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TechnoratiOne deadens nerves, barely works, has foul side effects. The other helps you feel God
Over here we have a new drug. It has one particularly unfortunate side effect: It makes you fat. Or rather, fatter, given how most patients who take it are already quite overweight to begin with.
But that's not all. Other nasty side effects include dizziness, confusion, sleepiness, severe edema (swelling and oozing), among others. What fun. But hey, at least it works, right?
Well, no, not really. It apparently works only about half the time, if that, and even then it doesn't work very well and it certainly doesn't actually cure anything or treat any of the potential causes of your illness or address any of the deeper biological/psychological issues at hand and, in fact, only "works" (they guess, but don't actually know) by essentially numbing the central nervous system and therefore merely blocking out what your body is trying to tell you. Sort of like saying the light hurts your eyes and then taking a pill to make you go blind. There now, all better.
This new drug is called Lyrica. It's from Pfizer, and it was just approved by the FDA to treat an awful, inscrutable condition known as fibromyalgia, an is-it-or-isn't-it illness distinguished by all-over bodily pain the causes of which no one can figure and which few are really sure is even a real disease, per se, given that there's no biological test to diagnose it and no way to accurately validate its existence and given that it has all sorts of seemingly unrelated, scattershot symptoms, like irritable bowel (another suspect ailment) and ringing in the ears and, well, just about everything else.
No matter. After years of doubt as to its effectiveness (and fibromyalgia's existence), Lyrica has been approved, and fibromyalgia has been more or less legitimized. Pfizer stands to make billions, as do the other pharmco titans who are begging the FDA to let them make expensive new drugs to treat this strange condition that no one seems to understand - drugs which may actually exacerbate the condition - but which clearly has enough patients who seem to be suffering from it even though they might very well be suffering from something else entirely.
Ah, the pharmaceutical industry. Tremendous amounts of good, underscored by giant bolts of shameless, exploitive, predatory evil. Isn't it fascinating?
Over here, another drug. This one's been around awhile. World famous, beloved by millions, controversial for all the wrong reasons. It is currently very, very illegal. Producing and selling it in any quantity can result in severe punishment, years in prison.
It has been deemed highly dangerous, potentially toxic, even lethal, and for years the government and the Centers for Disease Control and your own mother have issued all sorts of lies and alarmist B.S. about it, like how it drains spinal fluid, induces brain aneurisms, makes you vote Libertarian. Which is not to say taking it doesn't have its random dangers, but, you know, please.
This drug is famous for producing incredible feelings of euphoria, openness, warmth and love and happiness in almost everyone who takes it. It is staggeringly effective, non-addictive, and when taken somewhat responsibly and with a slight hint of intelligence, has very few, if any, notable or permanent side effects.
Its positives border on miraculous. It can effortlessly break down long-held psychological barriers, remove obstacles to communication and stifled emotion, make patients/users feel open and happy and much better able to handle stress, anxiety, all manner of trauma.
It gets better. Some of the deeper emotional breakthroughs it produces last for weeks, months, or forever. Truly, entire loving relationships have been launched based on the deep bonding and raw emotional honesty a couple discovers while on it, and in many cases, those feelings become the foundation for long-term marriages (or, by way of the same raw honesty, encourage the end of unhappy, dying ones).
Oh yes - this drug also frequently induces profound, life-changing spiritual awakenings, can eradicate neurosis, increase feelings of empathy and forgiveness and peace and overlay it all with an increased love of music and sensual pleasure.
Thank God it's illegal.
This drug, as you've already guessed, is MDMA, or ecstasy. It has finally, after years of governmental ignorance and lack of balls/foresight/integrity in the psychiatric community, earned tacit approval for a precious handful of clinical psychiatric trials. Initial results? Turns out this scary illegal drug just might work wonders for treating post-traumatic stress disorder. Gosh, really?
Yes. As reported by the Washington Post and the Guardian, as far as PTSD alone is concerned, some docs already see MDMA as potentially life-saving, a true wonder drug, which might even be administered to all our traumatized U.S. soldiers. Which could be good news indeed, given how an estimated 24 million Americans suffer from PTSD, whereas only a fraction of that number claim to have fibromyalgia.
Oh, but there are problems. Major drawbacks. Terrible, unspeakable, anti-American issues that seriously trouble our drug-addled nation.
Foremost: MDMA is not patented. Its formula is not owned by anyone. Hence, no single company (or handful of companies) stands to make billions from its potential legalization and the government cannot tax it and organized religion cannot control the power it has to help you totally reject its inane dogma, and they all really, really hate that.
