Posts tagged - antidepressants

BigPharma in the Bedroom

Posted on: June 24, 2019, in: , , , ,

Sasin Tipchaia from Pixabay

The FDA has approved another drug to hype up sexual desire. The drug, bremolanotide, is injected before sex and if it becomes a big hit, could make billions for the drug company. But there are reasons to be skeptical, primary among which are that we’ve been down that road before with tragic or really stupid results.

In high school, for example, the big deal among boys was Spanish Fly. Nobody ever knew where to get it, maybe in Tijuana, but supposedly it made girls want to have sex. Evidently it did exist, but was made from the juice of a blister beetle, and worked on men at least, by burning the urethra. But you know, people peed blood and sometimes died, and so Spanish Fly got a bad reputation.

And then there were the so-called “date rape drugs,” dropped into alcoholic drinks. They didn’t make people want sex, but it did render them confused or unconscious so they couldn’t say no. But since rape is a felony, one of the side effects was 15-20 years of hard time in prison for the rapist, and a pretty horrible experience for the victim.

And then came Viagra, approved by the FDA in 1998 so that guys at least could have more fun with a prescription. Some hoped that the quest for rhinoceros horn might be over. But the pills cost $65 each, weren’t covered by insurance, and erections lasting more than four hours could pool blood in the penis and starve it of oxygen leading to – you guessed it – very bad things.

But Viagra didn’t work for the ladies, and so the men in white coats went back to work on the mother lode of drugs — what could be the biggest blockbuster drug in history.

For example, in 2010, the FDA was considering approving something dubbed “female Viagra.” The drug, flibanserin, was originally developed as an antidepressant, but it didn’t work and in fact had depression as a side effect. So with the bright idea to market it as a female aphrodisiac, Boehringer Ingelheim tried to get it approved by the FDA for that purpose. But the FDA said no two times, development stopped, and the drug was sold to Sprout Pharmaceuticals.

Sprout began a marketing campaign painting it in gender-equity colors, sponsoring studies that created “hypoactive sexual desire disorder” as a disease and invented the slogan “Even the Score.” The FDA approved the drug in 2015, and two days later, Sprout sold out to Valeant Pharmaceuticals for a cool billion dollars.

But the drug didn’t do so well, as efficacy was small compared to placebos, cost $400 per month, and had side effects of nausea, dizziness, sleepiness, depression, etc. And while flibanserin must be taken daily, it could not be taken with alcohol, which was a real buzz kill. It sold for a measly $10 million, which in the pharmaceutical game is peanuts. A total flop.

But BigPharma could sense blood in the water, and it went back to the bedroom and came up with the latest miracle aphrodisiac, bremolanotide. Early research shows little difference in effect from a placebo. And the question remains: can an expensive drug make up for something missing in the complexities of human relationships?

Sex should be pleasurable, nature intended it that way to continue the species. And marriage was instituted to protect and care for the next generation. But BigPharma looks at human beings as nothing more than meat bodies, collections of stimulus-response neurons, synapses and chemicals just waiting for the right pharmaceutical magic wand to lift life to higher levels of awareness, creativity and tenderness.

But it doesn’t work that way. Drugs, by their nature, go the other direction. And amping up sexual performance with Viagra, flibanserin or bremolanotide even if they did work, isn’t going to solve some of the biggest difficulties in society today: infidelity, broken marriages, STDs, single parent families and children in foster homes because of parents hooked on opioids or dead of overdoses. BigPharma had a role in all that too, so to expect the latest pill or needle to solve life’s complex difficulties is a bit simple-minded.

 

 

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Medical Soda, Recreational Soda?

Posted on: September 17, 2018, in: , , , , ,

Coke PixabayCoca Cola, whose sales have fallen rapidly in recent years,  is returning to its roots: harmful drugs. When Coca Cola was formulated back in the 1880s, it contained a bit of the old cocaine. Well, public outcry about addiction, etc. quashed that, but now that some states are legalizing weed, Coca Cola is checking out adding weed to their drink.  But not to worry, the company is careful to explain that they are looking at the non-psychoactive CBD oil. Want to bet that the CBD “Medical Coke” will evolve to the THC-laced “Recreational Coke?”

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Top NIMH Officials Admit Mental Health ‘Broken’

Posted on: May 21, 2018, in: , , , ,

In “My Adventures With the Trip Doctors” (May 15 New York Times Magazine,) author Michael Pollan drops a bomb – a simple idea that has been denied by the psychiatric, pharmaceutical and mental health communities for years: mainly that psychiatry and psychopharmaceuticals don’t work, and in fact can create and exacerbate insanity, dependence and suicide.

