COUNSELOR RICK: Kids, gather around, I have a good horror story for you.
KIDS: Oooh!
COUNSELOR RICK: That's right, ears in the full upright position. This one's downright eerie.
Now then, once upon a time, there were these godsend plants that could help people get over depression and conquer loneliness.
ANTOINE: THAT'S not scary!
COUNSELOR RICK: Oh, just you wait, Antoine. See, these plants grew all around us, they were our natural birthright as Earthlings, but then these bigoted people known as "Drug Warriors" decided that these plants were somehow evil.
SALLY: That's silly, Counselor Rick. Plant medicines can't be evil, only people can be evil.
ANTOINE: That's right. Medicines can be good OR bad: it all depends on how they're used.
COUNSELOR RICK: You know that, kids, and I know that, but these people were... well, how should I put this...?
ANTOINE: Dumb as crap?
COUNSELOR RICK: Well, let's just say they were superstitious.
SALLY: Sounds like they were regular cretins to me.
COUNSELOR RICK: Now, now, Sally, be nice.
ANTOINE: Counselor Rick! Counselor Rick!
COUNSELOR RICK: Yes, ANTOINE?
ANTOINE: I think I've heard this one before.
COUNSELOR RICK: Oh, really?
ANTOINE: Oh, yeah, you're talking about that science-fiction story called "Fahrenheit 452," where the government burns plants in order to stop citizens from improving their mental focus and expanding their minds!
COUNSELOR RICK: Antoine shoots and scores!
SALLY: Ooh, Counselor Rick, I don't want to hear that story. It scares me.
ANTOINE: Me too, Counselor Rick. Just imagine a government that is so evil that it bars its own citizens from accessing the plants and fungi that grow at their very feet. I don't think I'm gonna be able to sleep tonight just thinking about it!
COUNSELOR SUE: Now you've done it, Rick, the kids are all going to have nightmares about DEA fascists kicking down their doors in order to rob them of naturally occurring godsends.
COUNSELOR RICK: Relax, kids. We're living in the 22nd century, remember? The DEA was abolished over a hundred years ago.
[kids crying]
COUNSELOR SUE: Rick, exactly how long have you been a camp counselor?
COUNSELOR RICK: Sorry, Sue. I guess I forgot just how scary the old Drug War days really were.
COUNSELOR SUE: You think?
COUNSELOR RICK: Well, it could have been worse.
COUNSELOR SUE: How's that, Rick?
COUNSELOR RICK: I could have told them about the bad old days when all the big corporations forced employees to undergo the indignity of drug testing 1 without any probable cause, all in order to enforce the government's Sharia against the use of naturally occurring substances.
COUNSELOR SUE: Brrr! Now that really IS scary!
COUNSELOR RICK: I know, right?
COUNSELOR SUE: Thanks for bringing that up, Rick. Now I too won't be able to get to sleep tonight!
COUNSELOR RICK: That is pretty lame indeed, the government essentially forcing people to become Christian Scientists when it comes to psychological healing.
COUNSELOR SUE: You're not helping matters, Rick.
What Have We Learned?
Select the appropriate takeaway message from the above admittedly charming satire.
Some plants are just plain bad and kids should be taught that from the git-go!
Submitting to a drug test is a patriotic responsibility.
The therapeutic needs of the suffering must be ignored so that we can carry on a full-scale Drug War. Grrr! (This answer recommended by the National Association of Prison Guards)
Plant medicines can be good or bad, depending on their specific use.
Answer: That's right, kids, the answer is 4: "Plant medicines can be good or bad, depending on their specific use." Unfortunately you'll never learn this from the Drug Warriors, whose patronizing MO is to insist that plant substances are bad in and of themselves. That's why we have no godsend medicines today for depression and other psychological maladies: because the unscientific Drug Warriors believe that plants are bad without regard to how they're used... which is a fib, kids, okay? And you can tell those typically Caucasian anti-scientific so-and-so's that I said so, too! Humph!
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.
Here's the first step in the FDA process for evaluating a psychoactive drug:
Ignore all glaringly obvious benefits
Question: Why do doctors judge cocaine by its worst possible use? Answer: Follow the money.
Google founders used to enthuse about the power of free speech, but Google is actively shutting down videos that tell us how to grow mushrooms -- MUSHROOMS, for God's sake. End the drug war and this hateful censorship of a free people.
The outlawing of opium eventually resulted in an "opioid crisis"? The message is clear: people want self-transcendence. If we don't let them find it safely, they will find it dangerously.
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.
Now the US is bashing the Honduran president for working with "drug cartels." Why don't we just be honest and say why we're REALLY upset with the guy? Drugs is just the excuse, as always, now what's the real reason? Stop using the drug war to disguise American foreign policy.
Today's war against drug users is like Elizabeth I's war against Catholics. Both are religious crackdowns. For today's oppressors, the true faith (i.e., the moral way to live) is according to the drug-hating religion of Christian Science.
Laughing gas inspired the philosophy of William James. Outlawing N20 is outlawing academic freedom. Laughing gas should be available for the suicidal. Drug prohibition is not a victimless crime.
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.
(up)