Addiction Therapy in the Year 2100
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
June 9, 2019
(a philosophical satire written to encourage a complete rethinking of our modern attitudes toward addiction and its treatment)
SCENE: 12 adults seated in a circle.
JOHN SMITH: My name is John Smith and I’m a miserable wretch.
[GROUP MEMBERS TITTER RELUCTANTLY, FINALLY BREAKING OUT INTO FULL-BLOWN LAUGHTER]
SMITH: What? What’s so funny?
[LAUGHTER CONTINUES]
LEADER: You’ll have to forgive us, Johnny boy, but you must not get around much these days.
SMITH: What do you mean? I thought the whole point of addiction therapy was for me to find the protestant God of the Bible.
LEADER: Oh, yeah?
SMITH: Or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof.
[LAUGHTER RESUMES]
SMITH: That’s why I started out with the customary self-abasement and grovelling.
LEADER: That is so 21st century of you, dawg. The point of modern therapy is simply to SHOW YOU GOD – or “at least a reasonable facsimile thereof,” as you put it.
SMITH: What?
LEADER: Everything else follows from that point, bruh: self-respect, respect for others, temperance, you name it.
SMITH: And just how do you intend to show me God?!
LEADER: Earth to Smith: Americans stopped criminalizing Mother Nature over fifty years ago!!!
SMITH: Meaning?
LEADER: Meaning we have amassed a whole pharmacy worth of psychoactive plants and fungi with which we can now ceremonially lead you on a voyage of inner discovery…
SMITH: Yeah?
LEADER: …after which you’ll see the folly of addiction – always assuming, of course, that you enter our program in good faith, committed to learning from Mother Nature.
SMITH: Oh.
LEADER: Get it?
SMITH (reluctantly): Well… I guess…
LEADER: Good.
SMITH: All I can say is that the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous is probably rolling over in his grave right now.
LEADER: To the contrary, the legendary Bill W. was a big fan of treating addiction with LSD therapy…
SMITH: Really?
LEADER: Until a corrupt politician by the name of Richard Nixon criminalized the substance in his effort to crack down on hippies.
SMITH: Oh.
LEADER: That’s right: “Alcoholics be damned,” said Nixon, “as long as I can get my own back against Timothy Leary!”
SMITH: Fair enough, I guess, but…
LEADER: Yes?
SMITH: I still don’t get how you’re gonna make me see God.
LEADER: As far as the specifics of the process, I’d better turn you over to our team pharmacologist, Terence McKenna VIII. Terence?
TERENCE: Well, jefe, the precise combination of plants that we use is a trade secret, of course, kind of like the 11 herbs and spices still used to this very day by KFC.
LEADER: True dat. (Love me some KFC.)
TERENCE: But I can give you a random list of some of the big-hitters in our line-up of therapeutic plants.
LEADER: Proceed when ready.
TERENCE: We’ve got Acorus calamus, Amanita muscaria, Anadenantherea peregrina, Ariocarpus retusus Scheidw, Atropa belladonna, banisteriopsis caapi, Boletus manicus Heim—
LEADER: Enough, dawg. We don’t want to provide a shopping list for our competitors in the therapy biz.
TERENCE: Not to worry, bruh: these substances are useless (yea, even deadly) when used in the wrong doses…
LEADER: I heard that.
TERENCE: …or in the wrong set and setting.
JOHN: But then why are we sitting around in a circle?
LEADER: So you guys can get acquainted before we start our plant-guided rituals next week.
JOHN: Oh.
LEADER: Speaking of which, why don’t you introduce yourself again?
JOHN: OK.
LEADER: But this time, go easy on the self-abasement, would ya?
JOHN: Will do.
LEADER: I think we can take it as a given that we all have much to learn from our plant friends. No need to dwell morbidly on that fact during this introductory session.
Ten Tweets
against the hateful war on US
After a long life, I have come to the conclusion that when all the establishment is united, it is always wrong. (Harold MacMillan)
We know that anticipation and mental focus and relaxation have positive benefits -- but if these traits ae facilitated by "drugs," then we pretend that these same benefits somehow are no longer "real." This is a metaphysical bias, not a logical deduction.
Kids should be taught in grade school that prohibition is wrong.
If we let "science" decide about drugs, i.e. base freedom on health concerns, then tea can be as easily outlawed as beer. The fact that horses are not illegal shows that prohibition is not about health. It's about the power to outlaw certain "ways of being in the world."
Let's arrest drug warriors, confiscate their houses, and deny them jobs in America -- until such time as they renounce their belief in the demonstrably ruinous policy of substance prohibition.
I can think of no greater intrusion than to deny a person autonomy over how they think and feel in life. It is sort of a meta-intrusion, the mother of all anti-democratic intrusions.
Harm Reduction is not enough. We need Benefit Production as well. The autistic should be able to use compassion-enhancing drugs; dementia patients should be able to use drugs that speed up and sharpen mental processes.
Mariani Wine is the real McCoy, with Bolivian coca leaves (tho' not with cocaine, as Wikipedia says). I'll be writing more about my experience with it soon. I was impressed. It's the same drink "on which" HG Wells and Jules Verne wrote their stories.
I knew all along that Measure 110 in Oregon was going to be blamed for the problems that the drug war causes. Drug warriors never take responsibility, despite all the blood that they have on their hands.
Drug Warriors should be legally banned from watching or reading Sherlock Holmes stories, since in their world, it is a crime for such people as Sherlock Holmes to exist, i.e., people who use medicines to improve their mind and mood.
Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us
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