspire and elate without so much as a "by your leave" from government and the healthcare industry. We live in a world, in short, where our precious right to take care of our own health has been stolen from us by government -- not to SAVE us from drugs but rather to ensure that we use those drugs that benefit corporations and which deny us self-actualization and keep us in a subservient role, which keep us dependent children with respect to psychoactive medicines.
Finally, two pertinent quotations from Our Right to Drugs by Thomas Szasz:
"How can a person lose the right to his body? By being deprived of the freedom to care for it and to control it as he sees fit."
"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."
AFTERWORD
5%
Only 5% of the American soldiers who used heroin in Vietnam needed help getting off the drug when they returned to the States4. For Effexor, on the other hand, only 5% can EVER get off the drug! -- and the 5% who do so suffer from cognitive impairment!
I am a 65-year-old chronic depressive who has been on SNRIs and SSRIs for a lifetime now. Not only have the drugs failed to end my depression, but they have made me a ward of the healthcare state. I have to visit a mental health clinic every three months of my life in order to receive a prescription from someone who is half my age, for a drug that I do not even want to be taking anymore. That is time-consuming, expensive, and humiliating for me. But I have continued in this slavery because I know that getting off these drugs is extremely difficult. Indeed, my previous psychiatrist told me that the Effexor6 that I am taking has a 95% recidivism rate for long-term users who try to quit the drug. (That was during my final visit with the man, whom I fear may have been fired for his frankness on this subject.) So as long as I was working full-time, I did not feel that I could afford to ride the emotional roller coaster that drug withdrawal seemed likely to put me on.
But it recently occurred to me that antidepressant drug withdrawal need not be a nightmare. There is a withdrawal protocol that has a strong chance of actually working (at least for folks like myself) for the simple reason that it makes perfect psychological sense from a user's point of view. It is a theory that I hope to test out "on myself" in my retirement years, although I have yet to find a psychiatrist who will take my suggestion seriously. No one seems to see any value in asking the user what would work for them, even though their answer to that question, in some sense, has to be right, for the simple reason that it is based on how they feel, and the success of any withdrawal process ultimately depends on how the user feels about that process, however scientifically valid it may seem in the eyes of its creators.
What follows is a description of the withdrawal protocol that I propose for getting off of dependence-causing Big Pharma drugs. It has two major steps: compounding (of the Big Pharma 78 drug) and microdosing (with psilocybin). Keep in mind that these suggestions are theoretical in nature and are not meant to constitute medical advice.
For illustration purposes, let's suppose that you are currently taking 225 mg. of Effexor daily, and you wish to get off the drug entirely in 225 days. (I know: that's a peculiar number, but it will make the math work out easily for demonstration purposes below.)
The first step is to have Effexor compounded in such a way that the daily dosage is incrementally tapered to zero during the withdrawal period. In our case, that would result in the following dosage breakdown per pill: DAY 1: 225 mg. of Effexor. DAY 2: 224/225 mg. of Effexor. DAY 3: 223/225 mg. of Effexor. And so forth, until the final pill of the series, which would contain just 1/225 mg. of Effexor.
During this withdrawal process, the user will be dosing and microdosing on psilocybin in a way that seems effective to them, based on their own emotions and attitudes at the time (as opposed to having a psychiatrist second-guess what the user needs under the circumstances). Importantly, the psilocybin use would continue after the withdrawal period on an as-needed basis in order to counteract the backsliding which is currently so prevalent for those seeking to stop drugs like Effexor.
Why psilocybin? Because user experiences show the drug to have a motivational power that seems custom-made for helping people "keep the faith" during tough emotional experiences such as drug withdrawal. Recent studies at Johns Hopkins show a huge potential for psilocybin when it comes to engendering such psychological empowerment. Mycologist Paul Stamets9 also believes strongly in psilocybin microdosing for conditions like depression and anxiety. But I also write from personal experience.
I had a week of psilocybin therapy this month at the Psilocybin Center in Salem, Oregon, and the experience opened my eyes to the goals I needed to be achieving in life. And it gave me a sense of urgency for achieving them. In fact, when I got back to my AirBnB after my first-day's session (on a dose so low that it qualified as a microdose) my head was full of ideas about how I could change my life. I actually began writing a diary that night, the first diary of my life, in which I sought to record all the plans that were now coming to mind so that I could be sure to follow through on them. The psilocybin had transformed me, at least for the time being, into someone who insisted on making the most out of life. Materialist scientists will demur, of course, and grumble about statistically miniscule risks of combining drugs, but as Pascal said, "The heart has its own reasons." Don't ask me how, but I simply know that psilocybin use would help me get off of Effexor. There is, at very least, what philosophers call a "prima facie" case that psilocybin would help me in the withdrawal process. It's simply psychological common sense.