What's more, millions of people already take MDMA recreationally, for the sheer pleasure and joy of it, making it a huge threat to all authority everywhere, because God knows we can't have lots of people feeling peaceful and empathetic and nonviolent, as opposed to fearful and victimized and angry and sick sick sick, all those things governments and religions rely on to keep you meek and beaten down and in check.
I know what you're thinking. That's a dangerous oversimplification, Mark. Read the literature! Ecstasy is scary! People can overdose! "Moderation" is not in America's DNA! With the possible exception of extreme PTSD cases, we should probably keep MDMA illegal forever - you know, just like that other toxic, wildly addictive drug that causes thousands of deaths every year, along with liver disease and violence and spousal abuse and trauma and impaired judgment and unwanted pregnancy and frat boys and which you can order as much as you want right now in any bar in the world. Oh wait.
Maybe it really is just that simple, just that odious. One drug, nasty and of hugely questionable value, essentially designed to numb your body and mock your spirit and shut you down like a land mine shuts down a cat, is legal. Another drug, relatively safe, enormously effective in how it opens you up like a flower and pours white hot life straight down your throat and helps you feel God without forcing you to kneel before, well, anything at all, is violently illegal. And thus doth the brutal irony of the capitalist machine floweth over once again.
It is, you could say, just another tale of the tense, vicious battle ever raging between the government/corporations/church, all of whom seek to control and profit by murdering any notion you may have that you might be far more powerful, divinely connected, empathetic than you imagine, and the humane, common-sensical universe of peaceful reality. Do you know that fight? Do you ever sense that common sense is losing? I have a suggestion for something you might want to try.
Thoughts for the author? E-mail him. Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SFGate and in the Datebook section of the San Francisco Chronicle.
© 2008 The San Francisco Chronicle
38 Comments so far
Show AllMDMA has been around since the 1960's, it was part of the hugh drug experiments on the U.S. population. It's a shity drug and by shity people. Look up drug experiments starting with Glottlieb and don't stop until you get to Kissenger. If you still want to take it after that..rock on.
Kitty,
Some healthcare professionals make a good living from alcohol use too. Alcohol induced dementia and alcoholism are just two of the diseases that destroy people. Personally, I like working in an environment that intoxication comes from living in a world that promotes social justice, environmental quality, and respects the innate gifts of being human rather than dumbing the effects of an overly civilized society.
Hi Earl simmins, yeah, I did not even mention my now 17 yr old daughter is hooked deep on marlboros which she began at middle school 4 yrs ago. no cig's ever at home. tough.
Glorified like alcohol. And drugs.
And Kitty, alcohol is pretty horrible as drugs go, but zillions of people around the world drink as part of a good life, live and let live is it i think except for politicians of course who deserve no such quarter.
Mikepeters, Yeah throw them in there too, no lung, mouth, or throat cancer cancer, bar fights,93% less highway fatalities,fewer abused children and spouses, probably fewer illegitImate births also. l am not advocating for the establishment and its' prohibitions, l am calling for a voluntary boycott so the system will collapse and the good capitalist will say maybe we should lift the prohibition, because there a bunch of stupid people out there we can make money on.
As a bartender, I find it pretty offensive how some people, including the article author, slam on alcohol in their efforts to boost their drug of choice. What, jealous because alcohol is legal (for now) and the others are not? It was taken away before, and there are some who'd love to take it away again, would we get to join the underground cool club then? Yes it's wrong that there's a double standard, but I don't make the rules. And what's worse, citing the minority who have or cause problems with alcohol to condemn across the board is absolutely no different than the way illegal drugs are treated.
The whole damned thing stinks of hypocrisy, and it needs to stop.
Hey Earl, I noticed alcohol and tobacco did not make your hit list.
Is immoral okay, just not 'illegal' which means w/o the govt.'s (tax)stamp of approval?
Have a beer, lite a marlboro and don't worry about potheads!
We are a red herring! we won't eat your kid's! we don't even fund the Taliban!
l'm calling for a month long boycott on all use of illicit drugs, the whole batch. lmagine the havoc on the whole system; dealers going bust, no mules dying, police with nothing to do but eat donuts, defense attorneys with no clients, prosecuting attorneys with no perps, rehab centers with no patients, jails with empty cells, judges with no trials, drug lords with no income, funds cut off for the Taliban and FARC, DEA agents on welfare, no exploding meth factories, sudsistence farmers forced to grow food, the whole underground economy in turmoil. Wow a world without stoned out Zombies ready to do somebody elses biding for another hit, snort, script or shot in the arm sounds scary the whole system might collapse. WOW man what was l thinking l musta' been high........
