Replacing antidepressants with entheogens

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Replacing antidepressants with entheogens

new hope for the millions who are dependent on SSRIs and SNRIs

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

April 21, 2024

Letter to Liz Martinez, Research Participant Advocate at Johns Hopkins University.

Good afternoon, Liz.

I am writing to volunteer for participation in a clinical trial that no one has yet undertaken: a trial to see if the use of entheogenic drugs can help the SNRI-dependent individual get off of Big Pharma meds like Effexor ¹ . I am a 65-year-old chronic depressive who has been on Effexor for several decades now and I would like to finish my life by renouncing my status as an eternal patient. To that end, I have sought out clinical trials and overseas retreats through which I might use entheogenic medicine, but in all cases I have been rebuffed, due, in my view, to overblown liability concerns (always disingenuously presented as concerns for my health) regarding a poorly studied, rare and generally mild contraindication known as Serotonin Syndrome.

In other words, I have discovered that the psychedelic renaissance is not available for precisely those who need and deserve it most: namely, the millions (including 1 in 4 American women!) who have been turned into wards of the healthcare state by myopic materialism ² and the Drug War, which has outlawed all obvious antidepressant godsends, including the San Pedro cactus, which the Conquistadors outlawed before them, meanwhile telling me that they're not even sure that laughing gas or MDMA ³ could help the depressed (see Dr. Robert Glatter's article in Forbes magazine 2021)! To the contrary, the FDA is now busy trying to make laughing gas ⁴ (William James' go-to substance for philosophical investigation) a "drug," thus making it less available to the suicidal than ever, not to mention philosophers.

The point is: I am your guinea pig for a study to see if the use of entheogenic drugs can help one wean themselves off of drugs like Effexor. Although I am not a doctor, I have read many accounts of the spiritually boosting effects of drugs like San Pedro cactus, from which I conclude that there is what philosophers call a PRIMA FACIE case to be made for prescribing entheogens to the chronically depressed, to inspire and give them fortitude in their quest to end Big Pharma use. The latest NIH results indicate that Serotonin Syndrome is usually mild and can be easily monitored and corrected should it occur. Besides, in the real world, many folks -- certainly myself -- do not place safety at the top of their priorities in life. I am willing to take reasonable -- indeed mild -- risks to achieve my goal of experiencing the perennial wisdom that comes from certain psychedelic medicine-- from which outrageous drug law has debarred me until now.

I consider myself an expert on this topic -- or at least on a certain aspect of this topic -- given my 30+ years of experience "on" Effexor and the hundreds of articles that I have written about how the Drug Warriors have turned me into an eternal patient by denying me access (like the Conquistadors before them) to the plants and fungi that grow at my very feet. Please give me an opportunity to fight back, meanwhile giving hope to the millions of chronically depressed who are currently considered ineligible for psychedelic healing. In my view, materialist medicine owes these people something, since our society and its materialist presuppositions essentially signed off on this unacknowledged yet unprecedented mass pharmacological dystopia thanks to which 1 in 4 American women take a Big Pharma med every day of their life. It's really unfair that the psychedelic renaissance is leaving this demographic behind, leaving them to their fate as wards of the healthcare state, as they-- still -- keep complaining of the depression for which they yet religiously still keep "taking their meds."

I'm your guinea pig.

I would be glad to write a detailed proposal for how a study of this kind would proceed. To summarize and recap: I propose a study whereby various entheogens are given to someone (myself) as they withdraw from a Big Pharma med (Effexor), based on the PRIMA FACIE argument that a drug that inspires wholeness, meaning and focus (like San Pedro cactus) could help create the mindset wherein the psychological downsides of antidepressant withdrawal could be overcome. For withdrawal by itself (without entheogens) has been shown to have a recidivism rate of 95%. Clearly, the mindset of the user has to adapt to the withdrawal of a drug like Effexor (one that mucks about with brain chemistry), and if any class of drugs on earth has the potential to improve mindset and attitude, it is the entheogen. It can inspire change.

