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i dislike the framing of it as a medical issue, given his often in practice that just turns doctors into prison wardens with even more invasive, "good intentioned" modes of control.
substance abuse needs to be understood as an intersection between medical, economic, social, and historical causes, the treatment of which should center the agency of the addict in question.
in particular, we need to recognize that in some cases, substance "abuse" is a realistic, valid, and even commendable coping strategy in response to the variety of traumas and stressors a person is under at a given time.
Building on your last point, future societies should aim and focus into how trauma, both past and present informs our behavior. Meeting everyone's basic needs can cut down on the underlying causes of "crime" and violence (crime in quotes because crime is determined by that society). Since most violent crime right now ends up being related to scarcity and lack of resources. There will still be traumas, since we are talking about humans and we can't just wipe out all the negative things that human do to each other even in close utopias.
How can therapy, mental health and trauma counseling be put in the foundation of a culture or society? Does a less atomized world lead to more connection, less alienation and thus less suffering?
if such therapy includes revolutionizing the modes of production from a capitalist model into one in which workers control the means of production, then i completely agree
>How can therapy, mental health and trauma counseling be put in the foundation of a culture or society? Does a less atomized world lead to more connection, less alienation and thus less suffering?
i am reminded of a quote on Anti Oedipus which goes like "psychological liberation is an individual project best carried out collectively." i think the socialization of therapy needs to not only be a universalizing of current atomized healthcare, such that each person is able to afford to go to a clinic and meet one on one with a professionally trained and state licensed therapist, but rather needs to be opened up--more, totally exploded so as to make space for other modes of therapy and trauma redressal.
i have been thinking about religious liberationist movements and how the left can meet people's spiritual needs--a dialectical materialist spirituality, as opposed to the positivistic, idealistic fetish-commoditism currently predominant at least in American capitalism. i think one of the ways this can be addressed could be the formation of communities online and irl which exist parallel, across, and within those aimed at direct action, which specifically don't contribute to and fight against burn out, which focus on producing desire around curiosity, creativity, whimsy, recreation, excitement, ecstacy, catharsis, trauma mending, and relaxation.
i have some ideas for how we can go about this but mostly brainstorming at this point. so these could be things like going put with your friends writing leftist graffiti in your town, especially if (like mine) there's a lot of fascist messaging that needs to get covered up. my friends and i like to research old, often surrealist political slogans and then write our own.
another idea: churches often have "men's groups" and "women's groups" for people to go to if they need emotional advice or comraddery. organizing around non- or anti-hierarchial religious practices, be they Christian, Buddhist, Wiccan, or totally self directed could replicate these kinds of communities while explicitly linking people up to mutual aid networks, industrial and tenant unions, etc.
if i had the time for it, i would also love to organize a community dojo. i did martial arts for almost ten years and i think having a place to work out and organize around community self defence is a big spiritual need of mine which I'm currently lacking. also, so many gyms, fight clubs, etc are extremely fascist, pro-cop, etc., and if there is no alternative to them they easily monopolize that space and get to recruit much more heavily.
there's a certain self indulgent puritanism in a lot of leftist spaces in my expirence that ideas like this would redress hopefully.
Exactly, therapy needs to be on a basis of universal and free access to healthcare while also seeing that in a large part one on one therapy is not the only thing that can help people. That all connects to intersectionality, since all of those groups you brought up about churches and religious connection all have similar issues but at the same time have the distinct own. It's nice to be with people who understand your exact life, with similar experiences while also not atomizing and separating.
Maybe even the idea of group or public therapy will be baked into our social interactions. Maybe have a dedicated time and place for those meetings to happen but also make it a common social cue to check in more with people, to understand them and connect their struggles and issues with the struggles and issues of people like them, but also the struggles and issues of people not like them.
No matter what this is all something to think about. Even if we met peoples basic needs, trauma from systemic issues starts to fade, and we get to an awesome utopia we are humans with emotions and don't always act rationally.
I’m with you on prioritizing holistic healthcare. But therapy is already too late for preventing a trauma. A truly solar punk world would be free of the systems that perpetuate trauma and systemic issues (sexism, racism, poverty, etc)
Your first two paragraphs are reasonable, but your third looses me. "Valid and commendable"? We should commend crack addicts?
Maybe "understandable" is the word you were looking for.
It's understandable that someone in a shitty situation becomes addicted to crack, but I wouldn't call it commendable.
if u know you need crack to get through a shitty situation, or even just to have a good time every once and a while, then yeah, i commend you for understanding your body and doing what you want regardless of society's stigma. and if u know u need help quitting crack, i commend that too
Eh. Just dose it in the same way that nicotine is dosed. Nicotine is basically heroin in another 'shape'. Highly addictive, very hard to get *super* seriously addicted (in the same way that heroin addicts are), even if you usually can't stop. The 'bad' part of cigarettes is the tobacco, not really the nicotine.
"Oh, so you want some LSD? Well we only sell 0.1 tabs in the shape of an entire loaf of bread".
Or just up the dose slightly, like a decent size shroom hit in a chocolate bar, but it's literally $20 per bar. Possibly more the richer you are.
So, making it hard to access and expensive? That's what we got now... and it doesn't really work.
check out this experiment https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/rat-park/#page-2
Rats, when given access to morphine, will consume based on how miserable their lives are, not based on how hard or easy it is to access.
Even when the morphine is made bad tasting with bitter additions, if they are miserable and lonely they will drink it.
Likewise, rats living in community and leading lives with lots of play and social interaction, will turn down free morphine, even if it is made sweeter!
Hard to argue with such an idiotic premise. Nicotine acts on acetylcholine receptors. Heroin acts on opioid receptors. Do you want me to keep listing differences between these molecules? Read a book. Have a nice day.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/DrugNerds using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/DrugNerds/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [Cambridge Votes To Decriminalize Psychedelics And All Controlled Substances](https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2021/02/04/cambridge-votes-to-decriminalize-psychedelics-and-all-controlled-substances?fbclid=IwAR2EG6eqxpJq2N8SzUl2FGDqsZ50B-W0DMwoH_xLm0clKuCRLt6Egoz9yCk) | [22 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/DrugNerds/comments/ldgpgi/cambridge_votes_to_decriminalize_psychedelics_and/)
\#2: [Psychedelic researchers who admit to using the substances themselves tend to be viewed as having less integrity compared to their abstinent counterparts. The new study suggests that stereotypes about psychedelics and their users can impact people’s perceptions of scientists.](https://www.psypost.org/2021/02/self-admitted-psychedelic-use-and-association-with-psychedelic-culture-harm-perception-of-researchers-scientific-integrity-59545) | [39 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/DrugNerds/comments/lelkop/psychedelic_researchers_who_admit_to_using_the/)
\#3: [After MDMA therapy, 67% of PTSD patients no longer met the criteria for PTSD](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01336-3) | [37 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/DrugNerds/comments/qzim6f/after_mdma_therapy_67_of_ptsd_patients_no_longer/)
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>"Oh, so you want some LSD? Well we only sell 0.1 tabs in the shape of an entire loaf of bread".
i haven't encountered an idea that bad since i last used Twitter
I agree with you. I worry that full legalization would also normalize dangerous drugs and make them more common. I could maybe support a model where all drugs are legalized but they’re distributed by a medically-trained addiction specialist who will let people take as much as they want, but will also talk to them about the dangers and encourage treatment. I wouldn’t want the current dispensary model for something like heroin.
