Over the last year or so, the media has been publishing various stories about magic (psilocybin) mushrooms and their use in treating depression. In short, they are extremely effective, producing noticeable benefit after only one week and complete remission of depressive symptoms in a month. In comparison, normal antidepressants come nowhere close to this kind of effectiveness — and with no appreciable side effects. Of particular interest in the US, normal antidepressants like Prozac come with a risk that a person who is predisposed to violence will recover just enough to go on a murder spree; there’s no such problem with psilocybin.
Related: Magic Mushrooms May Be the Biggest Advance in Treating Depression Since Prozac by Adam Piore
Now that marijuana legalization has finally taken off — and without any of the apocalyptic fallout that conservatives have been crying about for well over a century — the push is on to legalize psilocybin. There’s no reason not to, and we are 100% behind legalizing it. There are other drugs that are currently illegal for recreation use that appear to be beneficial for those suffering from depression such as ketamine and MDMA, but those might require the assistance of a professional to be used safely. My prediction is that all of these drugs will become legal and regulated over the next decade.
This all brings up an interesting point, though. Where far right conservatives hate drugs because they hate fun and love suffering, liberals are fine with everyone being on drugs as long as the government is regulating it and capitalists are making money off of it. Basically, they want everyone (including themselves) passive and docile and there’s no “opiate of the masses” more effective than actual drugs. (Ironically, opiates themselves don’t work very well for that purpose because they are too addictive.)
But hey — maybe we shouldn’t all be on drugs all the time. What if we — and just hold on here because I’m going out on a ledge — what if we made a world that didn’t suck so people were just naturally not sad? See what I mean? Like, we have the power to make any kind of world we want, and if we just chose to make a good world, then people wouldn’t get sad as often.
I’m sure the Bidenists will say that’s just not practical, but they are full of shit.
Consider this article from ABC: Young people experiencing ‘widespread’ psychological distress over government handling of looming climate crisis, researchers say
Are anxiety and depression appropriate responses to the climate crisis and our political system’s complete failure to even start to rationally address this problem? Yes! Those are appropriate responses! Yet, if you go to your local medical professional with your depression or anxiety problem, they’re going to put you on drugs. There’s a small chance that they’ll get you into therapy. In either case, though, the solution to your appropriate mental distress is to change you — not to address the problem itself.
Brace yourself for some nuance: If you are suffering from depression or anxiety, definitely consider talking to a doctor or a therapist. There’s a very good chance that their help is what you need. I’m just saying that it isn’t everything that you need, or even the most important part of what you need. When our society forces you to adapt to how shitty it is without making any kind of correction in itself, it just means that someone else is going to have exactly the same problem. Indeed, more than 1 in 10 Americans is on antidepressants.
I don’t like blaming a “system” when there are specific people who have power in that system. So, more specifically, the number one cause of depression and anxiety is shitty people. It’s not just that shitty people exist, but that they are allowed to have authority over other people. It’s shitty people that create and maintain the shitty systems that harm other people — like the global capitalist system that is creating real, material harm including (but not limited to) climate change and the toxic authoritarian environment of the modern workplace. This certainly isn’t an easy problem to solve, but it is the problem and drug-induced complacency isn’t fixing anything.