in response to an article by Maria Holynova on Psychedelic Spotlight
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
June 8, 2024
The following comment is in response to a 2023 article entitled "Oregon's First Licensed Psilocybin Center Charges $2800 for One Session: Are the Costs Justifiable?"1 I submitted it to the page in question, where it is now "awaiting moderation."
Oregon's drug policy is incoherent. They make psilocybin available to the rich and healthy, while locking up the poor and chemically dependent who could profit from it most. This half-baked attempt at a free market in psilocybin won't work until drug prohibition stops wildly distorting costs, thereby making psilocybin unavailable for those who need it most. (Psilocybin, after all, is available for free in mushroom form -- for free.2) For the latter demographic, it makes no difference if the price is reasonable in the long run: if they cannot afford it now when they need it, they are screwed.
Another problem is that Drug War fearmongering has taught us to treat psilocybin (and all other illegal drugs) like they were plutonium, causing liability costs to skyrocket, along with red tape. When I signed up for psilocybin therapy in Oregon, I complained about the endless paperwork. The facilitator apologized, noting that he himself had to fill out less paperwork when he purchased his first house. This implicit terror of drugs is so out of touch with common sense that it qualifies as a modern superstition.
That said, your point is well taken: the high prices are not a result of greed on the part of providers, but — like so many other problems in America today — are a result of an insane and counterproductive drug policy.
Author's Follow-up: May 8, 2024
There is a huge problem with the slow and piecemeal reform of drug laws -- as opposed to the instant repeal of drug prohibition. The problem is that the reform always ends up getting blamed for the problems that are created by the baseline environment of prohibition in which those reforms are enacted. The legalization of opiate possession did not cause the misnamed "opioid crisis" in Oregon, but it provided a good scapegoat for which prohibitionists could blame the homelessness problem and the lack of proper healthcare on "drugs." But then this is the MO of the Drug Warrior -- and even their raison d'etre. They blame all social problems on "drugs," thereby helping selfish politicians like themselves in two ways: 1) saving them from spending time and money on real social problems and 2) providing someone to blame when anything goes wrong. Either they can blame those problems directly on "drugs," or (whenever that seems implausible even to gullible Americans) they can raise a hue and cry about "drugs" in order to distract the public mind from the real problems that the politicians have failed to solve.
And so, by ignoring all "up" sides to drugs, the DEA points to potential addiction as a knock-down argument for their prohibition. This is the logic of children (and uneducated children at that). It is a cost-benefit analysis that ignores all benefits.
I can think of no greater intrusion than to deny a person autonomy over how they think and feel in life. It is sort of a meta-intrusion, the mother of all anti-democratic intrusions.
M. Pollan says "not so fast" when it comes to drug re-legalization. I say FAST? I've gone a whole lifetime w/o access to Mother Nature's plants. How can a botanist approve of that? Answer: By ignoring all legalization stakeholders except for the kids whom we refuse to educate.
Jim Hogshire described sleep cures that make physical withdrawal from opium close to pain-free. As for "psychological addiction," there are hundreds of elating drugs that could be used to keep the ex-user's mind from morbidly focusing on a drug whose use has become problematic for them.
Philip Jenkins reports that Rophynol had positive uses for treating mental disorders until the media called it the "date rape drug." We thus punished those who were benefitting from the drug, tho' the biggest drug culprit in date rape is alcohol. Oprah spread the fear virally.
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies." -- Groucho Marx
According to Donald Trump's view of life, Jesus Christ was a chump. We should hate our enemies, not love them.
There will always be people who don't use drugs wisely, just as there are car drivers who don't drive wisely, and rock climbers who fall to their death. America needs to grow up and accept this, while ending prohibition and teaching safe use.
The Drug War is based on two HUGE lies: 1) that prohibition has no downsides, & 2) that drug use has no upsides.
Materialist scientists are drug war collaborators. They are more than happy to have their fight against idealism rigged by drug law, which outlaws precisely those substances whose use serves to cast their materialism into question.
Listen to the Drug War Philosopher as he tells you how you can support his work to end the hateful drug war -- and, ideally, put the DEA on trial for willfully lying about godsend medicines! (How? By advertising on this page right c'here!)
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, Oregon's Incoherent Drug Policy: in response to an article by Maria Holynova on Psychedelic Spotlight, published on June 8, 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, Oregon's Incoherent Drug Policy: in response to an article by Maria Holynova on Psychedelic Spotlight, published on June 8, 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)