“Since time immemorial, people have used drugs for the simple reason to make themselves feel better – whatever ‘better’ means….”, says Dr Thomas Szasz with a wry smile and a heavy Hungarian accent in his lecture ‘The Right to Take Drugs’.

To put it another way, it’s ok to feel good. It’s even good to feel good. In fact, the right to feel good is about your autonomy, your body, and your mind, and if you’re an American it’s your constitutional right: to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Euphoria is a good thing. Yes, euphoria is a good thing. That something so straightforward and self-evident needs to be spelled out and repeated as the entire political spectrum across the West continues to collectively lose sight of this most basic of truths again and again and again is a testament to how our societies have got horribly and worryingly screwed up.

One of the greatest freedoms, abilities, or gifts we have as humans is our capacity to alter our mood and consciousness at will through the use of drugs – be they synthetic, semisynthetic, or natural.

As people who are into cannabis, that makes our willingness to be swept up in the escalating, relentless, ever-increasing pathologising and medicalizing of everything – and most especially of ‘drugs’ and ‘drugs users’ – not just fucking stupid but profoundly sinister….

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Rant continued at Thomas Szasz: The Right to Get High…