Pollan, while basically extolling the miracles of psychedelic drugs for everything from religious transformation to the healing of mental illness says this in passing:

“Such a new approach couldn’t come at a better time for a field that is ‘broken,’ as Tom Insel, head of the National Institute of Mental Health until 2015, told me bluntly. Rates of depression (now the leading cause of disability worldwide, according to the W.H.O.) and suicide are climbing; addictive behavior is rampant. Little has changed, meanwhile, in psychopharmacology since the introduction of SSRI antidepressants in the late 1980s. This may explain why prominent figures in the psychiatric establishment are voicing support for psychedelic research.”

This echoes a statement by Joshua Gordon,  the current head of the NIMH who took office last July. In an interview with the Washington Post, Gordon said “All these off-label uses of any of our psychiatric medications result from desperation on the part of both patients and physicians who don’t know what else to do for their patients . . . The evidence for any of them is nonexistent or minimal. But we don’t have good alternatives. We don’t have evidence-based treatments that really do the job. So that means that people turn to whatever can help them in a symptomatic way . . . It’s a problem that’s borne out of the fact that our treatments just don’t work, or don’t work well, for a substantial fraction of our patients.”

Recent studies indicate that about one in six Americans take psychiatric drugs, and today mental health is a $200 billion industry. With top officials at the NIMH admitting failure, it’s time to reevaluate our commitment to these drugs and those that prescribe them, and to carefully scrutinize measures to legalize psychedelics as “the next great thing.” Psychiatry is desperate for answers and psychedelics could be just the next in a long line of desperate measures that will create the next round of havoc.

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The Addiction Scam

Posted on: January 31, 2018, in: , , , , ,

One of the biggest hurdles psychiatry has to overcome is people that think they are sane. Now psychiatrists are taught that no one is sane, that everyone is psychotic, neurotic or “underserved.” Several techniques have been developed by the head shrinkers to made people question their own sanity and stability. First,, they medicalized normal behavior such as nail biting, checking to see if the front door is locked more than once when you leave the house, worrying about things, not worrying about things, being too introverted and inactive, being too extroverted and active, and so on, to the tune of more than 300 diagnoses in the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, which is what the shrinks use to bill insurance for literally everything under the sun.

One of the biggest convincers of people that they are nuts, are “direct to consumer” drug ads. Trouble sleeping? Restless legs? Erectile dysfuntion? Feeling low? Ask your doctor if expensive drugging is right for you!

Well, the U.S. is one of only two countries in the world that allow “direct to consumer” ads for prescription drugs. Why? Well, it boosted drug sales by 30 percent or more when you and I went to our doctors and asked for some prescription we saw on TV.

Another convincer is to push the lie that everyone is addicted to something. You may not be a heroin addict shooting up in an alley, but you too, Mr. and Mrs. America, are addicted, and here is a laundry list of addictions basically pulled out of someone’s nether orifice to use in marketing drugs and psychiatric services. Oh and just in case you seek help for that “addiction” be warned that under certain circumstances, you can be held against your will in a facility for up to 72 hours. For those addicted to freedom, that could be a bummer.

OK, so here is the latest batch of “addictions.”

Cell phones
Gaming
Lust
Pornography
Energy Drinks
Wealth Culture
Shopping
Martial Arts are Said to Help with Gaming Addiction, but then there’s:
Exercise

Are you outraged? According to some idiots, outrage is also an addiction so before you find yourself in the loony bin for a 72-hour involuntary hold, better curb that outrage and take a pill.

So there are certain things, like opioid drugs, that cause cravings and physical distress if they are discontinued. The psychs are busily trying to convince everyone that shooting up in an alley is a mental disease that is incurable and must be maintained by pharmaceuticals for the rest of the addict’s life. They don’t think there is such a thing as willpower and try to get drug-free recovery categorized as quackery. So that 72-hour hold for shopping addiction can mean a lifetime on some psychiatric drug. Welcome to the crazy house.

 

 

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The Medicalizing of America

Posted on: January 19, 2018, in: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Photo by Benjamin Combs on Unsplash

Photo by Benjamin Combs on Unsplash

I’ve been plowing through news feeds for a few months now, and the issues I’m interested in – which focus on the spreading influence of BigPharma, psychiatry and the medication of America – have sort of settled into a number of issues. Here are some of the more prominent ones:

1.   The marketing of psychedelic drugs to cure most everything from depression to crime. The Military is pushing it, as well as anonymous donations to the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). LSD is good for you, magic mushrooms are a spiritual tonic, and taking psychedelic trips will make you a good person, empty the prisons, and you can tune in, turn on and drop out like last time.

