I have just read your highly informative article entitled "Who Decided You Need a Prescription?" 1 I now have a much better idea of how our various drug prohibitions came about and the role that the use of opium in the Philippines played in this history. Thanks. While reading the post, a number of corollary considerations came to mind that I wanted to share with you.
Please note that I am making this essay available to paid subscribers only, which essentially means that only you are able to see it, at least for the time being. I did this in part because I eventually hope to earn a little money from my exertions, but mainly because I did not want to post anything that might be misread by hasty readers as criticism of your excellent piece. America's Drug War (the one dating back to the 19th century, I mean) has poisoned the public dialogue on this topic such that readers will be quick to misconstrue subtle arguments to make them gibe with their own propaganda-inspired prejudice.
When I say "propaganda," I mean chiefly the fact that media conglomerates refuse to publish any stories, books, TV shows or movies that highlight wise and beneficial use of drugs, while yet saturating the market with documentaries, movies, magazine stories and tearjerker books and "redemption" novels about drug use gone wrong (failing to point out, meanwhile, that the government is now spending over $50 billion a year to ensure that drug use in America will, indeed, go wrong).
One problem with this propaganda (or rather with the mindset that it fosters) is that it has added a subjective element to ostensibly objective words. This is why, when in doubt, I always use the word "habitue" to describe a regular drug user rather than the word "addict." In the age of the Drug War, the use of the word "addict" is highly pejorative. It can basically be defined in the public mind as: "A person who overused drugs for no good reason until they became a problem user and now is a potential drain on society – or at least in need of prompt medical care from the $37-billion addiction industry in the U.S." Of course, the term "addict" has a number of definitions, but I believe that the one thing upon which all lexicographers would agree is that the addict's use of drugs is problematic.
As great as it is, "Synthetic Panics" by Philip Jenkins was only tolerated by academia because it did not mention drugs in the title and it contains no explicit opinions about drugs. As a result, many drug law reformers still don't know the book exists.
We know that anticipation and mental focus and relaxation have positive benefits -- but if these traits ae facilitated by "drugs," then we pretend that these same benefits somehow are no longer "real." This is a metaphysical bias, not a logical deduction.
In Mexico, the same substance can be considered a "drug" or a "med," depending on where you are in the country. It's just another absurd result of the absurd policy of drug prohibition.
The best step we could take in harm reduction is re-legalizing everything and starting to teach safe use. Spend the DEA's billions on "go" teams that would descend on locations where drugs are being used stupidly -- not to arrest, but to educate.
Drug Prohibition is a crime against humanity. It outlaws our right to take care of our own health.
Attention People's magazine editorial staff:
Matthew Perry was a big boy who made his own decisions. He didn't die because of ketamine or because of evil rotten drug dealers, he died because of America's enforced ignorance about psychoactive drugs.
When it comes to "drugs," the government plays Polonius to our Ophelia:
OPHELIA: I do not know, my lord, what I should think.
POLONIUS: Marry, I'll teach you; think yourself a baby!
Drug warriors blame all of the problems that they cause on "drugs" and then insist that the entire WORLD accept their jaundiced view of the natural bounty that God himself told us was good.
That's so "drug war" of Rick: If a psychoactive substance has a bad use at some dose, for somebody, then it must not be used at any dose by anybody. It's hard to imagine a less scientific proposition, or one more likely to lead to unnecessary suffering.
It wasn't until western prudery and racism came along that we started to judge people by the substances that they chose to ingest, rather than by their actual behavior in the world.
Unless otherwise indicated, no AI is used in the creation of site content. These essays represent the original ideas of their author and not the ideas that the author SHOULD have based on an algorithmic parsing of existing data. For more on this subject, consider the AI-related viewpoints to which the author subscribes as delineated in the New York Times opinion piece entitled "What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity" by Rebecca Winthrop of the Brookings Institution.
I have just read your highly informative article entitled "Who Decided You Need a Prescription?" 1 I now have a much better idea of how our various drug prohibitions came about and the role that the use of opium in the Philippines played in this history. Thanks. While reading the post, a number of corollary considerations came to mind that I wanted to share with you. 
(up)