"So long as we have failed to eliminate any of the causes of human despair, we do not have the right to try to eliminate those means by which man tries to cleanse himself of despair."
--Antonin Artaud
An interesting and telling hypothesis, gleaned by Canadian psychologist Bruce Alexander, from his observations and experiments involving junkies (Rat Park : Kicking the Habit), has lead him to conclude that drugs, even "hard drugs" such as heroin and cocaine, are not primarily responsible for addiction; the user's environment is. Alexander believes factors such as undue mental stress, economic and spiritual poverty, and social instability, create negative incentives for people seeking to escape their environment. Ergo, drugs are viable methods to alleviate ("medicate") tangible symptoms of pain and alienation. "Love is the drug,"1 and "all us lonely people need to score."2
"Drugs have been used as a scapegoat for society's ills for centuries. If we really want to address the populace's ever-increasing drug-use, we will develop and foster viable culture", he states, adding, "We're bathed in this (anti-drug) propaganda from childhood, and it's totally persuasive. It's so much easier to believe that drugs take people away than that the very civilization we live in is making life miserable for everybody." 3
Alexander's experiment consisted of placing lab rats addicted to opiate-laced water in two, vastly different, habitats - individuals in Group A were separately isolated in stark, cramped, and unclean quarters, while those in Group B were housed together in one, large, clean, and spacious cage. Rats in each environment were then given the choice of drinking pure water, or to continue drinking the opiate-laced water. Those in the communal setting, finding their innate needs for harmonious space and companionship manifest, chose to wean themselves from the supply of opiate-dosed water, even as it was readily available, whereas the inadequately-housed and socially-deprived rats continued to numb their pain by taking their "medicine". Poor babies.
Let's put Alexander's theory to the test - by fostering the creation of Earth-honoring, relationship-nurturing, joy-enhancing, sustainable, Sacred Economics-based, communities, promoting values of social equality, shared resources and wealth (a Universal Basic Income!) and peaceful co-existence. Clean air, clean water, a fertile Earth and affordable housing is not only a human right, but inter-species’ rights, too.
Alexander's experiment consisted of placing lab rats addicted to opiate-laced water in two, vastly different, habitats - individuals in Group A were separately isolated in stark, cramped, and unclean quarters, while those in Group B were housed together in one, large, clean, and spacious cage. Rats in each environment were then given the choice of drinking pure water, or to continue drinking the opiate-laced water. Those in the communal setting, finding their innate needs for harmonious space and companionship manifest, chose to wean themselves from the supply of opiate-dosed water, even as it was readily available, whereas the inadequately-housed and socially-deprived rats continued to numb their pain by taking their "medicine". Poor babies.
Let's put Alexander's theory to the test - by fostering the creation of Earth-honoring, relationship-nurturing, joy-enhancing, sustainable, Sacred Economics-based, communities, promoting values of social equality, shared resources and wealth (a Universal Basic Income!) and peaceful co-existence. Clean air, clean water, a fertile Earth and affordable housing is not only a human right, but inter-species’ rights, too.
In this context, the conscious, intentional usage of healing, psychoactive, plant-based medicines (Entheogens), in ritualized, ceremonial contexts, may be just the ticket to further evolution, as it was millennia ago in matriarchal, Goddess-worshipping societies, and has remained so to this day, in indigenous and neo-tribal cultures.
1 "Love is the Drug" - Roxy Music
2 "All the Lonely People" - The Beatles
3 "The Rat Trap" by Robert Hercz, The Walrus Magazine, 11 March 2008
4 Sacred Economics - by Charles Eisenstein
REBUTTAL FROM A SKEPTICAL NAYSAYER :
The rodent experiment is doomed. The operating premise stating rats are like people is faulty. Known to eat their young, carry the Plague, and frolic naked, rats have no "redeeming" qualities....and just because you loved a cute, intelligent, and affectionate one as a child, allowing it to sleep on your pillow, and drink saliva from the corner of your mouth, does not mean they know the difference between right and wrong. This experiment reeks of The Big Lie......what really happened is the greedier, nastier, and more devious rats took control of the opium-water supply by force, sold it to the others at a massive profit, and didn't give a rat's ass their own kin were dying from devastating poverty, squalor, hopelessness, and malnutrition...end of story.
Rats who dare rise up as cult leaders for truth and real change are martyred fast. We do not live in a faerie-tale world, where rats are considered sentient beings with self-determination, deserving rights of any kind whatsoever. They are a subjugated species, and do nothing to raise the GNP; they can not buy stocks, bonds, derivatives, or frivolously speculate with other people's hard-earned money. In other words, they deserve what they don't get. Clean water? Clean air? Fertile land producing abundant, organic harvests? Social justice and equality? Brother and sisterly love? Free health care, education, energy, and shelter? You are dreaming in The Matrix - your gilded cage (tape loop of sinister laughter).
1 "Love is the Drug" - Roxy Music
2 "All the Lonely People" - The Beatles
3 "The Rat Trap" by Robert Hercz, The Walrus Magazine, 11 March 2008
4 Sacred Economics - by Charles Eisenstein
REBUTTAL FROM A SKEPTICAL NAYSAYER :
The rodent experiment is doomed. The operating premise stating rats are like people is faulty. Known to eat their young, carry the Plague, and frolic naked, rats have no "redeeming" qualities....and just because you loved a cute, intelligent, and affectionate one as a child, allowing it to sleep on your pillow, and drink saliva from the corner of your mouth, does not mean they know the difference between right and wrong. This experiment reeks of The Big Lie......what really happened is the greedier, nastier, and more devious rats took control of the opium-water supply by force, sold it to the others at a massive profit, and didn't give a rat's ass their own kin were dying from devastating poverty, squalor, hopelessness, and malnutrition...end of story.
Rats who dare rise up as cult leaders for truth and real change are martyred fast. We do not live in a faerie-tale world, where rats are considered sentient beings with self-determination, deserving rights of any kind whatsoever. They are a subjugated species, and do nothing to raise the GNP; they can not buy stocks, bonds, derivatives, or frivolously speculate with other people's hard-earned money. In other words, they deserve what they don't get. Clean water? Clean air? Fertile land producing abundant, organic harvests? Social justice and equality? Brother and sisterly love? Free health care, education, energy, and shelter? You are dreaming in The Matrix - your gilded cage (tape loop of sinister laughter).
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