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Using plants and fungi to get off of antidepressants

an open letter to the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines

by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher




June 19, 2024

ear Chacruna Institute1:

I wanted to give you a heads-up on a completely forgotten demographic in the psychedelic renaissance: people like myself who are stuck on antidepressants that turn out to be extremely difficult to quit. (The NIMH says that the Effexor2 that I am on has a 95% recidivism rate for long-term users who try to quit.) According to Julie Holland, 1 in 4 American women are dependent on antidepressants for life3. And the worst thing is, these people are all INELIGIBLE for help from psychedelics. This is supposedly because of a fear of a very rare issue called "serotonin syndrome,4" however, in my view, it is really because of a fear of lawsuits and bad publicity. So-called serotonin syndrome is easily detectable and treatable and is very rare, at least as a life-threatening condition.

I have just retired and want to use myself as a guinea pig to document how I can get off of Effexor using plant medicines and fungi, particularly huachuma5, peyote6 and psilocybin7. I will be documenting my efforts so that my ultimate success can help others, or at very least suggest new lines of research. Although I am not a doctor, I have some common psychological sense8, which is something that modern materialist doctors tend to lack9. (Materialist doctors still are not even sure that laughing gas could help the depressed!) I have read endless stories of how entheogens can inspire one in pursuing a goal, and I believe that this will apply to antidepressant withdrawal as much as to anything else.

I am telling you all this in case you can recommend some practical ways in which I can undertake this study. It looks like I would have to move to Canada to get legal access to peyote and huachuma, although the latter cactus can supposedly be grown legally in the States. Perhaps you have some ideas on how I can turn this into an "official" study and so get approval to use the necessary substances in the States.

There are many millions of antidepressant users who have been turned into eternal patients by the war on drugs, which outlawed everything but dependence-causing medicines for depression10. When doctors learned that these drugs caused dependence, they did not apologize. Instead, they flipped the script and told me that I had a medical duty to take these drugs every day of my life. I think it's a shame that this misused demographic that I am part of is the only demographic that no one is helping during the psychedelic renaissance. I hope to set an example that can start to change that.

If you have any suggestions, practical or otherwise, please let me know!

Author's Follow-up: June 19, 2024

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up


Frankly, these are the kinds of letters that are usually ignored, or at best "sloughed off," but check back here in a week or so in case I am pleasantly surprised.



Notes:

1 Chacruna Insititute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines, chacruna.net, 2024 (up)
2 Quass, Brian, This is your brain on Effexor, 2019 (up)
3 Holland, Julie, Good Chemistry: The Science of Connection, from Soul to Psychedelics, HarperWave, New York, 2020 (up)
4 Simon, Leslie V., Serotonin Syndrome, NIH National Library of Medicine: National Center for Biotechnology Information, 2023 (up)
5 Lite, Scott, The Sacred Cactus of the Andes — “San Pedro” / “Huachuma”, 2021 (up)
6 Peyote Way Church of God, Inc., Plaintiff-appellant, v. William F. Smith, Attorney General of the United States , JUSTIA US LAW, (up)
7 Griffiths, William, Psilocybin: A Trip into the World of Magic Mushrooms, William Griffiths, Annapolis, 2021 (up)
8 Quass, Brian, Common Sense Drug Withdrawal, 2024 (up)
9 Quass, Brian, Getting Off of Big Pharma Meds Using Teacher Plants, 2024 (up)
10 Quass, Brian, How Psychiatry and the Drug War turned me into an eternal patient, 2021 (up)



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Previous essay: GK Chesterton on Prohibition

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Some Tweets against the hateful war on drugs

Orchestras will eventually use psychedelics to train conductors. When the successful candidate directs mood-fests like Mahler's 2nd, THEY will be the stars, channeling every known -- and some unknown -- human emotions. Think Simon Rattle on... well, on psychedelics.
There's more than set and setting: there's fundamental beliefs about the meaning of life and about why mother nature herself is full of psychoactive substances. Tribal peoples associate some drugs with actual sentient entities -- that is far beyond "set and setting."
That's why we damage the brains of the depressed with shock therapy rather than let them use coca or opium. That's why many regions allow folks to kill themselves but not to take drugs that would make them want to live. The Drug War is a perversion of social priorities.
The front page of every mycology club page should feature a protest of drug laws that make the study of mycology illegal in the case of certain shrooms. But no one protests. Their silence makes them drug war collaborators because it serves to normalize prohibition.
Pro-psychedelic websites tell me to check with my "doctor" before using Mother Nature. But WHY? I'm the expert on my own psychology, damn it. These "doctors" are the ones who got me hooked on synthetic drugs, because they honor microscopic evidence, not time-honored usage.
In an article about Mazatec mushroom use, the author says: "Mushrooms should not be considered a drug." He misses the point: NOTHING should be considered a drug: every substance has potential good uses.
The book "Plants of the Gods" is full of plants and fungi that could help addicts and alcoholics, sometimes in the plant's existing form, sometimes in combinations, sometimes via extracting alkaloids, etc. But drug warriors need addiction to sell their prohibition ideology.
This is why it's wrong to dismiss drugs as "good" or "bad." There are endless potential positive uses to psychoactive drugs. That's all that we should ask of them.
The benefits of entheogens read like the ultimate wish-list for psychiatrists. It's a shame that so many of them are still mounting a rear guard action to defend their psychiatric pill mill -- which demoralizes clients by turning them into lifetime patients.
Prohibitionists are also responsible for the 100,000-plus killed in the US-inspired Mexican drug war
More Tweets

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You have been reading an article entitled, Using plants and fungi to get off of antidepressants: an open letter to the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines, published on June 19, 2024 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)