The Depressing Truth About SSRIs

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The Depressing Truth About SSRIs

why psychedelic therapy must REPLACE modern psychiatry rather than simply complement it

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

April 17, 2020

Open letter to MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies:

Author's follow-up for October 30, 2025

I keep hearing MAPS ¹ researchers use the phrase "those who don't respond to regular anti-depressants" when talking about clinical trials. This gives the impression that anti-depressants usually work just fine, but that is just plain wrong - although psychiatrists have been paid millions by Big Pharma to go on shows like "Oprah" and say otherwise.

If such pills are really the silver bullets they are purported to be, why is America more depressed than ever, statistically speaking, decades after these silver bullets hit the market?

Many of these medications are highly addictive and harder to kick than heroin! Heroin can be beat in one grueling week. Anti-depressants can take months as the brain chemistry attempts to return to normal. Some of these meds can NEVER be stopped. I wanted to get off of Effexor ² , but my doctor told me not to bother because recidivism rates are over 95% after three years.

{^About one in eight ³ men and one in four women are addicted to Big Pharma antidepressants ⁴, according to psychiatrist Julie Holland. And now the pharmaceutical companies are going after the toddler market. This is a huge but silent scandal, especially when you consider Robert Whitaker's finding that antidepressants actually CAUSE the chemical imbalances that they purport to fix.}{

And yet MAPS researchers are silent on these issues. I can only guess that Big Pharma 's influence is keeping them from recognizing the obvious. MAPS researchers should be pushing for psychedelic therapy to REPLACE modern antidepressants, not simply to eke out therapy for those supposedly rare cases that can't be "helped" by these deliberately addictive drugs (these annuities for Big Pharma executives).

And what do we even mean when we say that an antidepressant "works"? In the book "Psychedelic Medicine," Dr. Richard Louis Miller tells the story of a reporter who wrote a first-person story about Prozac. The reporter was bullish on the drug at first, saying that the medicine was definitely making him happier. But then he went to a family funeral and found to his horror that he felt nothing at all. Was Prozac working? You might say yes, it was working all too well. (This is not a surprise, since American psychiatry has a long history of defining "cures" as "treatments that render the patient more docile," as opposed to "treatments that help the patient achieve self-fulfillment in life.")

Anti-depressants are working great for Big Pharma , of course, bringing in $40 billion a year. They are swimming in dough from monthly purchases by addicts. But those who take the drugs are turned into eternal patients and are guinea pigs for substances that were never properly trialed for lifetime use. Worse yet, such patients are ineligible for participation in most new psychedelic therapies for fear of Serotonin Toxicity Syndrome.

MAPS researchers should start speaking truth to power and tell Big Pharma that its whole pill-mill approach to psychiatry is wrong. As a victim of the status quo, I for one would appreciate to hear someone in the field actually recognizing that "eternal patients" like myself exist. I don't expect I'll ever get an apology from the psychiatry business for addicting me for a lifetime to a mind-numbing drug (one that offers no self-insight whatsoever), but it would be nice if someone in the field would at least acknowledge that there is a problem here.

That's why I won't be fully happy with MAPS until they start promoting psychedelic therapy as a REPLACEMENT for the status quo, rather than as a mere helpful adjunct for the Big Pharma pill mill.

editor note from abolishthedea.com

July 12, 2022

Where are the conspiracy theorists when we need them? They could at least open our minds to some disturbing possibilities. Like, for instance, I sometimes wonder if Prozac wasn't designed to turn folks into neo-liberals. I know my own politics veered right after a few years of Prozac use. This was the same time that my musical skills decreased, at least when it came to playing in natural sync with my fellow musicians. There suddenly seemed to arise a new brief but destructive mental step of conscious reflection between the impulse and the act, rendering me nervous and uncertain in circumstances in which the thought of nervousness had never occurred before.

Of course, unlike the Drug Warrior, I know that one swallow does not make a summer, so perhaps the mental changes described above can be explained without reference to Prozac. My only point here is that no one seems to be considering the possibility that antidepressants are changing personalities in ways that are not necessarily consistent with the interests of the antidepressant user. Of course the silence is to be expected, since the moneyed interests support a media narrative that turns SSRIs into whole milk. And as with whole milk, all reported downsides are blamed on the user, not on the substance. Can't handle milk? Why, you freak! You must be lactose-intolerant! Can't handle a given SSRI? No problem, we just have to keep weaning you off and on different KINDS of SSRIs until we find the one that's "right" for you.

Speaking of which, it's the new feminine small talk: what meds are you on? How many? How long have you been taking it? Do you think you'll switch to another SSRI any time soon?

And this in a country that is trying desperately to get Americans to say no to drugs? 1 in 4 American women are on multiple drugs every day of their life and the Drug Warrior pretends to not notice as they advocate 20-year jail terms for folks who reach down and use the plants and fungi that grow at their very feet.

