Therapy: Weekly guided opium use administered in such a way as to promote creativity, thinking outside the box, and overall depression relief.
Method of Operation: This treatment obtains results (i.e., cheers the patient up 'overall') by giving him or her something to look forward to, in the form of an opium -using afternoon, for individuals and/or groups of people with similar interests (which they might discuss when 'under the influence'). For it is psychologically obvious (once we put scientism aside) that anticipation of a relaxing experience conduces to overall relaxation. The real hell of depression (and I write from 45 years of experience) is the feeling that the 'down' times will drag on forever, and this feeling could be convincingly combatted with a weekly (and therefore non-addictive) use of opium . No matter how bad the week, the 'patient' of this treatment has but to look at their calendar to dispel that fearful conviction of the depressed that their morose lethargy will endure forever.
Procedure: Subject would lie or sit in comfortable position, have access to the music of their choice, and a pen and paper to write down impressions.
Ideal Patient: Depressed patient (or indeed any would-be creative type) seeking to take a break from their default thought patterns and shake up the mental cobwebs in the hopes of thereby gaining inspiration and motivation for life in the 'real world.'
'The ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn burn like fabulous yellow roman candles.'
As a deadening agent, opium has almost no effect. If measured purely for its ability to alleviate the sensation of pain, morphine 11 , 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.
You can get a Ph.D. in healthcare, and not learn a thing about the glaringly obvious benefits of drugs, as demonstrated by history, anecdote and common sense.
Many psychedelic fans are still drug warriors at heart. They just think that a nice big exception should be carved out for the drugs that they're suddenly finding useful.
"They have called thee Soma-lover: here is the pressed juice. Drink thereof for rapture." -Rig Veda
(There would be no Hindu religion today had the drug war been in effect in the Punjab 3,500 years ago.)
Outlawing opium was the ultimate government power grab. It put the government in charge of pain relief.
The New York Times gets it wrong again. Yes, kratom, like all drugs, has downsides. The problem is not kratom, it's drug prohibition which limits choice. Nor are young people the only stakeholders in the debate, as the Times always assumes.
Psst! Drug use has benefits too. Pass it on!
Drug prohibition has resulted in hundreds of thousands of completely unnecessary deaths thanks to totally preventable drug overdoses!
Psychiatrists refuse to acknowledge that it is hugely disempowering to turn patients into wards of the healthcare state with dependence-causing "meds." End drug prohibition and end the psychiatric pill mill.
The government makes psychoactive drug approval as slow as possible by insisting that drugs be studied in relation to one single board-certified "illness." But the main benefits of such drugs are holistic in nature. Science should butt out if it can't recognize that fact.
Drug prohibition began as a racist attempt to prevent so-called "miscegenation." The racist's fear was not that a white woman would use opium or marijuana or cocaine, but that she might actually fall in love with a Chinese, Hispanic or Black person respectively.
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