The aesthetic difference between addiction and chemical dependency
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
April 19, 2023
here is a pedantic difference between addiction and dependency, but the power of these words to conjure bugbears is based on aesthetic judgements. We recoil from seeing an addict "craving" a drug -- but we have no problem with a chemically dependent person who merely feels like hell because their supply has been interrupted. Let them suffer in silence, it's no skin off our backs. Addicts, on the other hand, are a bother to us. They are eyesores. They may even try to rob us. But the chemically dependent user keeps their hell to themselves. We wouldn't know one if we saw one. Besides, if they're chemically dependent on Big Pharma meds, the powers-that-be are more than happy to furnish the goods that the user requires, for a price, of course, of time, money, and the user's own self-esteem and sense of empowerment in life. For who wants to be turned into an eternal patient of psychiatry? That's why we seldom see a "ragged out" Big Pharma patient -- because their medicines are eternally forthcoming from the doctor's office and CVS Pharmacy.
In fact, the very idea of an addict is a Drug War creation -- or at least a creation of a parochial view of drugs. If we truly welcomed mother nature's pharmacy and were allowed -- and even encouraged -- to find the best medicines for ourselves, there would be no addiction. There would be conditions that a puritan outsider would be eager to call "addiction," but the user would be able to employ a wide variety of drugs to obfuscate the negative effects of such a pharmacological situation and to thereby move on -- if he of she so desired, of course, for addiction is objectively wrong only to the extent that one's poison of choice is no longer, in fact, one's poison of choice. In our world, that catastrophe is treated with Naloxone and cold turkey. In a truly free world, one in which nature is considered a benefactor rather than a kingpin, we would be constantly working to give the supposed 'addict' new ways to switch courses with the help of a vast pharmacopoeia of psychoactive substances (some "natural," some not), without the gnashing of teeth that we require in today's materialist and Christian Science "addiction protocols."
Author's Follow-up: April 19, 2023
This, incidentally, is why the Drug War imposes a religion: it is based on the anti-Christian idea that God's creation was not good. The Catholic position has always been that things are not bad. Only people are good or bad based on the way they use things. Why? Because God himself told us that his creation was "good." The Drug War denies that position and is therefore a religion.
This is why I call the drug war 'fanatical Christian Science.' People would rather have grandpa die than to let him use laughing gas or coca or opium or MDMA, etc. etc.
We have a low tolerance for the downsides of drug use only. We are fine with high risk levels for any other activity on earth. If drug warriors were serious about saving lives, they'd outlaw guns, free flying, free diving, and all pleasure trips to Mars.
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.
If MAPS wants to make progress with MDMA they should start "calling out" the FDA for judging holistic medicines by materialist standards, which means ignoring all glaringly obvious benefits.
The UK just legalized assisted dying. This means that you can use drugs to kill a person, but you still can't use drugs to make that person want to live.
We would never have even heard of Freud except for cocaine. How many geniuses is America stifling even as we speak thanks to the war on mind improving medicines?
Unfortunately, the prohibitionist motto is: "Billions for arrest, not one cent for education." To the contrary, drug warriors are ideologically committed to withholding the truth about drugs from users.
In fact, that's what we need when we finally return to legalization: educational documentaries showing how folks manage to safely incorporate today's hated substances into their life and lifestyle.
I'm grateful to the folks who are coming out of the woodwork at the last minute to deface their own properties with "Trump 2024" signs. Now I'll know who to thank should Trump get elected and sell us out to Putin.
Psychedelics and entheogens should be freely available to all dementia patients. These medicines can increase neuronal plasticity and even grow new neurons. Besides, they can inspire and elate -- or do we puritans feel that our loved ones have no right to peace of mind?
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, The aesthetic difference between addiction and chemical dependency published on April 19, 2023 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)
here is a pedantic difference between addiction and dependency, but the power of these words to conjure bugbears is based on aesthetic judgements. We recoil from seeing an addict "craving" a drug -- but we have no problem with a chemically dependent person who merely feels like hell because their supply has been interrupted. Let them suffer in silence, it's no skin off our backs. Addicts, on the other hand, are a bother to us. They are eyesores. They may even try to rob us. But the chemically dependent user keeps their hell to themselves. We wouldn't know one if we saw one. Besides, if they're chemically dependent on Big Pharma meds, the powers-that-be are more than happy to furnish the goods that the user requires, for a price, of course, of time, money, and the user's own self-esteem and sense of empowerment in life. For who wants to be turned into an eternal patient of psychiatry? That's why we seldom see a "ragged out" Big Pharma patient -- because their medicines are eternally forthcoming from the doctor's office and CVS Pharmacy.
You have been reading an article entitled, The aesthetic difference between addiction and chemical dependency published on April 19, 2023 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)