In reading about the history of pharmacology this morning, I discovered that it never occurred to the leaders in that field that the scientific method might not apply to certain subjects. Yet how can you apply the scientific method to the study of a psychedelic whose benefits depend on one's attitude toward those substances, as the indigenous might put it, or on the "set and setting," as American psychonauts might say? The scientific method tells us to limit the variables that we wish to study to a few important ones. But how does the researcher choose what's important when it comes to human behavior? Who died and made them God that they could make that call in the first place? Meanwhile, a litany of philosophical concerns arise when we start talking about using blinding in such cases. The researcher's attempt to avoid the placebo effect is highly problematic. Indeed, blinding is unethical in the case of the study of psychedelics, where the results of use are so obviously a joint production of both the user and the drug itself. To use blinding is to encourage "bad trips," since it forces study participants to encounter psychedelic effects without the requisite psychological and/or spiritual preparation. Materia Medica (Wikipedia) 6, The Origins of Pharmacology in the 16th Century 7, The Early Development of Psychopharmacology in America 8, A Historical Overview of Pharmacology 9, History of Pharmacy in the United States (Wikipedia) 10, History of Pharmacology: From Herbal Traditions to Modern Science 11, The Pharmaceutical Sciences in America, 1852-1902 12
We should not be talking about the potential harm of drugs -- we should be talking about the well-established harm of drug PROHIBITION.
71% of the depressed have relapses after getting off their meds. Doctors blame this on depression, but increasing evidence suggests that these people are having withdrawal problems.
I might as well say that no one can ever be taught to ride a horse safely. I would argue as follows: "Look at Christopher Reeves. He was a responsible and knowledgeable equestrian. But he couldn't handle horses. The fact is, NO ONE can handle horses!"
In a sane world, we would learn to strategically fight drugs with drugs.
What is the end game of the drug warrior? A world in which no one wants drugs? That's not science. It's the drug-hating religion of Christian Science. You know, the American religion that outsources its Inquisition to drug-testing labs.
If there were no other problem with antidepressants, they would be wrong for the simple reason that they make a user dependent for life -- not as a bug (as in drugs like opium) but rather as a feature: that's how they "work," by being administered daily for a lifetime.
Drug Warriors never take responsibility for incentivizing poor kids throughout the west to sell drugs. It's not just in NYC and LA, it's in modest-sized towns in France. Find public housing, you find drug dealing. It's the prohibition, damn it!
Freud's real discovery was that drugs like cocaine could make psychiatry UNNECESSARY for the vast majority of people. The medical establishment hated the idea -- so they judged the drug based on its worst possible use!
Here are some political terms that are extremely problematic in the age of the drug war:
"clean," "junk," "dope," "recreational"... and most of all the word "drugs" itself, which is as biased and loaded as the word "scab."
If Fentanyl kills, then alcohol slaughters. Drug prohibition is the real killer.
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