2.   Along with number 1 above, is the first official admission that anti-depressants are no more effective than placebos and have wildly variant effects on individuals. One in six Americans takes an antidepressant, and about $150 billion is spent per year on such medications and related costs. So BigPharma will take a huge hit unless alternatives such as psychedelics and electroceuticals take hold.

3.   Electroceuticals, the implanting of electrical devices into the brain to deliver electricity or drugs, are back – back from MKULTRA where they were covertly tested on unwitting subjects along with other stuff like LSD as a way to brainwash people and control their behavior. This time it’s out in the open – credit Wikileaks and the revelations about NSA spying for that – under cover of “this will help you.” Might be of some use in Parkinson’s disease, but now the claims are that it cures everything, and BigPharma, like GlaxoSmithKline and the military are funding research in microshocking brains directly or through magnetic stimulation. Electroshock of the type seen in “One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest” is also back, with the FDA recently lowering the risk factor so children can have their brains zapped too.

4.   Legalization of marijuana began with medical marijuana and transitioned to what we all knew it was for — to get high. Liberal billionaires such as George Soros funded state legalization efforts even though Democrats have mostly stayed silent and let the potheads carry the ball. Liberals want the tax money for social programs, conservatives want the tax money for war, and so opposition has been wimpy. With THC at over 30 percent – up from 3 percent in the 1960s – marijuana induced paranoia and mental illness is on the rise which will be a windfall for the shrinks. Meanwhile, BigPharma is gearing up to produce marijuana, LSD, and so forth. They’ll drop the prices to squeeze out the competition, then control the formerly-illicit-but-now-FDA-approved drug market.

5.   On the tail of marijuana legalization are other measures to mainstream hard drugs through “harm reduction” “decriminalization” and outright legalization. Turns out marijuana was a “gateway drug” and the marketing always starts with “The war on drugs has been lost,” which is a lie. Just turns out that drugs are big money and government wants in on the trillion-dollar BigPharma economy. If it really heats up like it did in Colombia, BigPharma and lots of Pablo Escobar lookalikes will end up running the United States. Some states are going to use the tax money for drug treatment programs which leads to number 6:

6.   “Medication Assisted Treatment” is now being heavily promoted as a treatment for addictions of all kinds: opioid addiction, sex addiction, videogame addiction, food addiction, ad infinitum. And while most of these addictions don’t exist, the psychs say addiction is a chronic brain disease and there’s no cure so addicts must be put on other drugs like methodone, which are paid for by medical insurance, and maintained on those drugs for the rest of their lives. So BigPharma, — which controls the FDA and will soon control Congress, the POTUS, political PACs and so on – will control the solution to the problem of addiction.

7.   The polarization of politics, fights of religious freedom vs. gender equity, and other nasty infighting will most likely be resolved when the parties stirring it up are uncovered, but in the meantime, the stirring up is most likely a distraction to pull attention away from the medicalizing of America and the growth of BigPharma, the psychs and the economic systems fueling it.

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What BigPharma Learned from Pablo Escobar

Posted on: January 08, 2018, in: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Pablo Escobar By Colombian National Police - Colombia National Registry; Colombian National Police, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Pablo Escobar By Colombian National Police – Colombia National Registry; Colombian National Police, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Suppose you were Pablo Escobar, the Columbian drug lord, back in the 1970s and wanted to increase cocaine’s market share. How would you proceed, what strategies would you use, what kind of activities would fill up your “to do” list?

While the coca leaf had been used for centuries by Native Americans of the Andes as a stimulant that wasn’t really a very lucrative market, so expanding into a rich country was a bright idea.

Item 1 On Pablo Escobar’s To Do List: Get Rich Americans Using Cocaine. Well, back in the 1800s Albert Niemann – a German chemist who also invented mustard gas – isolated the really strong stuff from the coca leaf and cocaine was used for surgery and to treat morphine addiction. It was the medication assisted treatment of the day: treat an addiction with another addictive drug. So what followed were wild claims of cocaine’s curative powers, a pick me up, added to all kinds of patent medicine and a drink called Coca Cola after the Coca plant. By the mid 1900s, suspicion grew that cocaine was addictive, so it was made illegal, and it was not readily available, so use dwindled.

