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Using Opium to Fight Depression

on replacing psychiatry with pharmacologically savvy shamanism

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

October 26, 2020



Despite the so-called miracle drugs of psychiatry, America remains both the most depressed AND the most drug-using nation on Earth.

2025 Update

Why? Because psychiatrists, motivated by physics envy (i.e. the desire to be part of a 'hard science'), have adopted a scientistic approach to treating depression, whereby they insist that one must treat the supposed reductionist cause of the depression 'illness' in order to help patients (never mind that the belief in the existence of a one-size fits all cure for the fundamental human condition of depression is about as philosophically sound as a search for the Holy Grail). Indeed, the miracle drugs 'discovered' under the influence of this scientistic search have been shown to cause the very chemical imbalances that they were intended to correct, thereby resulting in recidivism rates worse than heroin 1 for those who attempt to quit many SSRIs and SNRIs. Yet psychiatry clings to this scientistic party line (this myth of having found 'miracle drugs' for depression) in the very face of the addictive dystopia that it has created (a kind of real-world Stepford Wives in which 1 in 4 American women are pacified by Big Pharma 's emotion-tamping drugs).

It is this blind faith in their supposedly scientific approach to depression that has left psychiatrists impotent to treat depression effectively, causing them to scornfully reject far less addictive treatments that would have been psychologically obvious to them as godsends were they not in the thrall of their scientism combined with Drug Warrior hysteria and lies. I am referring here to the politically incorrect fact that Mother Nature's psychoactive plants could be used strategically by pharmacologically savvy empaths to bring about peace of mind and productivity (if not positive self-fulfillment in life) in patients with heretofore intractable depression.

LET'S HEAR IT FOR TREATING THE SYMPTOMS!


Hearing these arguments, the psychiatrist instinctively cries out with the old canard, 'Yes, but you're only treating the symptoms!' But that objection is just another way of claiming that there is a one-size-fits-all, reductionist cure for depression in the first place, and we see by the sadness and Big Pharma addiction all around us that this is just not so. Moreover, it is philosophically improbable (in the highest degree) that this SHOULD be so, that there WOULD be a meaningful one-size-fits-all cure for such a diverse phenomenon as human sadness. And even if someone claimed to find such a 'cure,' we would have to ask the question: how are they defining the word 'cure'? Is a depressed patient 'cured' when they stop complaining about their dull life and make their peace with mediocrity? Or are they 'cured' when they start to achieve self-fulfillment in life and see the world around them with new focus and appreciation? If Big Pharma 'wonder drugs' really cure the depressed, then it is surely only in the former sense that they do so, helping the user settle for second best in life, not by widening their world and showing them previously unthought-of ways to 'live large,' psychologically if not financially speaking.

Once we put aside psychiatry's selfish desire to be 'scientific' (along with our drug-war-inspired Christian Science bias against Mother Nature's plant medicines) we can start imagining creative depression treatments such as the one that I've detailed below. I pick this particular treatment almost at random, reminding the reader as I do so that the ways to facilitate shamanic-style healing with psychoactive plants are limited only by the human imagination - and, alas, the anti-patient Drug War, which seeks to villainize Mother Nature's pharmacopoeia instead of employing it in the interests of human happiness, creativity and self-fulfillment.

Why use mother-nature's plant medicines in this way? Because unlike Big Pharma 's numbing nostrums, psychoactive plants can inspire, teach, and console a human being - especially when administered by a pharmacologically savvy empath, the sort of cross-culturally conscious and cosmopolitan plant specialist who I hope one day will take the place of the pill-peddling psychiatrist.

OPIUM THERAPY FOR DEPRESSION


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.'


ROADBLOCK EN ROUTE TO THERAPEUTIC EDEN


One problem with realizing this dream of opium therapy (and cocaine therapy, and psychedelic therapy) is the absurd way in which we punish demonized drugs for failure. A demonized drug need play a role in merely one single patient death and it might be withheld from an entire generation of the depressed - meanwhile alcohol and tobacco kill hundreds of thousands a year and no one bats an eyelash. This raises the question: why are the rights of the responsible beer guzzler so much more important than those of the responsible opium , cocaine or psychedelic user? Why is beer allowed to cause hundreds of thousands of deaths a year and remain on the market unscathed by bad publicity while a potentially godsend medicine like cocaine 2 3 or opium must be withdrawn from everybody (in the entire world!) once it kills a mere handful of users? This absurd requirement, that villainized psychoactive substances be 100% safe and, as it were, idiotproof, only makes sense to us in the light of the Drug Warrior's Christian Science prejudice against the psychoactive healing and improvement of psychological conditions.


