The modern "addiction experts" like Gabriel Mate, refer almost all "addiction" to inner pain, but in doing so, they reckon without the Drug War. To pronounce authoritatively on the cause of addiction in the age of the Drug War is like pronouncing authoritatively on the cause of headaches in an age when aspirin is banned. In each case, the entire problem would be seen in a very different light if prohibition were not in force.
To see this more clearly, let's imagine a world that has never existed before on Planet Earth: one in which pharmacologically savvy empaths are free to use any psychoactive medicine in the world to treat (or rather "work with") clients. I say "clients" advisedly, for in such a world, the very concept of psychiatric patient would be eliminated as folks who are fighting depression access the same empath used by folks who want to increase their appreciation of music, or their appreciation of Mother Nature, or who just want to brainstorm positive ideas with the empath while using a pharmacological substance designed to encourage sharing and openness.
In such a world, a friendly competition would naturally develop between empaths to see who can treat problems like "addiction" most successfully, not by persuading the client to become sober -- which has been the Christian Science goal of all addiction therapy to date -- but rather by working with the client to get them ON those substances that they can use least problematically while yet being able to maximize their human potential in life.
Not only would the empath have access to all psychoactive medicines, but he or she would be able to leverage the power of human anticipation in bringing about positive results. It's a well known fact that one feels better overall when they have something specific to look forward to. This new form of psychiatry could finally acknowledge this common sense fact and take advantage of it by providing intermittent relaxation sessions, in which groups are provided with substances that give them a vacation from negative introspection and petty fears. Moreover, this therapy could be provided on a non-addictive basis, either by using non-habit-forming substances or by using potentially addictive medicines intermittently, perhaps without even informing the clients of the exact ingredients of the nostrums thus employed (thereby obviating any potential for a group member to seek out a substance for regular use).
Suddenly, we're no longer talking about the problem of drugs (i.e. psychoactive medicines) but rather the PROMISE of drugs. We are no longer vilifying substances but we are vilifying ignorance instead. For the therapeutic wonders that could be accomplished by such a new paradigm would be limited only by the creativity of the empath.
If this approach of freedom and common sense seems reckless to you, I urge you to consider the drug-war status quo: It's a world in which 1 in 4 American women are chemically dependent on Big Pharma meds for life; it's a world in which prohibition incentivizes drug dealers to sell the most dangerous and addictive drugs imaginable; it's a world in which the ideology of substance demonization keeps us from giving kids in hospice the necessary amount of pain medicine; it's a world in which we "take our loved ones off of life support" rather than letting them die peacefully with the help of morphine; it's a world in which our drug policy creates civil wars overseas completely out of whole cloth; it's a world in which 797 blacks were killed in Chicago alone in 2021 thanks to the long recognized fact that prohibition creates armed gangs.
And how does the status quo deal with addiction? As the drug-war movie "Four Good Days" makes clear, we charge the addict $3,000, toss them on a cot without any psychoactive medicine whatsoever -- "drugs" being considered the problem, ya understand - and give them shelter from the rain while the client goes through a week or so of hell.
Next step, we give them some nasty government drug to make it physiologically impossible for them to benefit from substances which have inspired entire religions in the past. And then we force them to go to a 12-step group, where they will be counseled to admit their helplessness before the boogieman called "drugs" and to seek solace in a 'higher power.' Pardon me, but this is beginning to sound a lot like Christian proselytization: teaching someone that they were powerless in themselves ("not of works are ye saved") and that the only hope is a thinly disguised Christian god known as a "higher power." The very idea that a court might REQUIRE me to attend group therapy that advocates the belief in a "higher power" (not to mention a belief in the evil of Mother Nature's plant medicines) is already problematic. It is a kind of religious indoctrination, imposed by the same judges who routinely cage Americans for using plant medicines of which botanically clueless politicians disapprove.
This is not some Orwellian dystopia that I'm describing here: it's the way things are in 2022 America: a world in which you can be removed extra-judicially from the work force if you are found to have used substances of which politicians disapprove -- a cruel and unusual punishment that we do not even inflict on paroled axe murderers.
The Drug Warriors say they want to get America off of drugs, but then why are they forever reminding grandma (or some obnoxious sibling) to "take your meds!"?
No, even Drug Warriors do not really want to get America off drugs: they want to get America ON the RIGHT drugs, as that term is defined by materialist science and Wall Street in the age of substance prohibition.
So, please, wake up, America: crack cocaine is not the problem, Fentanyl is not the problem, the poppy plant is not the problem, the coca leaf is not the problem, "magic mushrooms" are not the problem. Drugs are not the problem: it is our anti-scientific and politically charged understanding of drugs which is the problem.