Mark, you oughta be ashamed of yourself! Telling kids to take MDM and dance all night!
Why not amuse yourself the Moosie way?
Smoke mass pot, and then get on the Duc or the Hawk and ride, ride, ride!
Leave no turn unstoned!
I mean, c'mon! Have you heard the "music" those kids listen to? Stoned motorcycle riding is much safer, and I've never caught herpes that way. Or road-rash, either.
They've been growing weed in Afghanistan since b4 time, making hash. best weed i ever smoked was a strain called Mazur which came from there.
Speaking of, it is just past four-twenty, Trivia, where that came from? A 420, used to be cop talk for "marijuana smoking in progress" oooooooohhhhhhh lets spprehend the criminal. Over 900,000 pot busts in the land of the free last year.
**** them all. and we got ten foot plants here, too.
I'm gonna twist one right now I grew in my closet. legally. no lie. someone steals my plants the sheriff will arrest them. thru the looking glass.....
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002847.html Shows MONSTER pot plants 10 feet high, indestructible [though not for lack of trying]--they're in Afghanistan, see they ARE trying to grow something besides opium, [quote].. that we simply couldn't burn them," he said.
Even successful incineration had its drawbacks.
"A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those [forests] did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action," Hiller said dryly. [/quote]
LSD is Good For Me. And my friends. That's why we brought you those little green shaped-like-a pyramid 112 microgram green doses, take three, in the 80's.
Fibromyalgia seems most characterized by pain. Marijuana. Imagine if Merck could patent that plant....I'd be shot for growing it.
But Ecstasy...it's a white powder that makes you feel good that you come down from....I've seen people trashed from it, torn and tattered and strung out..but sure, maybe it was cut with something....echo echo echo...
weedsillcybinareyouexperiencedweedmon leave da evaclea'
"Dig everybody! ELL - ESS - DEE!"
"Bad trips and a chance of chromosome damage..."
"How do you know you got chromosomes?"
"Everything you got there can hurt you, can't it?"
"Sure, kid. Why do you think they call it 'dope'?"
"Naaaaaaaahhhhhhh..."
we should all go to yemen and chew khat - it's natural and legal.........
Uh Oh. I agree with so much of what he has said, but the dissing of fibromyalgia really hurts! (sad smile). I have fibromyalgia. It affects women more than men (80% versus 20%) and because of this, we have been fighting the mostly male medical establishment for years to get them to even recognize that it is real and not just female hysteria or whining. It often accompanies PTSD or other traumas such as major surgery. Mine manifested itself after the first of three back surgeries, and then there was the child abuse too.
Definitive diagnostic techniques exist. One is finding "trigger points", predictable areas which when pressed cause excruciating pain. Mine was pronounced real after an evaluation at a pain clinic. When the physical therapist who administered the test pressed my trigger points, it hurt so bad I cried. The PT actually apologized for inflicting so much pain. I said, this is your job. Don't be upset. I want to know what is causing this misery.
The medical folks really couldn't help, as over the counter pain meds aren't sufficient. Over the years, I learned what is available to help -- yoga, hot whirlpools, walking, and so forth.
Many "diseases" are constructs derived from the need for efficiency in processing mass quantities of patients as quickly as possible. If the establishment doesn't recognize your "disease" as legitimate, though, insurance won't pay for even the conventional treatments that do help such as physical therapy.
Women's medical needs have been denied so often. Let's not give any ammunition to those who want to keep it that way.
People should know and respect what they put in thier bodies and always consider the source. Compete nutrition is the best high I've ever had.
http://www.gwpharm.com/sativex.asp Is it just a breath spray? Just thinking of new commercials for when Sativex is marketed in US. Canada has it now, $125 for 10 day supply. Since Canada is less than half the price for drugs, US companies will get upwards of 1000.00 a month for the spray, maybe medicare part B will cover it as a payoff to GW-(the pharma not the other crook)
On Second thought, Strike that!
If the gov made pot legal, the first thing they'd do is let the tobacco companies dork it up with GMO gene splicing, removing all the flavor and THC since it would no doubt be a mono-genetic cloned crop from hell drenched in horrible pesticides on monster agri-business tracts with bad soil that would give you the shakes so bad, you'd wish you had drank a whole bottle of Everclear instead!
