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January 26, 2008
Duh; It’s a War on Emotions, Stupid! (Logical, Historical, Personal)
As readers of this blog (I know there are at least a few) should have discovered by now: for over six years, I’ve become obsessed with an ongoing study of California pot smokers, and more recently with a growing awareness that, despite its obvious merit, no one has been willing to publicly endorse, replicate, or even discuss its most obvious finding: that when questioned appropriately, a majority of the pot smokers interviewed, were easily found to have been self-medicating the same troublesome emotional symptoms now being addressed less effectively by the “official” (FDA approved) medications cranked out by Big Pharma and endorsed by no less authorities than Congress, ONDCP, the DEA, the AMA, and the APA.
To say nothing of Academia, the liquor and tobacco lobbies, the media, prison builders, police benevolent associations. presidential candidates, the "sick and dying" wing of drug policy reform, and most of society.
Have I left anyone out? What could I have been thinking when I opened that can of worms?
Other than a growing list of expensive prescription items and a few largely ineffective herbal remedies, the only self-medication legally allowed for our emotional woes has to be with alcohol and tobacco; and then only in a “recreational” context, as defined by blood alcohol levels.
That’s another way of saying that today’s huge illegal drug market; spectacularly expanded by the drug war Nixon launched against his political enemies in 1969, is federally protected. Never mind that it’s also an (unrecognized) consequence of the accelerating emotional stress generated in an overpopulated, increasingly polarized, and highly competitive world still dithering over whether those threats could really be existential.
It's the original Harrison rulings come full circle; the same Supreme Court, that ruled ninety years ago that treatment of “addiciion” is beyond the competence of mere doctors, is now in the process of slowly redefining, case by case, just what today’s Medical Profession can safely be allowed to treat— and how.
In the meantime, a drug war, relying on the arrest of illegal drug users (addicted self medicators) as its principal therapeutic tool, will have to continue in order to adequately protect the Public Health. It should only take a few more centuries before NIDA-approved research has it all straightened out.
In the meantime, continue to trust your federal government. If still in doubt; ask your doctor...but don't dare smoke pot, or we'll bust your ass.
Doctor Tom
Posted by tjeffo at January 26, 2008 06:15 PM