"One conclusion was forced upon my mind at that time, and my impression of its truth has ever since remained unshaken. It is that our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. " --William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study In Human Nature5
Good afternoon, Professor Davis.
I enjoyed reading your article on medicalization.
At one point in that article, you ask the question, with what should we replace medicalization in cases where it is inappropriate?
I would answer that we should replace it with drug re-legalization, thereby allowing individuals to take care of their own health using time-honored medicines.
I am a 67-year-old male who has been turned into a ward of the healthcare state by the dependence-causing and underperforming meds of Big Pharma. And I was placed on those meds four decades ago only because drug prohibition had given a monopoly to the medical field when it came to dispensing psychoactive substances -- and, of course, drug prohibition gave Big Pharma a monopoly on creating such medicines. I would not have been depressed over the last four decades if I had had access merely to the plant medicines of Mother Nature, like opium and coca, to say nothing of laughing gas and the phenethylamines synthesized by Alexander Shulgin. Instead, my depression has been entirely medicalized as a result of drug prohibition, which, as I see it, has outlawed my right to heal. I am an unsung victim of drug prohibition because the depressed are never considered stakeholders in the debate over drug law.
You also refer to the elitist nature of criticizing only Big Pharma, but I don't see such criticism as elitist when it comes from a person in my situation (Note: please see footnote for important disclaimer: 7). Big Pharma has a monopoly on mind and mood medicine, after all -- so it is not a free choice that I make when I purchase their meds. In fact, it's now against my choice. I have tried in vain to get off dependence-causing Effexor, which I have found is far harder to kick than heroin, at least in a world in which we have outlawed all drugs that could help a withdrawing person to "stay the course."
I hope that you find these comments interesting. Thanks again for the interesting read.
Brian
PS It is my belief that the subject of medicalization should be discussed in light of drug prohibition. In fact, I would argue that drug prohibition has created the environment in which medicalization can flourish. The way I see it, doctors first fought to outlaw time-honored panaceas like opium and cocaine, then they started creating "illnesses" out of all of the problems created by that drug prohibition. I am not saying that life would be idyllic without drug prohibition -- I would point out, however, that no one has ever sat down and methodically attempted to create safe use protocols for a wide variety of psychoactive drugs based on best practices and historical experience and psychological common sense. This is because we have placed biochemical determinists in charge of mind and mood medicine, which I maintain was always a category error.
The drug war bans human progress by deciding that hundreds of drugs are trash without even trying to find positive uses for them. Yet scientists continue to research and write as if prohibition does not exist, that's how cowed they are by drug laws.
There will always be people who don't use drugs wisely, just as there are car drivers who don't drive wisely, and rock climbers who fall to their death. America needs to grow up and accept this, while ending prohibition and teaching safe use.
The International Observer says the "core issues" causing Mexican drug violence are: "corruption, inequality, and the demand for narcotics in the U.S." Wrong, wrong, wrong. The core issue is DRUG PROHIBITION.
The government makes psychoactive drug approval as slow as possible by insisting that drugs be studied in relation to one single board-certified "illness." But the main benefits of such drugs are holistic in nature. Science should butt out if it can't recognize that fact.
"If England [were to] revert to pre-war conditions, when any responsible person, by signing his name in a book, could buy drugs at a fair profit on cost price... the whole underground traffic would disappear like a bad dream." -- Aleister Crowley
The 1932 movie "Scarface" starts with on-screen text calling for a crackdown on armed gangs in America. There is no mention of the fact that a decade's worth of Prohibition had created those gangs in the first place.
71% of the depressed have relapses after getting off their meds. Doctors blame this on depression, but increasing evidence suggests that these people are having withdrawal problems.
The DEA should be tried for crimes against humanity. They have been lying about drugs for 50 years and running interference between human beings and Mother Nature in violation of natural law, depriving us of countless potential and known godsends in order to create more DEA jobs.
Brits have a right to die, but they do not have the right to use drugs that might make them want to live. Bad policy is indicated by absurd outcomes, and this is but one of the many absurd outcomes that the policy of prohibition foists upon the world.
The problem with blaming things on addiction genes is that it whitewashes the role of society and its laws. It's easy to imagine an enlightened country wherein drug availability, education and attitudes make addiction highly unlikely, addiction genes or no addiction genes.
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