Two and half decades ago, when posting comments was just becoming a "thing" online, my brother-in-law asked me the following question: "Why are you not soliciting comments on your web page?" The implication of his question was that I was being cowardly for failing to do so. I responded by pointing out that literally anyone in the world could use a comment form and that I had no interest in hearing the points of view of a serial killer in Kansas or a ten-year-old smart-aleck in Nova Scotia when it came to the philosophical questions that I was raising in my so-called 'blog' (a term, by the way, which always sounded pejorative to me as a struggling writer, despite its seemingly harmless etymology as a short form of 'web log'). I told him, moreover, that I could not picture my homeboy Arthur Schopenhauer pausing in the middle of his scathing critique of "Hegelians and similar ignoramuses" to ask his readers what they thought on the topic. As the so-called pessimist himself wrote in "The Four-fold Root of Sufficient Reason":
"I am not a professor of philosophy, forsooth, that I need bow to the folly of others."
In other words, the point of Schopenhauer's work was Schopenhauer's work, and so it is with myself. My goal is to publish my own philosophy of drug attitudes, not to create an ultra-democratic online community in which grade schoolers have the same publishing rights as professors emeriti -- although, to be sure, Schopenhauer did not have a high opinion of that latter class of pedants.
And yet I have changed my mind. Demonstrably clueless as I am about the fine art of search engine optimization and lacking an advertising budget, I have no choice but to solicit comments, in the hopes of reaching a wider audience. Besides, I just might learn something. Imagine that.
And my comment form is already helping. I have already garnered some useful advice. One reader has suggested that I compile my writings in book format -- while quite properly begging me not to create a silly title page for such a collection. Five years ago I published a book against drug prohibition containing 150 op-ed pics that demonstrated many downsides of drug prohibition which most westerners have never contemplated, let alone discussed. The point of the book was to throw these issues "in the face" of brainwashed westerners, perhaps as they gathered around a coffee table or library shelf, to more or less force them to discuss these issues. Unfortunately, I chose the poor title of Drug War Comic Book for my publication, causing my purchasers (or rather my non-purchasers) to conclude, naturally enough, that I had published a comic book, when in reality the point of my book was to get people talking about some very serious issues, indeed, like pharmacological colonialism, the destruction of inner-cities and the end of our time-honored right to take care of our own health as we see fit. So far, the number of sold copies can be counted on one maimed hand.
And some of the feedback has puzzled me. One reader tells me that he is in agreement with my philosophical arguments, except when it comes to the "useless liberal reforms" that I advocate. This puzzled me because I was not aware that I was advocating any reforms at all in my essays, let alone those of a useless liberal variety. I consider myself to be following more in the footsteps of Immanuel Kant, whose self-appointed philosophical mission late in life was to inform the thinkers of his time that they were fundamentally wrong about the way that they thought about the world. That is my mission as well. In Kant's case, he attempted to persuade mainstream thinkers that they were wrong about epistemology, and that this ignorance had deleterious consequences in the real world. In my case, I am attempting to persuade mainstream thinkers that they are wrong about drugs and that this ignorance too has deleterious consequences in the real world -- many of them so large as to be invisible to brainwashed westerners -- like the outlawing of the individual's right to heal, the destruction of inner cities around the globe, and the end of the rule of law in Latin America.
Another useful comment: a suggestion that I say more about the effect of U.S.-inspired drug prohibition on other countries.
And what about you? Any useful comments for me?
Help me grow this site so that I can become the Van Helsing of the Drug War and drive a philosophical stake through the ideological heart of drug prohibition. For merely re-legalizing drugs is not enough: we have to vanquish the selfish and counterproductive mindset of the prohibitionists that got us in this mess in the first place. For prohibition did not end in 1933. In fact, it grew enormously after that year, as America decided to outlaw virtually everything BUT alcohol when it comes to psychoactive medicine!
Ten Tweets
against the hateful war on US
I could tell my psychiatrist EXACTLY what would "cure" my depression, even without getting addicted, but everything involved is illegal. It has to be. Otherwise I would have no need of the psychiatrist.
Rick Strassman reportedly stopped his DMT trials because some folks had bad experiences at high doses. That is like giving up on aspirin because high doses of NSAIDs can kill.
This is why we would rather have a depressed person commit suicide than to use "drugs" -- because drugs, after all, are not dealing with the "real" problem. The patient may SAY that drugs make them feel good, but we need microscopes to find out if they REALLY feel good.
Outlawing opium was the ultimate government power grab. It put the government in charge of pain relief.
The best step we could take in harm reduction is re-legalizing everything and starting to teach safe use. Spend the DEA's billions on "go" teams that would descend on locations where drugs are being used stupidly -- not to arrest, but to educate.
Drug War censorship is supported by our "science" magazines, which pretend that outlawed drugs do not exist, and so write what amount to lies about the supposed intransigence of things like depression and anxiety.
Drug prohibition has resulted in hundreds of thousands of completely unnecessary deaths thanks to totally preventable drug overdoses!
I've been told by many that I should have seen "my doctor" before withdrawing from Effexor. But, A) My doctor got me hooked on the junk in the first place, and, B) That doctor completely ignores the OBVIOUS benefits of indigenous meds and focuses only on theoretical downsides.
Alexander Shulgin is a typical westerner when he speaks about cocaine. He moralizes about the drug, telling us that it does not give him "real" power. But so what? Does coffee give him "real" power? Coke helps some, others not. Stop holding it to this weird metaphysical standard.
The Partnership for a Drug Free America should be put on trial for having blatantly lied to Americans in the 1980s about drugs, while using our taxpayer money to do so!
(up)