COGNITIVE LIBERTY - TIME TO DECIDE

Regarding what I consider to be the extreme negligence of certain individuals in the medical
community in the area of pain management and how that is tied into some basic things that are going
wrong with our culture...

The proof is in the pudding:

Another DEA mistake...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20537-2004Nov29.html

DEA as overseer of Doctors...

http://www.painandthelaw.org/mayday/brushwood_090105.php
http://www.aapsonline.org/nod/newsofday200.htm

Many other instances of DEA interference in pain management...

http://www.aapsonline.org/painman/pm-dea.htm

"The DEA acknowledges yet denies the conflict between drug control and pain control"...
http://reason.com/archives/2004/08/20/pill-stoppers

"The DEA’s bad-faith war on pain doctors"...

http://thephoenix.com/boston/news/48156-ouch

"Continuing Concerns About DEA’s 'Prescription Series' Proposal" [PDF]...

http://www.painpolicy.wisc.edu/DEA/Rx_series.pdf

"DEA Response to War on Pain Medication"

http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2010/02/26/dea-response-to-war-on-pain-medicine

Why do physicians fear prescribing adequate levels of opiates? Thirty Attorneys General Speak Out
On Pain Management...
http://www.csdp.org/publicservice/agletter.htm

Undertreatment of chronic pain...

http://www.drcnet.org/gateway/pain.html

At least Deb's not a baby...

http://news.health.com/2008/07/01/babies-in-pain

My point here is that the reason there even IS a DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency, established in 1973)
is because there is an official "War on Drugs" (actually, a civil war prosecuted by a government against
its own people) initiated by a criminal, Richard Nixon, in the year Deb was born, 1969.

If you have a chance, download and/or listen to Jonathan Ott's extremely concise lecture on this topic
[Thanks to Lorenzo Hagerty for this audio file]...
http://ubron.org/groupdocs/Ott.mp3
Using logic, one can then state that it is the War on Drugs that frightens, and ties the hands of,
physicians. If this "WAR" were ended, not only would physicians have the liberty to actually practice
compassionate medicine by playing with a full deck, but, in most cases, "alternative" medicines (like
very safe Cannabis) would finally be able to be used INSTEAD OF, or in combination with, LESS
opiates.

Unfortunately, even where Medical Marijuana IS legal, finding a doctor who will write a note for you
can be a dignity-destroying experience. Also, I don't think it can be done for *temporary* pain.

More audio presentations [Thanks again to Lorenzo Hagerty for the following audio files]:

Ethan Nadelmann - Time to End the War on Drugs...

http://ubron.org/groupdocs/Nadelmann.mp3

Andrew Weil - Psychoactive Drugs Through Human History...

http://ubron.org/groupdocs/AndrewWeil1983.mp3

Claudia Little - The Truth About Cannabis...

http://ubron.org/groupdocs/Claudia%20Little%20The%20Truth%20About%20Cannabis.mp3

The reason why I am tempted to lash out at the medical community is because of the lack of courage I
find there. But they don't deserve as much blame as I am feeling today (re. Deb's struggle to get
enough pain meds). It is actually the scientific community - upon which both the DEA and the medical
community depend for validation of their policies.

Scientists can perform the most abominable experiments on animals, they can probe the outer reaches
of the universe, they can build multi-billion dollar supercolliders... Their knowledge is tested and
verified by scholarly review with an unquestionable scrutiny that is unparalleled in the history of
humanity. Science is touted as the greatest arbiter of secular and objective truth in this world. But
when it comes to research on the value of Cannabis and the other psychedelic substances, and the
profoundly positive social policy changes that research could engender, many scientists are cowards in
the first degree. Forget grants and funding, the subject isn't even mentionable.

Every researcher in psychopharmacology should be standing up to the government in this respect, and
so should every concerned citizen. As things are today, the government is not controlled by a
democratic system. As we have seen above (and most of us have seen in our personal lives), pure
military-industrial, power-based politics and fundamentalist religion RULE everyone on earth--most,
with the barrel of a gun. If you think that you have REAL freedom, you are self-deluded, in the
extreme - no kinder way to say it.

As Terence McKenna might have explained the situation: The fact is that no one is handing out rights.
They must be TAKEN. Cannabis and other psychedelic substances expand consciousness and cause
people to question the hyper-conventionalism and unthinking habit of the broken-down and anitquated
social and economic systems of every-day life that we seem to be enshrining and approving of (through
our NON-action). Governments are VERY afraid of this. These substances bring about a realization in
the people who know how to use them properly. It is a realization that it is the barriers we build
between each other, and the groups that do the same thing, that are the biggest stumbling blocks to
human PROGRESS. And here, in the 21st. Century, these barriers are leading to a world-wide cultural
REGRESS. If people began to make it a priority to tear down those barriers--starting with the liberty to
think what we want and explore our own minds--control over our personal lives and inner thoughts
would then fall back to WE, THE PEOPLE, where it belongs.

Thankfully, for the first time in history, due to the Internet and free speech forums like Facebook,
people now have access to immense amounts of exponentially growing information (both objective
study and subjective, personal opinions like mine) and they can make their OWN decisions about what
is right and wrong. No longer can these concepts (right and wrong) be dictated to us from on high...
And no longer can uncomfortable truths be kept in the closet.

The thing is we have to USE this new and unprecedented tool to free ourselves from unnecessary
physical pain and suffering, unfair searches and seizures, moralistic oppression of sexual preference,
institutionalized sexism (starting with pay equality) and the subsidized, debt-based, rampant
consumerism of Western-style capitalism.

The last and the greatest of all human rights issues is now upon us as a global civilization: The struggle
for Cognitive Liberty.

When this struggle is (hopefully) won, a truly ethical age will dawn on this planet. Of course, I say that
optimistically. The alternative is what we are heading toward now: hurting each other, dangerous
religious fundamentalism, thing-fetishism and mall-worship, international mistrust, environmental
destruction, biased scientific research, poverty, and perpetual war. If we continue on the path we have
chosen so far, we WILL destroy ourselves, possibly along with all other higher-life, and the human race
will have proved itself to be nature's biggest mistake.

Where are all my other friends who believe these things? Are these issues SO radical and embarrassing
that it is thought best to leave them undiscussed? People are afraid to rock the boat. But, if they only
did, they would tip that sucker over and find that the water was only 12 inches deep all along! It seems
to me that the more "radical" thing would be to just leave these issues undiscussed; whistle past the
graveyard until we are all buried there, in dark and everlastingly-cold silence.

We need to CHOOSE what we are here on earth for, as individuals and collectively, and we need to do
it NOW. Is it to foul our own nest to the point of obliteration? Or, is it to become closer to each other
than we ever imagined we could be and to march together - as a species - toward a future life of light-
filled happiness and peace?

Time to decide.