It's hard to be a good writer when fighting America's insane Drug War because it's just so irritating and dispiriting to do the research. I guess I'm thin-skinned, but I get truly pissed when I see how much wrong-headed thinking there is on this subject, probably because I know that it's this kind of anti-philosophical thinking that has resulted in laws that keep me from accessing plant medicines that should be mine as a birthright under natural law.
Thanks to drug law, I not only go without those medicinal godsends but I'm shunted off onto highly addictive Big Pharma meds that I'm forced to take for life -- drugs with which no one in America seems to have a problem even though they're harder to quit than heroin.
One website that really rattled my cage this morning featured a Listverse page entitled "10 Historical Figures Who Were Dependent on Opium."
The title itself betrays the hypocritical Drug Warrior habit of denouncing supposed "dependence" to natural plant medicines while remaining silent about full-blown addiction to Big Pharma meds. In the minds of the modern American, it is almost a moral duty for a depressed or anxious person to "take their meds." Why then do we consider it a moral fault when historical figures "took their meds" in order to achieve self-actualization in the world? (Probably because America wants to medicalize human behavior, and so the doctors get upset when the use of such meds leaves the medical establishment out of the loop, financially speaking.)
Of course, the truly irritating part of the page is the comments section. Since DISQUS's algorithms are all about "getting eyeballs," they place the most idiotic comments at the very top of the comments page. Check out the following gem from a certain Chaos, an anonymous member of the Cult of the American Drug War. It currently appears at the very top of the comments section for the Listverse page about opium users, ahead of 75 other entries.
I think that taking, drinking, eating, smoking or injecting drugs is like someone blowing his brains off in an extreme slow-motion sequence.
(Personally, I think that reading Drug War propaganda of this kind is like blowing one's brains off in an extreme slow-motion sequence.)
Meanwhile I tried to approach the matter rationally, and where do my comments appear? At the bottom of the page, separated by at least 30 inane comments from Chaos's musings, the interval between us being filled with such enlightening observations as: "quit bogarting the joint" and "the bust of Aurelius is obviously stone(d)" ha ha.
The good thing is, such chop logic motivates me to write comments like the following, when my depression might otherwise prevent me from doing so -- that depression that logic-challenged Drug Warriors will not let me treat effectively thanks to their ungrateful demonization of mother nature's plant medicines.
The Drug War has fried American brains by convincing them that they can't even say the word 'opium' without raising eyebrows. Do you know how many TV shows and movies portray opium and cocaine use in a positive light? Zero. It's Drug War censorship at work.
There's nothing moral or scientific about renouncing our right to medical godsends of mother nature. But the Drug Warrior spouts lies that make us think otherwise. The "frying pan" ad by the Partnership for a Drug Free America is the biggest lie in advertising history. Drugs like cocaine focus the brain -- as Sigmund Freud knew. Opium conduces to creativity -- as Benjamin Franklin knew. Psychedelics inspired Francis Crick to visualize the DNA helix.
But we've been taught in the west to think of Mother Nature as a drug kingpin rather than as a dispenser of godsend medicines. The Drug War is Christian Science, telling us that we must not treat our conscious mind with "drugs".
Until 1914, we judged people on their actual behavior. Now we judge them on what they have in their digestive systems. It's all a sick and superstitious way of looking at the world. And it's hypocritical. If any drugs "fry" the brain, it's modern antidepressants, to which 1 in 4 American women are addicted. Many SSRIs and SNRIs are harder to quit than heroin. (source: Julie Holland).
I "take" Effexor -- paying dearly for it every month of my life, helping finance Maseratis for Big Pharma execs -- and my shrink says not to bother trying to get off it since its recidivism rate is so high. Yet America's Drug War cult refuses to even RECOGNIZE that addiction. Because the Drug War has nothing to do with America's health -- it's all about fomenting violence via prohibition and thus empowering the police and the military to crack heads -- and to take America's mind off of social problems (like the Drug War itself) that lead to drug abuse.
It's sad to see so many comments here panning "drugs" when drugs are nothing but the plant medicines that grow at our very feet. Those plant medicines are ours by birth under natural law. Only America decided in 1914 that the government would determine what plants we can have access to.
That's tyranny. It's a clear violation of the natural law on which America was founded.
The Drug War is just a nature-hating Christian Science cult. It is the establishment of a religion. Drug law enforcement is Christian Science Sharia.
Even the title of this page demonstrates Drug Warrior bias. It hypocritically uses the word "dependence" as if it was some kind of character flaw. How many of us are "dependent" on coffee, sugar and salt? How about alcohol and tobacco? And how many of us are "dependent" on Big Pharma meds? Why not create a page showing all the famous Americans who are "dependent" on antidepressants?
America wants to moralize and medicalize the subject of substance use rather than judging people like everyone in the world did before 1914: by HOW THEY ACTUALLY BEHAVED and by what they actually accomplished in the world.
In America, we no longer judge a person by the color of their skin, we judge them by the contents of their digestive system.
And so the anemic epitaph of the Drug Warrior reads: "May not have accomplished much... but gladly gave up his/her right to all of mother nature's godsend plant medicines!"
I hope that one day, when America has outgrown its superstitions about naturally occurring substances, there will be a Listverse page entitled "10 idiots who helped spread Drug War propaganda on Listverse." The author of such a post will certainly have a wide field to choose from, judging by all the logic-challenged comments that drugs-related pages attract on that Web resource.
