Psst! Meds are drugs. Pass it on!

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Psst! Meds are drugs. Pass it on!

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

May 24, 2026

When I first began my philosophical study of American drug attitudes seven years ago, I was actually afraid to broach the topic of antidepressants, because I did not want to alienate myself from the 1 in 4 American women who take a psychiatric medicine every day of their life. ¹ I soon realized, however, that a critique of the psychiatric pill mill was crucial to a critique of American drug attitudes. It is, in fact, highly revealing that we are a country that hates drugs and yet one in which we actually encourage all obstreperous individuals in our lives to "take their meds." Mothers who think that they hate drugs, actually encourage their kids to take their meds. The only way to make sense of this striking hypocrisy is to assume that those who say such things actually believe that there is a qualitative difference between "meds" and "drugs," and this is simply not true. While there has long been a PR campaign afoot to imply that antidepressants work "scientifically" while "drugs" merely treat the "symptoms," this has turned out to be a lie. As Noam Shpancer pointed out in Psychology Today in 2022, "we don't know why antidepressants work,"² to which I would add, we don't know that they DO work, if by "work" we mean to empower uses rather than to sedate them and render them satisfied with a subpar status quo.

"This is why I consider antidepressants to be creepy."

Even if we were to insist, in spite of the evidence or lack thereof, that antidepressants do work scientifically (whatever that means), this would immediately raise the question, "What do we mean by 'work'?" Do we mean that the antidepressant user is becoming the person that they wish to be with their use, or do we mean that the user is becoming the person that the pharmaceutical companies and government think that they SHOULD be in a profit-driven American society? This is why I consider antidepressants to be creepy. These are drugs that go straight to the brain to irreversibly muck about with brain chemistry. These are also drugs for which dependency is a feature, not a bug. This means that users are signing up to experience life, for the rest of their life, in the way that pharmaceutical companies assume that they SHOULD experience life. There will be no ecstasy, therefore, no help getting outside the box of one's internal scripts. Those who wish to live large are out of luck. We must be contented with the paltry serving of happiness that the government and Big Pharma consider it safe to dish out to us.

And what about this idea that it is wrong to treat the symptoms? That is simply not true. Of course, that statement has some meaning when it comes to physical illnesses. If you've got, heaven forbid, cancer of the throat, you should not try to treat it by merely sucking on cough drops. But when it comes to problems with mood and mentation, it is far better to treat the symptoms than to irreversibly modify brain chemistry in one particular way based on the theories of a financially-motivated biochemical determinist working for a pharmaceutical company. If a given symptomatic intervention does not help, you can try another. If the Big Pharma drug fails, you're stuck on it for life. Besides, there are extended benefits to "treating the symptoms." If I smoke opium on a weekend to better appreciate, say, an opera, it does far more than give me what Drug Warriors would pejoratively describe as a temporary "high" (a state of being, by the way, which could just as easily be described as "a feeling of spiritual transcendence"). The benefits of such use extend throughout the week, since I look forward to that weekend of opium smoking, and even materialists will grudgingly admit that a state of positive anticipation contributes to psychological well-being.

Finally, the idea that we can figure out "the real reason" for our depression is presumptuous. Science looks for easy answers. But only God him or herself could know, let alone tease apart, all the factors that result in our attitudes as human beings and then rank them as to their deterministic value in any particular case. Besides, it is crazy to start casting about for explanations for depression without first dealing with the gorilla in the room, the fact that we have outlawed all drugs that can inspire and elate. This is why it is so frustrating to perform any research on these subjects. Almost every single medical pundit completely ignores the fact that drug prohibition has specifically outlawed those drugs that inspire and elate. In other words, it has specifically outlawed all drugs that could help the depressed. So when a psychiatrist like Gabriel Maté tells me I am suffering from inner pain, I say, "Well, yes, I'm sure that is true, but that is really changing the subject. First, let's re-legalize Mother Nature and then let me decide if I still even feel the need to be discussing my life with you in the first place!"

"Don't tell ME what's nece! I tell YOU what's nece!"