Some things are just better in little batches by dedicated small farmers and purveyors of the art.
What's really amazing is the diversity of "herbs" out there. My god there's a lot of interesting flavors of reefer. Every one is distinctly different, just like fine wines. "Maui Wowwie", "Oregon Gold," "Kripto," etc, etc..... God, I just gave myself "the munchies" there! LoL!
Used in moderation to manage pain, the world is a better place.
And with this moron in the white house many Americans need some pain relief right now.
Never give in!
Mark Morford hits another nail on the head: greed and control trumps good in the capitalist mind. There's an allegory here. Why is America all effed up? Think of this -- cilocybin mushrooms, peyote, MDMA, pot, LSD, all of which bring feelings of closeness to "God," euphoric feelings of love for one's fellows, insight into and for people who are dangerously messed up, and an immediate experience of the eternal, are all illegal. "Everclear," three drinks of which will dissolve your brains and make you uncontrollably stupid, quite legal. What value system upholds that? Makes me think of the original House UnAmerican Activities Committee meeting, where it was decided that the Ku Klux Klan was not UnAmerican, that it was as "American as whiskey-making" and should not be investigated. Nor should the right-wing attempt to assassinate FDR and install a Fascist dictatorship in 1934. Better go after Burl Ives and all those "red" professors. This seems alcohol related to me -- seems clear that their thinking was profoundly inhibited. :>)
Draw the line at the personal body. The government does not own you. It's none of the governments business what the helll you put in your body as long as you do not harm other in society by doing it.
Invasive drug testing: blood, and even non-invasive drug urine and breath tests are unreasonable search and seizure and are violations of the forth amendment. Employer/gov drug tests are unconstitutional.
Fourth Amendment – Protection from unreasonable search and seizure.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Personally, I refuse to live in a police state that puts you in the can for smoking herbs. 33 states allow the smoking of Cannabis with a doctor's prescription, but this tyrannical, over-bearing, unconstitutional federal Gestapo is hellbent on breaking the tenth amendment all the phucking time.
Tenth Amendment – Powers of states and people.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Time for a little 1776 action!
How about the Boston Drug Party! We go into all the pharmacies and start spilling all the pills all over the floor!
We don't need their stinking poison pills!
Stay High my friends!
We need illegal drugs. For one they are a great source of revenue to fund black operations. They are also a great tool to imprison significant numbers of the African American population and keep them from breeding and voting. The global bankers also profit by taking a cut of the profits to launder the money. Kind of a win-win-win scenario for them.
Does anyone really believe 600 billion in the illegal drug trade(and that may be under-stating the true level by an order of magnitude) could be laundered in this era of tracking unusual flows of money that might be used to fund terrorists without an enormous number of drug busts being announced on a monthly if not weekly basis. Wouldn't the war on terror pay dividends on the war on drugs?
They could legalize the safer illegal drugs, and give it to Big Pharma to profit from. Silly me, I forgot, the current system is a tax free enterprise, we can't have our black ops funded by taxes, then it shows up in the budget (not the black op, just the dollars needed), and our money launderers suffer as well, and the African-Americans will start breeding again, and even vote.
Acupuncture can be just as effective or more for all the above conditions.
"They need obedient, preferably alcohol soaked morons pledging allegiance..."
They want more gammas, of course, a la "Brave New World."
The WOD, like the WOT, is about directing the public's wealth to the oligarchy. To do that they require control over our bodies and our minds.
Enthogens, as opposed to addictive drugs, let users see and live a different reality, unencumbered by authority, with the freedom to let the mind soar.
Of course, the oligarchs can't have this. They need obedient, preferably alcohol soaked morons pledging allegiance to Mammon, better educated tools and ball pulling simply rich slaves to do the dirty work so they can stay on their sick masters of the universe ego trip.
Psychotropic drugs let users see things the oligarchy considers dangerous to their authority. Hoover said similar and it was one of the driving forces behind COINTELPRO and the destruction of the 60's movement.
The nice thing about reading Morford here on CD is that you can avoid the hideous flamewars that break out on his "home" website, sfgate. I think conservative knuckle-dragging sites send traffic that way so their readers can feel good about themselves by flaming him. Ironically, this results in more ad impressions for the Hearsts, and therefore more cash. Wacky, that.
Just a few stats to think about: Alcohol, just from the heatlh effects, kills about 150,000 Americans every year. That doesn't count eh drunk driving, the spousal abuse and fighting deaths, just the health issues. Tobacco, about 450,000 Americans a year, 2.2 million worldwide. Prescription drugs, about 200,000 Americans every year die from properly prescribed, properly taken ones.