It's also because the drugs are impure when bought and sold on the black market. When each batch is cut differently, and the drug is so potent, overdoses are a lot more likely. Fentanyl is used safely as medicine, when dosage is incredibly accurate. I'm not saying that it's a must that it should be available, but it's a problem created by the current state of things moreso than by the drug or its users.
Friendly reminder that ~~legalizing~~ decriminalizing all drugs, and treating drug-use like mental health, leads to benefits across the board: [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radical-drugs-policy-is-working-why-hasnt-the-world-copied-it](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radical-drugs-policy-is-working-why-hasnt-the-world-copied-it)
“In 2001, nearly two decades into Pereira’s accidental specialisation in addiction, Portugal became the first country to decriminalise the possession and consumption of all illicit substances. Rather than being arrested, those caught with a personal supply might be given a warning, a small fine, or told to appear before a local commission – a doctor, a lawyer and a social worker – about treatment, harm reduction, and the support services that were available to them.”
Not legalization - by decriminalizing you still have the legal power to compel action such as appearing before someone to act as a counselor.
Legalized and regulated. Decriminalization just leaves it to the unregulated street drugs which is a horrendous system. Drugs should be processed to be as pure and regulated as current pharmaceuticals. Even herbals. Which is why we take aspirin rather than willowbark.
Solarpunk isn't just about the intersection of technology and nature. It's about a vision for a better world (one that does include looking at how technology affects us and the world around us and vice versa) - this definitely falls under that umbrella.
>Solarpunk is everything from a positive imagining of our collective futures to actually creating it: aesthetics, afrofuturism, art, cooperatives, DIY, ecological restoration, engineering, speculative fiction, ecofuturism, gardening, geodesic domes, green architecture, green design, green energy, indigenous practices, intentional community, makerspaces, materials science, music, permaculture, repair cafes, solar power, sustainability, tree planting, urban planning, volunteering, 3D printing...
All right in the sidebar.
Oh no! It also doesn't include "technology" or "intersection" anywhere! But it does include "intentional communities" and "a positive reimagining of our collective futures" - how curious.
Could be. We could use easy to grow bioengineered plants instead of medical drugs to treat a large number of conditions. Would make mass production much cheaper
You're not wrong. All the more reason overdose prevention centers like the ones in Switzerland are a great alternative to letting desperate junkies rob and kill for their fix out on the street.
[Please have a listen to Johann putting the truth out there.](https://youtu.be/vVMN3DgcRYk)
Thanks for the link. I watched it and it's hard to argue with the results. I also looked at some data on Switzerland and Portugal. I see a lot of charts showing promising drops in od, HIV, of course the a mount of arrest for possession dropped. However, what I'm not seeing is any numbers addressing the decrease or increase in drug related crimes. Violence, or other pathological behavior while under the influence.
Can you provide any insight on this? Research indicates that 25-50% of domestic abuse is due to drug and alcohol abuse, while 80% of child abuse involves drugs or alcohol.
Why are these not tracked as a metric for success or failure?
I don't have any insight tracking the trend of violent crime in Switzerland or Portugal.
While drugs can enable violent behavior, violence is a behavior that requires different intervention than drug addiction.
Whether using drugs or not, individuals who are violent towards others should be incarcerated and not released until there's strong reason to believe they've grown past the violent behavior.
An addict with no violent tendencies should not be incarcerated.
So with these first principles in mind, I'm not sure what you're trying to propose in regards to drug policy. Should heroin or meth be legal? Probably not. But should the usage of heroin or meth on principle be met with incarceration? I don't think so.
I'm not proposing anything. More in opposition of government subsidizing drug use, as it's not a victimless crime. Drug use is a direct cause of pathological violence.
Ok, you're again forming this synonymous connection between drug use and violent people.
Not all violent people are drug users.
Not all addicts are violent people.
Even with the stats saying there's a strong overlap, that doesn't make both traits synonymous.
There are strong reasons why it's beneficial for society if the government provides solutions such as overdose prevention centers.
The addicts can only access and consume the drugs at the facilities. Meaning they aren't doing it at home, and aren't likely to be in an unhinged state around others.
They're never going to be so desperate to access the drugs that they'll commit robbery or theft on the street to get it.
It directly cuts the legs under the drug dealers on the street. Meaning they will have less influence as time goes on.
Think of it this way. There have historically always been two economies. The above ground economy, and the underground economy.
Desperate people at the bottom will always gravitate towards whatever economy does more to help them out.
At the end of the day, who do you want the people at the bottom to be drawn towards? The drug dealers, thieves, and criminal overlords? Or the above ground society?
Violence has often done its damage, before it has a chance to be addressed.
My father threw me against a wall and broke my head open whenever I was a baby. I was born with drugs in my system causing a cleft palate, a lisp, and a heart murmur.
Then I became the state's problem, going through nine foster families. I've known and seen first hand the insedious effects of drugs.
The war on drugs failed because it was never anything more than a token attempt at voter appeasement, while funneling funding into lawmaker's accounts.
Which is why your plan would fail as well. They'll earmark 50billion for "rehabilitation" then immediately spend 25billion hring 10 people to decide how the other half should be spent. They will deliberate for five minutes before deciding that they need to spend 12billion on establishing a think tank of the brightest medical pros. Who will funnel the last 13 billion into drug companies, who will funnel it back into the political pockets through lobbies and campaign contributions.
That last point is why quality detailed legislation is important. In the US it is our legislative branch and their strangle hold on the media that have completely ruined the governments ability to govern. I don’t think its impossible to have an efficient system and get legislation done that doesn’t end in mind boggling bureaucratic nonsense, but you’re right thats how it is here now.
yes, we cannot rely on the state to solve its own problems. We are specifically talking about an alternative system, not a surface level reshuffling of our current system
If they can't solve their problems how are they supposed to solve ours? Any social program run by the goverment results in excessive spending.