The Links Police



Relax, I just stopped you to give you some link suggestions about the psychology of substance use, of which American psychology is shamefully ignorant, by the way. You might check out, for instance, and how about or better yet . Oh, and check out your left rear tail light when you get a chance, would ya? It doesn't seem to be illuminating when you tap on the brake. Oh, yeah, here's one more of Brian's essays that we're calling 'a link of interest': . Get it? 'A link of interest'? Oh, I'm hot tonight.




August 2, 2022



Still believe that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance? You may wish to read 'The Emperor's New Drugs' by Irving Kirsch or 'Anatomy of an Epidemic' by Robert Whitaker.

Meanwhile, here's a philosophical reason why the idea is bogus: If drug-makers have really 'cured' depression, then they should be able to tell us what they mean by 'cured'? Am I cured from depression when I no longer consider suicide 4 and live a sleepy uneventful life? Or am I cured when I thrive in life and see 'a world in a grain of sand' a la Carl Sandburg? From my experience with antidepressants 5, the drug-maker's definition of 'cured' is the former -- while my definition of 'cured' is the latter.

Therefore Big Pharma anti-depressants may fix SOMETHING, but they certainly do not fix 'depression' as I define it, as something that keeps me from 'living large.'

Meanwhile, drugs like psilocybin, coca, opium and MDMA 6 -- when used advisedly -- can help me live the way I wish to live in life -- firing on all burners, for my goal is to be one of Jack Kerouac's kind of people:

'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.'


Sure, you can lobotomize me or tranquilize me instead, but let's be clear: that 'cure' works for the psychiatrist only, not for the 'patient' (or rather the 'victim').

Author's Follow-up: August 29, 2022





Modern psychology completely ignores the power of anticipation to brighten one's day. They have to ignore the power of anticipation in the age of the Drug War. Why? Because the moment one recognizes the therapeutic value of anticipation, it becomes obvious that drugs like coca and opium and laughing gas 7 can be godsends for the depressed when used wisely. For not only do their active ingredients help elevate mood, but the mere anticipation of such use elevates mood as well. So why don't we allow and teach wise use?

Because the Drug War is all about persuading the world that wise use of these substances impossible, that no amount of education, research or teaching can let us use these substances wisely,

For the Drug War defines drugs as follows: substances for which there is no beneficial use: not now, not ever; not for me, not for you, not for anyone anywhere in the entire world.

Of course, the plain unvarnished truth is that there are no such substances in the world. Even the super-toxic Botox can be used wisely for the good of human beings.

But the Drug Warrior has convinced the world of their unscientific (or rather anti-scientific) thesis. That's why most scientists today ignore the fact that their research opportunities are censored by drug prohibition, for they themselves have swallowed the anti-scientific lie that almost all psychoactive medicines lack any therapeutic benefits whatsoever.

And so Americans blithely go about their day, urinating on demand for their employers while the police continue arresting their compatriots for using naturally occurring medicines that have inspired entire religions.

All because we'd rather arrest people for using medical godsends instead of teaching them how to use them wisely.

Americans do not want to be honest about drugs, because the moment they are truly honest, they will have to admit the inconvenient fact that 1 in 4 American women are dependent for life on Big Pharma meds thanks to the Drug War which outlaws freely occurring psychoactive medicines; they will have to admit that tobacco and liquor together kill half a million Americans a year; they will have to admit that opium can be used non-addictively and that heroin and morphine 8 can be used for a lifetime without problem -- if the Drug Warrior would allow such use; they would have to admit that withdrawal is hell only because the Drug Warrior has outlawed the use of all substances that might otherwise make it bearable.

Once we jettison the slough of Drug War lies, it becomes psychological common sense that we can work wonders if we would only start using psychoactive substances creatively to help the troubled or rudderless -- not by getting them to take Big Pharma 9 10 pills every day of their life but rather by giving them now one godsend medicine, now another, such that they obfuscate the withdrawal symptoms and place the seeker on a more sustainable path to self-enlightenment.

This utopia will only come about when American lawmakers stop being chicken-little fearmongers about inanimate substances and start educating Americans about them instead in the painfully honest way cited above -- which may never happen until the 1% stop bribing politicians to vote against any change to the corrupt status quo.

Author's Follow-up: November 9, 2022



Want to cure the depression crisis: re-legalize the coca leaf. Re-legalize the chewing of the same. Re-legalize the Coca wine favored by HG Wells, Jules Verne, Alexandre Dumas, Henrik Ibsen, and Charles Gounod. Not only would this end most depression, but it would go a long way toward ending the mass killings in Mexico that is a direct result of Drug War prohibition.


