"Chasing the Scream"

Well, this hasn’t worked out quite how I thought it would. Busy, busy and then busy some more. I have been reading, but my leisurely stroll through my library has not happened. Once again, this book I finished reading just before posting the last substack on the Moscow gentleman. So here we go.

Johann Hari does a very convincing job of breaking down how we got to where we are in our relationship with drugs and points to legalization as the only reasonable door out. So, what is the problem? I keep thinking of “Soma” from Huxley’s “Brave New World”. We seem to be choosing between “Brave New World” and “1984”. Things look like we will get both.

Number one: abusing drugs masks heavy internal pain. Our author gives us pictures of people happily doing their drugs and still able to work and live life. I am not sure how much I believe that. The drugs are still a band aid that will not heal the wound. My observation is that you can put up with all kinds of crap when you are stoned or drunk. In fact, because you don’t deal with it the crap just grows deeper.

Yet, I see the point our author is making. Gangsters selling illegal booze, just switched to narcotics when booze was legal again. Our government went from fighting gangsters selling booze to fighting gangsters selling narcotics. The beat goes on.

I resist putting my stamp of approval on even smoking marijuana. I smoked it all through college and managed. Elon Musk smokes it. The problem is that not everyone is me or Elon Musk. Once again, people who have shredded their lives will not fight their way out using drugs. For the Christian the word is pharmakeia which is translated as witchcraft in the New Testament. I certainly was bewitched by the lying spirits of the world during my drug days.

Yet, I keep using the word, I have to agree I read the book because I wanted to understand some things about the current state of the drug world. I find myself agreeing with his conclusions. He visits Portugal, Switzerland and Uruguay and paints a healthy picture of decriminalization of drugs. The benefits: less drug use, less death, less crime and less incarcerations. It seems so easy.

We are in the middle of the change right now. Marijuana is being legalized and decriminalized all over America. Berenson who was the brave Covid truther had written on the subject of marijuana and schizophrenia. For people with psychotic tendencies marijuana is not good.

For a people trafficking in demonic spirits as America is now, to give the green light to drug use makes me feel uncomfortable, yet the failure of our war on drugs is easy to see. The tone of the book included his biographical material. He had a drug problem, his boyfriend had a drug problem and he sought out voices that aligned with his values. I don’t align. I believe Romans 1:18, yet I liked what he had to say. Yet again, I say “yet”.