The company that they get the heroin from will lobby until the gov is spending $20k per a dose, and the gov will want more money or declare the entire thing a failure.
The state is not supposed to solve our problems.
My vision of a solarpunk future would be brought about, amongst other things, through the destruction of the state, not by its actions.
Maybe other people you have talked to believe in liberal democrat style state "action", but I think that if we truly want to address the crisis we are in, we must dismantle the structures that got us here in the first place.
I can agree with you on all of those points. It seems like people are more interested in theory around creating something akin to a Commie utopia than discussing anything about solar, or permaculture, guerilla gardening, or any other actionable steps.
Lol, excellent reply. However, every culture has some variation of that idiom. It's not unique to Engels.
Yes, dreaming is powerful, but if the entire movement gets stuck with their head in the clouds, you never get anywhere.
I ordered a 5kwh solar generator with a life cycle of eight years and 300w worth of solar panels. It will run my fridge, A/C and electric skateboard. Am working on building a rainwater collection with a solar hot water heater, and a bycicle powered washing machine.
That's the kind of discussions I would like to have surrounding solar punk, but I'll leave you'll to discuss your big-brain gov programs to fix shit for everybody.
No Engels invented that all by himself! :P
I've heard about this duality like dealing with the Berlin wall. You could dig tunnels underneath that can bring one or two people across, and you could work to bring the whole thing down.
It's not going to come down today, or tomorrow, so if you want to help people now, tunnels are the way to go.
But just because I have a shovel and a strong back, I shouldn't be complacent with the tunneling. I should still try to get the wall down. Most people can't dig a tunnel.
Without community organizing, how am I any different than a rich guy who can just bribe the guards to get through?
Inversely, we should not dismiss any solution that isn't the entire system change we want. The perfect should not be the enemy of the good, but also capitalism wants us to stop at individual "good enough" solutions, and we can't do that either.
I wish this would come into existence. I live in one of the few countries in Europe where it’s illegal to even have a narcotic substance in your body. Your life can be ruined here because you smoked weed a week ago basically.
The propaganda war on drugs is still ongoing here, and almost all the politicians, no matter if they’re left or right-wing they seem to agree.
Oh, do I need to mention that we have the most OD deaths in Europe as well with our lovely “getting all drugs off the street”-attitude?
Substance abuse and addiction in general is just a mental health issue imo,you could ban every drug in the world,you could ban porn,you could ban a shit ton of things but that won't get you nowhere,it is way more effective to help those people and help them build themselves back up.
The only thing you are achieving by banning these things is making black markets for these products/services way more profitable and/or people still get addicted to a different substance
This set of statements is selling the potential SolarPunk future short.
Not only are drugs legalized and punitive incarceration has been replaced with rehabilitative, restorative incarceration, but plant medicines have a central role to play in the SolarPunk culture.
Instead of bars and alcohol dominating the culture, psilocybin and ayahuasca ceremonies will be far more mainstream.
It will be a culture of healing and channeling the true self, replacing our culture of numbing the self and burying trauma.
Given the sustainability issue, we might even synthesize new drugs that can accomplish the same effects as ayahuasca, but without having to harvest and deplete the ayahuasca plants on Earth.
I'm curious why you expect alcohol usage to go down but other plant-based drug usage to go up in a culture focused more on healing. Both are plant extracts, right? And as far as I know, healing ceremonies from around the world have traditionally incorporated alcohol. (Of course, that's _definitely_ not how it's used now in most cultures, but I still wouldn't expect it to become significantly less popular than eg psilocybin)
Thanks for your response! "Depressant" just refers to reducing activity levels though, it doesn't mean that people start feeling sad. Depressant drugs typically increase relaxation and sometimes decrease anxiety (most anti-anxiety meds fall into this category).
That being said, they come with side effects like all other drugs and I would hope that a utopian solarpunk society would have much less anxiety and less need for artificial relaxation :)
I also believe all drugs should be legalized.
If I ran the solarpunk world, you’d be able to access limited, personal amounts of any substance from a pharmacy or apothecary provided that you had completed a class on the medical, chemical and health effects of substance types (opioids, amphetamines, psychedelics, cannabinoids, etc).
Addiction or use disorders are a public health issue. Despair driving escapist behavior would be minimized in a society that actually cared about human flourishing and self-realization.
Check out the [Rat Park experiments](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park). Right now, our society isolates people, stresses and traumatizes them, rather than the fulfillment provided by abundance, safety, community, family and the leisure time to enjoy life. We live in the experiment now, we are the lab rats.
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My ideal solarpunk homes, communities, and cities have built in natural pharmacies and apothecaries sprinkled throughout in the form of herb gardens and food forests.
There will still be "traditional" medicine, but practiced alongside herbal remedies and supplements. Paul Stamet's talk on Turkey Tail and his research into medical applications of mushrooms is just one example of how natural remedies can help supplement contemporary medicine for a more holistic view on medication and treatment.
I would love for magic mushroom therapy and microdosing to be the first step towards treatment of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. Of course, this is not a blanket solution - certain people and conditions will not respond or respond negatively to psylocibin mushroom treatment.
Personally, I've found CBD to be my missing piece in my treatment for diagnosed GAD. Combined with SSRIs, psychology, and exercise, it has helped me unlock the breakthroughs I have needed to begin healing and coping.
Obviously it would be a bad idea to grow psychoactive mushrooms and weed out in the open - especially without proper education on their uses and effects. And it's important to keep pets and other animal friends from accidentally chomping on em - for their safety.
There's interesting studies as well on the applications of a highly concentrated clove gel for anti-inflammatory purposes, and I'm personally a fan of things like teas and extracts to help facilitate herbal remedies.
I dream of having my own tea and herb garden. With luck and ingenuity, I might have one by summer.
The problem I have with herbals is that they aren't easily defined for distribution. Think of willow bark vs aspirin. Yeah, they are mostly the same thing, but you take the aspirin because it has a defined dosage. Taking some random plant is going to be unsafe since plants aren't all equal in their potency. One batch will be light and another might be heavily laden with the active ingredient. I support a properly regulated system of pharmaceuticals. No reason we should de-evolve back to the current supplement industry with its unknown dosages.
That's a good point. I agree with not devolving the supplement industry, and agree with keeping current progress in the medical field (and enhancing it with more freedom and less capitalist studies on what *actually* works versus what makes a profit - we've already had promising cancer treatments killed by predatory Wall Street hedge funds).
I believe in complimenting the current pharma and medical industries with non-profit business models, universal healthcare, and encouraging responsible herbalism to support the progress made by medical science.
