INCARCERATION FOR SELF-MEDICATION IS NOT JUST

Opinion

In order to truly understand why drugs, drug experimentation and use will
always be an aspect of the human condition, and why the "war on drugs" and
prohibition are damaging and ineffective, one must comprehend some basic
knowledge of the neuropsycho-physiology of pain and pleasure.

It was Sigmund Freud (the father of psychoanalysis) who presented the world
with "the pleasure principle." Humans, in general, are motivated to seek
pleasure and avoid pain. But it's not that simple, in that the neural
pathways in the brain that mediate pain share neural pathways that activate
the brain's pleasure/reward systems. This is why some people need to be
"tied up" to feel "free."

The American Pain Society defines pain as an "unpleasant sensory and
emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage."
Pain is a sensation that makes an influence or repercussion on a person's
psychosocial and physical functioning. In medicine, "pain is whatever the
experiencing person says it is, existing whenever he/she says it does." It
is considered the "fifth vital sign," after heart and respiratory rate,
blood pressure and temperature.

Most people tend to think of pain as physical in nature, broken bones for
instance. It is "real." Psychological/social pain is "just in their heads."
But recent findings out of UCLA pushes us into the fact that "physical and
psychological pain is more similar than we realized." The brain appears to
respond to psychological pain ("heartache") in the same way as physical
pain. This is why there is a growing consensus that there is no such thing
as "recreational" drug use; it's ALL self-medication from the
psychological/social pain of anxiety, stress, tension, depression,
humiliation, shame, guilt, boredom, fatigue, etc.

The bikini-clad young babes dancing by the pool, surrounded by the pounding
of loud rock 'n' roll, promoting the consumption of alcohol are not just
acoustic and visual ornaments. They are, in effect, "pain killers" and
"stress relievers" also. They act "synergistically" with the alcohol
consumption.

Self-medication is a self-preservation instinct in the human species. When
does the legal relief of pain and suffering become the illegal pursuit of
pleasure? Isn't it the alienable right to medicate oneself contained in the
rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?" Is it morally
wrong to alter the mind/consciousness with some drugs and healthy to do so
with others?

Society says that Prozac is good and cocaine is evil, but good and evil are
not attributed to molecules. Drugs are neither good nor bad, in and of
themselves. It is how they are used and the type of person using them in a
certain set and setting that determines whether there will be a positive or
negative outcome.

It is wrong to destroy a person's life through incarceration because their
nervous system required different substances or medicines to achieve
certain effects.