Author's Follow-up: March 21, 2025

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up

It is amazing how easily one can be propagandized to believe that almost anything is normal. If super-intelligent aliens came to Earth and we told them that depression was "a tough nut to crack," they would be astonished. "What?" they would cry. "Haven't you people ever heard of laughing gas ? Haven't you heard of opium ? Haven't you heard of the thousands of phenethylamines that inspire and elate and which you could synthesize at will?"

Here is where the modern Drug Warrior would have to take the little green men aside and bring them up-to-speed on the warped mindset of our times.

"You see, Voltana, we Earthlings feel that it is highly inappropriate to use psychoactive medicine for the emotional and mental well-being of our species -- with the exception of commercial medicines that "work" according to the behaviorist's definition of that term. We feel that the government's role is to scare our people away from any common-sense uses for drugs."

To which Voltana would respond:

"Come, Krakor and Vestron: I told you earthlings were a crude people. Let us go back to our planet, where improving mind and mood is actually considered to be a GOOD thing!"

Author's Follow-up:

September 11, 2025

I seem to be the only philosopher in the world who sees the connection between the Drug War and the psychiatric pill mill. The few other authors who attack the Drug War seem to be materialists who are under the impression that science has "sorted" depression. In fact, it has always been a category error to place science in charge of mind and mood medicine. This is what Native American activist Albert Hensley was getting at when he complained as follows about the western world's attempts to study peyote, a substance that his people consider to be of divine origin:

"It is utter folly for scientists to attempt to analyze this medicine. Can science analyze God's body?" ⁵

This is why it is an uphill climb to correct America's attitude toward drugs, because all of the best thinkers are either ON Big Pharma antidepressants or else they believe in the power of materialist science to handle matters of mind and mood, which is precisely like placing the passion-scorning Dr. Spock of Star Trek in charge of the field. This is exactly why our scientists ignore the glaringly obvious benefits of laughing gas ⁶ and MDMA ⁷ and coca and opium ⁸ . They claim they have no benefits, when they could so obviously prevent suicides and render brain-damaging shock therapy unnecessary! Instead, they expect to establish drug efficacy by looking under a microscope, while dogmatically ignoring all anecdote, history and common sense psychology about drug benefits.

Of course, I myself am on antidepressants -- but only because they are literally impossible to "kick" -- at least that is definitely the case with Effexor. And when one attempts to do that, the depression returns in a form that is incomparably worse than ever! If Drug Warriors were consistent, they would demonize these drugs from the rooftops -- and yet these downsides are completely ignored. In fact, we are told that we are good patients for "taking our meds."

It amazes me. For all the handwringing about addiction, Americans have no problem with the fact that 1 in 4 American women take a Big Pharma ⁹ ¹⁰ drug every day of their life -- and that these drugs are harder to kick than heroin. Wouldn't it break a heart of stone! The hypocrisy is just enormous. Our drug policy is incoherent -- especially in a world wherein we refuse to even discuss gun control or liquor control.

I am literally the only person I know who has ever mentioned the demoralization that results from turning a depressed person into a patient for life.

But as much as I attack Effexor, it is not the drug that is evil. I could easily get off the drug if I were to use the plants and fungi of Mother Nature. This is psychological common sense. And yet racist politicians have made it a crime for me to take care of my health! This is nothing less than a crime against humanity ¹¹. And yet here I am, in a remote corner of the Internet, more or less ignored by everybody.

They say that quality will rise to the top. Maybe so. But controversial opinions not so much: not when the entire world has been brainwashed for over a century now in the drug-hating ideology of the West.

Incidentally, some Drug Warriors -- and even my own psychiatrist -- cite the pedantic difference between addiction and dependency, as if dependency is fine, only addiction is bad. Why? They say that addiction is problematic drug use -- but what could be more problematic than being stuck on a drug one dislikes and in place of which one wants to use time-honored godsend medicines instead? Besides, the problems caused for the addict are created by drug prohibition itself, which refuses to teach safe use, refuses to regulate drug supply and refuses to offer drug choice.

"But addicts have cravings," says the prohibitionist.

Why is it bad for a person withdrawing from a drug to have cravings while it is okay for them to feel like hell and wish to die???

If the failure of Effexor to cause cravings is a good thing, then it is good only for the psychiatrist, because they will not get a call late at night demanding a refill. Instead, the depressed will simply suffer in silence, wishing that he or she had never been born.

What blindness on the part of Americans. This is the result of our scientific triumphalism and a century's worth of censorship about the positive effects of the vast psychoactive pharmacopoeia that racist politicians have outlawed with the help of purblind materialist scientists!

AFTERWORD: Thirty-four percent of soldiers in Vietnam used heroin -- at least 20% were dependent on the drug. And yet when these hundreds of thousands returned home, only 5% of them had issues with getting off the drug. Only 5%. Compare this with the Effexor that I am on. According to my own psychiatrist, it has a 95% recidivism rate ¹² . 95%!!! It is almost impossible to quit. Why? Because our hubristic scientist wanted to "cure" sadness -- and so they mucked about with brain chemistry to make a one-size-fits-all "miracle drug"¹³. And psychiatrists stand by this pill to this day. They actually praise it! This is how far we have come from being able to take care of our own health. We are now given drugs that turn us into patients for life and we are considered Luddites if we complain about the status quo.