Cannabis (I refuse to use the racist inspired word Marijuana again), in over 4500 years of medicinal use and 8,000 of recreational use, has never been implicated in a single human death. According to Kaiser Permanente (1993), the only health issue that cannabis users have that other citizens don't is LAW ENFORCEMENT.
LSD has been shown to have very good effects for psychological patients when used in the proper situations and under the right conditions. MDMA is a very close relative to LSD, so I don't find any surprise that it works in largely the same way.
All the illegal drugs are involved in the deaths of approximately 18,000 Americans a year. The majority of those is overdosing, and that is because you can't tell what the doseage is. If they were legal, those deaths would fall dramatically. Compare that to the legal drugs and tell me where the logical choice is.
To hell with the pharamceutical industry, they are the REAL drug pushers, and dish out death more than they deserve to get away with. No charges are ever filed in any of those 200,000 deaths, and yet this country screwed with 823,000 Americans for cannabis use just in 2006 alone. Do you like having to pay for that?
wilmoor,
Beautiful point.
In fact I think many of the issues debated boil down to that logic illustrated by the gun issue.
When people bash religion it's the same thing Religion doesn't kill People, People do.
To blame anything other than a person is just to distract from true responsibility.
Bad policies cant do any thing its just paper, it takes the kind of people that are so subservient that they will do things that are obviously wrong, (and wrong is too weak a word) To make the boss happy…
we all know people like this …. That's them… they are really weak, using manipulation and intimidation and what ever advantage they can for their own betterment.
Another note they can't just make better for them self, because they don't really know how to solve problems, they only know how to push their problem off on somebody else. But they are caught up in the drama (if not responsible for it)so they seem like they matter, but they don't. and as long as we turn a blind eye to those in our midst who opperate this way we are not doing our part.
jsc and all,
All dis-ease has a mental, emotional, spiritual and physical component. None, not one, is strictly a physical illness, caused by internal or external physical elements. To truly "practice" medicine, all aspects of the whole must be regarded. In many cases, the physical causes are the least to blame. We are spiritual beings having a physical experience and all we have to work with is our awareness of who we are. This is not to deny physical symptoms and take appropriate action to reduce them, but to deny an underlying cause beyond the physical is to deny the possibility of a true healing. Complementary medicine, as advanced by Dr. Andrew Weil, is a major advancement in Health Care. He teaches the integration of the Body, Mind and Spirit in his approach to healing and prevention.
There is also a whole teaching based on ancient wisdom that is now being validated by science. It comes in many forms, including metaphysics, spirituality, the Science of Mind, as taught by Ernest Holmes and Ralph Waldo Emerson and many others. I recommend doing some exploration beyond the fundamental and traditional religion, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and even Atheism. There is much to be discovered is one is willing to put aside societal assumptions and look beyond what is apparent.
Blessing,
peace,
st john
Can anyone explain why it took a constitutional amendment to outlaw alcohol, but other natural / non-patented substances can now be outlawed with the swipe of a pen?
A good friend used to have "fibromyalgia". She completely removed wheat from her diet. She no longer has "fibromyalgia".
If you don't evaluate illness from a diet/nutrition/allergy(environmental as well as food) perspective you will always just "practice" medicine.
I remember many moons ago when I resided in Puerto Rico (the late 80's-early 90's) the chic professionals I hung out with (we conducted meditations and enjoyed a great intellectual circle of mostly expatriot US citizens) started talking about ecstasy. Two psychiatrists were in this group and one spoke in glowing terms about cancer patients (near death) given ecstasy as a means to open up.
I never chanced trying it, and when it became the rage at raves in the U.S. (among a younger, probably less spiritually aware sect) I lost my any interest in it.
Marijuana probably has done at least some of the good Moford relates to ecstasy. As far as advertising and "legal drugs," there's little question that big pharma along with the MDeity is dedicated to the cause of creating illnesses to manage. Diabetes treatment is like renting people access to their own bodies. Forget cure, it's all about regular maintenance. Let's keep those checks coming! Many doctors never study diet or nutrition. Luckily a strong body of more ethical medical people have launched a wide array of books that empower persons to learn to heal themselves. A huge part of this process is turning from artificial substances and eating natural raw food. Tragically, yesterday's CD posting about the prolific quantity of genetically modified STUFFS in our food, and other articles that speak to the sinister ways and means by which "industrial agriculture" lays seige to the NAME organic makes the conscious citizen wonder how much control they now have over what they eat and drink. By all means, grow what you can... unfortunately, we face a citizenry that is being MADE SICK and fat and dull by conscious manipulation by those who ought know better. Isn't the Hippocratic oath based on doing no harm? A nation of for-profit sell-outs ends up casting much damage randomly about.
