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The Barbaric State of Mental Health Care in the age of drug prohibition

Why electroshock therapy remains the go-to treatment for ending severe depression in America

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

April 22, 2026



The following comments are written in response to an article on the Mad in America website entitled "Which Would You Prefer: Electroshock or a Safe Taper?" by Jennifer Giordano. 1

My answer to your question is neither.

I believe that shock therapy is a crime in an age when we do not let people use the plants and fungi that grow at their very feet. Why should we be forced to potentially damage our brain by a government that denies us our access to Mother Nature? I would rather suffer while protesting the drug prohibition that outlaws my right to heal than to undergo ECT.

My tapering to get off Venlafaxine failed miserably after a year, when my depression suddenly returned far worse than ever. But my answer is not shock therapy. I have decided to live the remainder of my life “on Venlafaxine” just so that I can think straight, that’s just how thoroughly my brain chemistry seems to have been changed by this drug. I think it shows how low the healthcare field has sunk thanks to drug prohibition that their go-to fix for people in my situation is damaging the brain. The FDA won’t approve of drugs that grow at our feet, yet they champion shock therapy2. This is absolutely bizarre, and it can only be drug-propaganda that keeps people from seeing it as such.

I think that healthcare officials have a moral duty to speak up against the drug prohibition that has turned depressed people like myself into a patient for life, without yet “curing” my depression — as if depression should be cured in the first place, but rather just symptomatically treated. My idea of a “cure” for depression would not be the same as what a Big Pharma chemist considers to be a cure, in any case.

There are plenty of drugs that could end my depression in a trice. Anyone who denies this is unfamiliar with pharmacology, ethnobotany, drug literature, drug history, and psychological common sense, for that matter.

The government lied and told us that “drugs” fry the brain. How ironic that it is drug prohibition itself that actually forces us to fry brains. Like so many other social evils in America, ECT only makes sense to those who reckon without drug prohibition and how it has outlawed our right to heal.




Key Takeaways:






Notes:

1: Which Would You Prefer: Electroshock or a Safe Taper? Giordano , Jennifer, Mad in AMerica, 2026 (up)
2: The FDA on ECT: Supporting a Vital Treatment Charles, Kellner MD, 2019 (up)




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Most people think that drugs like cocaine, MDMA, LSD and amphetamines can only be used recreationally. WRONG ! This represents a very naive understanding of human psychology. We deny common sense in order to cater to the drug war orthodoxy that "drugs have no benefits."

I can't believe people. Somebody's telling me that "drugs" is not used problematically. It is CONSTANTLY used with a sneer in the voice when politicians want to diss somebody, as in, "Oh, they're in favor of DRUGS!!!" It's a political term as used today!

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.

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.

The goal of rehab should not be to get people off of all drugs, it should be to teach them to be in control of their drug use and to use drugs wisely for beneficial purposes.

There are endless creative ways to ward off addictions if all psychoactive medicines were at our disposal. The use of the drugs synthesized by Alexander Shulgin could combat the psychological downsides of withdrawal by providing strategic "as-needed" relief.

Drug Prohibition is a crime against humanity. It outlaws our right to take care of our own health.

The UN of today is in an odd position regarding drugs: they want to praise indigenous societies while yet outlawing the drugs that helped create them.

We've created a faux psychology to support such science: that psychology says that anything that really WORKS is just a "crutch" -- as if there is, or there even should be, a "CURE" for sadness.

We're living in a sci-fi dystopia called "Fahrenheit 452", in which the police burn thought-expanding plants instead of thought-expanding books.


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