Then  in 1974 the New York Times Magazine touted cocaine as a way to get high without needles or addiction, a 1975 book on cocaine said that it was a good drug, and Newsweek Magazine ran illustrations  of stylish men and women doing lines of cocaine, comparing it to champagne and caviar. Well, who wouldn’t love some cocaine?

And here we go back to Pablo Escobar’s “to do” list. Suddenly cocaine was “stylish and non-addictive” and so a demand was created, the warnings from the past were ignored, and demand exploded.

Item 2 on Pablo Escobar’s To Do List: Make $50 Billion. Pablo Escobar, who had been a minor criminal, now entered the smuggling business, expanded production and transshipping points, began paying off or murdering judges, police officers and politicians, and supply met demand and demand just kept growing. Turns out that cocaine is highly addictive, contrary to what was said in the New York Times Magazine, so everyone craved the next line of the drug. As a result, Escobar became one of the richest men in the world, worth an estimated $56 billion by 1990 at today’s exchange rate.

Item 3 on Pablo Escobar’s To Do List: Take Over the Country. In 1982, Escobar – who as part of his public relations campaign, gave money and soccer fields to the poor as well as greasing the palms of officials – was elected an alternate member of the Chamber of Representatives of Colombia , and became one of the most powerful men in the world. He controlled many public officials, ordered assassinations, sponsored terrorist attacks, paid townspeople for being lookouts and gave bonuses for killing police officers. He and his Medellin Cartel were unstoppable for a time.

Pablo Escobar’s Mistakes: However, Escobar made some mistakes, including causing the violent deaths of 20,000 people, and thousands more from addiction and crime, and he himself was murdered at age 44.

BigPharma

Now let’s take up BigPharma, those giant pharmaceutical companies around the world. First, BigPharma invented the street drugs we’ve been trying to just say no to. Big pharma created heroin (Bayer) and LSD (Sandoz). Merck pioneered the commercial manufacture of morphine, distributed cocaine and invented MDMA. OxyContin which started the latest “opioid crisis” was created by German scientists and pushed into society by Purdue Pharma. Crystal meth was first created in Japan and after World War II Abbott Laboratories won FDA approval for meth as a remedy for alcoholism and weight gain. Fentanyl, responsible for the majority of opioid overdose deaths, was invented by Janssen Pharmaceutica.

Now one shouldn’t suppose that BigPharma, being corporations and all, and under the regulation of the Food and Drug Administration and supervised by doctors and psychiatrists do anything as crude as Pablo Escobar. No sir, they are legit, they’ve learned a lot from Escobar, as you can see from what follows.

Item 1 on BigPharma’s ToDo List: Get All Americans on Drugs, Rich and Poor.

OK, so now BigPharma has all those addictive drugs just sitting there on the shelves, and so something has to change. So here comes the “To do” list again, this time from BigPharma. And while Escobar was just a two-bit criminal from a small undeveloped country, BigPharma is big, well-heeled, corporate, and from developed countries.

So here goes: First, opioids were being used mostly for severe pain, like terminal cancer, and doctors are very worried about prescribing opioids because of the danger of addiction. So as a result a lot of people are going around without drugs, and that’s got to change. So in 1996 Purdue Pharma ran some ads about a new opioid called Oxycontin that said it was a timed release opioid and was not habit forming, so doctors could feel good about prescribing it for pain. Well, the dam broke and doctors started prescribing it like mad for everything that might be a bit painful. Contrary to what Purdue said, people got addicted, and like all opioids they needed more and more to stay high until they overdosed and died. If their prescriptions ran out they went to the street for something else, like heroin. But all these overdose deaths looked bad and also got rid of users, so BigPharma invented drugs like Narcan and Evzio that block opioids and bring the overdoser back to life.

The psychs played a part in all this by categorizing addiction as a “chronic brain disease” so once you have it, you need treatment the rest of your life. So once you are brought back to life, you are put on other BigPharma drugs in something called “medication assisted treatment” or MAT. As you may recall, cocaine was originally used to treat morphine addiction, so BigPharma took this idea and updated it. Some of the drugs used for MAT include methodone, Buprenorphine  and Naltrexone.

So the more people that die of opioid overdoses, the more everyone wants “treatment rather than prison” which means put the addict on BigPharma’s MAT drugs for the rest off their lives, and that just kicks up the profits, investors clean up,  and everyone that counts is very happy.

The next thing is to use drugs that make you crazy – like LSD and Marijuana – which now has around 35 percent THC instead of the 3 percent it had back in the hippie 1960s – to treat mental illness. Then when you go crazy, you need antidepressants and antipsychotics, as long as we ignore the fact that the drugs you’re being treated with can make you paranoid, make you hallucinate, and make you go nuts and shoot lots of people in schools, churches and Las Vegas music concerts. But I digress.

