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 12 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 3 ; 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 possible4. 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 brain5 -- as if Sherlock Holmes' brain was fried by his use of cocaine 67 , or Benjamin Franklin's by opium 8 , 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 9 .
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.
There is an absurd safety standard for "drugs." The cost/benefit analysis of the FDA & co. never takes into account the costs of NOT prescribing nor the benefits of a productive life well lived. The "users" are not considered stakeholders.
Drug Warriors rail against drugs as if they were one specific thing. They may as well rail against penicillin because cyanide can kill.
Chesterton might as well have been speaking about the word 'addiction' when he wrote the following: "It is useless to have exact figures if they are exact figures about an inexact phrase."
Drug-designing chemists have no expertise in deciding what constitutes a cure for depression. As Schopenhauer wrote:
"The mere study of chemistry qualifies a man to become an apothecary, but not a philosopher."
Drugs are not the enemy, ignorance is -- the ignorance that the Drug War encourages by teaching us to fear drugs rather than to understand them.
What prohibitionists forget is that every popular but dangerous activity, from horseback riding to drug use, will have its victims. You cannot save everybody, and when you try to do so by law, you kill far more than you save, meanwhile destroying democracy in the process.
The FDA is not qualified to tell us whether holistic medicines work. They hold such drugs to materialist standards and that's pharmacological colonialism.
Well, today's Oregon vote scuttles any ideas I might have entertained about retiring in Oregon.
I'm interested in CBD myself, because I want to gain benefits at times without experiencing intoxication. So I think it's great. But I like it as part of an overall strategy toward mental health. I do not think of CBD, as some do, as a way to avoid using naughty drugs.
Drug warriors have harnessed the perfect storm. Prohibition caters to the interests of law enforcement, psychotherapy, Big Pharma, demagogues, puritans, and materialist scientists, who believe that consciousness is no big "whoop" and that spiritual states are just flukes.
There is an absurd safety standard for "drugs." The cost/benefit analysis of the FDA & co. never takes into account the costs of NOT prescribing nor the benefits of a productive life well lived. The "users" are not considered stakeholders.