"Here, then, is the basic conflict and contradiction between the Muslim and methadone; the former eliminates the problem, and thus the need for the white man and the doctor, by making the Negro self-responsible and self-reliant; the latter makes the white man and the doctor indispensable by making the Negro a permanent medical cripple and a lifelong patient, on the model laid down long ago by Benjamin Rush.2"
"Restoring patient autonomy and the right to self-medicate 9 will be a challenging task. Like most precious things, it requires perseverance and commitment. Like all precious things, it is worth the effort." - --p. 6310
"When even so staunch a defender of the free market as Milton Friedman regards treatment as the proper response to the drug problem, how can we expect ordinary people to resist this deadly illusion?" --p. 14711
What I want to know is, who sold Christopher Reeves that horse that he fell off of? Who was peddling that junk?!
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.
If any master's candidates are looking for a thesis topic, consider the following: "The Drug War versus Religion: how the policy of substance prohibition outlaws the attainment of spiritual states described by William James in 'The Varieties of Religious Experience.'"
Today's doctors are "quacks" because they fail to see any of the many obvious uses for psychoactive substances.
The drug war is a slow-motion coup against democracy.
Almost every article about suicide is shallow because it takes drug prohibition as a natural baseline, even though drug prohibition outlaws substances that could so clearly elevate mood.
I wonder if Nixon knew what a favor he was doing medical capitalism when he outlawed psychedelics. Those drugs can actually cure things, and there's no money in that.
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.
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.
Big pharma drugs are designed to be hard to get off. Doctors write glowingly of "beta blockers" for anxiety, for instance, but ignore that fact that such drugs are hard -- and even dangerous -- to get off. We have outlawed all sorts of less dependence-causing alternatives.
(up)