So what? Drug use is about psychology, not physics.
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
March 17, 2024
"Drug Warriors rail against drugs as if they were one specific thing. They may as well rail against penicillin because cyanide can kill." -The Drug War Philosopher
Every now and then I run across a frustratingly wrongheaded reply to one of my tweets, but one which sounds just plausible enough that I feel the instant need to rebut it lest its sophistry bamboozle others. Today's offending Tweet is the following by one Samuel W.:
Anything pleasurable you do in withdrawal, kratom, fast food, video games, drugs, slows your brains adaptation to the new baseline. Withdrawal is excruciatingly painful. But what goes up, must come down. Can come down slow, or fast, but the pleasure-pain balance is always equal.
How does Samuel know this, exactly? Does he live on some island where he is able to investigate all types of potential drug therapies freely, without government interference? I fear not. For Samuel subsumes thousands of psychoactive godsends under the pejorative and dismissive label of "drugs," which is, of course, a political term meaning "psychoactive substances for which there is no legitimate use anytime, anywhere, ever"1. For him, the use of "drugs" - which is really a catchall term for thousands of potential godsends, some of which have inspired entire religions - is just another frivolous pleasure, on a par with playing video games and eating a Big Mac. In short, he still seems to hold the drug-hating viewpoint that he was force-fed in grade school by such fearmongering political organizations as DARE and the Partnership for a Drug Free America2, the organization responsible for the most mendacious public service advertisement in human history, which convinced generations of Americans that drugs that focus and expand the brain are actually responsible for "frying" it instead. (I'm assuming here that Samuel is an American; he certainly sounds like one to me based on the scientific materialism 34 inherent in his vague yet nonetheless cocksure pronouncements.)
Anything pleasurable I do in withdrawal slows my adaptation to the new baseline?
That's just moralistic speculation, or rather wishful thinking. The fact is, psychoactive drugs can speed my adaptation to a new biochemical baseline by making me feel better about the whole change process and giving me motivations to continue. This is psychological common sense (the idea of the virtuous circle and the motivating power of anticipation), albeit the kind of common sense that materialists completely ignore, as when Dr. Robert Glatter asks the ridiculously naïve question in Forbes magazine: can laughing gas help people with treatment-resistant depression?5 Besides, Samuel clearly assumes that the withdrawal process is all about turning "users" into drug-free Christian Scientists6, whereas my wish for users is that they are finally able to pursue their dreams and goals in life in a sustainable and productive manner. Their goals, not mine. In brief, Samuel W. will ensure that withdrawal is excruciatingly painful because he feels that it SHOULD be excruciatingly painful, morally speaking. If he has some better reason, he has yet to adduce it. All he has done so far is to assert several misapplied platitudes as if they were facts.
What goes up must come down?
Who does Samuel think he is, the Isaac Newton of subjective psychology? Human psychology is not subject to the laws of physics. If my mood rises because of psychoactive medicines and the psychological insights gained therefrom, there is no law of nature that insists I must pay a price for that improvement.
To the contrary, the use of psychoactive drugs can create a virtuous circle of happiness. To claim that such drug use is necessarily counterproductive is to profess a religious point of view, not a scientific one. Such a viewpoint presupposes the idea that "drugs" (as opposed to "meds") are somehow evil -- despite the fact, of course, that things cannot be evil, only people - a fact that the Catholic Church itself has recognized as true for over a millennia, but which our superstitious Drug Warriors have since come to doubt7.
The pleasure-pain balance is always equal?
What does that even mean? It sounds like another misguided attempt to draw an analogy between the laws of physics and the laws of psychology. Even if it's true in some metaphysical sense of those words, it has nothing to do with the price of tea in China. The simple fact is that feeling good HELPS and can create a "virtuous circle" in a user's life, even if such subjective feelings cannot be adequately measured and accounted for by myopic materialists. The editors of the Readers Digest have known this for over a century now: hence their time-honored motto: "Laughter is the best medicine..." which, by the way, is not followed by any dire parenthetical warning such as, "But you'll pay for it later!!!"