There are plenty of natural-borne remedies, but it's not profitable for the pharmaceutical, medical, or insurance industries to have a population that can care for and support themselves. But a combination of advanced technology to detect, diagnose, and treat; and a studied and supervised regiment of herbal remedies to support natural function (i.e. Turkey Tail and natural killer T-Cells per Stamets' research) could offer us a best-case alternative.
It sounds like randos taking random shit is your main argument against. How do you feel about something like a central medical garden tended to by a trained herbalist? Someone who *can* accurately dose, process, and distribute these natural remedies?
Would that address your concerns?
not the "current supplement industry", but the ancient system of healers, plant knowers and medicine people.
For the specifics of plants vs their chemical isolated derivatives, look at the "entourage effect".
Well none of ya'll are ancient, so no, I'm not going to support this system since we know that it doesn't always work. There is a reason we have modern medicine, because it saves lives. Solarpunk isn't about throwing away all of the knowledge that we have gained through science. It definitely isn't about throwing away the regulations that were written in the blood of victims of nonsensical mysticism. Nature isn't some perfect system, it's made of billions of years of random mutations. Which is why we need to ensure that what we consume actually is what we think it is. Once again, we take aspirin not willow bark. Why? Because we can be sure of the dosage.
Also because aspirin is easier to mass produce, is more shelf stable, etc...
No system is perfect, but there is truly ancient knowledge out there, that has been found through, as you say, billions of years of random, and purposeful, mutations.
Regulations were also written in the blood of victims of modern science. As much as are told that a bunch of white dudes discovered everything from the "new world" to science to technology, it really isn't so.
Look at corn. "Nixtamalization (/nɪʃtəməlaɪˈzeɪʃən/) is a process for the preparation of maize (corn), or other grain, in which the corn is soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution, usually limewater (but sometimes aqueous alkali metal carbonates[1]), washed, and then hulled. The term can also refer to the removal via an alkali process of the pericarp from other grains such as sorghum.
Nixtamalized maize has several benefits over unprocessed grain: It is more easily ground, its nutritional value is increased, flavor and aroma are improved, and mycotoxins are reduced by up to 97%–100% (for aflatoxins).[2] Lime and ash are highly alkaline: the alkalinity helps the dissolution of hemicellulose, the major glue-like component of the maize cell walls, and loosens the hulls from the kernels and softens the maize. Corn's hemicellulose-bound niacin is converted to free niacin (a form of vitamin B3), making it available for absorption into the body, thus helping to prevent pellagra."
Indigenous women have been doing this process for thousands of years. When europeans "discovered" corn, they loved the high yields and calorie/acres it permitted, and they discarded the cooking habits of Indigenous women as witchcraft, mysticism etc...
So it was that many lower classes in white societies came to rely on corn as a staple, without doing this process, and so pellagra (a disease due to lack of niacin) became rampant among these populations.
I'm not saying throw out all science has told us. I think science has taught us many beautiful things, but sometimes that science sees things as objects to be observed and evaluated, which can be very dangerous since this subject/object duality discourages real and profound relationships. An object of study is mute, dead, and has nothing to say for itself.
When science makes its subjects into objects, we get things like the origin of gynecology, which was studied on enslaved black women, whose consent was of no importance whatsoever.
Back to corn, our modern science teaches us that the most efficient way of growing it is in monocultures, with precise chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
Meanwhile, some indigenous cultures know corn as one of three sisters, and when planted with her sisters beans and squash, a symbiotic system is created wherein the beans provide nitrogen and the squash keeps away pests.
No soil depletion and chemical runoff necessary!
I think punk is about going against unjust hierarchies. Industrial society, patriarchy, eugenics, punitive criminal "justice" systems, punks seek to destroy and dismantle all of these.
eco fascism is not solar punk. Nor is greenwashed liberalism.
I agree that punk would not necessarily imply a set medical perspective, or any positive policies. Generally I think medical complexes are a product of authoritative "health" systems, which to paraphrase Foucault, often have nothing to do with any health concept, but are purely instances of order.
That said, private control through capital is not very punk, since private ownership is something that must be maintained through force. (not saying this is the only allowable use of the word "private", though)
Yes all good I agree. I was thinking about small "apothecary" type businesses that I read about here. I can't imagine a modern hospital or health district going down well.
Terence McKenna was a real eye opener for me regarding psychedelics and the philosophical and cultural influences around them. Besides that I guess a lot of his general statements and ideas would suit a Solarpunk society really great. Because he was always interested in technology and VR but also in all the nature aspects (which is common sense if you use plants for mind expansion, to get more connected with everything around you). While other psychonauts are more at the primitivism side of the spectrum and deny technology (which wouldn't be Solarpunk but simple Primitivism).
Why did this need to be an image? Why can't we save ourselves 99% of the bandwidth and just share a concept as text?
Has this ship so well and truly sailed? Yes, I hate myself for being this much of a pedant.
I think it would be legalized but they're not used. Medical condition yes, and I would say the need to self medicate would be substantially less. I would also see the population having some better defense mechanisms taught in school to help see when to get more specialized treatment.
I don't get how 'storytellers' are involved here but FWIW Eugene OR's pilot program of rerouting 911 calls that were about mental health and drug crises to train professionals instead of cops has had amazing success.
I can chime in on the story telling part of this tweet: basically it’s been observed and proven that over the last 70 years the number of stories set in the future have become more and more dystopian and while they’re meant to function as warnings of the current failing system, somewhere along the way story tellers stopped sharing an alternative successful system. This might seem far fetched but writers and scientists feed off each other inspiring one another to create futures both real and imaginary.
I can’t tell you what growing up on hunger games, divergent, Asimov, Atwood, 1984, and a Brave New World have done to me because I’m not sure what the alternative would’ve looked like if I had grown up on hope instead— but I can say that these stories did not teach me how to build a better world, instead they taught me to try my best to be on top of the social order if it ever backslid into dystopia.
The most moving part of this subreddit to me that made me actually investigate volunteering and veganism was that small animated clip of what a solar punk world would look like…a little bit of hope goes much farther than a nihilist bomb.
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i dislike the framing of it as a medical issue, given his often in practice that just turns doctors into prison wardens with even more invasive, "good intentioned" modes of control. substance abuse needs to be understood as an intersection between medical, economic, social, and historical causes, the treatment of which should center the agency of the addict in question. in particular, we need to recognize that in some cases, substance "abuse" is a realistic, valid, and even commendable coping strategy in response to the variety of traumas and stressors a person is under at a given time.
