You'd think libertarians would see through all the Drug Warrior censorship and demonization of amoral substances, but even they are unwittingly hobbled by Drug War lies. Take Christian libertarian Jake Offenhartz. He sees the Drug War as a flagrant overreach of government, however, his own argument is weakened by his tacit acknowledgement of the Drug War lie that there is no necessity for using the psychoactive substances of which politicians disapprove. Jake himself professes a kind of scorn for such substances, declaring that he would never personally use them.
But how -- and why -- would he say that? The kind of medicine that he's referring to has scarcely been examined for its therapeutic potential (how could it be with the outlawing of any plant that manifests potential useful psychopharmacological
qualities?) and the hints of their efficacy are overwhelming. There are thousands of plants out there that we are forbidden to even begin investigating for therapeutic purposes. Given this Nazi state of affairs, what sense does it make to forswear those medicines a priori, unless the libertarian who does so is actually a closet Christian Scientist, convinced that drugs are to be avoided on principle -- a standard, however, that they surely do not hold for aspirin and Pepto Bismol, let alone tobacco and alcohol.
By outlawing psychoactive medicine, the Drug War is deciding how and how much people can think. This is the great crime of the Drug War, and yet libertarians like Jake cannot confront it since they essentially agree with the Drug Warrior about the lack of necessity for what is hypocritically called "drug use." Such a limit upon thinking itself is also a violation of religion to those who believe with Plato that the unexamined life is not worth living, since freedom of thought itself is controlled by a government which (like the Christian Science libertarian) has a scorn for mental states of which they disapprove. The libertarian is thus powerless to confront the Drug War for its greatest sins against human freedom -- sins, however, which only follow after we have allowed the original sin of the Drug Warrior, which was outlawing plants in the first place, in clear violation of natural law.
Addiction
"The irreducible core of the disease theory of addiction is still as strong as ever -- the significant distinction between good and bad opiate use is whether it's medically supervised." --Emperors of Dreams by Mike Jay
Addiction is a hugely fraught subject in the age of the drug war. This is because the Drug War does everything it can to make drug use dangerous. It encourages addiction by limiting our access to all but the handful of drugs that dealers find it practical and lucrative to supply. It fails to regulate product so that drug users cannot know the dose or even the quality of what they are ingesting. Meanwhile, the Drug War censors honest talk about drug use.
In short, until we end the Drug War, we will not know how much addiction is a true problem and how much it is an artifact of drug-war policy. And yet materialist researchers tell us that addiction is a "disease"? Why is it a disease to want to improve one's life with drugs? One could just as easily say that people are diseased, or at least masochistic, if they accept their limitations in life without doing everything they can to transcend them.
Indeed, the very idea that materialists are experts on psychoactive drug use is wrong. It is a category error. The proof is extant. Materialist researchers today are in total denial about the glaringly obvious benefits of drugs. They maintain the lie that psychoactive drugs can only be proven effective by looking under a microscope, whereas the proof of such efficacy is right in front of them: in endless anecdotes, in human history, and even in psychological common sense, the kind of common sense that scientists ignore in the name of both Drug War ideology and the inhumane philosophy of behaviorism.
The Hindu religion was created thanks to the use of a drug that inspired and elated. It is therefore a crime against religious liberty to outlaw substances that inspire and elate.
Prohibition is a crime against religious freedom.
William James found religious experience in substance use. See his discussion of what he calls "the anesthetic revelation" in his book entitled "The Varieties of Religious Experience."
The Drug War is a meta-injustice. It does not just limit what you're allowed to think, it limits how and how much you are allowed to think.
The Drug War violates religious freedom by putting bureaucrats in charge of deciding if a religion is 'sincere' or not. That is so absurd that one does not know whether to laugh or cry. No one in government is capable of determining whether the inner states that I achieve with psychoactive medicine are religious or not. This is why Milton Friedman was so wrong when he said in 1972 that there are good people on both sides of the Drug War debate. WRONG! There are those who are more than ready to take away my religious liberty and those who are not. If the former wish to be called 'good,' they will first need a refresher course in American democracy and religious freedom. They need to renounce their Christian Science theocracy and let folks like myself worship using the kinds of substances that have inspired entire religions in the past. Until they do that, do not expect me to praise the very people who have launched an inquisition against my form of experiencing the divine.
There would be no Hindu religion today had the Drug War been in effect in the Punjab 3,500 years ago.
"They have called thee Soma-lover: here is the pressed juice. Drink thereof for rapture." -Rig Veda
And where did politicians get the idea that irresponsible white American young people are the only stakeholders when it comes to the question of re-legalizing drugs??? There are hundreds of millions of other stakeholders: philosophers, pain patients, the depressed.
America never ended prohibition. It just redirected prohibition from alcohol to all of alcohol's competitors.
I looked up the company: it's all about the damn stock market and money. The FDA outlaws LSD until we remove all the euphoria and the visions. That's ideology, not science. Just relegalize drugs and stop telling me how much ecstasy and insight I can have in my life!!
The book "Plants of the Gods" is full of plants and fungi that could help addicts and alcoholics, sometimes in the plant's existing form, sometimes in combinations, sometimes via extracting alkaloids, etc. But drug warriors need addiction to sell their prohibition ideology.
Freud found that cocaine CURED most people's depression and he "got off it" without trouble. I'm on a Big Pharma antidepressant that has a 95% recidivism rate for long-term users. Drug prohibition is insane and a crime against humanity.
When Americans "obtain their majority" and wish to partake of drugs safely, they should be paired with older adults who have done just that. Instead, we introduce them to "drug abusers" in prerecorded morality plays to reinforce our biased notions that drug use is wrong.
"The Harrison [Narcotics] Act made the drug peddler, and the drug peddler makes drug addicts.” --Robert A. Schless, 1925.
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.
The Shipiba have learned to heal human beings physically, psychologically and spiritually with what they call "onanyati," plant allies and guides, such as Bobinsana, which "envelops seekers in a cocoon of love." You know: what the DEA would call "junk."
I never said that getting off SSRIs should be done without supervision. If you're on Twitter for medical advice, you're in the wrong place.
And where did politicians get the idea that irresponsible white American young people are the only stakeholders when it comes to the question of re-legalizing drugs??? There are hundreds of millions of other stakeholders: philosophers, pain patients, the depressed.