The War on Drugs Is a War on Healthcare
The War on Drugs Is a War on Healthcare
The government should not make your healthcare decisions.
When we talk about a lack of freedom in America’s healthcare choices, the conversation typically focuses on the insurance and pharmaceutical companies as well as the government.
I’ve often discussed how the cabal of corporate and governmental powers collude to exert control over our health.
But sometimes, it is the state that directly tells us what we can and cannot put into our bodies – even for health reasons. The War on Drugs has cracked down on substances people take to alter their state of mind. But, in so doing, it has also prohibited many from seeking different forms of healthcare that fall outside of the pharmaceutical range.
One such option is psilocybin, a compound found in certain mushrooms. The substance is typically associated with recreational drug use. But over recent years, it has been increasingly explored for its potential to treat mental health conditions like depression and others.
Yes, shrooms can provide mental health benefits, even if you’re not a hippie.
Medical News Today covered a study that delves into the potential for psilocybin to treat mental health problems. Researchers compared the long-term effects of psilocybin with those of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in treating depression.
The results appear to be promising. Psilocybin offers comparable, if not superior, relief from depression symptoms that SSRIs are intended to alleviate. The study found that six months after treatment, patients taking the substance demonstrated significant improvement in their social functioning.
The findings suggest that psilocybin could offer a powerful alternative to traditional antidepressants, which have been known to have adverse side effects.
Unlike SSRIs, which often come with withdrawal symptoms and can require lifelong use, psilocybin has the potential to offer relief with just a few supervised sessions. This could open the door to a more holistic approach to treating depression and other ailments – if the government wasn’t intent on locking people up for selling, buying, and consuming it.
There are a plethora of reasons for ending the War on Drugs. But the fact that it prevents people from using potentially life-changing methods for treating their illnesses is one of the most compelling.
People should be free to choose which medications they use to treat their own maladies. The government should never have been granted the authority to decide for us. Yet, we take it for granted that our beloved nanny state knows what’s best for everyone. Elected and unelected officials are entrusted with the power to dictate what we can and cannot put into our bodies, which has not exactly produced positive results.
When we live under a government that can send men with guns and badges to stop us from making our own healthcare choices, it is hard to argue that we live in a free society.
It is also difficult to make this argument when corporations and governments are authorized to infringe on our right to decide what’s best for ourselves. The reality is that only through promoting liberty in our medical decisions can we reduce the costs associated with healthcare while limiting the role of government in this industry.
People deserve the freedom to treat their medical conditions as they see fit. But an ever-expanding government wants to infringe further on this right. To fight back, we need to elect officials who seek to empower patients instead of the government. We need those who will place healthcare decisions back in the hands of the people, not politicians.