For The Influence, addiction expert Stanton Peele criticizes our current genetic and biological “brain disease” approaches to addiction and mental health.
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Decriminalization/legalization is necessary, it needs to be backed up with public health announcements explaining exactly why it is needed. Its not in any way condoning the abuse of addictors, it is done bc the alternative, the drug war, has made things infinitely worse on almost every level, to include making all drugs abundantly available to any & all that wants them. We need to pull LE out of the drug biz – that will free up a lot of resources currently chasing their collective tails. When the laws create more harm and cause more damage than they prevent, its time to change the laws. The $1 TRILLION so-called war on drugs is a massive big government failure – on nearly every single level. Its way past time to put the cartels & black market drug dealers out of business. Mass incarceration has failed. We need the science of addiction causation to guide prevention, treatment, recovery & public policies. Otherwise, things will inexorably just continue to worsen & no progress will be made. Addiction causation research has continued to show that some people (suffering with addiction) have a “hypo-active endogenous opioid system.” This is the (real) brain disease, making addiction a symptom, not a disease itself. One disease, one pathology. Policy must be made reflecting addiction(s) as a health issue. The war on drugs is an apotheosis of the largest & longest war failure in history. It actually exposes our children to more harm & risk and does not protect them whatsoever. In all actuality, the war on drugs is nothing more than an international projection of a domestic psychosis, it is not the “great child protection act,” its actually the complete opposite. We need common sense harm reduction approaches desperately. MAT (medication assisted treatment) and HAT (heroin assisted treatment) must be available options. Of course, MJ should not be a sched drug at all.
“Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”
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I love Abraham Lincoln, he was such a wise man, with so many great quotes. And I do agree with that one. Case in point, my daughter’s high school prohibits children from dying their hair a color “not natural to species.” She graduates in a couple weeks, and what’s the first thing she wants to do? Have me dye her hair blue.
It’s better than a tattoo, I figure. Which reminds me of a guy I met when I was going through my first drug withdrawal induced mania, who looked just like a young Abraham Lincoln. He had a tattoo of a mermaid whose eyes were completely white. At the time, I too was painting mermaids, and eyes, closed and open. That was the beginning of my awakening. “I was blind, but now I see!” Well, not everything, thank God, but enough to know there is evil and good. Glad so many others are awakening, too. Gotta love the internet.
I digress. Interesting article. I agree, the fraudulent “genetic” science of bio-psychiatry today is every bit as evil as the Nazi eugenics theories.
“We all scorn eugenics today, recognizing its unscientific roots and its substitution of scientific terminology for prejudice. But we now kowtow to a virtually equivalent philosophy, one with no greater grounding in science—that is, the idea that mental illness and addiction are determined by our genes.”
The article on trauma linked within is an interesting one, too, if you missed it.
It states, “If you have a history of trauma but not PTSD, a good therapist will acknowledge and respect that without doing you harm by dwelling on it.” I agree, acknowledging and respecting, not denying, trauma is important. But focusing on resilience, rather than the trauma, is how one will heal. And I guess that means I disagree with the 12 step method of claiming one is powerless, I believe people need to be empowered to heal.
I also agree, “there is good reason to worry that the ACE score is the new I.Q., a deterministic label that is being used to sort children into those who can be helped and those who can’t. And, for all the knowledge gained, the medicalization of misery is yet another way to avoid talking about impoverishment, destitution, and inequality.”
Trust me, with love, compassion, and empathy, an abused child can recover. My child went from remedial reading in first grade, due to child abuse outside our home, to getting 100% on his state standardized tests in eighth grade.
And absolutely this is the real problem in our society, “Does anyone reading this expect to see child abuse and murder—or addiction—decline in a society in which the gap between the haves and have-nots, white and black, is expanding exponentially?”
Those who currently control the US government, “the central banks and corporations that will grow up around them,” of whom Thomas Jefferson forewarned us, do not know how to properly manage money or govern societies, in the best interest of all within humanity. Corporations never will, since they are legally required to behave as psychopaths, on a quest for short term profits for themselves and their stockholders alone.
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I was starting class to be a substance abuse counselor but I just couldn’t stand listening to that “disease” crap.
I like helping people but I was also told I would have to work with probation officers and the last thing I would want to do is be part of that wrenched system. Hi authoritarian terd with the usual IQ deficiency (social niceties go here) I am just calling to RAT OUT one of the people I am “helping” with their addiction or alcohol problem… Never in a zillion years would I ever !
Anyway this beginner class I was taking that has a test at the end you have to pass to get certified for behavioral tech or something like that class was chock full of medical model propaganda.
I never saw it but I can only imagine the test questions with the scientifically correct answer being the wrong answer.