Lots of states are now legalizing marijuana. George Soros has spent $80 million bankrolling campaigns to legalize weed, and guess what solution is prescribed for cannabis-induced psychosis? (It does cause psychosis in long-term users ) Psychiatric medications of course! And now Washington State and Colorado who were the first states to legalize weed, are at the top of the list in states needing mental health help for all the weed-smoking wackos going bonkers.

Remember the New York Times Magazine articles all aglow about the benefits and non-addiction of cocaine, the happy articles of how cocaine was very fashionable and like champagne and caviar? Well, BigPharma is taking a leaf from Pablo Escobar’s book, or the media are doing it on their own because they are dopers themselves, here are some of the things that are being promoted as good for you:

Psychedelics are now touted as cures for PTSD, depression, addiction, anxiety, eating disorders, smoking, OCD and crime, among others. Wow, what a miracle drug as long as you forget the 1960s. If you can remember the 60s you weren’t there except maybe for the flashbacks. And the military (remember MKULTRA and LSD testing?) is touting ecstasy as a PTSD treatment. It’s miraculous!  And then when you go really crazy on LSD or ecstasy, what’s the treatment? Anti-depressants, anti-anxiety drugs, anti-psychotic drugs. And with government healthcare it’s not just the rich that get hooked and fucked up, it’s EVERYBODY!

OK, so no matter which addictive or psychosis-inducing drug you get hooked on, no matter if you got hooked on the street or in the doctor’s office, there’s another drug that’s legal that you can get with a prescription that is a “cure” for the drug you took before. And if the first three anti-depressants don’t work, there’s another one that might, and if that doesn’t work there’s always electroshock to turn you into a compliant vegetable so you can be given many many drugs by the nice attendants.

As a result, one in six Americans are on psych medications, from antidepressants to ADHD speed, to every kind of shit under the sun. The FDA — a government agency supposed to be the watchdog– accepts payments from drug companies to fast-track approvals, and the head of the FDA was once a consultant to some of the biggest pharmaceutical companies. And it’s all completely legal, even though half a million people have died of opioid overdoses from 2000-2015! So compared to BigPharma, Pablo Escobar was in kindergarten! So as a people, we’re circling the drain of addiction and a drugged existence, and BigPharma and the headshrinkers that smooth the takeover are making a killing.

Item 2 on BigPharma’s To Do List: Make a LOT of Money: OK, so while Pablo Escobar made a measley $50 billion, BigPharma makes in excess of $1 trillion with a T and half of that comes from the US and Canada.  Now some of that is for real drugs that do good, like asthma medication, heart pills, insulin, and so forth. But  13% of the US population is on antidepressants and 13 percent on prescription opioids, and some 25 million Americans are addicted to illegal drugs.    And with the psychs pushing the idea that everybody is crazy and “underserved,” and with states legalizing weed and Oregon decriminalizing hard drugs and pushing to legalize psychedelics, expect those numbers to grow pretty fast.

Depressed? Sad? Crazy? Too Happy? Impulsive? Can’t sit in a school desk for 8 hours? Legs restless? Have a child that doesn’t mind? Stressed? (Everyone is you know), Can’t read? Trouble in the bedroom? Like computer games too much? Into drugs? Well, if you answered yes to any of these, you are in luck! You or your kid is nuts and needs some drugs and BigPharma has them, and your insurance will probably pay for them. Meanwhile, BigPharma is pulling in a trillion in revenues which is much better than Pablo’s crew, but BigPharma CEOs are not making much, what with the overhead and all. Compensation of the top 20 ranges from a paltry $13 million to only $41 million per year, nowhere near Pablo’s $30 billion per year in personal income, but you know, BigPharma has to keep a low profile, pay off investors and such, while Pablo just shot anybody who got in the way.

OK, so here are the key points: Use one drug to get off another drug, legalize and then flood the country with drugs, hype the opioid crisis, increase funding for “treatment” which is just more drugs, and let users keep using through something called “harm reduction,” in which the government provides clean needles, safe spaces to shoot up, BigPharma provides clean heroin, or meth, or ecstasy, or whatever, and there’s plenty of Narcan and Evzio around to treat overdoses, and those drugs are all free to users. You try to get users into treatment, or course, with BigPharma MAT drugs and everything is rosy. Pablo would approve.