Sure, withdrawal CAN be excruciatingly painful, but as Jim Hogshire reports in "Opium for the Masses," the physical part of opiate addiction can be overcome painlessly through chemistry-aided sleep cures9. And the psychological aspect of addiction can be overcome by virtuous psychological circles created by the use of drugs that elate and inspire. Withdrawal can also be made less painful by the creation of a new set of motivations, as when Malcolm X got his followers off heroin 10, not by having them attend rehab groups in which they were told they were helpless against such an "evil" drug, but rather by convincing them that using heroin was "just what the white man WANTED them to do"11.
This is all common sense psychology, but unfortunately American materialists aren't good at common sense. That's why Psychology Today continually publishes articles in which they reckon without the Drug War, telling us that depression is difficult to beat while simultaneously ignoring the fact that we have outlawed almost all substances that could help with that condition12. We Americans thereby show (by deeds rather than words) that we would prefer that a young person commit suicide 13 than to use politically demonized "drugs" such as coca or MDMA 14. This is why I say that the Drug War has completely warped our priorities as Americans.
So whence comes this conviction that withdrawal must be excruciatingly painful? The idea flatters the puritan inside of us Americans by saying, in effect: "See? Folks who do not believe in Christian Science are destined for a very real hell!" But not so fast, Mary Baker Eddy15!
I could have gotten off of valium in a month - one month -- had I been given drugs like opium16, coca17, MDMA 18 (etc. etc. etc.) to rationally use on a varying schedule and thereby keep my mind off of the psychological downsides of the change in question. Instead it took me TEN LONG YEARS of mental struggle to renounce that drug. TEN YEARS of wasted life. And why? Because without the distractions of other drugs, I was constantly focusing on the absence of Valium in my life, thinking, "Gee, if I only had a couple Valium tablets now, this nervous feeling would go away." A vast variety of drugs could have taken my mind off of that obsession and set me off in whole new directions of thought and feeling, with whole new ideas about what is possible in life.
Indeed, my one experience with psychedelic drugs when I was in my 20s inspired me with so many wholly new ideas that I actually began crying, in mourning for the time that I had wasted because of the chronic depression which I now saw had been thoroughly blinding me to whole new worlds of opportunity. I can only conclude that Samuel W. is either 1) unaware of the existence of such drugs and their power to change lives and/or 2) completely ignorant of the common sense philosophy of the virtuous circle, a circle that could be easily established by the strategic use of empathogens, drugs that Samuel as an apparent materialist would no doubt dismiss contemptuously as "feel-good drugs," a term that betrays the typically unacknowledged puritanism of those who employ it.
But give me full legal access to all the drugs in the world (and a pharmacologically savvy guide to help me choose among them) and I could get off Effexor 19 itself without excruciating pain, a drug which my own psychiatrist once told me is harder to kick than heroin. Speaking of which, many Vietnam vets kicked heroin without incident before returning to the US20, a feat that would have been impossible (and even medically dangerous) had they been on SSRIs and SNRIs instead. This, of course, is not a subject about which the Drug Warrior will ever speak, since they want the "bugbear" of addiction to be associated with the substances that they have demonized as "drugs" and not with the dividend-paying "meds" of Big Pharma 2122 . The term "addiction," that is, is a political term as much as (and even more than) a scientific one. (Here's where the desperate Drug Warrior will try to make a pedantic distinction between addiction and dependence, which, however, turns out to be a distinction without a difference, in light of the self-interested way in which human beings define the word "problematic."23)
The fact is that Drug Warriors WANT addiction to be as painful as possible, so that they can convince Americans of their need to give up their basic liberties in order to combat it. Addiction is thus the golden goose which lays the draconian drug laws, laws that prohibitionists are using to turn the world into the militarized and illiberal dystopia that they seek. Drug warriors NEED addiction to be a bugbear in order to justify the destruction of the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution and the denial of natural rights, as when the DEA stomped onto Monticello 24 in 1987 to confiscate Thomas Jefferson's poppy plants in violation of everything that he stood for25. Drug warriors NEED addiction to be a bugbear in order to justify US intervention in Latin America, where our own Drug War policies have killed over 100,000 Mexicans over the last two decades and destroyed the rule of law26.
