Speaking Truth to Substack

It's another Notes Day for the Drug War Philosopher

Aha! It’s your lovable old Drug War Philosopher here, going through the notes from the Kingdom of Substackia that have caught my attention over the last seven days. I noticed in doing so that the “regretful Libertarian” from last week is still spreading misinformation and hasty conclusions to anyone who will listen. You remember RL: he regrets being a Libertarian because he now sees that cracking heads is called for when it comes to stopping human beings from accessing the bounty of Mother Nature. He somehow has no interest in cracking the heads of beer drinkers, however. He apparently thinks that the ingredients for that beverage bypassed Mother Nature and were handed directly to humankind from the Godhead (him, her or itself). But I am silent. I have a policy in place whereby I do not allow myself to get irritated by the same person two weeks in a row, so I will not bother to show wherein he does offend THIS week. (Grumble, grumble, grumble.)

I’m glad to say that most of this week’s notes are not actually wrong in any way since they are really just click-bait designed to get people chatting. There are, however, one or two posts that are not necessarily wrong in themselves but whose wording implies a wrong way of looking at the world. I’m always tempted to respond to such implicit falderal, even in advance of the erroneous individual’s attempts to formulate his or her basic misunderstanding into words. That’s basically the tack that I took on the post by Dr. Muir below, because I just knew from experience that the end of antidepressants that both he and Mark Horowitz were apparently advocating was going to end up being an attempt to get people off drugs entirely, and not just an attempt to get us off “meds.” Of course, there’s always the small chance that Dr. Muir will turn out to be the first doctor I know of who advocates an end to drug prohibition on behalf of his patients’ right to heal, in which case, won’t I have egg on my face! -- but I will be the first to apologize (and to sign up for an office visit) should my scruples be gainsaid in that manner. Hey, I’m nothing if not fair, folks.

FROM: Mental Health 4 Men

NOTE:

If you were to give a Ted talk to men regarding their mental health, what would be your main point? (And why?)

COMMENT:

That the outlawing of drugs is the outlawing of our right to heal, and that drugs actually have benefits, even though our government is spending $50 billion a year to convince us otherwise.

FROM: Owen Scott Muir, M.D.

NOTE:

Ending Antidepressants: a conversation with Mark Horowitz.

COMMENT:

I am a 67-year-old chronic depressive who has to see a doctor one-third my age every three months of my life to qualify for yet another prescription for an underperforming and dependence-causing “med” that is harder to kick than heroin. Yes, we have to “end” antidepressants, but not to turn the world into drug-hating Christian Scientists. We need to end the drug prohibition which tells us that time-honored panaceas have no positive uses whatsoever. [It turns out that Oscar only allows subscribers to comment.]

FROM: Liv Kissper

NOTE:

What subject can you talk about for hours without repeating what everyone already says?

COMMENT:

Drug prohibition.

FROM: Amalya Sukiasyan

NOTE:

What are the enemies of truth?

COMMENT:

Drug prohibitionists.

FROM: Andrew M. Weisse

NOTE:

Psilocybin Potency Is Far Less Predictable Than Most Think

COMMENT:

This is pretty much true of all psychedelics. The effects produced are a joint production of the user and the substance. I have read many user reports from Erowid and Fadiman and Stanislav Grof and Alexander Shulgin that verify this fact. I also have personal experience in which a small physical amount produced an experience much greater than that produced by many times that physical amount. Even the same amount in the same person has different effects when taken at different times. This is less surprising when we consider that the outcome of use is not just a product of the drug but of the enormously complex human mind working with the drug. It is not so much that the drug is unpredictable bur rather that the human mind is unpredictable, and can get different things out of the same substance at different times — sometimes even nothing, and sometimes even “the face of God.”

FROM: Mental Health 4 Men

NOTE:

Best mental health advice you can give someone? Go!

COMMENT:

Learn all the things about drugs that our government does not want you to know. Read books like Pihkal, Tihkal, Ceremonial Chemistry, and the Truth about Opium by William H. Brereton. You’ll slowly come to realize that drug prohibition is the outlawing of your right to heal.