Science News magazine continues to pretend that there is no war on drugs
an open letter to freelance writer Cassandra Willyard, author of 'A next-gen pain drug shows promise, but chronic sufferers need more options'
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
September 5, 2024
With respect, Cassandra, your article1 about next-gen pain medicines ignores the 6,400-pound gorilla in the room: namely, the fact that the Drug War has outlawed almost any form of treating pain. Opium, for starters, is illegal, as are a host of other medicines that could treat pain by helping one ignore it or think about it in a new way (like psilocybin and huachuma cactus).
But like almost all Science News writers, you reckon without the Drug War2, pretending that you are writing from a natural baseline, when, in fact, drugs like opium have been considered panaceas throughout history, with the exception of the last century or so, when America began demonizing effective medicines for political reasons. Being prohibited from using Mother Nature is not something that is common sense -- unless maybe one is a drug-hating Christian Scientist. The fact that naturally occurring drugs like opium 3 are illegal should be part and parcel of any truly scientific piece about pain relief.
For as author Jim Hogshire wrote:
"The poppy's central and indispensable position in our civilization makes access to it important, and thus forbidding public access to the poppy is staggeringly cruel."4
To remain silent on this topic merely serves to normalize the anti-scientific Drug War, which falsely tells us that...
a substance that can be misused by one person at one dose must not be used by any person at any dose.
Chronic sufferers need more options, Cassandra? THEN WHY DON'T WE RE-LEGALIZE MOTHER NATURE!!!
SWAT raids have increased by 15,000 percent from the late 1970s to today, resulting in 50,000 to 80,000 SWAT raids annually in the US alone. --War On Us
This is why we would rather have a depressed person commit suicide than to use "drugs" -- because drugs, after all, are not dealing with the "real" problem. The patient may SAY that drugs make them feel good, but we need microscopes to find out if they REALLY feel good.
Drug Prohibition is a crime against humanity. It outlaws our right to take care of our own health.
This is why the foes of suicide are doing absolutely nothing to get laughing gas into the hands of those who could benefit from it. Laughing is subjective after all. In the western tradition, we need a "REAL" cure to depression.
Using the billions now spent on caging users, we could end the whole phenomena of both physical and psychological addiction by using "drugs to fight drugs." But drug warriors do not want to end addiction, they want to keep using it as an excuse to ban drugs.
Someday those books about weird state laws will be full of factoids like: "In Alabama, you could be jailed for 20 years for conspiring to eat a mushroom."
Katie MacBride's one-sided attack on MAPS reminds me of why I got into an argument with Vincent Rado. Yes, psychedelic hype can go too far, but let's solve the huge problem first by ending the drug war!!!
Pundits have been sniffing about the "smell" of Detroit lately. Sounds racist -- especially since such comments tend to come from drug warriors, the guys who ruined Detroit in the first place (you know, with drug laws that incentivized profit-seeking violence as a means of escaping poverty).
When it comes to "drugs," the government plays Polonius to our Ophelia:
OPHELIA: I do not know, my lord, what I should think.
POLONIUS: Marry, I'll teach you; think yourself a baby!
I've found that no one thinks I "have standing" when I comment about drugs. I'm just a guy who's been turned into a patient for life thanks to drug prohibition. People think that the real experts are the doctors and scientists who profit from the status quo.
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