This, by the way, naturally resulted in a surge of would-be immigrants at our southern border, a fact which the shameless Drug Warriors did not hesitate to blame on the immigrants themselves and the countries from which they were coming. Finally, Drug Warriors NEED addiction to be a bugbear in order to justify the creation of laws that place authoritarians like Donald Trump in the White House27. How? By removing millions of poor minorities from the voting rolls. That's why Drug Warriors would never allow some tiny island country like the one mentioned above to flout America's drug laws by permitting free research on all psychoactive substances without restriction. Drug warriors do not want to solve the problem of addiction, they want to leverage it for their own political benefit.
CONCLUSION
It is bad enough when Drug Warriors outlaw therapeutic godsends, but I find it particularly irritating when they then proceed to tell me authoritatively that "such outlawed drugs could not have done this or that anyway." That sounds a little too convenient to me. It's as if a car salesman sold my favorite car to another buyer and then tried to convince me that I wouldn't really have been happy with it anyway. Besides, the kind of drugs we are talking about here have inspired entire religions28. How can they NOT be potentially useful in psychotherapeutic tasks such as drug withdrawal? Indeed, we already have proof that they CAN be useful in that way. Modern researchers like Fadiman29, Hofmann30 and Grof31 have amply documented the power of such drugs to bring about positive life changes for addicts, alcoholics and chain smokers. How? By elating and inspiring them. Yet Sam seems to think that there is some sort of zero-sum game afoot in the realm of psychology thanks to which anyone who violates Aristotle's Golden Mean of pleasure is going to come up short. This is not science, however. It is not even logic. It is just speculation based on what Nietzsche would have called the Apollonian metaphysic of the typical westerner, as distinguished from the Dionysian Weltanschuung of tribal peoples32, all of whom have had a time-honored history of profitably using the psychoactive substances that westerners have decided to hate.
Author's Follow-up: June 18, 2024
Now, there is a generally recognized psychological truth that human beings will only allow themselves a certain amount of happiness. Perhaps this is what the guy is getting at. What he fails to understand is that this is precisely where "drugs" can help, and in two ways. First, any drug that elevates mood can help the user to "soldier on" despite their inner doubts and so give them experiential proof that "they can do it," that their limiting inner fears are not justified. Second, any drug that "teaches" (as per entheogens and the master plants of the Andes) can help the user get outside of their head viz their own supposed limitations and become a more empowered person, giving them ways to surpass that masochistic inner voice, or what Poe referred to as the Imp of the Perverse.
Author's Follow-up: December 4, 2024
Does this guy think that one cannot calm down successfully with a glass of beer? Does this guy not understand that everyone takes drugs, none more so than in America, where 1 in 4 American women take antidepressants 33 every day of their life? Does he think that relaxation and increased concentration have no knock-on benefits?
One reason why this fellow's complaint is so frustrating is that he uses the term "drugs" in the same presumptive and sloppy way as the Drug Warrior, to mean essentially the many psychoactive outlawed substances that politicians have sought to demonize for political gain. But what drugs are we really talking about? When are they used? For what reason? At what dose? And what is the maturity level and education of the user? These are just a few of the many variables that we must consider before evaluating the probable outcome of use in any particular situation. But the simpleton Drug Warriors scorn specifics. Instead, they use the term "drugs" as a wrecking ball, as if the mere pronunciation of the word should shame and disprove their adversaries. The word "drugs" is just like the word "scab": when used politically, both not only specify a thing but they pass judgment on that thing in so doing.
Author's Follow-up: December 14, 2024
What goes up must come down when it comes to drug use34? Tell that to guys like Steve Urquhart, a former Republic senator. He founded an entire psilocybin church, the Divine Assembly, in 2020, so inspired was he by the uplifting effects of psilocybin, its ability to help him see CLEARLY in his "sober" life35. Tell that to the practitioners of the Hindu religion, whose faith would not exist today but for the enlightening effects of the psychedelic Soma in the Indus Valley thousands of years ago.
But Drug Warriors lump all drugs together as one evil thing and so feel free to discuss them wholesale. And so they dismiss drugs like psilocybin out of hand. It's a childish way of reasoning and makes exactly as much sense as dismissing penicillin on the grounds that cyanide can kill -- which would, of course, be a mistake in any case since even cyanide -- like all drugs -- has some positive uses, at some doses, in some circumstances.
Author's Follow-up:
May 12, 2025
The Tweeter referred to in the above essay has grasped a partial truth, which he unfortunately tries to parlay into a universal one. Consider this quote from Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
"It is said that every excitation is followed by a commensurate exhaustion."
