Natural Drugs and the downfalls of prescription drugs.
Wikipedia describes taboos as follows, "A taboo is a strong social prohibition (or ban) relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and forbidden based on moral judgment and sometimes even religious beliefs. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society. The term comes from the Tongan word tabu, meaning set apart or forbidden, and appears in many Polynesian cultures." Taboos, to me, are something of a wonder. The fact that some things are left unexplored first hand by the body, mind and spirit. How can a man always take another man's opinion without suspicion? That man knows that we all experience this world differently. Drugs are a perfect example of this.
From what the scientists say nothing in the human body happens without chemical reactions and drugs are chemical reactions, be it naturally in the body or from a naturally occurring plant here on earth. Let's look at serotonin. According to Wikipedia serotonin "is a well-known contributor to feelings of well-being; therefore it is also known as a 'happiness hormone' despite not being a hormone. Modulation of serotonin at synapses is thought to be a major action of several classes of pharmacological antidepressants. In humans, serotonin levels are affected by diet." So maybe if we eat the right food we won't need to take all of these insanely over priced prescription drugs. I don't think you'll ever read that in a doctors office on one of those conveniently place pamphlets. Could you imagine? Instead of showing paxil it reads 'Here are the foods we've found to lower depression. Oh ya you can grow them in your back yard.' However, in this crazy world the doctor is brainwashed into getting the patient hooked on some pro-profit priced drugs that half the time haven't even been properly tested; or tested long enough to find out their true effects. It's just so sad to see all these years of natural human progression destroyed by a capitalistic business that's just doing what it knows how to do, make money. When instead, we could trust in the years of natural shared human knowledge that we've learned about our world.
I used to deliver pizzas for a local pizza place in my small home town. A lot of my deliveries were to hospitals, cancer treatment facilities, rehabilitation homes, etc. You could always tell if you were delivering to a drug rep. First of all, it would be an abundance of food. Second, the rep would almost always be late or stuck in traffic. Which is fine I understand there usually traveling from 'the city.' More about that later. In the break room where I'd take the food I'd always see prescription drug pamphlets everywhere. Occasionally, I'd overhear some workers talking about the different drugs as if they were scholars on the topic. This got me thinking. Isn't this scary that this is how prescription drugs are smuggled into our lives. This is how the people that we trust with our lives get THEIR information about our 'medicine.' Instead of actually trying the products or reading university funded studies on the drugs they are 'treated' to their favorite food that they most of the time get to pick out and spoon fed information like little trolls with pink frizzy hair. Instead of asking tough questions they mindlessly read the conveniently placed pamphlets, that are not independent by any means, and except that version of reality. This is why I brought up the part about the reps always being their late. For something so serious as the use of a synthetically created chemical in a lab you'd think that being on time, having proper information, explaining the product properly, having the TIME to do that would be an important issue. Frankly, from what I saw it's not. The drug reps always use credit cards and A LOT of times they, as mentioned earlier, wouldn't be there or would be late, so having more deliveries I'd leave and come back. I'd always expect to see the drug rep describing the drug, answering questions, explaining side effects, etc. Sadly, I never saw this. The rep would always be getting ready to leave. This again, reaffirmed my belief that the drug rep just shows up, give the kiddies candies, does some tricks and off he goes to be a pusherman somewhere else. On a positive note some did tip pretty good, some not at all! I don't have a chip on my shoulder or anything. I just bring this issue up because it's sad to see Americans being sold into this belief that prescription drugs are the answer. When the answer is in naturally occurring and growing here on earth. We can ALL grow our OWN food if we want to. We can ALL grow our OWN medicine if we want to. We can ALL be responsible and grow up if we let each other try and fail for ourselves! Of course I'm not the first to feel this way. Watch some Bill Hicks performances he used to talk like that a lot.
Now back to that wikipedia article on serotonin. "An increase in the ratio of tryptophan to phenylalanine and leucine will increase serotonin levels. Fruits with a good ratio include dates, papayas and bananas. Foods with a lower ratio inhibit the production of serotonin. These include whole wheat and rye bread. Serotonin inhibits the fleeing reaction in subordinates, but enhances it in socially dominant or isolated individuals. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter, and is found in all bilateral animals, where it mediates gut movements and the animal's perception of resource availability. In the simplest animals, resources are equivalent with food, but in advanced animals such as arthropods and vertebrates, resources also can mean social dominance. In response to the perceived abundance or scarcity of resources, the animal's growth, reproduction or mood may be elevated or lowered." So this is why a turtle kept in a tank will only grow so big! (Note: If you are a subordinate reading this article disengage all positive information you have read and flee now!)
Growing up I always received the negative attention of drugs. The explanations of them were always half-assed and I couldn't help feeling like I shouldn't ask any questions, to authority. Not having drugs properly explained makes it a sort of 'wild west wildcard'. If you don't fully understand something for yourself, then rumors and myths are allowed to roam free in your mind. This may lead you to be more curious and want to try something you wouldn't normally try. And what about the placebo affect? Could we just be dumbing down ourselves? In wikipedia's article on placebo it reads as follows "In one common placebo procedure a patient is given an inert pill, told that it may improve his/her condition, but not told that it is in fact inert. Such an intervention may cause the patient to believe the treatment will change his/her condition; and this belief may produce a subjective perception of a therapeutic effect, causing the patient to feel their condition has improved. This phenomenon is known as the placebo effect. In religious minds they'd call this the 'laying of hands'. "Some Christians also believe that the laying on of hands can have curative properties, based on biblical precedent set by Jesus, who would walk for days, offering his healing power. Both Christian and non-Christian faith healers will lay hands on people when praying for healing, and often the name of Jesus is invoked as the spiritual agency through which the healing of physical ailments is believed to be obtained." That was from wikipedia of course. It kind of makes you wonder, is it the 'laying of hands' that cured the patient or was it the placebo effect. They sound the same to me. Religion would never want to admit to this however. They would lose their authority as the provider of miracles. "If you just believe." I do believe. I believe in staying positive. There's going to be negative darkness in this world. Always! I think it's how we handle that negativity and what we choose to do with it that matters. Hiding negativity from a child his or her whole life and not teaching them how to deal with it is probably not a good choice.