Effexor is hell for those who attempt to get off it. No wonder psychiatrists tell us to "keep taking our meds." They want to flip the script so that no one even bothers trying to get off of their cash cow medicines that turn the users into wards of the healthcare state.

Author's Follow-up:

October 30, 2025

I wrote the above essay over five years ago, before I had read "On Cocaine" by Sigmund Freud ¹⁴. Otherwise, I would have highlighted the fact that cocaine is a cure for depression in and of itself and that it is used wisely by most people. In other words, we do not need more expensive studies by purblind scientists to find a cure for depression. One exists already. Indeed, many exist -- once we take common sense psychology into account and stop demanding that efficacy be determined by looking under a microscope.

Why are the depressed not using cocaine today? Because doctors were terrified of cocaine. It was a virtual panacea for depression in most cases -- and the widespread availability of such a drug would put them out of business. So what did they do? They judged the drug by its rare downsides, exactly as if they were to judge alcohol by only studying drunkards. They never asked the depressed what they thought about the drug. Instead, they launched an op-ed media campaign to destroy the drug's reputation. It was a power grab. They themselves wanted to be the "experts" on treating human sadness and they were going to brook no rivals.

Antidepressants

Getting Off Drugs

Open Letters

Notes:

1: Three Problems With Rick Doblin's MAPS DWP (up)
2: How Drug Prohibition makes it impossible to get off of Effexor and other Big Pharma drugs DWP (up)
3: Common antidepressants could help the immune system fight cancer, UCLA study finds (up)
4: Antidepressants and the War on Drugs DWP (up)
5: “Artificial Paradises - Mike Jay.” 1999. Mike Jay. May 18, 2025. https://mikejay.net/books/artificial-paradises/. (up)
6: Forbes Magazine's Laughable Article about Nitrous Oxide DWP (up)
7: How the Drug War killed Leah Betts DWP (up)
8: The Truth About Opium by William H. Brereton DWP (up)
9: Seife, Charles. 2012. “Is Drug Research Trustworthy?” Scientific American 307 (6): 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1212-56. (up)
10: 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)
11: Drug Prohibition is a crime against humantiy DWP (up)
12: I have been unable to confirm this stat. But the WHO notes clinical recidivism rates for depression ranging from 50% to 85%. Do we count that as a recidivism rate of Effexor? Not when Biopharma is paying 75% of The FDA’s Drug Division Budget, as reported by John LaMattina in the Sep 22, 2022 edition of Forbes magazine. (up)
13: Hall, Wayne, and Megan Weier. 2016. “Lee Robins’ Studies of Heroin Use among US Vietnam Veterans.” Addiction 112 (1): 176–80. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.13584. (up)
14: “Freud on Cocaine : Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.” 2023. Internet Archive. 2023. https://archive.org/details/freudoncocaine0000freu/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater. (up)

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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US

Uruguay wants to re-legalize psilocybin mushrooms -- but only for use in a psychiatrist's office. So let me get this straight: psychiatrists are the new privileged shaman? It's a mushroom, for God's sake. Just re-legalize the damn thing and stop treating us like children.

The Shipiba have learned to heal human beings physically, psychologically and spiritually with what they call "onanyati," plant allies and guides, such as Bobinsana, which "envelops seekers in a cocoon of love." You know: what the DEA would call "junk."

When Americans "obtain their majority" and wish to partake of drugs safely, they should be paired with older adults who have done just that. Instead, we introduce them to "drug abusers" in prerecorded morality plays to reinforce our biased notions that drug use is wrong.

I knew democracy was in trouble when most Americans in the '80s saw no problem with allowing drug testers to go on a fishing expedition in their bodily fluids for substances of which politicians disapprove.

Doc to Franklin: "I'm sorry, Ben, but I see no benefits of opium use under my microscope. The idea that you are living a fulfilled life is clearly a mistake on your part. If you want to be scientific, stop using opium and be scientifically depressed like the rest of us."

Ann Lemke's case studies make the usual assumptions: getting free from addiction is a morality tale. No reference to how the drug war promotes addiction and how banned drugs could solve such problems. She does not say why daily SSRI use is acceptable while daily opium use is not. Etc.

Americans love to hate heroin. But there is no rational reason why folks should not use heroin daily in a world in which we consider it their medical duty to use antidepressants daily.

Self-medication is not a dirty word. It has always been a fundamental right to take care of one's own health -- until the medical establishment demonized the practice for obvious financial reasons.

Prohibition is a crime against humanity. It forces us to use shock therapy on the severely depressed since we've outlawed all viable alternatives. It denies medicines that could combat Alzheimer's and/or render it psychologically bearable.

One merely has to look at any issue of Psychology Today to see articles in which the author reckons without the Drug War, in which they pretend that banned substances do not exist and so fail to incorporate any topic-related insights that might otherwise come from user reports.

Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us

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