But then the poet goes on to observe that:
"The excitation caused by nitrous oxide is an exception at least; it leaves no exhaustion on the bursting of the bubble.36"
Different drugs have very different profiles when it comes to aftereffects. Different uses of the same drug have different outcomes. Moderate daily use of opium does not set one off on a roller-coaster ride of emotions. Extravagant use of the drug can indeed do so.
Effects and side effects have everything to do with the details when it comes to psychoactive substances, and Drug Warriors hate details. They think they can opine ex cathedra about drugs in general -- whereas even the outcome of the use of one single drug cannot be discussed advisedly without reference to the details of use: the age and education level of the user, their intentions of use, the context of use, the general psychological predisposition of the user, their genetic makeup, etc. etc. etc.
Consider the following reports of aftereffects reported by actual users of phenethylamines in "Pihkal" by Alexander Shulgin.
"The come-down from the experience was very gradual and smooth."
"The afterglow was benign and rich in empathy for everything."
"Next day, same sense of serene, quiet joy/beauty persisted for most of the day. A true healing potential."
On the other hand, the use of the phenethylamine called MDMA may be followed by a day of lethargy for some, but even this is not the end of the story. As Charley Wininger points out in "Listening to Ecstasy37", these downsides can be compensated for with the use of nutrients -- to which I would add that the strategic use of substances like laughing gas 38 could help tremendously in such cases, as could the use of a wide range of demonized substances, all of which would either vanquish the MDMA 39 downsides or render them unimportant from the user's psychological point of view.
My recent use of an anesthetic during dental surgery did not lead to fatigue or depression of any kind during the days following the operation. The aftereffects, which lasted for several days, could best be described as a warm feeling of friendliness toward my fellow human beings. My apologies if this does not comport with the moralist viewpoint that I should suffer for having dared to experience joy with the help of a "drug."
In summary then, so-called drug use does not necessarily lead to depression and/or exhaustion, and even when it does, such downsides can be treated in such a way as to render them bearable, unimportant, or even to vanquish them altogether.
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.
Someone tweeted that fears about a Christian Science theocracy are "baseless." Tell that to my uncle who was lobotomized because they outlawed meds that could cheer him up -- tell that to myself, a chronic depressive who could be cheered up in an instant with outlawed meds.
No substance is bad in and of itself. Fentanyl has positive uses, at specific doses, for specific people, in specific situations. But the drug war votes substance up or down. That is hugely anti-scientific and it blocks human progress.
What I want to know is, who sold Christopher Reeves that horse that he fell off of? Who was peddling that junk?!
Trump supports the drug war and Big Pharma: the two forces that have turned me into a patient for life with dependence-causing antidepressants. Big Pharma makes the pills, and the drug war outlaws all viable alternatives.
Drug testing should flag impairment only. Any other use is a flagrant violation of the Fourth Amendment.
The drug war encourages us to judge people based on what they use and in what context. Even if the couch potato had no conscious health goals, their use of MJ is very possibly shielding them from health problems, like headaches, sleeplessness, and overreliance on alcohol.
There are plenty of "prima facie" reasons for believing that we could eliminate most problems with drug and alcohol withdrawal by chemically aided sleep cures combined with using "drugs" to fight "drugs." But drug warriors don't want a fix, they WANT drug use to be a problem.
Capitalism requires disease-mongering -- and disease-mongering requires the suppression of medicines that work holistically, that work by improving mood and elating the individual AND THEREFORE improving their health overall.
I've been told by many that I should have seen "my doctor" before withdrawing from Effexor. But, A) My doctor got me hooked on the junk in the first place, and, B) That doctor completely ignores the OBVIOUS benefits of indigenous meds and focuses only on theoretical downsides.
Q: Where can you find almost-verbatim copies of the descriptions of religious experiences described by William James? A: In descriptions of user reports of "trips" on drugs ranging from coca to opium, from MDMA to laughing gas.
Someone tweeted that fears about a Christian Science theocracy are "baseless." Tell that to my uncle who was lobotomized because they outlawed meds that could cheer him up -- tell that to myself, a chronic depressive who could be cheered up in an instant with outlawed meds.
