new hope for the millions who are dependent on SSRIs and SNRIs
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
April 21, 2024
Letter to Liz Martinez, Research Participant Advocate at Johns Hopkins University.
Good afternoon, Liz.
I am writing to volunteer for participation in a clinical trial that no one has yet undertaken: a trial to see if the use of entheogenic drugs can help the SNRI-dependent individual get off of Big Pharma meds like Effexor. I am a 65-year-old chronic depressive who has been on Effexor for several decades now and I would like to finish my life by renouncing my status as an eternal patient. To that end, I have sought out clinical trials and overseas retreats through which I might use entheogenic medicine, but in all cases I have been rebuffed, due, in my view, to overblown liability concerns (always disingenuously presented as concerns for my health) regarding a poorly studied, rare and generally mild contraindication known as Serotonin Syndrome.
In other words, I have discovered that the psychedelic renaissance is not available for precisely those who need and deserve it most: namely, the millions (including 1 in 4 American women!) who have been turned into wards of the healthcare state by myopic materialism and the Drug War, which has outlawed all obvious antidepressant godsends, including the San Pedro cactus, which the Conquistadors outlawed before them, meanwhile telling me that they're not even sure that laughing gas or MDMA could help the depressed (see Dr. Robert Glatter's article in Forbes magazine 2021)! To the contrary, the FDA is now busy trying to make laughing gas (William James' go-to substance for philosophical investigation) a "drug," thus making it less available to the suicidal than ever, not to mention philosophers.
The point is: I am your guinea pig for a study to see if the use of entheogenic drugs can help one wean themselves off of drugs like Effexor. Although I am not a doctor, I have read many accounts of the spiritually boosting effects of drugs like San Pedro cactus, from which I conclude that there is what philosophers call a PRIMA FACIE case to be made for prescribing entheogens to the chronically depressed, to inspire and give them fortitude in their quest to end Big Pharma use. The latest NIH results indicate that Serotonin Syndrome is usually mild and can be easily monitored and corrected should it occur. Besides, in the real world, many folks -- certainly myself -- do not place safety at the top of their priorities in life. I am willing to take reasonable -- indeed mild -- risks to achieve my goal of experiencing the perennial wisdom that comes from certain psychedelic medicine-- from which outrageous drug law has debarred me until now.
I consider myself an expert on this topic -- or at least on a certain aspect of this topic -- given my 30+ years of experience "on" Effexor and the hundreds of articles that I have written about how the Drug Warriors have turned me into an eternal patient by denying me access (like the Conquistadors before them) to the plants and fungi that grow at my very feet. Please give me an opportunity to fight back, meanwhile giving hope to the millions of chronically depressed who are currently considered ineligible for psychedelic healing. In my view, materialist medicine owes these people something, since our society and its materialist presuppositions essentially signed off on this unacknowledged yet unprecedented mass pharmacological dystopia thanks to which 1 in 4 American women take a Big Pharma med every day of their life. It's really unfair that the psychedelic renaissance is leaving this demographic behind, leaving them to their fate as wards of the healthcare state, as they-- still -- keep complaining of the depression for which they yet religiously still keep "taking their meds."
I'm your guinea pig.
I would be glad to write a detailed proposal for how a study of this kind would proceed. To summarize and recap: I propose a study whereby various entheogens are given to someone (myself) as they withdraw from a Big Pharma med (Effexor), based on the PRIMA FACIE argument that a drug that inspires wholeness, meaning and focus (like San Pedro cactus) could help create the mindset wherein the psychological downsides of antidepressant withdrawal could be overcome. For withdrawal by itself (without entheogens) has been shown to have a recidivism rate of 95%. Clearly, the mindset of the user has to adapt to the withdrawal of a drug like Effexor (one that mucks about with brain chemistry), and if any class of drugs on earth has the potential to improve mindset and attitude, it is the entheogen. It can inspire change.
But I hope that science won't take its usual glacial course and wait like Dr. Spock until this "inspiration" can be documented on a PowerPoint chart, since I don't think any of us will live so long! (We all know how long it took science to grudgingly accept that pets might have "real" emotions -- and it is only within the last few weeks that scientists grudgingly acknowledged that lowly life forms may have some kind of consciousness and/or intelligence after all, something that the Mesoamerican natives have known for millennia) We know that entheogens can inspire change: let me help establish that the use of such drugs can help me get off Effexor. A successful trial of this kind would give hope to millions of the chronically depressed who are completely disempowered by the knowledge (conscious or not) that they are eternal patients thanks to their use of Big Pharma antidepressants.
Let's stop telling the chronically depressed to "keep taking your meds!" as rich yuppies keep flying to Peru to try ayahuasca. Please, let's provide the victims of the Drug War with a blessed alternative, the help of entheogens in their quest to get off of big pharma antidepressants, a feat that is far more difficult than most Americans (not to mention the pharmaceutical companies) are willing to acknowledge, let alone do something about.
best wishes.
hope to hear from you soon.
Best Wishes!
Hope to hear from you soon!