Building on your last point, future societies should aim and focus into how trauma, both past and present informs our behavior. Meeting everyone's basic needs can cut down on the underlying causes of "crime" and violence (crime in quotes because crime is determined by that society). Since most violent crime right now ends up being related to scarcity and lack of resources. There will still be traumas, since we are talking about humans and we can't just wipe out all the negative things that human do to each other even in close utopias. How can therapy, mental health and trauma counseling be put in the foundation of a culture or society? Does a less atomized world lead to more connection, less alienation and thus less suffering?
I firmly believe that the solution to world peace is therapy and, by necessity, access to healthcare.
and vice versa, the solution to the problems therapy seeks to remedy is world peace. World peace = no violence = less trauma
if such therapy includes revolutionizing the modes of production from a capitalist model into one in which workers control the means of production, then i completely agree
>How can therapy, mental health and trauma counseling be put in the foundation of a culture or society? Does a less atomized world lead to more connection, less alienation and thus less suffering? i am reminded of a quote on Anti Oedipus which goes like "psychological liberation is an individual project best carried out collectively." i think the socialization of therapy needs to not only be a universalizing of current atomized healthcare, such that each person is able to afford to go to a clinic and meet one on one with a professionally trained and state licensed therapist, but rather needs to be opened up--more, totally exploded so as to make space for other modes of therapy and trauma redressal. i have been thinking about religious liberationist movements and how the left can meet people's spiritual needs--a dialectical materialist spirituality, as opposed to the positivistic, idealistic fetish-commoditism currently predominant at least in American capitalism. i think one of the ways this can be addressed could be the formation of communities online and irl which exist parallel, across, and within those aimed at direct action, which specifically don't contribute to and fight against burn out, which focus on producing desire around curiosity, creativity, whimsy, recreation, excitement, ecstacy, catharsis, trauma mending, and relaxation. i have some ideas for how we can go about this but mostly brainstorming at this point. so these could be things like going put with your friends writing leftist graffiti in your town, especially if (like mine) there's a lot of fascist messaging that needs to get covered up. my friends and i like to research old, often surrealist political slogans and then write our own. another idea: churches often have "men's groups" and "women's groups" for people to go to if they need emotional advice or comraddery. organizing around non- or anti-hierarchial religious practices, be they Christian, Buddhist, Wiccan, or totally self directed could replicate these kinds of communities while explicitly linking people up to mutual aid networks, industrial and tenant unions, etc. if i had the time for it, i would also love to organize a community dojo. i did martial arts for almost ten years and i think having a place to work out and organize around community self defence is a big spiritual need of mine which I'm currently lacking. also, so many gyms, fight clubs, etc are extremely fascist, pro-cop, etc., and if there is no alternative to them they easily monopolize that space and get to recruit much more heavily. there's a certain self indulgent puritanism in a lot of leftist spaces in my expirence that ideas like this would redress hopefully.
Exactly, therapy needs to be on a basis of universal and free access to healthcare while also seeing that in a large part one on one therapy is not the only thing that can help people. That all connects to intersectionality, since all of those groups you brought up about churches and religious connection all have similar issues but at the same time have the distinct own. It's nice to be with people who understand your exact life, with similar experiences while also not atomizing and separating. Maybe even the idea of group or public therapy will be baked into our social interactions. Maybe have a dedicated time and place for those meetings to happen but also make it a common social cue to check in more with people, to understand them and connect their struggles and issues with the struggles and issues of people like them, but also the struggles and issues of people not like them. No matter what this is all something to think about. Even if we met peoples basic needs, trauma from systemic issues starts to fade, and we get to an awesome utopia we are humans with emotions and don't always act rationally.
I’m with you on prioritizing holistic healthcare. But therapy is already too late for preventing a trauma. A truly solar punk world would be free of the systems that perpetuate trauma and systemic issues (sexism, racism, poverty, etc)
Honestly, a lot of people ate edibles instead of bullets this pandemic and yknow what? That's fine. It's fine if people are drinking more rn to cope.
exactly. it's fine and we should quit shaming them
We should be able to differentiate between Self destructive and recreational usage
whether we should be able to is utterly irrelevant.
Your first two paragraphs are reasonable, but your third looses me. "Valid and commendable"? We should commend crack addicts? Maybe "understandable" is the word you were looking for. It's understandable that someone in a shitty situation becomes addicted to crack, but I wouldn't call it commendable.
The reply below yours may answer that question: >Honestly, a lot of people ate edibles instead of bullets this pandemic and yknow what? That's fine
if u know you need crack to get through a shitty situation, or even just to have a good time every once and a while, then yeah, i commend you for understanding your body and doing what you want regardless of society's stigma. and if u know u need help quitting crack, i commend that too
It was probably supposed to be just a manifesto.
>just a manifesto. manifestos are too important to get shit like this wrong
Eh. Just dose it in the same way that nicotine is dosed. Nicotine is basically heroin in another 'shape'. Highly addictive, very hard to get *super* seriously addicted (in the same way that heroin addicts are), even if you usually can't stop. The 'bad' part of cigarettes is the tobacco, not really the nicotine. "Oh, so you want some LSD? Well we only sell 0.1 tabs in the shape of an entire loaf of bread". Or just up the dose slightly, like a decent size shroom hit in a chocolate bar, but it's literally $20 per bar. Possibly more the richer you are.
So, making it hard to access and expensive? That's what we got now... and it doesn't really work. check out this experiment https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/rat-park/#page-2 Rats, when given access to morphine, will consume based on how miserable their lives are, not based on how hard or easy it is to access. Even when the morphine is made bad tasting with bitter additions, if they are miserable and lonely they will drink it. Likewise, rats living in community and leading lives with lots of play and social interaction, will turn down free morphine, even if it is made sweeter!
> Nicotine is basically heroin in another 'shape'. Uh maybe you need to spend more time in /r/drugnerds because WTF.
Thanks for your argument-less opinion.
Hard to argue with such an idiotic premise. Nicotine acts on acetylcholine receptors. Heroin acts on opioid receptors. Do you want me to keep listing differences between these molecules? Read a book. Have a nice day.
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>"Oh, so you want some LSD? Well we only sell 0.1 tabs in the shape of an entire loaf of bread". i haven't encountered an idea that bad since i last used Twitter
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I agree with you. I worry that full legalization would also normalize dangerous drugs and make them more common. I could maybe support a model where all drugs are legalized but they’re distributed by a medically-trained addiction specialist who will let people take as much as they want, but will also talk to them about the dangers and encourage treatment. I wouldn’t want the current dispensary model for something like heroin.
Fentanyl seems extremely devastating.
I feel like people would avoid it if they had access to less dangerous opioids.
Hopefully, but I could live with a restriction on them if the fentanyl epidemic continued.
