A Russian Buk missile is a piñata from hell. It contains 8,000 individual pieces of bow-tie shaped metal, each the size of a Twix candy bar. When the missile explodes, these become projectiles that can easily take down any passenger plane -- as was demonstrated in July 2014 when Ukraine separatists shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 near the Russian border, killing 283 passengers and 15 crew members.
What does this have to do with "drugs"? Just this: In a world where occasional E use was required for anyone exhibiting antisocial feelings, such an event would be unthinkable. A human being wouldn't think of massacring innocents like this. Conclusion: We have drug testing 1 backwards: we need to test people to make sure that people DO have love-stoking drugs in their system, at least when the sober state of such individuals permits of them creating diabolical weaponry that shoots innocent adult, children and babies from the sky.
Say no to the violence of war -- including the Drug War. Say yes to the informed use of peacemaker drugs.
The Links Police
Do you know why I stopped you? That's right, because the Drug War gives me carte blanche to be a noxious busybody. But I also wanted to suggest that you check out a related essay entitled Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, by Jacob Sullum.
June 25, 2022
The call to say "yes" to drugs sounds like heresy to westerners, since they've been brainwashed since childhood to say no to medicines that have inspired entire religions. But they should remember that the Drug War is not about getting us to say no to drugs -- it's about getting us to say "yes" to the right drugs, as "right" is defined by the economic powers that be. Americans, in particular, are already saying "yes" to drugs in a big way, as 1 in 4 American women are chemically dependent on Big Pharma 23 meds for life. You can search the script.com archive and you'll find almost zero pushback against this pharmacological dystopia in TV shows 4 and movies 56 . To the contrary, you'll find plenty of scripts in which a character is reminded to "take your meds."
So the Drug War itself tells us to say "yes" to drugs. The difference is that we're suggesting that you use the drugs that are right for you and for society -- drugs that will conduce to peace and happiness all around -- rather than the drugs that are right for the stock market and conservative politicians only, and otherwise offer you, personally, precisely zero hope of self-transcendence and peace of mind in this life.
The line drawn between recreational and medical use is wishful thinking on the part of drug warriors. Recreation, according to Webster's, is "refreshment or diversion," and both have positive knock-on effects in the lives of real people.
To say that taking SSRIs daily is better than using opium daily is a value judgement, not a scientific one.
Folks like Sabet accuse folks like myself of ignoring the "facts." No, it is Sabet who is ignoring the facts -- facts about dangerous horses and free climbing. He's also ignoring all the downsides of prohibition, whose laws lead to the election of tyrants.
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.
To treat opioid use disorder, we should re-normalize the peaceable smoking of opium at home as an alternative to drinking alcohol.
Many psychonauts (like Terence McKenna) praise psychedelics while demonizing other psychoactive substances. No substance is bad in itself. All substances have some use at some dose for some reason for some people in some circumstance.
Meanwhile, no imaginable downside could persuade westerners that guns and alcohol were too dangerous. Yet the DEA lies about almost all psychoactive drugs, saying there are no good uses. That's a lie! Then they pass laws that keep us from disproving their puritanical conclusion.
Malcolm X sensed an important truth about drugs: the fact that it was always a self-interested category error for Americans to place medical doctors in charge of mind and mood medicine.
That's why we damage the brains of the depressed with shock therapy rather than let them use coca or opium. That's why many regions allow folks to kill themselves but not to take drugs that would make them want to live. The Drug War is a perversion of social priorities.
When psychiatrists write about heroin, they characterize dependency as enslavement. When they write about antidepressants, they characterize dependency as a medical duty.
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