Once again, Science News reckons without the Drug War. Ms. Gupta does not even mention MDMA , which has delivered fabulous results for PTSD sufferers over the last 35 years - albeit only in trials, since the self-serving DEA decided against the advice of its own counsel to criminalize the ultra-safe substance in 1985. Meanwhile, there is plenty of prima facie evidence that psychoactive botanicals could work wonders for PTSD patients in the proper settings. Some of these substances have inspired entire religions after all and given Plato his visions of an afterlife, but the Drug War either criminalizes such research or stigmatizes it such that little or no funding can be found for pursuing these tantalizing new approaches.
One can hardly blame the writer, however, since the experts that she interviews are also in denial about the way that the Drug War has limited their research on PTSD, as if they were approaching the problem from a natural baseline when nothing could be further from the truth; rather, they are approaching the problem in a country in which drug-war proscriptions have become so internalized that scientists do not even realize that they are censoring themselves. And how are they censoring themselves? By completely ignoring the role that psychoactive medicine could play in changing the prognosis for conditions like PTSD. This self-censorship on the part of scientists is the mother of all "western biases" and yet it is apparently invisible to psychologists like Iara Meili and Andreas Maercker, who are otherwise so sensitive to the mere theoretical possibility of culturally-based presumption1.
And they're not the only scientists in this article who have been bamboozled by the Drug War. Psychologist Richard Tedeschi is quoted as saying: "You can't expect people to change their spiritual beliefs in eight weeks." But actually you can, if you dare to consider the use of medicine that the Drug War has gone to such great pains to demonize over the last 100+ years (since anti-Chinese politicians first effectively criminalized the poppy plant in 1914). People have changed their spiritual beliefs in less than eight weeks, and usually for the better, under the influence of properly administered psychoactive medicines like psilocybin and MDMA . (See the work of such researchers as James Fadiman, Stanislav Grof, Rick Doblin, David Nichols, DJ Nutt, Julie Holland, Charles Grob, Michael and Annie Mithoefer, and Amanda Feilding.) But Richard Tedeschi is apparently not aware of such research. And why not? Because he has ruled out the consideration of "drugs" a priori in fealty to the Christian Science metaphysic of the Drug War.
There is yet a third psychologist whose comments only make sense in the age of the Drug War, namely psychologist Eranda Jayawickreme, who helps conclude Gupta's article by telling us:
"The most compassionate response to suffering is to validate survivors' feelings."
This is just plain wrong. The most compassionate response, at least to PTSD suffering, is to end the War on Drugs and call for the immediate legalization 2 of godsend medicines like psilocybin and MDMA 3 .
PTSD sufferers want help, not kind words.
Moral: the Drug War is impeding scientific progress, and Science News should not be writing articles that imply that such a war does not even exist.
Author's Follow-up:
May 05, 2025
In the above letter, I criticize scientists for completely ignoring godsend medicines whose use could profoundly change attitudes and so profoundly help victims of traumatic shock -- not to mention folks with simple everyday psychological hang-ups. It occurs to me, however, that most modern Americans (scientists included) are unaware of the ability of "drugs" to perform such psychological feats. I ask the reader, therefore, to contemplate the actual reported effects of beneficial drug use (phenethylamines, in this case) as reported in "Pihkal" by Alexander Shulgin4:
"I feel that it is one of the most profound and deep learning experiences I have had."
"Excellent feelings, tremendous opening of insight and understanding, a real awakening."
"An energetic feeling began to take over me. It continued to grow. The feeling was one of great camaraderie, and it was very easy to talk to people."
"Tremendous clarity of thought, cosmic but grounded, as it were."
"I am experiencing more deeply than ever before the importance of acknowledging and deeply honoring each human being. And I was able to go through and resolve some judgments with particular persons."
"This feels marvelous, and a whole new way to be much more relaxed, accepting, being in the moment. No more axes to grind. I can be free."
Trump is sometimes right, albeit always for the wrong reasons. There is such a thing as fake science: it is the science that we have today on the subject of mind and mood -- because it is all predicated on the notion that psychoactive substances do not exist and so we can ignore the obvious implications of beneficial drug experiences, especially insofar as Drug War dogma and censorship holds that beneficial use is an oxymoron.
Nor is it just the effects of synthesized medicines that scientists overlook in discussing trauma and related conditions. Consider this citation from the 19th-century short story entitled "What Was It?" by Fitz-James O'Brien5:
"Those hours of opium 6 happiness which the Doctor and I spent together in secret were regulated with a scientific accuracy. We did not blindly smoke the drug of paradise, and leave our dreams to chance. While smoking, we carefully steered our conversation through the brightest and calmest channels of thought."
"Drug of paradise!" Surely, our scientists are gaslighting 7 us when they pretend that such drugs can have no beneficial effects for a victim of trauma. And yet the article above shows that they are willing to pretend that such substances do not exist. They can get away with this for two reasons: first, because Drug War ideology holds as a matter of faith that psychoactive medicines can have no positive uses, and second, because materialist scientists are passion-scorning behaviorists when it comes to emotional issues and so feel free to ignore anecdote, history and common sense when it comes to the glaringly obvious benefits of drug use.
This is why it was a category error to place materialists in charge of mind and mood medicine in the first place. Scientists can work wonders with hadron colliders and nuclear reactors, but they have no expertise in dealing with the hopes and dreams of real people. This is why we need to replace materialist psychiatrists with what I call "pharmacologically savvy empaths.8"
Addiction was not a big thing until the drug war. It's now the boogie-man with which drug warriors scare us into giving up our freedoms. But getting obsessed on one single drug is natural in the age of choice-limiting prohibition.
Pro-psychedelic websites tell me to check with my "doctor" before using Mother Nature. But WHY? I'm the expert on my own psychology, damn it. These "doctors" are the ones who got me hooked on synthetic drugs, because they honor microscopic evidence, not time-honored usage.
Most substance withdrawal would be EASY if drugs were re-legalized and we could use any substance we wanted to mitigate negative psychological effects.
A Pennsylvanian politician now wants the US Army to "fight fentanyl." The guy is anthropomorphizing a damn drug! No wonder pols don't want to spend money on education, because any educated country would laugh a superstitious guy like that right out of public office.
Philip Jenkins reports that Rophynol had positive uses for treating mental disorders until the media called it the "date rape drug." We thus punished those who were benefitting from the drug, tho' the biggest drug culprit in date rape is alcohol. Oprah spread the fear virally.
Prohibition is wrong root and branch. It seeks to justify the colonial disdain for indigenous healing practices through fearmongering.
Laughing gas is the substance that gave William James his philosophy of reality. He concluded from its use that what we perceive is just a fraction of reality writ large. Yet his alma mater (Harvard) does not even MENTION laughing gas in their bio of the man.
So he writes about the mindset of the deeply depressed, reifying the condition as if it were some great "type" inevitably to be encountered in humanity. No. It's the "type" to be found in a post-Christian society that has turned up its scientific nose at psychoactive medicine.
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!
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.
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