herapists 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 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 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.
In "Psychedelic Refugee," Rosemary Leary writes:
"Fueled by small doses of LSD, almost everything was amusing or weird." -- Rosemary Leary
In a non-brainwashed world, such testimony would suggest obvious ways to help the depressed.
I've been told by many that I should have seen "my doctor" before withdrawing from Effexor. But, A) My doctor got me hooked on the junk in the first place, and, B) That doctor completely ignores the OBVIOUS benefits of indigenous meds and focuses only on theoretical downsides.
Musk and co. want to make us more robot-like with AI, when they should be trying to make us more human-like with sacred medicine. Only humans can gain creativity from plant medicine. All AI can do is harvest the knowledge that eventually results from that creativity.
The FDA says that MindMed's LSD drug works. But this is the agency that has not been able to decide for decades now if coca "works," or if laughing gas "works." It's not just science going on at the FDA, it's materialist presuppositions about what constitutes evidence.
The "scheduling" system is completely anti-scientific and anti-patient. It tells us we can make a one-size-fits-all decision about psychoactive substances without regard for dosage, context of use, reason for use, etc. That's superstitious tyranny.
Someday, the First Lady or Man will tell kids to "just say no to prohibition." Kids who refuse will be required to watch hours' worth of films depicting gun violence, banned religions, civil wars, and adults committing suicide for want of medicine that grows at their very feet.
Health is not a quality, it's a balance. To decide legality based on 'health' grounds thus opens a Pandora's box of different points of view.
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."
Researchers insult our intelligence when they tell us that drugs like MDMA and opium and laughing gas have not been proven to work. Everyone knows they work. That's why drug warriors hate them.
Someday those books about weird state laws will be full of factoids like: "In Alabama, you could be jailed for 20 years for conspiring to eat a mushroom."
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, The Handicapped NEED Crutches: on the anti-patient morality of the drug war, published on January 5, 2022 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
herapists 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:
You have been reading an article entitled, The Handicapped NEED Crutches: on the anti-patient morality of the drug war, published on January 5, 2022 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)