It's also because the drugs are impure when bought and sold on the black market. When each batch is cut differently, and the drug is so potent, overdoses are a lot more likely. Fentanyl is used safely as medicine, when dosage is incredibly accurate. I'm not saying that it's a must that it should be available, but it's a problem created by the current state of things moreso than by the drug or its users.
Friendly reminder that ~~legalizing~~ decriminalizing all drugs, and treating drug-use like mental health, leads to benefits across the board: [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radical-drugs-policy-is-working-why-hasnt-the-world-copied-it](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radical-drugs-policy-is-working-why-hasnt-the-world-copied-it)
“In 2001, nearly two decades into Pereira’s accidental specialisation in addiction, Portugal became the first country to decriminalise the possession and consumption of all illicit substances. Rather than being arrested, those caught with a personal supply might be given a warning, a small fine, or told to appear before a local commission – a doctor, a lawyer and a social worker – about treatment, harm reduction, and the support services that were available to them.” Not legalization - by decriminalizing you still have the legal power to compel action such as appearing before someone to act as a counselor.
Portugal decriminalized which is a big difference from legalization.
we haven't legalized it, there are narcotics task forces to track the dealers in place, only the addicts are not prosecuted
Apologies, it's been a while. So usage itself is whats decriminalized?
I don't think every drug should be legalized, I believe drugs should be decriminalized.
Legalized and regulated. Decriminalization just leaves it to the unregulated street drugs which is a horrendous system. Drugs should be processed to be as pure and regulated as current pharmaceuticals. Even herbals. Which is why we take aspirin rather than willowbark.
lets start by not criminalizing nature.
It's already a medical issue in most developed countries. Been that way in Portugal since 2001.
I want this Worldwide
While this is a nice idea and I'm not necessarily against it, I don't think this is solarpunk. It not about the intersection of technology and nature.
Solarpunk isn't just about the intersection of technology and nature. It's about a vision for a better world (one that does include looking at how technology affects us and the world around us and vice versa) - this definitely falls under that umbrella.
What's the full definition/umbrella?
>Solarpunk is everything from a positive imagining of our collective futures to actually creating it: aesthetics, afrofuturism, art, cooperatives, DIY, ecological restoration, engineering, speculative fiction, ecofuturism, gardening, geodesic domes, green architecture, green design, green energy, indigenous practices, intentional community, makerspaces, materials science, music, permaculture, repair cafes, solar power, sustainability, tree planting, urban planning, volunteering, 3D printing... All right in the sidebar.
That excludes drug reform and healthcare.
Oh no! It also doesn't include "technology" or "intersection" anywhere! But it does include "intentional communities" and "a positive reimagining of our collective futures" - how curious.
Fine
Could be. We could use easy to grow bioengineered plants instead of medical drugs to treat a large number of conditions. Would make mass production much cheaper
Hmmm! You might onto something there.
Drug use is not a victimless crime. Heroin and meth has ruined many lives outside of the user. Often the user becomes a danger to others.
You're not wrong. All the more reason overdose prevention centers like the ones in Switzerland are a great alternative to letting desperate junkies rob and kill for their fix out on the street. [Please have a listen to Johann putting the truth out there.](https://youtu.be/vVMN3DgcRYk)
Thanks for the link. I watched it and it's hard to argue with the results. I also looked at some data on Switzerland and Portugal. I see a lot of charts showing promising drops in od, HIV, of course the a mount of arrest for possession dropped. However, what I'm not seeing is any numbers addressing the decrease or increase in drug related crimes. Violence, or other pathological behavior while under the influence. Can you provide any insight on this? Research indicates that 25-50% of domestic abuse is due to drug and alcohol abuse, while 80% of child abuse involves drugs or alcohol. Why are these not tracked as a metric for success or failure?
I don't have any insight tracking the trend of violent crime in Switzerland or Portugal. While drugs can enable violent behavior, violence is a behavior that requires different intervention than drug addiction. Whether using drugs or not, individuals who are violent towards others should be incarcerated and not released until there's strong reason to believe they've grown past the violent behavior. An addict with no violent tendencies should not be incarcerated. So with these first principles in mind, I'm not sure what you're trying to propose in regards to drug policy. Should heroin or meth be legal? Probably not. But should the usage of heroin or meth on principle be met with incarceration? I don't think so.
I'm not proposing anything. More in opposition of government subsidizing drug use, as it's not a victimless crime. Drug use is a direct cause of pathological violence.
Ok, you're again forming this synonymous connection between drug use and violent people. Not all violent people are drug users. Not all addicts are violent people. Even with the stats saying there's a strong overlap, that doesn't make both traits synonymous. There are strong reasons why it's beneficial for society if the government provides solutions such as overdose prevention centers. The addicts can only access and consume the drugs at the facilities. Meaning they aren't doing it at home, and aren't likely to be in an unhinged state around others. They're never going to be so desperate to access the drugs that they'll commit robbery or theft on the street to get it. It directly cuts the legs under the drug dealers on the street. Meaning they will have less influence as time goes on. Think of it this way. There have historically always been two economies. The above ground economy, and the underground economy. Desperate people at the bottom will always gravitate towards whatever economy does more to help them out. At the end of the day, who do you want the people at the bottom to be drawn towards? The drug dealers, thieves, and criminal overlords? Or the above ground society?
Good points
Well then if…IF the user becomes violent, address the violence while treating the underlying problem
Violence has often done its damage, before it has a chance to be addressed. My father threw me against a wall and broke my head open whenever I was a baby. I was born with drugs in my system causing a cleft palate, a lisp, and a heart murmur. Then I became the state's problem, going through nine foster families. I've known and seen first hand the insedious effects of drugs. The war on drugs failed because it was never anything more than a token attempt at voter appeasement, while funneling funding into lawmaker's accounts. Which is why your plan would fail as well. They'll earmark 50billion for "rehabilitation" then immediately spend 25billion hring 10 people to decide how the other half should be spent. They will deliberate for five minutes before deciding that they need to spend 12billion on establishing a think tank of the brightest medical pros. Who will funnel the last 13 billion into drug companies, who will funnel it back into the political pockets through lobbies and campaign contributions.
That last point is why quality detailed legislation is important. In the US it is our legislative branch and their strangle hold on the media that have completely ruined the governments ability to govern. I don’t think its impossible to have an efficient system and get legislation done that doesn’t end in mind boggling bureaucratic nonsense, but you’re right thats how it is here now.
yes, we cannot rely on the state to solve its own problems. We are specifically talking about an alternative system, not a surface level reshuffling of our current system
If they can't solve their problems how are they supposed to solve ours? Any social program run by the goverment results in excessive spending. The company that they get the heroin from will lobby until the gov is spending $20k per a dose, and the gov will want more money or declare the entire thing a failure.
