Thanks for the great articles over the years, but I have a long-standing complaint with Science News and all other authoritative science sources in the nation. With due respect, you all "reckon without the Drug War."
You ask the question: what IS the solution for depression?
My answer is simple: RE-LEGALIZE MOTHER NATURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The depression "crisis" would end overnight if folks could chew the coca leaf -- or use any of hundreds of drugs on an intermittent basis.
But Science News completely ignores such treatments in blind fealty to the Drug War ideology which tells us that outlawed substances have no positive uses for anybody, at any dose, for any reason, ever.
If Science News really feels this way, they should have a disclaimer that states that fact. If they don't, then they should wake up to the fact that they are self-censoring themselves when telling us about depression, anxiety and consciousness, etc.
The stories about electrifying the brain and using implants scares and bothers me. How dare we use all these technological fixes when we've outlawed any help from Mother Nature? My uncle's brain was destroyed by shock therapy -- because we outlawed all godsend medicines that could have cheered him up. That's Christian Science barbarism.
Many places now allow euthanasia: in the age of the Drug War, this means that we will let people use drugs to kill themselves but we will not let them use drugs to make themselves want to live!!!!!!
When is Science News going to acknowledge the role that the Drug War plays in censoring science and keeping you guys from writing about these issues???
This is about the tenth letter that I've written to Science News on this topic and I've always been ignored.
Please, please, do me a favor and at least take these ideas "on board."
We need to stop using the fact that people like opiates as an excuse to launch a crackdown on inner cities. We need to re-legalize popular meds, teach safe use, and come up with common sense ways to combat addictions by using drugs to fight drugs.
Mayo Clinic is peddling junk. They are still promoting Venlafaxine, a drug that is harder to kick than heroin.
The front page of every mycology club page should feature a protest of drug laws that make the study of mycology illegal in the case of certain shrooms. But no one protests. Their silence makes them drug war collaborators because it serves to normalize prohibition.
It's a category error to say that scientists can tell us if psychoactive drugs "really work." It's like asking Dr. Spock of Star Trek if hugging "really works." ("Hugging is highly illogical, Captain.")
We should not be talking about the potential harm of drugs -- we should be talking about the well-established harm of drug PROHIBITION.
This is the problem with trusting science to tell us about drugs. Science means reductive materialism, whereas psychoactive drug use is all about mind and the human being as a whole. We need pharmacologically savvy shaman to guide us, not scientists.
Trump is the prototypical drug warrior. He knows that he can destroy American freedoms by fearmongering.
There are a potentially vast number of non-addictive drugs that could be used strategically in therapy. They elate and "free the tongue" to help talk therapy really work. Even "addictive" drugs can be used non-addictively, prohibitionist propaganda notwithstanding.
The government makes psychoactive drug approval as slow as possible by insisting that drugs be studied in relation to one single board-certified "illness." But the main benefits of such drugs are holistic in nature. Science should butt out if it can't recognize that fact.
Oregon's drug policy is incoherent and cruel. The rich and healthy spend $4,000 a week on psilocybin. The poor and chemically dependent are thrown in jail, unless they're on SSRIs, in which case they're congratulated for "taking their meds."
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