But I hope that science won't take its usual glacial course and wait like Dr. Spock until this "inspiration" can be documented on a PowerPoint chart, since I don't think any of us will live so long! (We all know how long it took science to grudgingly accept that pets might have "real" emotions -- and it is only within the last few weeks that scientists grudgingly acknowledged that lowly life forms may have some kind of consciousness and/or intelligence after all, something that the Mesoamerican natives have known for millennia) We know that entheogens can inspire change: let me help establish that the use of such drugs can help me get off Effexor. A successful trial of this kind would give hope to millions of the chronically depressed who are completely disempowered by the knowledge (conscious or not) that they are eternal patients thanks to their use of Big Pharma ⁵ ⁶ antidepressants ⁷.

Let's stop telling the chronically depressed to "keep taking your meds!" as rich yuppies keep flying to Peru to try ayahuasca. Please, let's provide the victims of the Drug War with a blessed alternative, the help of entheogens in their quest to get off of big pharma antidepressants, a feat that is far more difficult than most Americans (not to mention the pharmaceutical companies) are willing to acknowledge, let alone do something about.

best wishes.

hope to hear from you soon.

Author's Follow-up:

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up

Hope to hear from her soon, Brian? Dream on!

Antidepressants

Getting Off Drugs

Open Letters

Notes:

1: How Drug Prohibition makes it impossible to get off of Effexor and other Big Pharma drugs DWP (up)
2: How materialists lend a veneer of science to the lies of the drug warriors DWP (up)
3: How the Drug War killed Leah Betts DWP (up)
4: Forbes Magazine's Laughable Article about Nitrous Oxide DWP (up)
5: Seife, Charles. 2012. “Is Drug Research Trustworthy?” Scientific American 307 (6): 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1212-56. (up)
6: LaMattina, John. n.d. “Why Is Biopharma Paying 75% of the FDA’s Drug Division Budget?” Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2022/09/22/why-is-biopharma-paying-75-of-the-fdas-drug-division-budget/. (up)
7: Antidepressants and the War on Drugs DWP (up)

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Ten Tweets

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The Cabinet of Caligari ('62) ends with a shameless display of psychiatric triumphalism. Happy shock therapy patients waltz freely about a mansion in which the "sick" protagonist has just been "cured" by tranquilizers and psychoanalysis. Did Robert Bloch believe his own script?

The 1932 movie "Scarface" starts with on-screen text calling for a crackdown on armed gangs in America. There is no mention of the fact that a decade's worth of Prohibition had created those gangs in the first place.

The problem for alcoholics is that alcohol decreases rationality in proportion as it provides the desired self-transcendence. Outlawed drugs can provide self-transcendence with INCREASED rationality and be far more likely to keep the problem drinker off booze than abstinence.

In an article about Mazatec mushroom use, the author says: "Mushrooms should not be considered a drug." True. But then NOTHING should be considered a drug: every substance has potential good uses.

Imagine a world in which we were told about both the potential benefits AND the potential harms of drugs like cocaine and opium.

If NIDA covered all drugs (not just politically ostracized drugs), they'd produce articles like this: "Aspirin continues to kill hundreds." "Penicillin misuse approaching crisis levels." "More bad news about Tylenol and liver damage." "Study revives cancer fears from caffeine."

The Hindu religion was created thanks to the use of a drug that inspired and elated. It is therefore a crime against religious liberty to outlaw substances that inspire and elate.

Drug War propaganda is all about convincing us that we will never be able to use drugs wisely. But the drug warriors are not taking any chances: they're doing all they can to make that a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Kids should be taught beginning in grade school that drug prohibition is wrong.

Even if the FDA approved MDMA today, it would only be available for folks specifically pronounced to have PTSD by materialist doctors, as if all other emotional issues are different problems and have to be studied separately. That's just ideological foot-dragging.

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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.

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