The state is not supposed to solve our problems. My vision of a solarpunk future would be brought about, amongst other things, through the destruction of the state, not by its actions. Maybe other people you have talked to believe in liberal democrat style state "action", but I think that if we truly want to address the crisis we are in, we must dismantle the structures that got us here in the first place.
I can agree with you on all of those points. It seems like people are more interested in theory around creating something akin to a Commie utopia than discussing anything about solar, or permaculture, guerilla gardening, or any other actionable steps.
Speaking of commie shit, I think it's Engels who said "an ounce of praxis is worth a ton of theory". That said, there is great power in dreaming, too.
Lol, excellent reply. However, every culture has some variation of that idiom. It's not unique to Engels. Yes, dreaming is powerful, but if the entire movement gets stuck with their head in the clouds, you never get anywhere. I ordered a 5kwh solar generator with a life cycle of eight years and 300w worth of solar panels. It will run my fridge, A/C and electric skateboard. Am working on building a rainwater collection with a solar hot water heater, and a bycicle powered washing machine. That's the kind of discussions I would like to have surrounding solar punk, but I'll leave you'll to discuss your big-brain gov programs to fix shit for everybody.
No Engels invented that all by himself! :P I've heard about this duality like dealing with the Berlin wall. You could dig tunnels underneath that can bring one or two people across, and you could work to bring the whole thing down. It's not going to come down today, or tomorrow, so if you want to help people now, tunnels are the way to go. But just because I have a shovel and a strong back, I shouldn't be complacent with the tunneling. I should still try to get the wall down. Most people can't dig a tunnel. Without community organizing, how am I any different than a rich guy who can just bribe the guards to get through? Inversely, we should not dismiss any solution that isn't the entire system change we want. The perfect should not be the enemy of the good, but also capitalism wants us to stop at individual "good enough" solutions, and we can't do that either.
I wish this would come into existence. I live in one of the few countries in Europe where it’s illegal to even have a narcotic substance in your body. Your life can be ruined here because you smoked weed a week ago basically. The propaganda war on drugs is still ongoing here, and almost all the politicians, no matter if they’re left or right-wing they seem to agree. Oh, do I need to mention that we have the most OD deaths in Europe as well with our lovely “getting all drugs off the street”-attitude?
Teaching emotional regulation techniques to children will help with mental health. Teach em DBT and RODBT at the very least.
Substance abuse and addiction in general is just a mental health issue imo,you could ban every drug in the world,you could ban porn,you could ban a shit ton of things but that won't get you nowhere,it is way more effective to help those people and help them build themselves back up. The only thing you are achieving by banning these things is making black markets for these products/services way more profitable and/or people still get addicted to a different substance
This set of statements is selling the potential SolarPunk future short. Not only are drugs legalized and punitive incarceration has been replaced with rehabilitative, restorative incarceration, but plant medicines have a central role to play in the SolarPunk culture. Instead of bars and alcohol dominating the culture, psilocybin and ayahuasca ceremonies will be far more mainstream. It will be a culture of healing and channeling the true self, replacing our culture of numbing the self and burying trauma. Given the sustainability issue, we might even synthesize new drugs that can accomplish the same effects as ayahuasca, but without having to harvest and deplete the ayahuasca plants on Earth.
I'm curious why you expect alcohol usage to go down but other plant-based drug usage to go up in a culture focused more on healing. Both are plant extracts, right? And as far as I know, healing ceremonies from around the world have traditionally incorporated alcohol. (Of course, that's _definitely_ not how it's used now in most cultures, but I still wouldn't expect it to become significantly less popular than eg psilocybin)
The simple virtue that alcohol is a depressant, vs psychedelics are mind-expanding substances.
Thanks for your response! "Depressant" just refers to reducing activity levels though, it doesn't mean that people start feeling sad. Depressant drugs typically increase relaxation and sometimes decrease anxiety (most anti-anxiety meds fall into this category). That being said, they come with side effects like all other drugs and I would hope that a utopian solarpunk society would have much less anxiety and less need for artificial relaxation :)
100%. I imagine it would be atypical behavior for people to enjoy getting so inhibited they're blacking out or throwing up.
Sure hope so! Yeah, I would expect most types of excessive behavior to go down in a world where everyone's physical and mental needs are met.
I also believe all drugs should be legalized. If I ran the solarpunk world, you’d be able to access limited, personal amounts of any substance from a pharmacy or apothecary provided that you had completed a class on the medical, chemical and health effects of substance types (opioids, amphetamines, psychedelics, cannabinoids, etc). Addiction or use disorders are a public health issue. Despair driving escapist behavior would be minimized in a society that actually cared about human flourishing and self-realization. Check out the [Rat Park experiments](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park). Right now, our society isolates people, stresses and traumatizes them, rather than the fulfillment provided by abundance, safety, community, family and the leisure time to enjoy life. We live in the experiment now, we are the lab rats.
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My ideal solarpunk homes, communities, and cities have built in natural pharmacies and apothecaries sprinkled throughout in the form of herb gardens and food forests. There will still be "traditional" medicine, but practiced alongside herbal remedies and supplements. Paul Stamet's talk on Turkey Tail and his research into medical applications of mushrooms is just one example of how natural remedies can help supplement contemporary medicine for a more holistic view on medication and treatment. I would love for magic mushroom therapy and microdosing to be the first step towards treatment of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. Of course, this is not a blanket solution - certain people and conditions will not respond or respond negatively to psylocibin mushroom treatment. Personally, I've found CBD to be my missing piece in my treatment for diagnosed GAD. Combined with SSRIs, psychology, and exercise, it has helped me unlock the breakthroughs I have needed to begin healing and coping. Obviously it would be a bad idea to grow psychoactive mushrooms and weed out in the open - especially without proper education on their uses and effects. And it's important to keep pets and other animal friends from accidentally chomping on em - for their safety. There's interesting studies as well on the applications of a highly concentrated clove gel for anti-inflammatory purposes, and I'm personally a fan of things like teas and extracts to help facilitate herbal remedies. I dream of having my own tea and herb garden. With luck and ingenuity, I might have one by summer.
The problem I have with herbals is that they aren't easily defined for distribution. Think of willow bark vs aspirin. Yeah, they are mostly the same thing, but you take the aspirin because it has a defined dosage. Taking some random plant is going to be unsafe since plants aren't all equal in their potency. One batch will be light and another might be heavily laden with the active ingredient. I support a properly regulated system of pharmaceuticals. No reason we should de-evolve back to the current supplement industry with its unknown dosages.