I actually said something of the kind to my last psychiatrist and he subsequently "fired me" as a patient. (I'm sure it had nothing to do with my previous complaint via the Sentara Customer Service Hotline about the recent failure of the clinic to fill my prescription in a timely manner.) I had always been told that one should be perfectly honest with their psychiatrist about the way that they feel; how else were they going to help you, after all, right? But apparently that does not apply to patients who feel that the psychiatric status quo has turned them into a ward of the healthcare state. That's a belief that you're not supposed to have. Well, at least the doctor in question did not pathologize my heresy and seek to have me committed as being literally insane. It's ironic, though: after 40 years of humbly deferring to the medical system, I finally got up the courage to tell my psychiatrist what I really thought about this disempowering rigamarole, and I was rewarded for my frankness by being, as it were, kicked out on the street.

How dare I? I was the patient, after all. What did I know about such things?

I was reminded of the scene in "High Anxiety" when Dr. Thorndyke questions the need for psychiatric sessions to deal with his fear of heights.

DR. THORNDYKE: But, Professor, is it really nece--

PROFESSOR LILLOMAN: It IS "nece"! I know what is "nece"! Don't tell ME what's "nece," I tell YOU what's "nece."

Key Takeaways:

Meds are drugs.
It is not wrong to treat the symptoms when it comes to mood and mentation.
Only a god could know the real reason for our mental states.
There can be no intelligent discussion of antidepressants without a discussion of the drug prohibition which made those pills the only game in town for the depressed.

Notes for essay entitled Psst! Meds are drugs. Pass it on!:

1: Richard Louis Miller. 2017. Psychedelic Medicine : The Healing Powers of LSD, MDMA, Psilocybin, and Ayahuasca. Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press. (up)
2: Shpancer, Noam. 2022. “Depression Is Not Caused by Chemical Imbalance in the Brain | Psychology Today.” Www.psychologytoday.com. July 24, 2022. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/202207/depression-is-not-caused-chemical-imbalance-in-t (up)

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It's disgusting that folks like Paul Stamets need a DEA license to work with mushrooms.

The Drug War is based on a huge number of misconceptions and prejudices. Obviously it's about power and racism too. It's all of the above. But every time I don't mention one specifically, someone makes out that I'm a moron. Gotta love Twitter.

Scientists cannot tell us if using drugs is worth the risk any more than they can tell us if free climbing is worth the risk, or horseback riding or parkour.

Daily opium use is no more outrageous than daily antidepressant use. In fact, it's less outrageous. It's a time-honored practice and can be stopped with a little effort and ingenuity, whereas it is almost impossible to get off some antidepressants because they alter brain chemistry.

Was looking for natural sleeping aids online. Everyone ignores the fact that all the stuff that REALLY works has been outlawed! We live in a pretend world wherein the outlawed stuff no longer even exists in our minds! We are blind to our lost legacy regarding plant medicines!

America takes away the citizen's right to manage their own depression by making opium and cocaine illegal. Then psychiatrists treat the resulting epidemic of depression and anxiety by damaging the patient's brain with shock therapy.

I looked up the company: it's all about the damn stock market and money. The FDA outlaws LSD until we remove all the euphoria and the visions. That's ideology, not science. Just relegalize drugs and stop telling me how much ecstasy and insight I can have in my life!!

The Drug War is the most important evil to protest, precisely because almost everybody is afraid to do so. That's a clear sign that it is a cancer on the body politic.

"I can take this drug that inspires me and makes me compassionate and teaches me to love nature in its byzantine complexity, or I can take Prozac which makes me unable to cry at my parents' funeral. Hmm. Which shall it be?" Only a mad person in a mad world would choose SSRIs.

National Geo published an article entitled "Coca: a Blessing and a Curse." Coca was never a curse. Most people used it wisely, just as most people drink wisely. Doctors demonized it because it really worked and it could put them out of business. https://abolishthedea.com/sigmund_freuds_real_breakthrough_was_not_psychoanalysis.php

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Psst! Meds are drugs. Pass it on!

Key Takeaways:

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