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Deep Brain Stimulation, LSD and Other Fake Cure-Alls

Posted on: December 18, 2017, in: , , , , , , , ,

greed pixabayMaybe you’ve noticed lately that “scientific research shows” that electricity and LSD cures almost everything. There are many factors pushing this stupidity, among which are:

  1. Pharmaceutical company miracle cures such as antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs don’t cure anything and don’t work any better than placebos.
  2. Those miracle cures have side effects such as mass shootings and suicide.
  3. Those miracle cures are being replaced by generics thus threatening the $1 trillion (with a T) BigPharma revenues.
  4. “Scientific research” isn’t very scientific, as it is influenced by vested interests which either show that BigPharma works or are quietly disposed of, and can’t be replicated when done objectively.
  5. So BigPharma, loaded with jewels and treasure, is hopping off the sinking USS Antidepressant, and onto the luxury yacht “PsychoWire” powered by deep brain stimulation and psychedelics.

First, Deep Brain Stimulation

Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) puts electrodes into the brain at various places. When the current is turned on, fingers tap, legs jerk, faces twitch, a charging bull screeches to a stop. Supposedly, depression departs, autism and anxiety evaporate, Parkinson’s stops and such diseases as diabetes, asthma, COPD, arthritis, heart conditions, and gastrointestinal diseases are cured. One variety called “electroceuticals” is pioneered by GlaxoSmithKline, the same company that in 2012 paid $3 billion to the Department of Justice for fraud, phony research studies and pushing drugs off label for kids even though those drugs increased suicides in kids. Nice ethical company has your best interests at heart, let them put some wires in your head, right? Oh and the $3 billion was small change. Right after their $3 billion payout, their stock went up, didn’t even make a dent in the stock price. So they can cheat, steal etc. and even if they’re caught, so what?

  1. Deep brain stimulation was already used in the CIA’s MKULTRA mind-control project in the 1950s. That was secret, but even though CIA Director Richard Helms tried to burn all records of the project, he missed some and the project was exposed. The military was worried about North Korean brainwashing and secretly funded research to keep up with the communists. Today the military is funding electroceutical research this time out in front of God and everybody, because it is camouflaged as help for PTSD, crazy people, etc. But hey, it’s the military, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
  2. There’s another kind of electrical stimulation of the brain called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) kind of a little sister to implanting wires in the head. It has the advantage of being non-invasive, meaning it’s stealthy and doesn’t require the operator to drill through the skull which can sometimes be detected by the person. So it could be hooked up to a doorframe and magnetically stimulate the brains of anybody coming through the door. Make you buy BigPharma stock, or vote to raise taxes for psychiatric research.
  3. And then of course there’s the nuclear option when it comes to electricity and brains, just give the person electroshock, roll the dice and maybe the person will be so stunned he’ll forget to be nuts, or he might – as Ernest Hemingway did after 15 electroshocks – go home and put a shotgun in his mouth and blow his head off. These days they give muscle relaxants so not so many teeth or spines are broken. It’s a kindler-gentler type of electroshock but it causes brain damage and that – like suicide – brings on many changes.

And Then There’s Psychedelics

Have you noticed the promotion of psychedelics recently? Since most Baby Boomer druggies can’t remember the 1960s, many have forgotten – except in vivid flashbacks – the downside of dropping acid and lots of other psychedelic concoctions. Little things like hallucinations and going nuts for a while or forever, and “scorched brain syndrome.”

Timothy Leary told us to “turn on, tune in and drop out,” but later said that LSD got into the public arena and was abused. Poor guy, he had it all figured out that it would only be used by PhDs and above, and then the unwashed masses got hold of it and used it to hallucinate. The CIA used it to drive soldiers crazy and to suicide, and stupid people who grew up watching Superman thought they could fly off tall buildings wearing meat bodies.

OK, so that was then. Today we also have stupid people – who exist in every generation – telling us that LSD, Ahuasca, DMT and other psychedelic substances can cure addiction, PTSD, depression,   anxiety, eating disorders,smoking, OCD, crime, toe fungus, warts,  and every other mental illness formerly treated by pharmaceuticals which have proven ineffective or for which the patents have expired.

But using LSD, for example on those with mental illness can make things worse, according to some sources Stupid people in academia — there are such people, after all Leary was a Harvard professor –  in the military, medicine, psychiatry and government seem to have decided that psychedelics, electroshock and mental health pharmaceuticals are useful, at least to the extent that “we don’t know why they are troubled, and we don’t know what these treatments do, so we’ll just roll the dice, blast their brains  with electricity or pickle them with drugs and see what happens. After all, this isn’t rocket science.”