Where was I going earlier with that dumbing down ourselves, placebo part? Oh yes, kids are so impressionable! Have you ever heard a child tell a story? Have you ever seen a child act like someone? It's usually almost ALWAYS over-exaggerated and dramatized. Could this also happen with alcohol and drug use? How do kids learn how drunk people act? Well in my case it was from older drunk people who also learned it from older drunk people who, if you ask me, were just looking for an escape from the hardships they faced. So their joy and happiness was true and had merit. They were rewarding themselves for hard work. Without that I think it's a waste and you'll become a waste. There has to be a lesson to be learned. Like finding out you can work hard, and even harder if you know that your rewarding yourself for that work later on. Now you have all these kids coming of age every year and their just starting to learn about themselves. They just want to be cool! Why? Because that FEAR of being different has been instilled in them from school. I remember being young and acting stupid around certain people just because they were too. So you get this misinformation that happens all over. You have different reps for drugs. Sometimes the reps are just the loudest people. 'Oh that's Billy he drinks a lot! That's how a drinker acts, like Billy.' Then is what I believe happens is Billy get this stereotype in his head of how he's supposed to act and Billy will probably live up to that stereotype. So maybe Billy starts being verbally abusive, late for work and just drinks all of the time. When friends try to point out this behavior his stubborn mind won't let them tell him any different. Isn't it sad that alcohol will get blamed for the problem. He will be labeled an alcoholic. Shouldn't he instead be labeled with what he really has, a responsibility problem? Now Ted is a marketing manager for a major firm and is excited everyday to go into work. His job is sometimes very stressful though so he drinks too to forget about the stress. However, Ted is responsible and doesn't let it affect his life but you won't hear about Ted are that positive affects of his drinking from mainstream news or religion. Instead the government will create rehab centers and AAA clubs and further publicize the negative affects so anyone with a simple responsibility problem will now have a treatable disease that they can pay a bunch of money for. The same with marijuana. You have people that abuse it and try and make money off of it, just like anything else in this world. Then you have some that use it for medical purposes. How does our government handle it? With the D.A.R.E. campaign. Just SAY NO! Ya Just say no to misinformation! Here are some snippets from wikipedia's article on tetrahydrocannabinol, (for all you squares out there that's THC, aka marijuana).
"There has never been a documented human fatality from overdosing on tetrahydrocannabinol or cannabis in its natural form. However, the THC pill Marinol was cited by the FDA as being responsible for 4 of the 11,687 deaths from 17 different FDA approved drugs between January 1, 1997 to June 30, 2005." Stop it right there! Isn't that interesting. When being naturally smoked hasn't been documented to have killed anyone, but as soon as a pharmaceutical (i had to google that one) companies step in people die. Add on top of that the fact that it was FDA approve! One estimate of THC's LD50 for humans indicates that about 1,500 pounds (680 kg) of cannabis would have to be smoked within 14 minutes. This estimate is supported by studies which indicate that the effective dose of THC is at least 1000 times lower than the estimated lethal dose (a "therapeutic ratio" of 1000:1). This is much higher than alcohol (therapeutic ratio 10:1), cocaine (15:1), or heroin (6:1). A number of studies show that THC provides medical benefits for cancer and AIDS patients by increasing appetite and decreasing nausea. It has also been shown to assist some glaucoma patients by reducing pressure within the eye, and is used in the form of cannabis by a number of multiple sclerosis patients, who use it to alleviate neuropathic pain and spasticity. New scientific evidence is showing that THC can prevent Alzheimer's Disease in an animal model by preventing the inflammation caused by microglia cells which are activated by binding of amyloid protein."
"In in-vitro experiments, THC at extremely high concentrations, which could not be reached with commonly-consumed doses, caused inhibition of plaque formation (which are associated with Alzheimer's disease) better than currently-approved drugs. THC may also be an effective anti-cancer treatment, with studies showing tumor size reduction in mice conducted in 1975 and 2007, as well as in a pilot study in humans with glioblastoma multiforme (a type of brain cancer). Research has also shown that past claims of brain damage from cannabis use fail to hold up to the scientific method. Instead, recent studies with synthetic cannabinoids show that activation of CB1 receptors can facilitate neurogenesis, as well as neuroprotection, and can even help prevent natural neural degradation from neurodegenerative diseases such as MS, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's. This, along with research into the CB2 receptor (throughout the immune system), has given the case for medical marijuana more support. THC is both a CB1 and CB2 agonist.
At its 33rd meeting, the World Health Organization Expert Committee on Drug Dependence recommended transferring THC to Schedule IV of the Convention, citing its medical uses and low abuse potential. In 2008, 1.5 million Americans were arrested for drug offenses. 500,000 were imprisoned. Marijuana constitutes almost half of all drug arrests, and between 1990–2002, out of the overall drug arrests, 82% of the increase was for marijuana. Federal and state policies also impose collateral consequences on those convicted of drug offenses, such as denial of public benefits or licenses, that are not applicable to those convicted of other types of crime."