Related tweet: June 2, 2023


'Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death.' -Jean Cocteau



Author's Follow-up: March 16, 2025

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up




In a sane world, we would be fascinated by the powers of opium intoxication and exploring it for its inspirational and psychological effects.

Jim Hogshire hints at the odd powers of opium when he writes the following 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 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.


It is difficult to write much on this subject because no one has dared to be interested in the powers of opium -- we have only learned how to worry about it and fear it. But hints slip through, especially in drug-inspired literature, like 'The Crawling Chaos' or 'Celaphais' of Lovecraft: literature that demonstrates how the drug can help us imagine our problems metaphorically -- which is of such obvious use to those with mental preoccupations that only a modern behaviorist could be blind to it. That's the good news. The bad news is that everyone is a behaviorist these days when it comes to drugs. They believe that doctors are the experts when it comes to mind and mood medicine and that all that counts on this topic are things that can be quantified -- such as biochemistry and genetics -- and so almost everyone is dogmatically blind to the glaringly obvious benefits of opium 12 use.












Notes for essay entitled Using Opium to Fight Depression: on replacing psychiatry with pharmacologically savvy shamanism:

1: Hall, Wayne, and Megan Weier. 2016. “Lee Robins’ Studies of Heroin Use among US Vietnam Veterans.” Addiction 112 (1): 176–80. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.13584. (up)
2: Sigmund Freud's real breakthrough was not psychoanalysis DWP (up)
3: “Freud on Cocaine : Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.” 2023. Internet Archive. 2023. https://archive.org/details/freudoncocaine0000freu/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater. (up)
4: Why Americans Prefer Suicide to Drug Use DWP (up)
5: Antidepressants and the War on Drugs DWP (up)
6: How the Drug War killed Leah Betts DWP (up)
7: Forbes Magazine's Laughable Article about Nitrous Oxide DWP (up)
8: Three takeaway lessons from the use of morphine by William Halsted, co-founder of Johns Hopkins Medical School DWP (up)
9: Seife, Charles. 2012. “Is Drug Research Trustworthy?” Scientific American 307 (6): 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1212-56. (up)
10: LaMattina, John. n.d. “Why Is Biopharma Paying 75% of the FDA’s Drug Division Budget?” Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2022/09/22/why-is-biopharma-paying-75-of-the-fdas-drug-division-budget/. (up)
11: Three takeaway lessons from the use of morphine by William Halsted, co-founder of Johns Hopkins Medical School DWP (up)
12: The Truth About Opium by William H. Brereton DWP (up)




read more essays here





Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




How else will they scare us enough to convince us to give up all our freedoms for the purpose of fighting horrible awful evil DRUGS? DRUGS is the sledgehammer with which they are destroying American democracy.

The MindMed company (makers of LSD Lite) tell us that euphoria and visions are "adverse effects": that's not science, that's an arid materialist philosophy that does not believe in spiritual transcendence.

Some fat cat should treat the entire Supreme Court to a vacation at San Jose del Pacifico in Mexico, where they can partake of the magic mushroom in a ceremony led by a Zapotec guide.

The Drug War is one big entrapment scheme for poor minorities. Prohibition creates an economy that hugely incentivizes drug dealing, and when the poor fall for the bait, the prohibitionists rush in to arrest them and remove them from the voting rolls.

The war on drugs has destroyed America's faith in the power of education. In fact, it has made us think of education as WRONG in and of itself. It has made us prefer censorship and fear-filled ignorance to education!

It is folly to put bureaucrats in charge of second-guessing drug prescriptions: what such bureaucrats are really doing is second-guessing the various philosophies of life which are presupposed by the way we use psychoactive drugs.

It's already risky to engage in free and honest speech about drugs online: Colorado politicians tried to make it absolutely illegal in February 2024. The DRUG WAR IS ALL ABOUT DESTROYING DEMOCRACY THRU IGNORANT AND INTOLERANT FEARMONGERING.

The drug war is being used as a wrecking ball to destroy democratic freedoms. It has destroyed the 4th amendment and freedom of religion and given the police the right to confiscate the property of peaceful and productive citizens.

If I have no right to mother nature's bounty, then I surely have no right to manmade guns. If hysterical fearmongering justifies the eradication of the Fourth Amendment, then the Second Amendment should go as well.

Drug testing labs are the modern Inquisitors. We are not judged by the content of our character, but by the content of our digestive systems.


Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us






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