This discovery about fluvoxamine is a mixed blessing at best for a 64-year-old like myself who has been addicted to Big Pharma antidepressants 1 for a lifetime. For all we know, natural and less-addictive antidepressants (from coca, to opium, to psychedelics) may have similar powers to combat COVID, but scientists are FORBIDDEN BY LAW to study such plants in the same detail in which we study drugs like fluvoxamine. FORBIDDEN BY LAW!
When is Science News going to start "coming clean" to their readers about the role that the Drug War plays in limiting scientific research on these sorts of problems? The anti-scientific Drug War has been muzzling scientists (albeit largely with their consent) for close to a century now. You say, "Oh, but we're dealing with SCIENTIFIC drugs!" Yes, the same kind of scientific drugs that have turned 1 in 4 American women into Stepford Wives by making them chemically dependent on BIG PHARMA FOR LIFE.
Why doesn't your article point out the true price of treating COVID with a Big Pharma antidepressant: namely, becoming addicted for life and becoming a ward of the healthcare state?
Please start to be honest with your readers and append a disclaimer to all such articles as this as follows:
"The research on treatments for COVID, like so much research these days, has been limited by the Drug War, which forbids and otherwise discourages all research regarding the therapeutic potential of plant medicine of which politicians disapprove."
The anti-scientific Drug War will never end if we refuse to acknowledge that it even exists! If you really think that the Church was wrong in censoring Galileo, then why are you not speaking up now about the government censoring you and the researchers that you study?!
In short, Science News has a moral and a scientific duty to start pointing out the role that the Drug War plays in limiting research -- a limit that is so successful that scientists and reporters like Esther have internalized the limitation and now consider the Drug War to be a natural baseline for all scientific research. If Galileo had reacted thus in his day, we would still be living in a geocentric universe.
Author's Follow-up: August 15, 2022
After acknowledging that science is hobbled by Drug War restrictions, Science News might wish to write a story about the thousands of children in hospice worldwide who suffer unnecessary pain every single day thanks to the Drug War and the way that it demonizes drugs. morphine 2 is now illegal in some 'civilized' countries in fealty to the Drug War ideology of demonization, forcing dying children to suffer unbelievable pain in the name of America's war on godsend medicines. Children suffer and die so that Big Liquor, Big Pharma and Big Police can maintain their grip on power around the globe -- all thanks to America's criminal and anti-scientific war on godsend medicine.
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There are longstanding anecdotal reports of how opium can cure colds, but American scientists will never investigate those claims, not just because of the Drug War, which makes it career suicide 3 to do so, but because the results thus alleged are produced in a very novel way. You see, opium brings about metaphorical dreams that allow you to see your problems -- including seemingly physical ones -- in a new light, and to vanquish those problems metaphorically. Opium thereby can leverage the mind's already significant power to outwit disease through concentrated thought, the same way that yogis can avoid the pain of burning embers through intense mental will.
Such an approach to healing is a non-starter for reductionist science, however. But luckily for materialists, the Drug War allows them to declare victory over such approaches to illness prematurely by outlawing them entirely. So a lot of the modern materialist's bluster about knowing the absolute truth these days is based on the fact that the opposition approach to the world has been outlawed. "See?" they cry. "No one cures or improves their condition through opium." "Yes," we reply, "because the Drug War will not allow them to do so and thereby creatively leverage the power of the mind."
I will try to provide some specifics with respect to the claims made above. As regards opium's method of action, consider the following words from Jim Hogshire in "Opium for the Masses":
"As a deadening agent, opium has almost no effect. If measured purely for its ability to alleviate the sensation of pain, morphine 4 , opium, or any of the others would score no better than aspirin. It is the perception of pain that opium alters, and that makes all the difference in the world. It's as if the pain were happening to someone else or to no one at all.5"
I also advise the reader to peruse the short story "The Crawling Chaos" by HP Lovecraft6, in which a pain patient is treated with opium. The throbbing pain of the patient is converted from his perspective into the crashing waves of a tormented sea. The suffering ends because it is perceived differently, as not affecting the self. It is as if opium has given the protagonist the mental powers of one of those legendary mystics who has learned to "think away" pain. The difference is that the mystic required a lifetime to attain those powers, whereas the protagonist required only a few minutes.
For more on how opium use constitutes a cure for the common cold, see Hogshire's book "Opium for the Masses.7"
Almost all other books about opium discuss the drug from the viewpoint of a prohibitionist -- one who assumes that such drugs can never be used wisely. One other book that I can recommend, however, is "The Truth About Opium" by William Brereton8.
