Depression is real, says the APA, and they should know: they cause it!
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
July 14, 2022
he American Psychiatric Association has been trying for decades to convince us that "Depression is Real." Unfortunately, what they fail to realize is that the "Drug War" is real as well and it is the Drug War that is responsible for the depression that folks like myself experience. Why? Because it criminalizes virtually all the medicine that could make me feel better and inspire me with new ways of thinking about the world.
Then why doesn't the APA spend its money on ending the war on godsend mind medicine, aka the Drug War, instead of telling everybody the obvious, that people really do get very depressed indeed in this life of ours?
Answer: When the APA tells us that "depression is real," what they really mean is that depression is a real physical disease and that only the APA and its dependence-causing pharmaceuticals can successfully combat it.
Bollocks, as the Brits say. Thanks to the Drug War, I've spent 40+ years on these "scientific" medicines that have done absolutely nothing to make my life joyful or to give me insight into my life. To the contrary, these dependence-causing "meds" turned me into an eternal patient, with all the demoralizing baggage that implies - like the fact that a 60-year-old has to travel 45 miles every three months to meet with a white-coated woman half his age to get permission to purchase yet another expensive batch of addictive Big Pharma pills, under the apparent theory that one never grows old enough to be trusted to use even legal drugs wisely in America.
Does the DEA get a kick out of turning Americans into little children like this when it comes to psychoactive medicine? Where is the modern Moliere who will hold this politico-pharmacological posturing up to the ridicule that it deserves?
Meanwhile, all the substances that are well known to provide joy and inspiration - shrooms, coca, opium -- have been outlawed, all based on the Drug War lie that certain politically disliked substances are bad in and of themselves without regard for why they are used, or where they are used, or when, or by whom.
In reality, there are no such drugs in the world. All medicines can have beneficial results for someone, at some dosage, for some reason, in some circumstance. But the Drug Warriors want us to fear godsend medicines, not understand them. And so they insist that the use of proscribed drugs must end in tragedy and addiction.
Of course to the extent that this is true, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy brought about by the Drug Warrior's promotion of fear over facts. (And of course the Drug Warrior will do everything in their power to make sure that the "drug user's" life ends in tragedy, if only by arresting them and sentencing them to longer prison terms than that meted out to most murderers.) The Drug Warrior wants us to be ignorant about the hypocritically defined category of "drugs" so that we won't question their childish demonization campaign against them - a propaganda campaign waged chiefly by the almost complete lack of positive mentions of demonized substances in both the popular media and in academic journals, where all the talk is about misuse and abuse, not the ability of such drugs to inspire whole new religions.
And so the APA is right, Depression is real. But guess what? The APA helped CAUSE this depression.
How? By putting its financial interests ahead of its patients' interests and accepting the fantastically lucrative monopoly on mood medicine that the Drug War hands them on a silver platter -- justifying their collaboration with that war by promoting the philosophically flawed conscience sop that the mental world is the natural domain of the materialist medical community, a self-interested tribe whose reductive impulses can never sign off on natural drugs that have the effrontery to "merely" make one feel better according to the user themselves. ("What does the user know about happiness after all?" asks the modern drug researcher. "Scientists will look at the relevant brain chemistry and tell the 'patient' when he or she is actually happy, thank you very much!")
So yes, APA, Depression is real all right, and you should know: you help cause it!
Author's Follow-up: July 15, 2022
The Drug War has such diabolical staying power because psychiatry has convinced us that conditions like depression are medical illnesses and therefore require the intervention of the healthcare establishment. If that were true, then our own role as the depressed is to sit back and see what nostrums that medical science can come up with on our behalf. In other words, psychiatry tells us, in essence, "Never mind the countless plant medicines that are now off-limits to you: those are just 'crutches,' don't you know? Only WE have the REAL cures to mental conditions like depression."
The problem here is not science, but philosophy. The fact is that all manner of reductionist symptoms can be associated with conditions like depression, but it is always a leap of faith to claim that those symptoms therefore CAUSE depression. A knotted eyebrow will commonly appear on the head of a worried person, but that does not mean that the knotted eyebrows cause us to worry. Even if a chemical intervention seems to "cure" depression in the mind of a drug researcher who has performed extensive trials, that still leaves us with the question, what does the researcher mean by "cured." Psychiatric practices like lobotomy have been considered successful cures for hyperactive patients, but who considered them successful? Certainly not the patients. No, they were successful in the eyes of tired nurses and administrators who thought to themselves, "Now, I'll finally get some peace of mind thanks to my overactive patients receiving lobotomies!" Likewise with these "cures" for depression: the question always is, "What do you mean by cure?" Based on my use of dependence-causing antidepressants for a lifetime now, I know that the word "cure" has a very different meaning for me than it did for the materialist researchers who came up with the "cure" that they created which I am now obliged to take every morning of my life.
The "cure" that I am looking for is one that will allow me to "live large," emotionally speaking, to experience earth's wonders like a child, with wide-open eyes, to truly hear music and to sense my place in the universe while gaining a feeling of brotherhood with the world at large and all who live therein. In short, I desire the advantages that have a history of being obtained by the wise use of the time-honored meds that the Drug War has outlawed. Believe me when I say that the makers of the SSRIs had no such ambitions as these when they crafted my "cure." In fact, judging by my experience on Big Pharma antidepressants, the researchers' goal was to cure me of such excessive ambitions altogether and to render me a reliable consumer instead, one who is so chemically dependent on their meds that I will be their employer's unwilling customer for life.
Pro-psychedelic websites tell me to check with my "doctor" before using Mother Nature. But WHY? I'm the expert on my own psychology, damn it. These "doctors" are the ones who got me hooked on synthetic drugs, because they honor microscopic evidence, not time-honored usage.
Laughing gas is the substance that gave William James his philosophy of reality. He concluded from its use that what we perceive is just a fraction of reality writ large. Yet his alma mater (Harvard) does not even MENTION laughing gas in their bio of the man.
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.
If we let "science" decide about drugs, i.e. base freedom on health concerns, then tea can be as easily outlawed as beer. The fact that horses are not illegal shows that prohibition is not about health. It's about the power to outlaw certain "ways of being in the world."
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.
We know that anticipation and mental focus and relaxation have positive benefits -- but if these traits ae facilitated by "drugs," then we pretend that these same benefits somehow are no longer "real." This is a metaphysical bias, not a logical deduction.
"Dope Sick"? "Prohibition Sick" is more like it. For me the very term "dope" connotes imperialism, racism and xenophobia, given that all tribal cultures have used "drugs" for various purposes. "Dope? Junk?" It's hard to imagine a more intolerant, dismissive and judgmental terminology.
The UN of today is in an odd position regarding drugs: they want to praise indigenous societies while yet outlawing the drugs that helped create them.
Orchestras will eventually use psychedelics to train conductors. When the successful candidate directs mood-fests like Mahler's 2nd, THEY will be the stars, channeling every known -- and some unknown -- human emotions. Think Simon Rattle on... well, on psychedelics.
I'm told that science is completely unbiased today. I guess I'll have to go back and reassess my doubts about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
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You have been reading an article entitled, Depression is real, says the APA, and they should know: they cause it! published on July 14, 2022 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)
he American Psychiatric Association has been trying for decades to convince us that "Depression is Real." Unfortunately, what they fail to realize is that the "Drug War" is real as well and it is the Drug War that is responsible for the depression that folks like myself experience. Why? Because it criminalizes virtually all the medicine that could make me feel better and inspire me with new ways of thinking about the world.
You have been reading an article entitled, Depression is real, says the APA, and they should know: they cause it! published on July 14, 2022 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)