And so I say to the substance-demonizing Drug Warrior, in the words of the clown in Twelfth Night:
"Madman, thou errest: I say, there is no darkness but ignorance; in which thou art more puzzled than the Egyptians in their fog!"
Author's Follow-up: October 14, 2022
Modern psychiatry can't afford to recognize the power of anticipation in boosting one's mood, for once they do so, they are forced to acknowledge that opium and coca -- indeed even crack cocaine and methamphetamine -- can be used wisely merely by ensuring that one's use is intermittent. But the Drug Warrior paints such drugs completely black and infantilizes humans by teaching them that no safe use is possible. If a criminalized drug CAN be addictive, it HAS to be addictive, according to the fearmongering logic of the Drug Warrior. This is absolute anti-scientific nonsense, for even the deadly toxin Botox has positive uses. Indeed, there is no substance on earth that cannot be useful in some way, at some dose, for some people, in some circumstances. But the Drug Warrior teaches us to believe that demonized substances are pure evil, which is actually a superstition when one considers that substances are amoral and are so not appropriately labeled "good" and "bad." What's good or bad are people and how they are -- or are not -- educated with respect to psychoactive medicine, and it is Drug War strategy that makes drugs dangerous by teaching us to fear such substances rather than to understand how to use them safely.
In scaring us, the Drug Warrior gladly employs lies, by telling us that medicines like coca fry the brain -- as if Sherlock Holmes' brain was fried by his use of cocaine, or Benjamin Franklin's by opium, or HG Wells' by Coca Wine. Ironically it is the Drug War that REALLY fries brains, first by addicting 1 in 4 American women to mind-numbing big pharma meds. Secondly, it fries brains LITERALLY by forcing the severely depressed to undergo brain-damaging shock therapy, simply because anti-scientific America has outlawed all the psychoactive medicines that could have helped the so-called hopeless patient laugh again.
This latter example shows how fanatical the Drug War ideology is: American's would literally prefer to fry the brains of the depressed than to let them use drugs that would make them happy. We see this also in the fact that some states and some countries have legalized Euthanasia, and yet those same states and countries outlaw godsend medicines that can make people WANT to live. Do you see what this means? It means that doctors do not have the right to make you feel better, but they do have the right to kill you if you become too depressed.
Such Drug War ideology should be listed as a disease in the DSM as a clear sign of mental illness.
Fearmongering
Saying things like "Fentanyl kills!" makes just as much sense as saying "Fire bad!"
The Drug War is the ultimate case of fearmongering. And yet academics and historians fail to recognize it as such. They will protest eloquently against the outrages of the witch hunts of yore, but they are blind to the witch hunts of the present. What is a drug dealer but a modern service magician, someone who sells psychoactive medicine designed to effect personal ends for the user? They are simply providing an alternative to materialistic medicine, which ignores common sense and so ignores the glaringly obvious value of such substances.
The DEA should be put on trial for crimes against humanity for withholding godsend medicine from the depressed. Here is just one typical drug-user report that appeared in "Pihkal": "A glimpse of what true heaven is supposed to feel like..."
The idea that "drugs" have no medical benefits is not science, it is philosophy, and bad philosophy at that. It is based on the idea that benefits must be molecularly demonstratable and not created from mere knock-on psychological effects of drug use, time-honored tho' they be.
A Pennsylvanian politician now wants the US Army to "fight fentanyl." The guy is anthropomorphizing a damn drug! No wonder pols don't want to spend money on education, because any educated country would laugh a superstitious guy like that right out of public office.
Now the US is bashing the Honduran president for working with "drug cartels." Why don't we just be honest and say why we're REALLY upset with the guy? Drugs is just the excuse, as always, now what's the real reason? Stop using the drug war to disguise American foreign policy.
In a sane world, we would learn to strategically fight drugs with drugs.
Scientists cannot tell us if psychoactive drugs are worth the risk any more than they can tell us if free climbing is worth the risk, or horseback riding or target practice or parkour.
If opium were legal, then much of the nostrums peddled by drug stores today would be irrelevant. (No wonder the drug war has staying power!)
Now the folks who helped Matthew get Ketamine must be sacrificed on the altar of the Drug War, lest people start thinking that the Drug War itself was at fault.y
The DEA has done everything it can to keep Americans clueless about opium and poppies. The agency is a disgrace to a country that claims to value knowledge and freedom of information.
In "The Book of the Damned," Charles Fort writes about the data that science has damned, by which he means "excluded." The fact that drugs can inspire and elate is one such fact, although when Fort wrote his anti-materialist broadside, drug prohibition was in its infancy.
The DEA should be put on trial for crimes against humanity for withholding godsend medicine from the depressed. Here is just one typical drug-user report that appeared in "Pihkal": "A glimpse of what true heaven is supposed to feel like..."