So a bunch of states have legalized marijuana for medical use, and eight states have legalized it for recreational use. And as evidence it is truly a “gateway drug” small amounts of hard drugs have now been decriminalized in Oregon – stuff like  LSD, heroin, methamphetamine, etc, and initiatives are under way in California  and Oregon to legalize psychedelic mushrooms.

Now the The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies  (MAPS) is also trying to legalize psychedelics and marijuana, and other stupid people are already hard at work on legislation to legalize bad trips and drug-induced psychosis. With all these extravagant claims for psychedelics, these magical mystery cures, one might be advised to consider where these wild claims are coming from and who stands to profit from a nation on drugs.

After all, most of the studies, that all these reports of wonderfulness depend on, can’t be reproduced, meaning they are either sloppy or influenced by their funding to get a specific result. So look for yourself and don’t go dropping acid to cheer up, because you may end up stuck in Nightmare Town with a lot of burnouts from the 1960s.

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Stress, Confront and Drugs

Posted on: November 26, 2017, in: , , ,

confidence pixabayStress comes about through not facing something that needs facing. Confront is a good term, one definition means “to face without flinching or avoiding.” That which you can face, you can handle. Let’s say someone at work is giving you a hard time, and you try to be nice, but no dice, the hard times continue with that person attempting to undermine you, trip you up, point out your failings.

Stress builds up, you avoid that person, feel nervous or angry when he or she is around, etc. Go to a psych and you’ll be given some kind of medication.

Confronting, on the other hand, would most likely mean you walk up to that person and ask what’s up, why are they giving you a hard time? At that precise moment, you have gone from being effect, to being cause, and even if the person attacks you verbally, you are going to feel better. You stood up to them, you’ve pushed through whatever obstacles that stood in your way, gone “outside your comfort zone,” and changed the game.

Recently, many women have begun to confront the fact that men have abused them. They felt in some cases that they couldn’t face their abusers or take them to task — for inappropriate behavior, or even rape in some cases — as it would harm their careers, look like they participated, embroil them in ugly court cases, etc. Now it is all coming out, the confront is on, and while the accused are innocent until proved guilty, it looks like things are changing in the sexual harassment front. Women are speaking out.

Bullying bothers parents, and they get very upset when their children are bullied. They change schools, put the kids on anti-depressants, etc. That’s not confront, that’s backing off, and that is bound to increase stress. Only facing up to the perpetrator will put one at cause.

When I was in third grade, my father sent me over to a neighbor who had been a boxer. He had two kids about my age, and taught us to fight. Martial arts training is a good thing for kids to learn. Cowardice only makes one a target of the bullies, and even if they are bigger, standing up to them is the only way to gain any space or grudging respect.

And by the way, most martial arts don’t encourage aggression.  If you have the skills to defend yourself, you are more able to confront the bully. If necessary you can defend yourself, but it’s not usually necessary. Someone standing up to a bully is often enough to cause the bully to back off and look for another, less self-assured target. However, in these days of gangs and drug-induced psychosis, running away may be the most sane thing to do, but with self assurance it can be a decision rather than a frightened reaction and that makes a big difference.

The danger comes in not facing something or someone. Hiding out from a bill collector rather than looking for a second job, telling everyone, “I’m dyslexic” instead of buckling down and learning to read.

OK, right about now I can imagine some protests that dyslexia, ADHD, ADD etc. etc. are real disorders. But assuming they were real, who would make the best progress, the person who throws up his hands says he has this brain disorder and there’s nothing he can do except take his medication, or the person who does whatever he can to overcome it?

I hear people quite often in social settings say that were diagnosed with depression, or dyslexia or they have an eating disorder, etc. etc. Why do they announce it to people in a social setting? Probably because they have incorporated that supposed disability into the way they define themselves – it is part of how they see themselves. And at the exact moment they make that decision, they have crippled themselves by agreeing to that disabled label.

In a talk-only counseling session, that’s a different matter, and those statements can be very helpful to the process. But announcing some disability in a social setting is not helpful and is an invalidation of self.

Depending on your view of life, religion or philosophical background, one might look at human beings  as the tip of a long line of genetic and spiritual development, living in a time of great efforts to ensure fairness and equality, in perhaps the most affluent society the world has ever known. And yet you see bedraggled men and women with exaggerated limps looking for handouts at traffic lights carrying signs appealing for money, sleeping under bridges wrapped in garbage bags as if they were human garbage.

