So what? Drug use is about psychology, not physics.
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
March 17, 2024
"Drug Warriors rail against drugs as if they were one specific thing. They may as well rail against penicillin because cyanide can kill." -The Drug War Philosopher
Every now and then I run across a frustratingly wrongheaded reply to one of my tweets, but one which sounds just plausible enough that I feel the instant need to rebut it lest its sophistry bamboozle others. Today's offending Tweet is the following by one Samuel W.:
Anything pleasurable you do in withdrawal, kratom, fast food, video games, drugs, slows your brains adaptation to the new baseline. Withdrawal is excruciatingly painful. But what goes up, must come down. Can come down slow, or fast, but the pleasure-pain balance is always equal.
How does Samuel know this, exactly? Does he live on some island where he is able to investigate all types of potential drug therapies freely, without government interference? I fear not. For Samuel subsumes thousands of psychoactive godsends under the pejorative and dismissive label of "drugs," which is, of course, a political term meaning "psychoactive substances for which there is no legitimate use anytime, anywhere, ever"1. For him, the use of "drugs" - which is really a catchall term for thousands of potential godsends, some of which have inspired entire religions - is just another frivolous pleasure, on a par with playing video games and eating a Big Mac. In short, he still seems to hold the drug-hating viewpoint that he was force-fed in grade school by such fearmongering political organizations as DARE and the Partnership for a Drug Free America2, the organization responsible for the most mendacious public service advertisement in human history, which convinced generations of Americans that drugs that focus and expand the brain are actually responsible for "frying" it instead. (I'm assuming here that Samuel is an American; he certainly sounds like one to me based on the scientific materialism
The December Scientific American features a story called "The New Nuclear Age," about a trillion-dollar plan to add 100s of ICBM's to 5 states, which an SA editorial calls "kick me" signs. This Neanderthal plan comes from pols who think that compassion-boosting drugs are evil!
Folks point to the seemingly endless drugs that can be synthesized today and say it's a reason for prohibition. To the contrary, it's the reason why prohibition is madness. It results in an endless game of militaristic whack-a-mole at the expense of democratic freedoms.
Science keeps telling us that godsends have not been "proven" to work. What? To say that psilocybin has not been proven to work is like saying that a hammer has not yet been proven to smash glass. Why not? Because the process has not yet been studied under a microscope.
Using the billions now spent on caging users, we could end the whole phenomena of both physical and psychological addiction by using "drugs to fight drugs." But drug warriors do not want to end addiction, they want to keep using it as an excuse to ban drugs.
The confusion arises because materialists insist that every psychological problem is actually a physical problem, hence the disease-mongering of the DSM. This is antithetical to the shamanic approach, which sees people holistically, as people, not patients.
I agree that Big Pharma drugs have wrought disaster when used in psychotherapy -- but it is common sense that non-Big Pharma drugs that elate could be used to prevent suicide and obviate the need for ECT.
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.
In the 19th century, poets got together to use opium "in a series of magnificent quarterly carouses" (as per author Richard Middleton). When we outlaw drugs, we outlaw free expression.
Science knows nothing of the human spirit and of the hopes and dreams of humankind. Science cannot tell us whether a given drug risk is worthwhile given the human need for creativity and passion in their life. Science has no expertise in making such philosophical judgements.
Someone needs to create a group called Drug Warriors Anonymous, a place where Americans can go to discuss their right to mind and mood medicine and to discuss the many ways in which our society trashes godsend medicines.
The December Scientific American features a story called "The New Nuclear Age," about a trillion-dollar plan to add 100s of ICBM's to 5 states, which an SA editorial calls "kick me" signs. This Neanderthal plan comes from pols who think that compassion-boosting drugs are evil!