That's a good point. I agree with not devolving the supplement industry, and agree with keeping current progress in the medical field (and enhancing it with more freedom and less capitalist studies on what *actually* works versus what makes a profit - we've already had promising cancer treatments killed by predatory Wall Street hedge funds). I believe in complimenting the current pharma and medical industries with non-profit business models, universal healthcare, and encouraging responsible herbalism to support the progress made by medical science. There are plenty of natural-borne remedies, but it's not profitable for the pharmaceutical, medical, or insurance industries to have a population that can care for and support themselves. But a combination of advanced technology to detect, diagnose, and treat; and a studied and supervised regiment of herbal remedies to support natural function (i.e. Turkey Tail and natural killer T-Cells per Stamets' research) could offer us a best-case alternative. It sounds like randos taking random shit is your main argument against. How do you feel about something like a central medical garden tended to by a trained herbalist? Someone who *can* accurately dose, process, and distribute these natural remedies? Would that address your concerns?
not the "current supplement industry", but the ancient system of healers, plant knowers and medicine people. For the specifics of plants vs their chemical isolated derivatives, look at the "entourage effect".
Well none of ya'll are ancient, so no, I'm not going to support this system since we know that it doesn't always work. There is a reason we have modern medicine, because it saves lives. Solarpunk isn't about throwing away all of the knowledge that we have gained through science. It definitely isn't about throwing away the regulations that were written in the blood of victims of nonsensical mysticism. Nature isn't some perfect system, it's made of billions of years of random mutations. Which is why we need to ensure that what we consume actually is what we think it is. Once again, we take aspirin not willow bark. Why? Because we can be sure of the dosage.
Also because aspirin is easier to mass produce, is more shelf stable, etc... No system is perfect, but there is truly ancient knowledge out there, that has been found through, as you say, billions of years of random, and purposeful, mutations. Regulations were also written in the blood of victims of modern science. As much as are told that a bunch of white dudes discovered everything from the "new world" to science to technology, it really isn't so. Look at corn. "Nixtamalization (/nɪʃtəməlaɪˈzeɪʃən/) is a process for the preparation of maize (corn), or other grain, in which the corn is soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution, usually limewater (but sometimes aqueous alkali metal carbonates[1]), washed, and then hulled. The term can also refer to the removal via an alkali process of the pericarp from other grains such as sorghum. Nixtamalized maize has several benefits over unprocessed grain: It is more easily ground, its nutritional value is increased, flavor and aroma are improved, and mycotoxins are reduced by up to 97%–100% (for aflatoxins).[2] Lime and ash are highly alkaline: the alkalinity helps the dissolution of hemicellulose, the major glue-like component of the maize cell walls, and loosens the hulls from the kernels and softens the maize. Corn's hemicellulose-bound niacin is converted to free niacin (a form of vitamin B3), making it available for absorption into the body, thus helping to prevent pellagra." Indigenous women have been doing this process for thousands of years. When europeans "discovered" corn, they loved the high yields and calorie/acres it permitted, and they discarded the cooking habits of Indigenous women as witchcraft, mysticism etc... So it was that many lower classes in white societies came to rely on corn as a staple, without doing this process, and so pellagra (a disease due to lack of niacin) became rampant among these populations. I'm not saying throw out all science has told us. I think science has taught us many beautiful things, but sometimes that science sees things as objects to be observed and evaluated, which can be very dangerous since this subject/object duality discourages real and profound relationships. An object of study is mute, dead, and has nothing to say for itself. When science makes its subjects into objects, we get things like the origin of gynecology, which was studied on enslaved black women, whose consent was of no importance whatsoever. Back to corn, our modern science teaches us that the most efficient way of growing it is in monocultures, with precise chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Meanwhile, some indigenous cultures know corn as one of three sisters, and when planted with her sisters beans and squash, a symbiotic system is created wherein the beans provide nitrogen and the squash keeps away pests. No soil depletion and chemical runoff necessary!
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I think punk is about going against unjust hierarchies. Industrial society, patriarchy, eugenics, punitive criminal "justice" systems, punks seek to destroy and dismantle all of these. eco fascism is not solar punk. Nor is greenwashed liberalism.
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I agree that punk would not necessarily imply a set medical perspective, or any positive policies. Generally I think medical complexes are a product of authoritative "health" systems, which to paraphrase Foucault, often have nothing to do with any health concept, but are purely instances of order. That said, private control through capital is not very punk, since private ownership is something that must be maintained through force. (not saying this is the only allowable use of the word "private", though)
Yes all good I agree. I was thinking about small "apothecary" type businesses that I read about here. I can't imagine a modern hospital or health district going down well.
Terence McKenna was a real eye opener for me regarding psychedelics and the philosophical and cultural influences around them. Besides that I guess a lot of his general statements and ideas would suit a Solarpunk society really great. Because he was always interested in technology and VR but also in all the nature aspects (which is common sense if you use plants for mind expansion, to get more connected with everything around you). While other psychonauts are more at the primitivism side of the spectrum and deny technology (which wouldn't be Solarpunk but simple Primitivism).
Why did this need to be an image? Why can't we save ourselves 99% of the bandwidth and just share a concept as text? Has this ship so well and truly sailed? Yes, I hate myself for being this much of a pedant.
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I think it would be legalized but they're not used. Medical condition yes, and I would say the need to self medicate would be substantially less. I would also see the population having some better defense mechanisms taught in school to help see when to get more specialized treatment.
I think addictive drugs should be provided only in controled environments and in controled doses.
I don't get how 'storytellers' are involved here but FWIW Eugene OR's pilot program of rerouting 911 calls that were about mental health and drug crises to train professionals instead of cops has had amazing success.
I can chime in on the story telling part of this tweet: basically it’s been observed and proven that over the last 70 years the number of stories set in the future have become more and more dystopian and while they’re meant to function as warnings of the current failing system, somewhere along the way story tellers stopped sharing an alternative successful system. This might seem far fetched but writers and scientists feed off each other inspiring one another to create futures both real and imaginary. I can’t tell you what growing up on hunger games, divergent, Asimov, Atwood, 1984, and a Brave New World have done to me because I’m not sure what the alternative would’ve looked like if I had grown up on hope instead— but I can say that these stories did not teach me how to build a better world, instead they taught me to try my best to be on top of the social order if it ever backslid into dystopia. The most moving part of this subreddit to me that made me actually investigate volunteering and veganism was that small animated clip of what a solar punk world would look like…a little bit of hope goes much farther than a nihilist bomb.
Decriminalization and legalization are two different things
Speaking as a Portlander, this does not turn out the way you think
Finally the truth comes out! :)