You need read no further than the titles of most books on opium to see that they have been written from a prohibitionist point of view. Consider John Halpern's book: "Opium: How a flower shaped and poisoned the world.9" John actually thinks that a flower can poison the world. A flower. Flowers do not poison the world. The world is poisoned by bad social policies -- like outlawing a desired substance. But John is writing from the Drug Warrior perspective that drugs are the problem rather than ignorance and superstition. He is writing from the prohibitionist perspective -- the perspective that has brought about a mass world dystopia, filled with the completely unnecessary violence and bloodshed that results from outlawing desired substances. Halpern is part of the problem.
But, of course, I hold my breath in vain waiting for John to write a book like: "Effexor 10 : How antidepressants poisoned the world." The author will find no downsides in the daily use of antidepressants. And why not? Because he would never even think to look for any. That is how objective HE is. His job as a good Drug Warrior -- brainwashed since grade school in anti-drug propaganda -- is to demonize medicines that improve mind and mood without the permission of government. You can hardly blame John, however. Like the rest of us, he almost never sees or hears any reports of positive drug use. Why not? Because the government and media simply will not let that happen. It is the propaganda of almost complete censorship. It is this censorship that bars me from most philosophical forums on this subject, because Americans are brainwashed in the Great Cult of Substance Demonization -- and would rather "drink the Kool-Aid" than listen to reason (i.e., they would rather kill democracy and our most basic freedom: our right to control our own emotional and mental states).
But then Americans are not supposed to know the truth about opium -- they are supposed to fear it instead. The simple truth would tell us that there are benefits and risks for opium use as there are for all activities in the world. The idea that the risks are not manageable is a brazen lie. Drug laws and censorship exist therefore to make use as dangerous as possible. But the truth will eventually out. For the world would be a far better place if those who "abused" alcohol were nightly opium smokers instead. For starters, they would never beat their wives.
And please do not talk to me about the woes of dependency, not in a world in which 1 in 4 American women are dependent on Big Pharma 1112 meds for life, not in a world in which antidepressants like Effexor have a 95% recidivism rate for long-term users.
If I am going to be required to use a drug every day of my life, let it be time-honored opium, a drug of my own choosing, rather than a drug like Effexor that has turned me into a ward of the healthcare state.
Americans used to have that option, by the way, until 1914, when opium habitues essentially became "addicts" overnight by government decree.
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For more on how the Drug War penalizes children in pain, see Damon Barrett's
"Children of the Drug War: Perspectives on the Impact of Drug Policies on Young People.13"
Author's Follow-up: March 28, 2025
Notice above how I just casually mentioned the fact that opium can give one the mental outlook of a yogic sage! It can help us "think away" pain. It can help us get outside our selves, which fact alone suggests miraculous ways in which the drug could benefit talk therapy. The drug could help us tap the powers of the imagination and leverage the power of the human will to obtain beneficial and desired mindsets.
And yet literally NO ONE acknowledges these enormous benefits as benefits. We are completely bamboozled by Drug War pieties!
When it comes to "drugs," the government plays Polonius to our Ophelia:
OPHELIA: I do not know, my lord, what I should think.
POLONIUS: Marry, I'll teach you; think yourself a baby!
And Americans have obliged. When the Drug Warrior says we are babies, we effectively say, "Yes, Mommy! Don't worry, I won't even THINK of any positive uses for the substances that I am supposed to hate!"
To which the DARE counselor responds: "Good for you, sweetheart! Now, here is your plush toy for saying no to godsend medicines."
Folks point to the seemingly endless drugs that can be synthesized today and say it's a reason for prohibition. To the contrary, it's the reason why prohibition is madness. It results in an endless game of militaristic whack-a-mole at the expense of democratic freedoms.
If drug warriors were serious about saving lives, they'd outlaw guns, cars, and all pleasure trips to Mars.
I have dissed MindMed's new LSD "breakthrough drug" for philosophical reasons. But we can at least hope that the approval of such a "de-fanged" LSD will prove to be a step in the slow, zigzag path toward re-legalization.
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."
Prohibitionists will me that we're all children when it comes to drugs, and can never -- but never -- use them wisely. That's like saying that we could never ride horses wisely. Or mountain climb. Or skateboard.
The massive use of plea deals lets prosecutors threaten drug suspects into giving up their rights to a fair trial.
Outlawing substances like laughing gas and MDMA makes no more sense than outlawing fire.
Opium is a godsend, as folks like Galen, Avicenna and Paracelsus knew. The drug war has facilitated a nightmare by outlawing peaceable use at home and making safe use almost impossible.
If we cared about the elderly in 'homes', we would be bringing in shamanic empaths and curanderos from Latin America to help cheer them up and expand their mental abilities. We would also immediately decriminalize the many drugs that could help safely when used wisely.
Wade Davis writes that cocaine was outlawed because 400 people consumed toxic doses worldwide. What about the 49,000 that commit suicide every year because we have outlawed drugs that could cheer them up!!!
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