How prescription policies have turned me into a child for life

Homepage of the Drug War Philosopher, Brian Quass

How prescription policies have turned me into a child for life

Open letters to policy makers

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

March 12, 2026

TO PSSD NETWORK ¹

I am a 67-year-old ADULT who tried for over a year to get off of Effexor after paying out of my own pocket for a compounding pharmacist -- one who was not allowed to provide extended release formula. The effort failed after a year with my depression returning worse than it had ever been and I also discovered that I had cognitive impairment that only disappeared after returning to the drug. I finally decided to return to the drug full-time and to spend the remainder of my life protesting the superstitious fear-driven drug attitudes that shunted me off onto this drug-from-hell in the first place.

If only it were so easy.

When I complained to my psychiatrist about having been placed on a drug that I can never kick, he "fired" me as a patient. He accused me of questioning his integrity. I told him I was questioning the integrity of the whole system, but he was determined to take it personally. I think he was also motivated because I complained via the Sentara Complaint service, and he was going to punish me as a whistleblower.

Now I have to find a psychiatrist to prescribe the med for me. This means in practice that I have to see a physician less than half my age every three months of my life to share the most intimate details of my life with him or her. In other words, I have been turned into a child for life and a ward of the healthcare state. It is humiliating. And if I work too hard to find an understanding physician, I am charged with "doctor hopping." But the worst thing of all is that no one in the healthcare field seems to consider me to be a victim. They talk plenty about the rights of patients, of course, but they never talk about the rights of people like myself NOT TO BE PATIENTS in the first place.

My personal conviction, based on eight years of philosophical study, is that this disempowerment is the necessary evil result of drug prohibition and the fearmongering attitudes that it represents. However, I will not try to convince you here of that thesis. I only ask you for any suggestions on making my case to the powers-that-be. Who can I tell about this? How can I make it clear to the people in charge that I am sick and tired of being a patient for life!

PS We don't need research: we need the re-legalization of godsend medicines like laughing gas, phenethylamines, coca, and opium. Drug prohibition has turned me into a patient for life -- and this is obviously in the interests of the healthcare industry, not myself.

TO Virginia Department of Health Professions Prescription Monitoring Program ²

Good day.

I am a 67-year-old Virginian who has been turned into a patient for life because of government drug policy. I have been "on" Effexor for 30+ years, a drug that is far harder to kick than heroin. I tried for a year but could never get off it with brain zaps and severe depression, worse than I had ever had before taking the drug. I have to keep taking the drug merely to be able to think straight. This means I have to see a doctor less than one-half my age every three months of my life and share my most intimate feelings with him or her -- for the privilege of receiving an expensive and under-performing prescription of a drug that I have come to detest.

I have been turned into a patient for life!

Please keep this in mind the next time the government makes it as hard as possible to get prescriptions easily. I have been taking this drug for decades. Why am I not trusted to use the drug without the constant prying of young adults into my life! It is humiliating!

This is not healthcare, it is Christian Science fanaticism. It is treating drugs like plutonium!

When is Virginia drug policy going to recognize the fact that adults are adults and we are sick and tired of seeing someone half our age every three months of our lives to discuss the same psychiatric "crap" that we discussed 30 years ago!!!!!!!!!!

To Delegate Pence and Senator French of Virginia state legislature

With all due respect, I have been turned into a ward of the healthcare state by government drug policy.

I am a 67-year-old who was started on Effexor 30 years ago, a drug that is harder to kick than heroin. I tried for a year to get off the drug, but I had to pay for my own compounding pharmacist to do that, and even he could not provide extended-release formula for proprietary reasons. After the side effects of withdrawal became intolerable, I resumed the drug, resolving to spend the rest of my life protesting America's fearmongering drug policy. But I still needed the drug. So I had to go to a psychiatrist who is less than half my age every three months of my life and share my most intimate feelings by answering questions like: "Have you considered suicide over the last three months?"

I want to answer that question as follows: "Only when I consider how drug policy has turned me into a ward of the healthcare state and a child for life!"

When are Drug Warriors going to realize that there are more stakeholders in drug prohibition than the kids whom we refuse to teach about safe use?

Drug policy has denied me all medicines that could cheer me up in a trice and shunted me off instead onto a drug that is far far far harder to kick than heroin.

I write this after my latest psychiatrist quit the field -- meaning that I once again have to find a new young person to whom to bare my soul for the privilege of a prescription refill. And if I spend too much time looking for one, I am told that I am "doctor hopping!" This is a big joke -- but only psychiatrists are laughing on their way to the bank.

When am I going to be trusted as an ADULT?!

Author's Follow-up:

May 16, 2026

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up

Of course, I have received no answers, but that's an outcome that I have come to expect after spending the last seven years writing honestly about the subject of drugs. Americans just will not "go there." One is literally invisible if they raise these kinds of concerns. I am just supposed to "shut up and take my meds."

Key Takeaways:

No one talks about the right not to be a patient in the first place.
Drug prohibition turns the depressed into patients for life.
A senior adult is not trusted to take 'meds' safely, but has to see a child half his age or less every three months to answer humiliating questions.
The system ignores complaints, telling the depressed basically to 'shut up and take your meds'.

Notes for essay entitled How prescription policies have turned me into a child for life: Open letters to policy makers:

1: PSSD Network PSSD Network (up)
2: Virginia Department of Health Professions Prescription Monitoring Program (up)

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"Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death." -Jean Cocteau

Med-dependent patients of the world, unite -- to end drug prohibition, that is. You have nothing to lose but your prescription bottles and your status as a ward of the healthcare state.

Most psychoactive substance use can be judged as recreational OR medicinal OR both. The judgements are not just determined by the circumstances of use, either, but also by the biases of those doing the judging.

Some fat cat should treat the entire Supreme Court to a vacation at San Jose del Pacifico in Mexico, where they can partake of the magic mushroom in a ceremony led by a Zapotec guide.

If I should die of some unusual concatenation of circumstances, I want my survivors to pass "Brian's Law," a law stating that we will no longer pass laws based on hard cases and so needlessly fill our prisons by taking common-sense discretion out of the hands of judges.

The Drug War is the ultimate example of strategic fearmongering by self-interested politicians.

Rick Strassman isn't sure that DMT should be legal. Really?! Does he not realize how dangerous it is to chemically extract DMT from plants? In the name of safety, prohibitionists have encouraged dangerous ignorance and turned local police into busybody Nazis.

Billboards reading "Fentanyl kills" encourage the creation of racist legislation that outlaws all godsend uses of opiates. Kids in hospice in India go without morphine because of America's superstitious fear of opiates.

We need a scheduling system for psychoactive drugs as much as we need a scheduling system for sports activities: i.e. NOT AT ALL. Some sports are VERY dangerous, but we do not outlaw them because we know that there are benefits both to sports and to freedom in general.

If our loved ones should experience severe depression and visit an emergency room for treatment, they will be started on a regime of dependence-causing Big Pharma drugs. They will not be given any drugs that elate and inspire.

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How prescription policies have turned me into a child for life

Open letters to policy makers

Author's Follow-up:

May 16, 2026

Key Takeaways:

Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US

Break the ice with a sledgehammer: place this book on your coffee table.

Diary of a Drug Fiend