Author's Follow-up: February 3, 2025
And the beat goes on. Five years later, I am finding threads on Bluesky in which each participant attempts to outdo the other in bashing heroin. Heroin is considered to be the drug par excellence. In merely using the word, the brainwashed American thinks they have "said it all" when it comes to evil, nasty, rotten drugs. We see here the triumph of the Drug Warrior, who has taught these folks from grade school to fear drugs rather than to understand them. These people have a government-inspired "feeling" about heroin, not an understanding of it.
What they do not realize is that people can live a full life on heroin. At very least, they can live as full a life as those who take antidepressants daily, and in some cases a fuller life. The heroin user, however, is at a disadvantage because the government will not guarantee the safety of their supply nor instruct them about safe use. Meanwhile, of course, the government will be spending billions in an attempt to arrest the heroin user. The heroin user is also subjected to enormous stigma -- whereas the law-abiding pill-popper is actually encouraged to submit to their drug dependency for life by such media stars as Oprah Winfrey -- in other words, they are subject to zero social stigma. To the contrary, they are praised for listening to the supposed dictates of medical science.
What a farce.
And why are they even using heroin? Because America outlawed opium.
The brainwashed also fail to realize that the dependence caused by heroin could be combatted with the use of other drugs -- at least in a free world, one in which racist politicians have not outlawed drugs wholesale. It's called Fighting Drugs with Drugs. Unfortunately, that process merely makes psychological common sense, and scientists ignore common sense these days thanks to their adherence to the hateful ideology of behaviorism.
Behaviorism tells us that only quantifiable data matter when it comes to human behavior. You say that the psychedelic soma inspired the Hindu religion? So what? That's just touchy-feely stuff. You say that depressed folk laugh when using laughing gas? So what? That's just mere anecdote. Today's scientists want cures that "really" work. In other words, they are after a metaphysical cure. They want cures that are created according to the inhumane ideology of behaviorism, and if the patient is not satisfied with that cure, then at best they are ungrateful and at worst, they are anti-scientific trouble makers.
And we wonder why depression is such a big problem in America1. The answer is obvious: scientists do not want to end depression, they want to vindicate their belief in an all-powerful materialism and to hell with the "patients." Meanwhile, it is more than a little suspicious that antidepressants, the one agreed-upon "cure" for depression, serve to turn users into complacent consumers and not to enlighten them or help them achieve self-actualization in their chosen fields of endeavor. The motto in the age of the Pill Mill is: "Don't worry, be satisfied." As Andrew Weil points out, anecdotal reports suggest that these drugs decrease human creativity2. And this has got to be satisfying to the conservatives who profit from the billions that Big Pharma rakes in, for the conservative does not want creativity in the world, he or she wants predictability.
A critic might cite a dearth of scientific studies pointing to the negative impact of antidepressants on human creativity, but that's the whole point: Who's going to pay for such studies? Big Pharma's not going to pay for studies that might cast doubt on the efficacy of their cash cow. Meanwhile, there seems to be plenty of money to study potential downsides of drugs like MDMA and LSD. But the idea that the FDA is interested in our safety is a joke. They approve of brain-damaging electroshock therapy; they approve of the psychiatric pill mill; they approve of Big Pharma drugs whose advertised side effects include death itself.
No, the FDA has no interest in safety -- except as a cover story for their ongoing efforts to keep Americans from using obvious godsends: drugs that could be used in a vast variety of creative and safe protocols if only America would stop fearing drugs and start using them wisely for the benefit of individuals and humanity. The idea that we can never do so is hypocritical defeatism in a world where we have no such safety-related scruples over any other risky activity: not with race-car driving, nor with mountain climbing, nor with free diving, nor with gun shooting, nor with drinking liquor.
"Users" can be kept out of the workforce by the extrajudicial process of drug testing; they can have their baby taken from them, their house, their property -- all because they do not share the intoxiphobic attitude of America.
I have dissed MindMed's new LSD "breakthrough drug" for philosophical reasons. But we can at least hope that the approval of such a "de-fanged" LSD will prove to be a step in the slow, zigzag path toward re-legalization.
To put it another way: in a sane world, we would learn to strategically fight drugs with drugs.
Aleister Crowley actually TRIED to get addicted to drugs and found he could not. These things are not inevitable. The fact that there are town drunkards does not mean that we should outlaw alcohol.
In his book "Salvia Divinorum: The Sage of the Seers," Ross Heaven explains how "salvinorin A" is the strongest hallucinogen in the world and could treat Alzheimer's, AIDS, and various addictions. But America would prefer to demonize and outlaw the drug.
The sick thing is that the DEA is still saying that psilocybin has no medical uses and is addictive. They should be put on trial for crimes against humanity for using such lies to keep people from using the gifts of Mother Nature.
An Englishman's home is his castle.
An American's home is a bouncy castle for the DEA.
The addiction gene should be called the prohibition gene: it renders one vulnerable to prohibition lies and limitations: like the lack of safe supply, the lack of choices, and the lack of information. We should pathologize the prohibitionists, not their victims.
I'm looking for a United Healthcare doctor now that I'm 66 years old. When I searched my zip code and typed "alternative medicine," I got one single solitary return... for a chiropractor, no less. Some choice. Guess everyone else wants me to "keep taking my meds."
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.
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, 10 Idiots who helped spread drug war propaganda on Listverse: in response to the listverse article entitled 10 historical figures who were dependent on opium, published on July 11, 2020 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
You have been reading an article entitled, 10 Idiots who helped spread drug war propaganda on Listverse: in response to the listverse article entitled 10 historical figures who were dependent on opium, published on July 11, 2020 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