The idea that I can "kick" Effexor in this way is still a theory, of course, but it is one that I believe in and am prepared to devote the remainder of my life to proving. Unfortunately, that is easier said than done. I could potentially get legal access to psilocybin mushrooms by moving to certain parts of Mexico, but I have yet to find any doctors who would prescribe the sort of compounding that I have proposed (and, of course, patients have no right to bypass the doctor and take their drugs directly to a compounding pharmacy). When I outlined this plan to my psychiatrist, he told me that he had never heard of such a thing. He then suggested that I stay on Effexor, which he could not seem to praise highly enough, notwithstanding the fact that I was sitting there right in front of him, depressed, and a little bit angry. He then proposed that I drop my dosage all at once by 37.5 mg. and that I see him again in two months so he could see how I was doing. It was as if he had not heard a word that I had said. Apparently, when doctors talk about "the best way to get off of Effexor," they mean the best way for THEM as a doctor, not for you as a patient.
These roadblocks to personal healing have taught me something important about drug withdrawal, that it is not just difficult because of the drugs themselves, but because of our attitudes and beliefs as a society. First drug prohibition outlaws all motivational godsends that could help with the withdrawal process; then materialist doctors create cookie-cutter withdrawal protocols that ignore common sense psychology.
Check out the conversations that I have had so far with the movers and shakers in the drug-war game -- or rather that I have TRIED to have. Actually, most of these people have failed to respond to my calls to parlay, but that need not stop you from reading MY side of these would-be chats.
I don't know what's worse, being ignored entirely or being answered with a simple "Thank you" or "I'll think about it." One writes thousands of words to raise questions that no one else is discussing and they are received and dismissed with a "Thank you." So much for discussion, so much for give-and-take. It's just plain considered bad manners these days to talk honestly about drugs. Academia is living in a fantasy world in which drugs are ignored and/or demonized -- and they are in no hurry to face reality. And so I am considered a troublemaker. This is understandable, of course. One can support gay rights, feminism, and LGBTQ+ today without raising collegiate hackles, but should one dare to talk honestly about drugs, they are exiled from the public commons.
Somebody needs to keep pointing out the sad truth about today's censored academia and how this self-censorship is but one of the many unacknowledged consequences of the drug war ideology of substance demonization.
Many prohibition haters have their own list of drugs that they feel should be outlawed. They're missing the point. Drugs cannot be judged up or down. Prohibition is the problem. Say otherwise and you open the door to endless substance demonization by politicians.
Over 45% of traumatic brain injuries are caused by horseback riding (ABC News). Tell your representatives to outlaw horseback riding and make it a federal offence to teach a child how to ride! Brought to you by the Partnership for a Death Free America.
And where did politicians get the idea that irresponsible white American young people are the only stakeholders when it comes to the question of re-legalizing drugs??? There are hundreds of millions of other stakeholders: philosophers, pain patients, the depressed.
Now drug warriors have nitrous oxide in their sights, the substance that inspired the philosophy of William James. They're using the same tired MO: focusing exclusively on potential downsides and never mentioning the benefits of use, and/or denying that any exist.
Imagine someone starting their book about antibiotics by saying that he's not trying to suggest that we actually use them. We should not have to apologize for being honest about drugs. If prohibitionists think that honesty is wrong, that's their problem.
In the board game "Sky Team," you collect "coffees" to improve your flying skills. Funny how the use of any other brain-focusing "drug" in real life is considered to be an obvious sign of impairment.
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.
I've been told by many that I should have seen "my doctor" before withdrawing from Effexor. But, A) My doctor got me hooked on the junk in the first place, and, B) That doctor completely ignores the OBVIOUS benefits of indigenous meds and focuses only on theoretical downsides.
Drug prohibition began as a racist attempt to prevent so-called "miscegenation." The racist's fear was not that a white woman would use opium or marijuana or cocaine, but that she might actually fall in love with a Chinese, Hispanic or Black person respectively.
Someone needs to create a group called Drug Warriors Anonymous, a place where Americans can go to discuss their right to mind and mood medicine and to discuss the many ways in which our society trashes godsend medicines.
Many prohibition haters have their own list of drugs that they feel should be outlawed. They're missing the point. Drugs cannot be judged up or down. Prohibition is the problem. Say otherwise and you open the door to endless substance demonization by politicians.
