Therapists tell us that shock therapy is only used as a last resort. But that is a lie. The fact is that there are hundreds of psychoactive substances that could help the depressed tolerate -- and even enjoy -- this life without frying their brain. This would be all too obvious in a world that wanted to profit from psychoactive medicine rather than demonize it, but in the age of the Drug War, I have to "spell it out" for folks:
The severely depressed could be given what today we disparage as "feel good" medicines on a weekly basis, in such a routine as to avoid addiction when desirable (remembering that even addiction is preferable to frying one's brain). The depressed could be taken on guided psychoactive trips to examine their lives and hopefully identify and surmount the conceptual hurdles that depress them. We could pharmacologically let them experience happiness (say, with one of the hundreds of drugs synthesized by Alexander Shulgin) so that they know that such a thing exists, that life does not have to be one uninterrupted span of gloom. The only thing holding us back is the puritan ethos of the Drug War, which tells us that it's better to fry this person's brain with ECT than to let them use a so-called "crutch." And that is fanatical Christian Science nonsense at its worst. For if people are severely handicapped, then they NEED crutches. But modern 'psychology' says we should kick such crutches out from under them -- and fry their brains into the bargain.
Let's hope that someday this ideology will be seen for the hateful and fanatical expression of drug-hating Christian Science that it is -- the same attitude that keeps kids in hospice and adults in chronic pain from getting the degree of pain relief that they require. For the DEA today is a moral censor: it evaluates (or rather second-guesses) the prescription of pain relief medicine on moral grounds, not on scientific ones, and, of course, the morality to which they subscribe is the drug-hating morality of the Christian Science religion, which tells us such lies as, "the less drugs, the better," and "drugs are not the answer," with the religious implication being that faith in a higher power should be the cure of choice.
Of course, psychiatry will tell us that they have the "REAL" cure for the depressed: you know, the one that has addicted 1 in 4 American women to Big Pharma 12 meds for life. Now, THERE'S a crutch, and a faulty one at that, for I've used such 'godsends' for decades now and am more depressed than ever. And then there's the inconvenient fact that the number of depressed in America has been skyrocketing over the last 50-plus years, during the very time that these supposed miracle pills have become omnipresent.
Author's Follow-up: November 9, 2023
When psychiatry says that natural medicines like opium are "crutches" for depression and anxiety, they are suggesting the notion that science has found the cure to such things in brain chemistry. This claim is hogwash, and not just because these dependence-causing pills seem to cause the very chemical imbalances that they purport to be fixing. There is a basic philosophical problem with such alleged "mind fixes" as well.
First of all, if you're going to solve a problem for me as a depressive, you first have to tell me how you define the problem. When I say I'm depressed, I mean that I cannot live large -- or not as large as I would like. I want to grab the ball and run with life. I do not want a pill that merely keeps me from committing suicide, meanwhile fogging my brain and keeping me from crying at my parents' funeral.
I won't go into detail here, because I've expressed my philosophical qualms with the psychiatric pill mill 3 in many other essays. suffice it to say here that it's a folly on par with frankenstein to even attempt to 'solve' the problem of human unhappiness, rather than treating it on a symptomatic basis. (There's another psychiatric lie: that it's wrong to treat the symptoms.) God keep us from ever "curing" depression, lest we live in a world of Stepford Wives. to the extent that we need anything at all, we should be able to use godsend meds to help us stand up to pain, sadness and anxiety. to say that this is somehow wrong is not science. It's not even logic. Such a view does not follow from any set of givens that one can adduce. Rather, it's the point of view of a Christian Scientist, aka a puritan who is convinced that it is morally wrong to use substances to improve or expand one's mental state.
So remember this the next time someone tells you that drug use is a crutch. That statement is always based on one of two unproven premises: 1) that psychiatry has already "sorted" depression, thank you very much, and 2) it's wrong to expand and improve one's mind with godsend medicines.
Finally, you'll note I refer to "drugs" as godsend medicines. This is because all substances have positive uses, Drug War ideology notwithstanding.
Besides, "drugs" is a pejorative label today. Like "scabs," it not only denotes a thing, but it passes judgment on that thing in so doing. So if prohibitionists are going to routinely slander psychoactive substances with their vocabulary, then they can scarcely blame me for routinely praising them in the same way. And praising what about them, you ask? Praising their great and almost entirely untapped potential for helping humanity, a blessing which the Drug Warrior is perversely determined to prevent through Pyrrhic victories which, if pursued to their illogical conclusions, will mean nothing short of the end of both democracy and human progress.
Author's Follow-up:
May 05, 2025
There is a British organization dedicated to ending shock therapy. Unfortunately they don't seem to recognize the role of prohibition in making shock therapy necessary in the first place. As a result, they ignore the strongest argument that they could use to bring an end to this torture -- this unnecessary infliction of brain damage, which is, after all, the living embodiment of scientism gone amok. In fact enemies of the Drug War should be protesting outside any clinic or hospital in which they damage the brains of the depressed in willful ignoration of psychoactive godsends like phenethylamines and opium 4 .
Most Americans believe that the Drug War simply outlaws hedonism. What nonsense. The Drug War keeps us from treating Alzheimer's 5 and from bringing Peace of Mind to geriatric patients and from giving alcoholics and so-called drug addicts a meaningful and even enjoyable life. And, of course, the Drug War forces us to use barbaric treatments on our depressed victims -- victims of our prehistoric mindset about "drugs."
Rick Strassman isn't sure that DMT should be legal. Really?! Does he not realize how dangerous it is to chemically extract DMT from plants? In the name of safety, prohibitionists have encouraged dangerous ignorance and turned local police into busybody Nazis.
Folks like Sabet accuse folks like myself of ignoring the "facts." No, it is Sabet who is ignoring the facts -- facts about dangerous horses and free climbing. He's also ignoring all the downsides of prohibition, whose laws lead to the election of tyrants.
Being less than a month away from an election that, in my view, could end American democracy, I don't like to credit Musk for much. But I absolutely love it every time he does or says something that pushes back against the drug-war narrative.
There is more hope in dope than there is in the psychiatric pill mill.
We throw people out of jobs for using "drugs," we praise them for using "meds." The categories are imaginary, made up by politicians who want to demonize certain substances, but not cigs or beer.
The Drug War is the legally enforced triumph of human idiocy. We have rigged the deck so that our dunces can be right. The Drug War is a superstition. Indeed, it is THE modern superstition.
I'm interested in CBD myself, because I want to gain benefits at times without experiencing intoxication. So I think it's great. But I like it as part of an overall strategy toward mental health. I do not think of CBD, as some do, as a way to avoid using naughty drugs.
After a long life, I have come to the conclusion that when all the establishment is united, it is always wrong. (Harold MacMillan)
People magazine should be fighting for justice on behalf of the thousands of American young people who are dying on the streets because of the drug war.
This is the "Oprah fallacy," which has led to so much suffering. She told women they were fools if they accepted a drink from a man. That's crazy. If we are terrified by such a statistically improbable event, we should be absolutely horrified by horses and skateboards.
Unless otherwise indicated, no AI is used in the creation of site content. These essays represent the original ideas of their author and not the ideas that the author SHOULD have based on an algorithmic parsing of existing data. For more on this subject, consider the AI-related viewpoints to which the author subscribes as delineated in the New York Times opinion piece entitled "What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity" by Rebecca Winthrop of the Brookings Institution.
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