Isn't it strange that all those fighting against gun control yelling "guns don't kill people, people do!" never utter a peep about drugs - every bit as inanimate as guns, and incapable of doing a single thing on their own - not causing addiction, the people who take them do.
In America, drugs have always been about money.
If a drug can not be patented it's illegal.
Even more insidious, the government regulates what can be called a medicine, what can be called a disease and what medicine can be used to treat a disease. Now this is a good thing, but the conservatives have twisted this power around to help and support pharmaceutical companies over the American people.
Fibromyalgia ...
Caused by prolonged exposure to propaganda models such as TV, or church.
Also caused by lack of meaningful human interaction.
If untreated can lead to severe atrophy of the higher self, resulting in excessive overindulgence of self destructive behaviors such as increased consumer tendencies and watching News style entertainment (TV) or going to church.
MDMA?
I thought the author was going somewhere else with that. And he should of.
The author questions the existence of fibromyalgia and seems to have a problem with any medication that legitimizes it. Fibromyalgia might be controversial or illegitimate to some because they aren't sure what is causing it and can't test for it but to those of us suffering from it it is real and limiting. Validation of this syndrome might help us find a cure or a cause. The constant questioning of the legitimacy of fibromyalgia syndrome will not help get research funded and might even affect how much insurance coverage we get.
The author goes on to profess the wonders of ecstasy which wouldn't help the sufferers of fibromyalgia or other painful diseases or conditions to endure pain. The reason they are touting Lyrica as a new miracle drug for fibromyalgia is because other medicines on the market like Tylenol and Advil and Aspirin and Vicodin don't help the pain because the pain in fibromyalgia is different (that is one of the mysteries that invalidates our pain). There are illegal plants that would help that are worth discussing, but the author chooses to focus on his particular drug of choice, MDMA. I am not arguing against the wonders of ecstacy but it isn't exactly all natural and unsynthesized like some other herbal medicinals and I haven't heard of it being used to treat pain. He states there are 24 million with PTSD and only a fraction (3-10 million )with fibromyalgia and seems to suggest that us fibromyalgia patients should shut up and quit whining while those with PTSD are the ones really worthy of help. I agree that those with PTSD could benefit form more attention and care but why pick one ailment over another? Many sufferers of PTSD actually end up with fibromyalgia symptoms so this is no either /or situation. Why shouldn't we try to alleviate suffering for everyone in a natural, holistic way? Maybe the author needs to take some ecstasy and visit with some fibromyalgia patients to access his empathic feelings for them.
That said, I would rather deal with the wide range of crappy symptoms than take Lyrica or any other pharmaceutical miracle drug with nasty side effects. I would much rather keep healthy with herbs, organic nutrition, supplements, exercise, yoga, cleansing, meditation, etc. I would rather find out what is causing my symptoms and address that.
Another drug, also profoundly good, also illegal: Marijuana.
Nicely written piece, poetic in its irony.
God, what's happening to us?
Take MDMA, kiss your lover, kiss the earth.............
I think Chris Rock put it most accurately: THE DRUG WAR IS BULLSHIT.
Any drug that cannot be patented or can be grown/synthesized by Joe Schmoe or is illegal. Everything else is legal. It's all about money and racism. Except for meth, there is no such thing as a BAD drug. Drugs are neutral, inanimate substances, there are plenty of bad and irresponsible drug users though. Their addiction is their fault and not something that can be remedied by throwing them in jail. In fact, the only reason meth exists is because the MOSTLY HARMLESS ILLEGAL DRUGS were too expensive/scarce and it can be easily made from LEGAL PHARMACEUTICAL DRUGS. Do your research and you will find that every year MORE PEOPLE DIE from alcohol and tobacco than ALL ILLEGAL DRUGS COMBINED. As a matter of fact, more people died from aspirin last year than from marijuana in the history of mankind. Actually no one in the history of mankind has ever died from ingesting marijuana. Several peer-reviewed scientific studies have actually proven it KILLS CANCER.
Hey kids, drugs are bad, but we do have some viagra, lyicra, zoloft, oxycotin, and adderral that we'd love for you to try. Hypocracy at its finest.