Science News continues to reckon without the Drug War. We live in an age in which we have outlawed almost all the psychoactive medicines with which humankind has improved its mood in the past. And yet the magazine continues to publish articles about human psychology without even mentioning this fact.
Of course, Science News can be forgiven, in a way, for when it comes to psychology, they are writing about a field which itself has failed to acknowledge the very existence of the Drug War, let alone the many ways in which its ideology of substance demonization limits our concept of how we might best treat mood and mind problems.
Take your January 28 article about human flourishing. Author Sujata Gupta tells us that "positive psychologists tend to believe that anyone can flourish." If all drugs were legal, as has been the status quo of humanity until 1914, this statement could be judged on its own terms; but in the age of the Drug War, such a statement represents a tacit endorsement of the belief of Mary Baker Eddy, that we do not need drugs - indeed, that drugs are so superfluous to human happiness that prominent psychologists need not even acknowledge their existence, much less the fact that they have been outlawed by one's own government. This silence on the part of psychologists is both disappointing and anti-scientific, for in outlawing time-honored psychoactive medicine, the government has effectively dictated the direction in which psychologists are allowed to go when seeking answers to psychological issues, namely, in a direction that conforms with the anti-drug prejudices of Christian Science.
In the same article, psychologist Oksana Yakushko tells us that she is "troubled by the sociopolitical implications of selling this positive psychology ideology in a world where human beings are consistently abused, traumatized and stressed because they are not white, wealthy, able-bodied, Western, heterosexual, etc." One thing that does not seem to trouble her, however, is the fact that the Drug War has outlawed all the medicines which could obviate the need for this self-help positive psychology in the first place.
Did HG Wells and Jules Verne need to learn how to flourish in the abstract in order to write great stories? No, they relied on the inspirational power of coca wine. Did the Peruvian Indians need to learn how to flourish in the abstract in order to survive for millennia as a unique culture? No. They found social cohesion and inner strength through the daily chewing of the coca leaf.
The Drug War exists and continues to outlaw psychoactive medicine to this day. Until Science News recognizes that fact in its articles, it is going to continue giving its readers the false impression that today's modern psychologists are working from a natural baseline1.
Author's Follow-up:
April 05, 2025
Am I the only one who sees what is going on here? Psychologists and philosophers are reckoning without substance prohibition! The Soma 2 of the Hindu religion inspired and elated. Writing about the mindset of the Vedic people of 1500 BCE would make no sense without reference to the drug. Here is just one of the seemingly endless references to the divine substance in the Rig Veda.
"Soma, 3 send us a good and happy mind, send energy and mental power."
Yet almost all scientists and science magazines that reference human psychology do so with the implicit understanding that psychoactive substances simply do not exist -- the kinds of substances that inspired the following user reports in Pihkal, for instance:
"I acknowledged a rapture in the very act of breathing."
"I felt that the experience continued for many days, and I feel that it is one of the most profound and deep learning experiences I have had."
"The breakthrough I had... was of the highest value and importance for me."
"An energetic feeling began to take over me. It continued to grow. The feeling was one of great camaraderie, and it was very easy to talk to people."
They totally ignore all such transformative drug use and deign to tell us whether or not human beings can flourish naturally in life, when the real question is obviously: Will the government ALLOW them to flourish naturally in life? or will they not rather outlaw the kinds of substances that inspired the Hindu religion!
Trump was right, albeit for the wrong reasons. We have a kind of fake science today, at least when it comes to the study of mind and mood. We do so from the point of view that substance prohibition is a natural baseline -- which it so demonstrably is NOT!
The fact is, no one has ever had the freedom, the money and the desire to study all psychoactive substances in the world from the viewpoint of psychological common sense, as opposed to the purblind viewpoint of behaviorists who are dogmatically blind to all obvious benefits of drug use. We can never opine advisedly on the ability of the mind to help us flourish in life until we legalize the search for such power on the mind's part, until we re-legalize and study the substances that the Drug Warrior has taught us to demonize a priori.
Meanwhile, drug prohibition is NOT a natural baseline from which to write articles on such subjects. If science magazines insist on referring to the work of researchers who think otherwise, then these magazines are obliged by their own scientific standards to admit this assumption in a disclaimer, such as:
"This article was written from the standpoint of Drug War ideology, which holds that outlawed substances can have no beneficial uses. The author(s) therefore ignore the well-documented power of drugs to inspire and elate."
You will find, in fact, that our libraries are full of books written by authors who ignore the Drug War. Were authors to recognize the glaringly obvious power of drugs to elate, then all books about suicide 4 prevention would be primarily about ending substance prohibition, as would all books about shock therapy, as would all books about police violence, etc. In other words, the self-censorship of scientists referenced above is part of a bigger problem: namely, a whole world full of authors whose works have been dumbed down by their kneejerk adherence to the Drug War lie: the lie which tells us that outlawed substances can have no beneficial uses for anyone, for any reason, at any dosage, at any time, ever.
The DEA outlawed MDMA in 1985, thereby depriving soldiers of a godsend treatment for PTSD. Apparently, the DEA staff slept well at night in the early 2000s as American soldiers were having their lives destroyed by IEDs.
Scientists are responsible for endless incarcerations in America. Why? Because they fail to denounce the DEA lie that psychoactive substances have no positive medical uses. This is so obviously wrong that only an academic in an Ivory Tower could believe it.
There are no recreational drugs. Even laughing gas has rational uses because it gives us a break from morbid introspection. There are recreational USES of drugs, but the term "recreational" is often used to express our disdain for users who go outside the healthcare system.
Drug prohibition is superstitious idiocy.
It is based on the following crazy idea:
that a substance that can be misused by a white young person at one dose for one reason must not be used by anybody at any dose for any reason.
Americans are starting to think that psychedelics may be an exception to the rule that drugs are evil -- but drugs have never been evil. The evil resides in how we think, talk and legislate about drugs.
I don't have a problem with CBD. But I find that many people like it for the wrong reasons: they assume there is something slightly "dirty" about getting high and that all "cures" should be effected via direct materialist causes, not holistically a la time-honored tribal use.
The drug war is the defeatist doctrine that we will never be able to use psychoactive drugs wisely. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy because the government does everything it can to make drug use dangerous.
Addiction thrives BECAUSE of prohibition, which limits drug choice and discourages education about psychoactive substances and how to use them wisely.
Until prohibition ends, rehab is all about enforcing a Christian Science attitude toward psychoactive medicines (with the occasional hypocritical exception of Big Pharma meds).
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."
The DEA outlawed MDMA in 1985, thereby depriving soldiers of a godsend treatment for PTSD. Apparently, the DEA staff slept well at night in the early 2000s as American soldiers were having their lives destroyed by IEDs.