COUNSELOR RICK: Kids, gather around, I have a good horror story for you.
KIDS: Oooh!
COUNSELOR RICK: That's right, ears in the full upright position. This one's downright eerie.
Now then, once upon a time, there were these godsend plants that could help people get over depression and conquer loneliness.
ANTOINE: THAT'S not scary!
COUNSELOR RICK: Oh, just you wait, Antoine. See, these plants grew all around us, they were our natural birthright as Earthlings, but then these bigoted people known as "Drug Warriors" decided that these plants were somehow evil.
SALLY: That's silly, Counselor Rick. Plant medicines can't be evil, only people can be evil.
ANTOINE: That's right. Medicines can be good OR bad: it all depends on how they're used.
COUNSELOR RICK: You know that, kids, and I know that, but these people were... well, how should I put this...?
ANTOINE: Dumb as crap?
COUNSELOR RICK: Well, let's just say they were superstitious.
SALLY: Sounds like they were regular cretins to me.
COUNSELOR RICK: Now, now, Sally, be nice.
ANTOINE: Counselor Rick! Counselor Rick!
COUNSELOR RICK: Yes, ANTOINE?
ANTOINE: I think I've heard this one before.
COUNSELOR RICK: Oh, really?
ANTOINE: Oh, yeah, you're talking about that science-fiction story called "Fahrenheit 452," where the government burns plants in order to stop citizens from improving their mental focus and expanding their minds!
COUNSELOR RICK: Antoine shoots and scores!
SALLY: Ooh, Counselor Rick, I don't want to hear that story. It scares me.
ANTOINE: Me too, Counselor Rick. Just imagine a government that is so evil that it bars its own citizens from accessing the plants and fungi that grow at their very feet. I don't think I'm gonna be able to sleep tonight just thinking about it!
COUNSELOR SUE: Now you've done it, Rick, the kids are all going to have nightmares about DEA fascists kicking down their doors in order to rob them of naturally occurring godsends.
COUNSELOR RICK: Relax, kids. We're living in the 22nd century, remember? The DEA was abolished over a hundred years ago.
[kids crying]
COUNSELOR SUE: Rick, exactly how long have you been a camp counselor?
COUNSELOR RICK: Sorry, Sue. I guess I forgot just how scary the old Drug War days really were.
COUNSELOR SUE: You think?
COUNSELOR RICK: Well, it could have been worse.
COUNSELOR SUE: How's that, Rick?
COUNSELOR RICK: I could have told them about the bad old days when all the big corporations forced employees to undergo the indignity of drug testing without any probable cause, all in order to enforce the government's Sharia against the use of naturally occurring substances.
COUNSELOR SUE: Brrr! Now that really IS scary!
COUNSELOR RICK: I know, right?
COUNSELOR SUE: Thanks for bringing that up, Rick. Now I too won't be able to get to sleep tonight!
COUNSELOR RICK: That is pretty lame indeed, the government essentially forcing people to become Christian Scientists when it comes to psychological healing.
COUNSELOR SUE: You're not helping matters, Rick.
What Have We Learned?
Select the appropriate takeaway message from the above admittedly charming satire.
Some plants are just plain bad and kids should be taught that from the git-go!
Submitting to a drug test is a patriotic responsibility.
The therapeutic needs of the suffering must be ignored so that we can carry on a full-scale Drug War. Grrr! (This answer recommended by the National Association of Prison Guards)
Plant medicines can be good or bad, depending on their specific use.
Answer: That's right, kids, the answer is 4: "Plant medicines can be good or bad, depending on their specific use." Unfortunately you'll never learn this from the Drug Warriors, whose patronizing MO is to insist that plant substances are bad in and of themselves. That's why we have no godsend medicines today for depression and other psychological maladies: because the unscientific Drug Warriors believe that plants are bad without regard to how they're used... which is a fib, kids, okay? And you can tell those typically Caucasian anti-scientific so-and-so's that I said so, too! Humph!
Comedy
The Drug War is laughable -- or it would be if the Drug Warriors hadn't deprived us of laughing gas, the substance that William James himself used to study alternate realities.
Just think how much money bar owners in the Old West would have saved on restoration expenses if they had served MDMA instead of whiskey.
We might as well fight for justice for Christopher Reeves: he was killed because someone was peddling that junk that we call horses. The question is: who sold Christopher that horse?! Who encouraged him to ride it?!
I think many scientists are so used to ignoring "drugs" that they don't even realize they're doing it. Yet almost all books about consciousness and depression (etc.) are nonsense these days because they ignore what drugs could tell us about those topics.
As great as it is, "Synthetic Panics" by Philip Jenkins was only tolerated by academia because it did not mention drugs in the title and it contains no explicit opinions about drugs. As a result, many drug law reformers still don't know the book exists.
So much harm could be reduced by shunting people off onto safer alternative drugs -- but they're all outlawed! Reducing harm should ultimately mean ending this prohibition that denies us endless godsends, like the phenethylamines of Alexander Shulgin.
AI is inherently plagiaristic technology. It tells us: "Hey, guys, look what I can do!" -- when it should really be saying, "Hey, guys, look how I stole all your data and repackaged it in such a way as to make it appear that I am the genius, not you!"
My approach to withdrawal: incrementally reduce daily doses over 6 months, or even a year, meanwhile using all the legal entheogens and psychedelics that you can find in a way likely to boost your endurance and "sense of purpose" to make withdrawal successful.
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.
We drastically limit drug choices, we refuse to teach safe use, and then we discover there's a gene to explain why some people have trouble with drugs. Science loves to find simple solutions to complex problems.
Psychiatrists never acknowledge the biggest downside to modern antidepressants: the fact that they turn you into a patient for life. That's demoralizing, especially since the best drugs for depression are outlawed by the government.
Just think how much money bar owners in the Old West would have saved on restoration expenses if they had served MDMA instead of whiskey.