Drugs, Intoxication & Abuse

Drugs, Intoxication and Abuse

Drugs are defined as a) a substance used in the diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of a disease and b) a substance, such as a narcotic or hallucinogen, which affects the central nervous system.

When discussing drugs it's most important to understand that Western civilization's greatest achievements have been the development of drugs. The single greatest discovery in the last century was the antibiotic drug penicillin. Bacterial infections have killed more people than all wars combined. The most minor wounds when infected would kill even healthy persons. Penicillin radicalized the treatment of bacterial infections and is known as the first "miracle drug."

The vaccines developed in the last century have led to the eradication of diseases that once ravaged the peoples of this planet. The small pox vaccine rid the planet of the disease by 1977. Small pox killed millions of people and it was commonly said that no parent dared count their children until they had survived the small pox infection. Of course small pox is making a comeback thanks to its development by manufacturers in the USA and its sale by the U.S. Government to tyrants in a number of despotic regimes but that's another story.

Polio, an infectious viral disease that has been evident since ancient time, attacks the central nervous system. Ten of thousands of people, typically children, were stricken with polio in the United States each year. With the polio vaccine the virus has been eliminated in Western civilization. The World Health Organization hopes to eradicate the polio virus from the planet by 2005.

In terms of human lives saved nothing can compare to the drugs we've developed. These drugs are a monument to our civilization. There are also many other drugs prevalent in our society. Coffee contains the drug caffeine. Cigarettes contain the drug nicotine. Beer and wine contain the drug alcohol. Then there's all the over-the-counter generic drugs that we consume daily without a thought such as analgesics (pain relievers), antihistamines (counteracts allergic reactions), anti-inflammatories (reduces inflammation in the muscles), antibiotic ointments (skin rashes), antifungal creams (fungus infections), antacids (neutralize stomach acids), and viagara (erectile dysfunction), just to name a few.

The United States Government and its complicit propaganda arm in the corporate controlled media have saturated our culture with anti-drug campaigns such as Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No", Daryl Gates' (infamous Los Angeles Police Chief during the Rodney King riots) Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE), and President Bush's National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign funded to the tune of $180 million tax payer dollars per year. So while drugs are our greatest achievement as a civilization we're bombarded by with media messages that condition us to believe that "Drugs are bad!"

The irony is we are the drug culture and nothing defines our society better than the drugs we consume. However we're culturally dysfunctional when we condition everyone to believe drugs are bad yet market, sell and consume drugs at an unimaginable rate.

Intoxication is defined as an excitement of the mind or an elation that rises to enthusiasm, frenzy, or even madness. Intoxication can be caused by the ingestion or injection of a chemical substance but it doesn't have to be. Someone in the fulfillment of religious rapture is intoxicated.

While narcotics are obvious intoxicants two of the most powerful intoxicants are money and power. Money is electric. Nothing is as emotionally exciting and thrilling as money. Having money is so fantastic that is completely distorts your view of reality. You actually believe you're better and smarter than your fellow citizens and why shouldn't you? Nothing validates your being like cash. Power, defined as having great influence or control over others, is also a devilish intoxicant. Nothing validates your suppositions and opinions like power. You must be right because you have the power! Power is so intoxicating that even if you got your power through inheritance or fraudulent means you still feel that power is righteously yours. People with money and power feel imbued with a kind of celestial happiness and righteous.

Abuse is defined as wrongly or improperly using anything. You can abuse anything be it a drug, a privilege, your authority, the environment, other persons, and even yourself. Everything you touch is a candidate for abuse.

It's crucial to understand how abuse permeates every aspect of our lives. If you're watching television forty hours a week then you're neglecting your family, friends and work through your abuse of television. If you're proselytizing your religion to everyone you meet then you're abusing your acquaintances with the tenets of your faith. If you drop trash, be it ever so small, on the streets of your city then you're abusing your community by making it suffer the vestiges of your litter. If you overeat you're abusing your body by making it handle more sustenance then it can sustain. If you work over sixty hours each week then you're abusing yourself by not cultivating the relationships and network you'll need in times of crisis. For example: When you have a death in the family your "job" isn't going to provide you with the outreach and emotional support you're going to need. If you're generating significant capital it's easy to abuse that money by spending it on delightful toys that serve to distract you from acknowledging those two billion people on the planet who are living on less than two U.S. dollars per day.

It isn't just drug abuse that's bad, it's the abuse of anything that's bad. We have to come to grips with abuse as a people, a culture and a civilization. The first step in that process is to realize when you are intoxicated. Drugs, faith, money, power, or any activity in your life that becomes an obsession can cause intoxication. That euphoric feeling when intoxicated should be accompanied by sober reflection. The second step is to accept that we should exercise moderation in everything that we do. Too much of anything is usually abusive.

The Native Americans spoke of how each of us had to "touch the earth lightly". This beautiful aphorism is the greatest rejoinder to the abuse western civilization inherently engenders. If each of us lived as this simple aphorism dictates there wouldn't be so much abuse and this world would be better for it. So whatever you choose to do, do it lightly and with reverence for your life and the lives of those around you.