Getting Off Drugs
NOVEMBER 2024
I have written dozens of essays about antidepressants and the Drug War, but it is important to read this one first, for it contains the most up-to-date info on my battle to get off such drugs. This reading order is important because I declared premature victory against the SNRI called Effexor in recent essays, only to discover that the drug is far more insidious than I gave it credit for. It turns out withdrawing, at least for me, eventually led to deep feelings of abject despair, far greater than the depression for which I started taking the "med" in the first place.
The frustrating thing is, these feelings could be combatted by a host of drugs that we have outlawed in the name of our anti-scientific and anti-patient war on drugs. That much is just psychological common sense. But we have been taught to believe that there are no positive uses for opium, nor for cocaine, nor for coca, nor for MDMA, nor for laughing gas, nor for peyote, nor for the hundreds of inspiring phenethylamines synthesized by Alexander Shulgin, etc. etc. etc.
The truth is, rather, that Drug Warriors (and the millions whom they have brainwashed) do not WANT there to be positive uses for such drugs. No, they want me to "keep taking my meds" instead and so to enrich their investment portfolios in the pharmaceutical sector. Meanwhile, those without a vested financial interest have been taught that antidepressants are "scientific" and so they cannot understand my desire to get off them. They cannot understand the hell of being turned into a patient for life and having to make regular expensive and humiliating pilgrimages to psychiatrists (who are half one's own age) to bare one's soul for the purpose of obtaining an expensive prescription for a drug that numbs one's brain rather than inspiring it - and a drug which seems to counteract, dampen and/or repress most of the positive effects that I might have otherwise obtained by the few semi-legal alternatives to antidepressants, such as psilocybin and ayahuasca.
But it is just psychological common sense that I could withdraw successfully from Effexor with the advised use of a comprehensive pharmacy, including but not limited to the demonized substances listed above. But materialist science is not interested in common sense. And so they tell me that such drug use has not been proven to "work." But materialist doctors are not experts in what motivates me as a living, breathing, unique individual. The heart has its own reasons that reductionist science cannot understand. If I could look forward, at this moment, to relaxing with an opium pipe tonight, my mood would improve NOW, not just tonight. I would have something to look forward to. I would not feel the need to reach for that bottle full of Effexor pills that I was hoping to foreswear. Likewise, if I could use a drug to laugh and "touch the hand of God" (as with laughing gas and phenethylamines respectively), I could laugh at the pangs of despair that Effexor tries to throw my way.
Science's eternal response to such ideas is: "There is no proof that such things work!"
No, nor will there ever be in the age of the Drug War, in which such common sense use is punished by long jail terms and would never be favorably publicized, even if successful, since America's prime imperative in the age of the Drug War is to demonize psychoactive medicines, under the absurd assumption-laden idea that to talk honestly about drugs is to encourage their use.
Well, we SHOULD be encouraging their use in cases where they actually work, in cases, for instance, when they prevent guys like myself from killing themselves thanks to the knowledge that they are a bounden slave to the combined forces of the Drug War and Big Pharma's pill mill.
Besides, there is no proof that hugging works, but we do not need Dr. Spock of Star Trek to launch a study into that issue: we all know that hugging works by bringing two souls together both physically and spiritually. We do not need a map of brain chemistry to figure this out: the proof is extant, the proof is in the pudding.
But I haven't given up yet despite the setback in my most recent plan. I'm going to search the world for a place where I can get off antidepressants in a way that makes some psychological common sense.
Right now, all I see in terms of resources are a bunch of companies who, for large fees, will help me go cold turkey on antidepressants., or companies that claim to have found the right combination of legal herbal formulas that should make withdrawal easier. But to me, these are all what Percy Shelley would call "frail spells," concocted under the watchful eye of the Drug Warrior to make sure that nothing potent and obviously effective will get added to the mix. In fact, if a space alien came to earth and asked what sort of psychoactive drugs were outlawed, one could honestly answer: "Anything that obviously works."
Meanwhile, drug laws make it impossible for me to visit psychiatrists remotely online, requiring me instead to physically visit my doctors, thereby limiting rural residents like myself to accessing hayseed psychiatrists whose one area of expertise seems to be the writing of prescriptions for antidepressants. Talk to them about anything else, and their eyes glaze over. "That's all unproven," they'll say, "Or, no, we have yet to fully study such things." As if we have to study in order to realize that feeling good helps and can have positive psychological effects.
I'm sure that part of the problem with my withdrawal scheme is that I tried to get off the drug too quickly. But I only tried that because I can find no doctor who will compound the drug for me in a way that makes psychological common sense, namely, with daily miniscule reductions in dosage. My current psychiatrist told me that such compounding was unheard of and that I should drop doses by 37.5 mg at a time, since that is the lowest dose that the pharmaceutical companies create. He said I could start "counting pill beads" once I am down to a 37.5 mg daily dose if I wanted to taper still further.
I did find a compounding company that said it could compound Effexor in the way that I desire. But there's a big catch: they have to receive a prescription for that purpose. And I can find no doctor in the world who is willing to write me one. Even those who sympathize with my plight want me to become their full-time patient before they will even consider writing such a prescription.
