Science News magazine continues to pretend that there is no war on drugs
an open letter to freelance writer Cassandra Willyard, author of 'A next-gen pain drug shows promise, but chronic sufferers need more options'
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
September 5, 2024
With respect, Cassandra, your article1 about next-gen pain medicines ignores the 6,400-pound gorilla in the room: namely, the fact that the Drug War has outlawed almost any form of treating pain. Opium, for starters, is illegal, as are a host of other medicines that could treat pain by helping one ignore it or think about it in a new way (like psilocybin and huachuma cactus).
But like almost all Science News writers, you reckon without the Drug War2, pretending that you are writing from a natural baseline, when, in fact, drugs like opium have been considered panaceas throughout history, with the exception of the last century or so, when America began demonizing effective medicines for political reasons. Being prohibited from using Mother Nature is not something that is common sense -- unless maybe one is a drug-hating Christian Scientist. The fact that naturally occurring drugs like opium 3 are illegal should be part and parcel of any truly scientific piece about pain relief.
For as author Jim Hogshire wrote:
"The poppy's central and indispensable position in our civilization makes access to it important, and thus forbidding public access to the poppy is staggeringly cruel."4
To remain silent on this topic merely serves to normalize the anti-scientific Drug War, which falsely tells us that...
a substance that can be misused by one person at one dose must not be used by any person at any dose.
Chronic sufferers need more options, Cassandra? THEN WHY DON'T WE RE-LEGALIZE MOTHER NATURE!!!
Orchestras will eventually use psychedelics to train conductors. When the successful candidate directs mood-fests like Mahler's 2nd, THEY will be the stars, channeling every known -- and some unknown -- human emotions. Think Simon Rattle on... well, on psychedelics.
I never said that getting off SSRIs should be done without supervision. If you're on Twitter for medical advice, you're in the wrong place.
It's always wrong to demonize drugs in the abstract. That's anti-scientific. It begs so many questions and leaves suffering pain patients (and others) high and dry. No substance is bad in and of itself.
I'm told antidepressant withdrawal is fine because it doesn't cause cravings. Why is it better to feel like hell than to have a craving? In any case, cravings are caused by prohibition. A sane world could also end cravings with the help of other drugs.
Some outlawed drugs grow new neurons in the brain. To refuse to use them makes us complicit in the dementia of our loved ones!
The Drug War brought guns to the "hoods," thereby incentivizing violence in the name of enormous profits. Any site featuring victims of gun violence should therefore be rebranded as a site featuring victims of the drug war.
In his treatise on laws, Cicero reported that the psychedelic-fueled Eleusinian Mysteries gave the participants "not only the art of living agreeably, but of dying with a better hope."
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.
This is why we would rather have a depressed person commit suicide than to use "drugs" -- because drugs, after all, are not dealing with the "real" problem. The patient may SAY that drugs make them feel good, but we need microscopes to find out if they REALLY feel good.
Check out the 2021 article in Forbes in which a materialist doctor professes to doubt whether laughing gas could help the depressed. Materialists are committed to seeing the world from the POV of Spock from Star Trek.
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