The depressing thing about reading Thomas Szasz1 today is that it makes me think as follows: If such an intelligent man can so clearly present the facts of the case and not succeed in changing mainstream minds, what chance do I have as a relative dimwit, a thoroughly "unconnected" dimwit at that? For I am sorry to say that the situation since Szasz's time has gotten worse when it comes to America's drug attitudes, not better. This is obvious given the bizarre reaction of pundits of all stripes to the case of Claire Brosseau, the depressed Canadian who is fighting for her right to assisted suicide.2 Had Szasz been around today, he would surely be pointing out the fact that Claire's morbid activism must be seen in light of drug prohibition, which outlaws all the drugs that could cheer Claire up in a trice! The state first outlaws Claire's right to heal, and now Claire demands that the same state help her to die BECAUSE of the depression that the state thus brought about! Claire should be fighting to end drug prohibition which outlaws her right to heal, not arguing for a new recherché right to have the state help her to die!
After watching my mother suffer because of the drug war, I hate to hear people tell me that the problem is drugs. WRONG! That's a western colonialist viewpoint. God loved his creation (see Genesis). He did not make trash. We need to use entheogenic medicines wisely.
It is a crime against humanity to withhold cocaine from the depressed and those with impaired cognition.
We've created a faux psychology to support such science: that psychology says that anything that really WORKS is just a "crutch" -- as if there is, or there even should be, a "CURE" for sadness.
We should place prohibitionists on trial for destroying inner cities.
Drug warriors have taught us that honesty about drugs encourages drug use. Nonsense! That's just their way of suppressing free speech about drugs. Americans are not babies, they can handle the truth -- or if they cannot, they need education, not prohibition.
In a sane world, we would learn to strategically fight drugs with drugs.
There is more hope in dope than there is in the psychiatric pill mill.
Almost every mainstream article about psychology and consciousness is nonsense these days because it ignores the way that drug prohibition has stymied our investigation of such subjects.
Americans are starting to think that psychedelics may be an exception to the rule that drugs are evil -- but drugs have never been evil. The evil resides in how we think, talk and legislate about drugs.
Who would have thought back in 1776 that Americans would eventually have to petition their government for the right to even possess a damn mushroom. The Drug War has destroyed America.
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