So those who warned me against trying to get off Effexor were right in a way: it is extraordinarily difficult. But they feel to realize WHY this is so. It is not just because Effexor is a toxic drug, but also because the drug war has outlawed everything that could help me get off it.
This is why those pundits who sign off on the psychiatric pill mill are clueless about the huge problem with the war on drugs: the way it humiliates and disempowers millions. For it turns out that the phrase "No hope in dope" is true after all, but only when the dope in question is modern antidepressants.
OCTOBER 2024
Here are some of the many articles I have written about the philosophy of getting off drugs. Bear in mind that I am in the process of getting off Effexor myself and am exploring the power of "drugs to fight drugs" in so doing. And this is not a straightforward path given the sweeping limits that are imposed by drug law. So the question of exactly what might work (and how and when, etc.) is still wide open and I am advocating nothing, except the common sense notion that we can benefit from euphoria and mood boosts, yes, and that "drugs can be used to fight drugs," and in a safe way too -- a way that will prove far safer than prohibition, which continues to bring about daily deaths from drive-by shootings and unregulated product while causing civil wars overseas.
I guess what I am saying here is, this site is not purporting to offer medical advice. I avoid using such wording, however, because so many authors refuse to talk honestly about drugs, especially about positive drug use, for fear of being seen as giving medical advice, and this, of course, is just how drug warriors want matters to remain. It lets them shut down free speech about drugs.
Besides, I reject the idea that materialist doctors are the experts when it comes to how we think and feel about life. The best they can do as materialist is to tell us the potential physical risks of using holistically-operating drugs, but individuals are the experts on what motivates them in life, on their own particular hopes and dreams and on what risks they deem necessary to obtain them, to pursue happiness, that is, which objective our legislators outlawed when they outlawed all substances that can help facilitate happiness in the properly motivated and educated individual.
The real answer is not for authors to give groveling apologies for being honest, however: the real answer is for kids to be educated about the basics of wise substance use -- and for America to come to grips with the fact that we will always be surrounded by "drugs" -- and that the goal should be to ensure safe use, not to keep endlessly arresting minorities and removing them from the voting rolls on behalf of the clinically insane idea that we should outlaw mother nature to protect our kids -- and this in a purportedly Christian country whose very deity told us that his creation was good.
Check out the conversations that I have had so far with the movers and shakers in the drug-war game -- or rather that I have TRIED to have. Actually, most of these people have failed to respond to my calls to parlay, but that need not stop you from reading MY side of these would-be chats.
I used to be surprised at this reticence on the part of modern drug-war pundits, until I realized that most of them are materialists. That is, most of them believe in (or claim to believe in) the psychiatric pill mill. If they happen to praise psychedelic drugs as a godsend for the depressed, they will yet tell us that such substances are only for those whose finicky body chemistries fail to respond appropriately to SSRIs and SNRIs. The fact is, however, there are thousands of medicines out there that can help with psychological issues -- and this is based on simple psychological common sense. But materialist scientists ignore common sense. That's why Dr. Robert Glatter wrote an article in Forbes magazine wondering if laughing gas could help the depressed.
As a lifelong depressive, I am embarrassed for Robert, that he has to even ask such a question. Of course laughing gas could help. Not only is laughter "the best medicine," as Readers Digest has told us for years, but looking forward to laughing is beneficial too. But materialist scientists ignore anecdote and history and tell us that THEY will be the judge of psychoactive medicines, thank you very much. And they will NOT judge such medicines by asking folks like myself if they work but rather by looking under a microscope to see if they work in the biochemical way that materialists expect.
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."
It's already risky to engage in free and honest speech about drugs online: Colorado politicians tried to make it absolutely illegal in February 2024. The DRUG WAR IS ALL ABOUT DESTROYING DEMOCRACY THRU IGNORANT AND INTOLERANT FEARMONGERING.
This is why it's wrong to dismiss drugs as "good" or "bad." There are endless potential positive uses to psychoactive drugs. That's all that we should ask of them.
In the 19th century, poets got together to use opium "in a series of magnificent quarterly carouses" (as per author Richard Middleton). When we outlaw drugs, we outlaw free expression.
If we encourage folks to use antidepressants daily, there is nothing wrong with them using heroin daily. A founder of Johns Hopkins used morphine daily and he not only survived, but he thrived.
Reagan paid a personal price for his idiocy however. He fell victim to memory loss from Alzheimer's, after making a career out of demonizing substances that can grow new neurons in the brain!
Well, today's Oregon vote scuttles any ideas I might have entertained about retiring in Oregon.
In 1886, coca enthusiast JJ Tschudi referred to prohibitionists as 'kickers.' He wrote: "If we were to listen to these kickers, most of us would die of hunger, for the reason that nearly everything we eat or drink has fallen under their ban."
The sad fact is that America regularly arrests people whose only crime is that they are keeping performance anxiety at bay... in such a way that psychiatrists are not getting THEIR cut.
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.
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, Replacing antidepressants with entheogens: new hope for the millions who are dependent on SSRIs and SNRIs, published on April 21, 2024 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)
You have been reading an article entitled, Replacing antidepressants with entheogens: new hope for the millions who are dependent on SSRIs and SNRIs, published on April 21, 2024 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)