Nobody is perfect, and there are sick and insane people struggling to survive, but most likely you aren’t one of them, so stop acting like it.

If somebody told you that you were stupid, you would probably get angry, and tell them off. But if you go into agreement with some diagnosis of mental disability, you must have decided “Yes, there’s something wrong with me, it explains why I can’t do things, and I should just give up and take my meds.”

That’s the problem with psychology and psychiatry, they have the basic belief that everyone is mentally ill or disabled, and if you find yourselves in their hands expect to be given a prescription and a gold-plated excuse to not confront something.

This “disabled stuff” is an invitation to curl up and die. Pride in oneself is not a bad thing, it is much more you than humility, self-invalidation and a self-endorsed disability. If you look at life as a game, an adventure, a spiritual quest, you won’t be far wrong.

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Psychedelics Are Back, and They Cure Everything!

Posted on: November 21, 2017, in: , , , , , , , , ,

freakout pixabayHave you noticed the promotion of psychedelics recently? Since most Baby Boomer druggies can’t remember the 1960s, many have forgotten – except in vivid flashbacks – the downside of dropping acid and lots of other psychedelic concoctions. Little things like hallucinations and going nuts for a while or forever, and “scorched brain syndrome.”

Timothy Leary told us to “turn on, tune in and drop out,” but later said that LSD got into the public arena and was abused. Poor guy, he had it all figured out that it would only be used by PhDs and above, and then the unwashed masses got hold of it and used it to hallucinate. The CIA used it to drive soldiers crazy and to suicide, and stupid people who grew up watching Superman thought they could fly off tall buildings wearing meat bodies.

OK, so that was then. Today we also have stupid people – who exist in every generation – telling us that LSD, Ahuasca, DMT and other psychedelic substances can cure addiction, PTSD, depression,   anxiety, eating disorders, smoking, OCD, crime, toe fungus, warts,  and every other mental illness formerly treated by pharmaceuticals which have proven ineffective or for which the patents have expired.

But using LSD, for example on those with mental illness can make things worse, according to some sources Stupid people in academia — there are such people, after all Leary was a Harvard professor –  in the military, medicine, psychiatry and government seem to have decided that psychedelics, electroshock and mental health pharmaceuticals are useful, at least to the extent that “we don’t know why they are troubled, and we don’t know what these treatments do, so we’ll just roll the dice, blast their brains  with electricity or pickle them with drugs and see what happens. After all, this isn’t rocket science.”

So a bunch of states have legalized marijuana for medical use, and eight states have legalized it for recreational use. And as evidence it is truly a “gateway drug” small amounts of hard drugs have now been decriminalized in Oregon – stuff like  LSD, heroin, methamphetamine, etc, and initiatives are under way in California  and Oregon to legalize psychedelic mushrooms.

Now the The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies  (MAPS) is also trying to legalize psychedelics and marijuana, and other stupid people are already hard at work on legislation to legalize bad trips and drug-induced psychosis. With all these extravagant claims for psychedelics, these magical mystery cures, one might be advised to consider where these wild claims are coming from and who stands to profit from a nation on drugs.

After all, most of the studies, that all these reports of wonderfulness depend on, can’t be reproduced, meaning they are either sloppy or influenced by their funding to get a specific result. So look for yourself and don’t go dropping acid to cheer up, because you may end up stuck in Nightmare Town with a lot of burnouts from the 1960s.

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Army Will Now Accept Mental Cases, Train Them to Kill

Posted on: November 14, 2017, in: , , , ,

sniperThe Army is expanding the system of waivers whereby people with mental disorders can join the military. Waivers were cancelled in 2009 when too many soldiers committed suicide, but hey, now they are a bit short of recruits and thus relaxing the standards. According to USA Today, people with a history of drug use, poor aptitude test scores, self mutilation and bipolar disorders aren’t necessarily barred from military service.

Now though, the military has better medical records, and we all know that psychiatrists and psych meds have everything under control. Just ask military psychiatrist Nidal Hasan who shot up Fort Hood and murdered 13 people and injured 30 others. And there’s pretty good evidence of a connection between psych meds and mass shootings.

Half a million vets already have PTSD according to one source and PTSD is exacerbated by stress, trauma and sexual assault. So if you wanted to create a huge spike in military PTSD, murders, sexual assaults and general chaos, you might induct a bunch of men, women, gays, and transexuals with mental disorders and drug abuse histories into the military, give them weapons, train them to kill, then send them off to some combat zone. If this sounds nuts to you, go take a happy pill and in the upside down world of mental health, you will soon be right as rain.

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