Thomas Szasz on America’s Drug Forum pt.1of3
Szasz on Drug Prohibition and America. His the new book, ‘Our Right to Drugs: The case for a Free Market’ is a must read. this is audio only until i get a new tape.
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KidGotNiceWang says:
brilliant – just picked up ideology and insanity in oxfam
kevinneslund says:
He hits it out of the ball park every time.
Diazt3r says:
i love this guy ! very intellectual man
whiff1962 says:
I would strongly disagree with your “Noam Chomsky” parallel. However, you are spot on about his view of the individual in our current socio-political landscape.
daizee106 says:
With all due respect, there is no fucking congressman or senator that has a right to tell you, me or anyone what the fuck they can do as far as our bodies are concerned. Do you not trust your own self to dertemine what you need? The war on drugs is a war against the citizens of our country, period.
GwydionMapDon says:
Actually, I don’t mind pot so much. I think it should be legal. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t doing a drug if you smoke it; you are. Just like alcohol is a drug, and cigarettes, and caffeine. Let’s be honest about what we are talking about here, not dodge the term that best applies.
GwydionMapDon says:
If you get to make up your own definition, how dare you gainsay my definition or anyone’s? What gives you the right to enforce your arbitrary definition down other people’s throats? You don’t find that to hypocritical in the least? Sorry, wrong answer. If you want to keep to your own little definition, do so, but keep me and the rest of the thinking world out of it. Most of us prefer utility in language, which necessarily means using language as if it has some objective meaning.
jazzbobobo says:
Regardless people are going to smoke pot because it’s fun. Sorry about that, but you’re are gonna have to learn to deal with it or you’re gonna be annoyed about it for the rest of your life.
jazzbobobo says:
I am right. I didn’t make up the definition, even though somebody did get to make up the definition. yes, nicotine is a drug when ingested as a pill, or ManuFactured for human use in some other way than plucking it from the earth, rolling it up and smoking it. It’s all meaningless anyway. That’s my definition, and it’s true because I say it is, just like every other ‘truth’ is true because someone says it is.
GwydionMapDon says:
You’ve deduced nothing. A drug is something that is manufactured? No, not necessarily. I’m sorry, but you don’t get to make up your own definitions. Try picking up a dictionary. According to your standard, nicotine is not a drug when it is ingested from tobacco, but it is one when it is delivered in a pill? That’s nonsensical. A drug is defined by the EFFECT is has in altering bodily functioning. Marijuana has a greater effect than a caffeine pill and so is at least as much a drug.
GwydionMapDon says:
We account for that by calling it what it is: anecdotal evidence. Look that term up if you haven’t yet, it may help you one day.
jazzbobobo says:
drugs are manufactured, cocaine is manufactured therefore a drug, marijuana is not manufactured therefore it is not a drug. Simple, simple simple… O MY GOD that was easy to deduce.
podfunk says:
Szasz is an interesting character. You don’t have to agree with everything with he says but he delineates one extreme of a spectrum of debate about psychology. His arguments are basically about personal responsibility for one’s own action and being an adult: he’s a psychiatric Noam Chomsky you might say. His arguments go way beyond psychiatry and drugs and trespass far into the realm of politics. “Scapegoating is the metabolism of society” . Awesome. The man’s a philosopher.
GwydionMapDon says:
“There are chemicals in everything.”
Yeah, so does that mean everything is a drug or nothing is a drug?
GwydionMapDon says:
He said marijuana is not a drug; its a plant. Last I heard, the two were not mutually exclusive. Cocaine is derived from plants as well. The active ingredient, the canabanoids in this case, are IN the plant, just as they can be in other drugs.
daizee106 says:
Most of the stupid fuckers I know have never smoked weed. So how do we account for that?
rh001YT says:
FYI, marijuana does make people stupid. Because there currently are no stupidity tests this phenomenon has not been accurately profiled. Many test subjects, when high, do underperform on IQ tests. Some say they study better when high. That is do to the anxiety reducing factor in weed. If the anxiety was reduced another way the studying would go just as well or better. those who like the high of weed automaticly praise it – the weed itself causes a good valuation of itself via neurochemistry.
daizee106 says:
Brilliant Gentleman. Thank you for posting
Blackknowledge1 says:
This man speaks the truth. A wise man. The host doesn’t go indepth with his interview but marginalize and generalize.
spikkel70 says:
He is right. In Holland we say this is to measure with 2 metric systems
whiff1962 says:
The “protecting our children from drugs and the dealers” is a red herring, and immaterial to any discussion concerning the war on drugs. As Szasz says, it is not about children, it is about adults.
whiff1962 says:
I don’t know how many years Szasz practiced his brand of psychiatry, but he did get in some clinical work, an experience that informed his works. I suppose he became more academic thereafter.
molyneux1000 says:
I doubt he’d call his experience ‘clinical’ though I agree with your basic tenant.
efgeesus says:
brilliant stuff from szasz.
the guy voices his ideas so clearly and with vast logic.
it’s clear the ‘war on drugs’ will never ever be won and nor should it be.
funny how there’s no war on pharamaceutical drugs which cause a lot of harm such as neuroleptics and todays atypicals. they damage the brain.
does marijuana?no. does heroin? no
then of course theres the justice system which is clogged with drugs related convictions and charges. imagine how freed up it wld be if drugs were legalised
whiff1962 says:
Thomas Szasz uses his incisive intellect, and years of clinical experience, to give a brilliant analysis of the war on drugs, and the damage it has wrought.