Here's a "what about" that you haven't been asked yet, Kevin: What about the 1 in 4 American women who are dependent on Big Pharma meds for life? Stop fighting drugs, start educating citizens. The alternative is the militarization of police and the unlawful worldwide outlawing of plant medicines. The problems with substance demonization are too huge for Americans to see. Thanks to Drug Warriors, I have gone a lifetime now without godsend medicine that grows at my very feet. The ONDCP had a charter that prevented it from even considering positive use. The Drug War has ruined my life, that's why I push back. It addicted me to Big Pharma 8 9 meds -- and kept me from using the plants at my feet for 40 long years! Prohibition and ignorance are the trouble-makers, Kevin, NOT DRUGS. Get rid of Fentanyl and a new "monster drug" will take its place. That's why the Drug War is a makework program for law enforcement. Plato got his views of the afterlife from psychedelics. The Vedic Hindu religion was founded to worship plant medicine called Soma. When you demonize and outlaw plant medicine, you deny me freedom of religion 10. Plants do not need to be approved by the FDA. They are mine by natural right, unless you think government has the right to criminalize the rain or, like King Canute, to order the tides to cease.
Psychiatrists keep flipping the script. When it became clear that SSRIs caused dependence, instead of apologizing, they told us we need to keep taking our meds. Now they even claim that criticizing SSRIs is wrong. This is anti-intellectual madness.
If America cannot exist without outlawing drugs, then there is something wrong with America, not with drugs.
Imagine the Vedic people shortly after they have discovered soma. Everyone's ecstatic -- except for one oddball. "I'm not sure about these experiences," says he. "I think we need to start dissecting the brains of our departed adherents to see what's REALLY going on in there."
If NIDA covered all drugs (not just politically ostracized drugs), they'd produce articles like this: "Aspirin continues to kill hundreds." "Penicillin misuse approaching crisis levels." "More bad news about Tylenol and liver damage." "Study revives cancer fears from caffeine."
"I can take this drug that inspires me and makes me compassionate and teaches me to love nature in its byzantine complexity, or I can take Prozac which makes me unable to cry at my parents' funeral. Hmm. Which shall it be?" Only a mad person in a mad world would choose SSRIs.
If drug war logic made sense, we would outlaw endless things in addition to drugs. Because the drug war says that it's all worth it if we can save just one life -- which is generally the life of a white suburban young person, btw.
National Geo published an article entitled "Coca: a Blessing and a Curse." Coca was never a curse. Most people used it wisely, just as most people drink wisely. Doctors demonized it because it really worked and it could put them out of business. https://abolishthedea.com/sigmund_freuds_real_breakthrough_was_not_psychoanalysis.php
The Drug War has turned America into the world's first "Indignocracy," where our most basic rights can be vetoed by a misinformed public. That's how scheming racist politicians put an end to the 4th amendment to the US Constitution.
Med-dependent patients of the world, unite -- to end drug prohibition, that is. You have nothing to lose but your prescription bottles and your status as a ward of the healthcare state.
"Judging" psychoactive drugs is hard. Dosage counts. Expectations count. Setting counts. In Harvey Rosenfeld's book about the Spanish-American War, a volunteer wrote of his visit to an "opium den": "I took about four puffs and that was enough. All of us were sick for a week."
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