"In the meantime the morphine had its customary effect- that of enduing all the external world with an intensity of interest. In the quivering of a leaf- in the hue of a blade of grass- in the shape of a trefoil- in the humming of a bee- in the gleaming of a dew-drop- in the breathing of the wind- in the faint odors that came from the forest- there came a whole universe of suggestion- a gay and motley train of rhapsodical and immethodical thought."
{^Poe didn't use drugs to "get high" -- he used drugs to truly appreciate the world around him. Freud didn't use cocaine to get high -- he used it to goad himself on to become prolific. Thomas De Quincey used opium to better enjoy the opera and Benjamin Franklin did so just because he wanted to -- but that was back at a time when people still judged other people for how they actually behaved, as opposed to what substances they happened to have ingested.}{
What's wrong with properly guided morphine therapy, say, for the purposes of increasing our love for Mother Nature? Answer: absolutely nothing -- unless we believe the Drug War lie that medicines like morphine can only be used for evil purposes, that they absolutely have to end in addiction. Which, wrong! There are plenty of ways to avoid addiction, by the proper scheduling (on a calendar, I mean) of psychoactive substances. So those who seek the benefits of "drugs" -- like improved mental focus, creative dreaming, ability to appreciate nature, ability to appreciate music -- can be educated about substances (coca, opium 5 , morphine , and psychedelics respectively) and put on a schedule whereby they can use them wisely, for all the worthy purposes cited above and many many more (a list of benefits limited only by the imagination of the pharmacologically savvy empath 6 who might administer such demonized godsends in a free country).
But Americans are so thoroughly brainwashed by Drug War lies that it's impossible for them to even imagine this paradise of mental possibilities.
But wake up, America. Coca use does not have to be addictive. Opium use does not have to be addictive. Even morphine 7 use does not have to be addictive. And psychedelics just plain AREN'T addictive.
We can actually use our brains to use these godsend meds safely for good purposes. It's up to us. Do we want to demonize plant medicine or use it for the benefit of humanity and humankind?
(That said, even if they WERE addictive, why, exactly, is that any worse than being chemically dependent on brain-numbing Big Pharma meds for a lifetime, especially considering that these latter meds are not known to have any of the rejuvenating powers enumerated above?)
Sadly, Americans have been programmed to despise the above-listed medicines, which is odd given the fact that they could never be rightly banned in a country that professes to believe in natural law.
Yet the Drug War has so fried the American mind, that we not only have decided to hate godsend plant medicine, but we now believe it our right and duty to bully every other country in the world to follow suit -- so that when we ban a substance, everyone everywhere bans that substance. In other words, America has created a Drug War-inspired Christian Science theocracy that rules not just in the States, but worldwide, which leads to needless suffering by hundreds of millions who could have lived a fuller life with the help of the botanical medicine which grows all around them.
Why do we ignore these hundreds of millions who, thanks to our imperialist folly, must live diminished lives, emotionally, spiritually and mentally speaking? Because these "mass of men" lead lives of quiet desperation, and quiet desperation never makes it to the evening news (except in the case of a few prominent suicides) -- whereas the statistically rare misuse of substances by white American youth makes headlines, inspiring skinflint demagogues to irrationally blame their politically defined category called "drugs" for all the evils on the planet.
It's funny. Just four years ago, when I wrote this post, I actually felt like I had to apologize for talking honestly about drugs. I had been so bamboozled and indoctrinated, that it felt positively illegal to be speaking common sense and fact on the topic. Now I look back at my 2019 skittishness and blush. But that's what the Drug War does: it makes you feel that it's actually wrong to even discuss this subject unless one is spouting the party line: i.e., "drugs bad." And that's deliberate, of course, on the part of the government. The official government policy is to repress all honesty about drugs: there's no desire to teach safe use. Oh, no, because according to government logic, something as rational and sane as that is only encouraging drug use -- which apparently is prima facie bad. (Who knew? Certainly not Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson) But since when did Christian Science become America's state religion? Since when did we conclude that it's wrong to follow up the research of William James? Since when did we decide that the Vedic religion was immoral for tracing its inspiration to a psychedelic plant?
The confusion arises because materialists insist that every psychological problem is actually a physical problem, hence the disease-mongering of the DSM. This is antithetical to the shamanic approach, which sees people holistically, as people, not patients.
Why does no one talk about empathogens for preventing atrocities? Because they'd rather hate drugs than use them for the benefit of humanity. They don't want to solve problems, they prefer hatred.
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.
The Drug War shows us that American democracy is fundamentally flawed. Propaganda and fearmongering has persuaded Americans to give up freedoms that are clearly enunciated in the U.S. Constitution. We need a new democracy in which a Constitution actually matters.
Wonder how America got to the point where we let the Executive Branch arrest judges? Look no further than the Drug War, which, since the 1970s, has demonized Constitutional protections as impediments to justice.
Almost every article about suicide is shallow because it takes drug prohibition as a natural baseline, even though drug prohibition outlaws substances that could so clearly elevate mood.
The problem for alcoholics is that alcohol decreases rationality in proportion as it provides the desired self-transcendence. Outlawed drugs can provide self-transcendence with INCREASED rationality and be far more likely to keep the problem drinker off booze than abstinence.
Someone tweeted that fears about a Christian Science theocracy are "baseless." Tell that to my uncle who was lobotomized because they outlawed meds that could cheer him up -- tell that to myself, a chronic depressive who could be cheered up in an instant with outlawed meds.
David Chalmers says almost everything in the world can be reductively explained. Maybe so. But science's mistake is to think that everything can therefore be reductively UNDERSTOOD. That kind of thinking blinds researchers to the positive effects of laughing gas and MDMA, etc.
The outlawing of coca and opium is a crime against humanity.
(up)