Shane and I got some incredibly sad news this past week. A very dear friend, who I shall call D, from high school died of what we assume was a drug overdose. Whether she had intended to take her own life or not isn’t clear, but my impression from the family is that it was a suicide. Given that we run a site that promotes the use of illegal substances, you might think this news would make us reexamine our message. And it does. It makes us want to push our message even more, that some legal drugs are the most dangerous and some illegal ones are medicines capable of helping people. As I look back at what led to our friend’s passing, I can’t help but see the damage caused by the tragic failure of our drug culture in the U.S.
D was special. In high school she seemed to live a charmed life. People were drawn to her; she had this incredibly magnetic personality. She was genuine and could never hide what she was feeling, and she was warm and open and friendly. Her smile was incandescent. To be the recipient of her attention and affection was akin to basking in the sun. Words that come to mind when I think of D are smart, beautiful, wholesome, innocent. It seemed like all doors were open to her. No one would have expected her life after high school to turn out the way it did.
It All Began With Prescriptions
The trouble seemed to start when she left home for a college a couple of hours away. We were still close during this time, even though we were at different schools. My impression was that she found it difficult to be on the receiving end of attention from people she wasn’t familiar with. She had grown used to her high school bubble and was having trouble adjusting. It didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary for a freshman in college.
But then she quit school and came home after the first semester, partially due to a mysterious health problem that I now understand was likely a physical manifestation of crippling anxiety. She had severe pain for which doctors could find no cause. She was put on opiates after an exploratory surgical procedure. This sort of thing went on for years: the doctors would come up with another idea, D went through another round of tests and procedures, she would be prescribed opiates and seem better for a time, and then when the prescription ran out, more issues.
Shane’s Recollections
I seem to recall an incident in our early 20s when D mentioned she was still taking painkillers and the doctor expressed surprise and confusion that she still felt enough pain to continue with such potent medication. D used it as justification for the seriousness of a real, physical issue. I recall thinking at the time it was a sign of an addiction forming and was surprised the doctor didn’t do anything about it.
Of course, this was over 15 years ago when opioids were prescribed readily and without much oversight. Erin had her tonsils out a few months ago, and they gave her the bare minimum to get her through her recovery, and those were pretty weak. D was just allowed to keep getting more as needed because she was reporting they were the only thing that helped with the pain.
If you want more information about just how insidious opioids can be, and how badly they are handled in the United States, I recommend watching this clip of John Oliver from Last Week Tonight from back in 2016.
I remember Erin and I saying to each other back in college that we thought a lot of D’s issues were psychosomatic, but a therapist was never consulted as far as we know. It was as if D and her family thought that it being a mental or emotional problem was a sign of spiritual weakness. D and her family were very religious, and strict about it, too.
And now back to Erin.
The Cycle Continued
D and I were in touch to varying degrees over the years. She would go to rehab and re-emerge into the world and do okay for a while. Hold down a job, date a nice guy. But she could never hold onto that for long. She just struggled. Everything was harder for her than it seemed like it should be…it was baffling to me then.
Looking back on it now, I realize that some of the same qualities that made her so appealing also made her unable to cope with life outside of the comfortable confines of high school. Now I keep thinking that she was going through life without the protective outer shell that most of us have. Everything affected her so deeply, and she felt the need to numb herself in order to cope.
D Discovered Marijuana
D had a boyfriend who introduced her to marijuana.
For a while this actually worked really well for her. She found it calmed her anxiety enough so that she could do the things that are expected of an adult. The year or more that she was a regular pot smoker was the longest she was able to sustain a “normal” life after college.
Unfortunately, when her parents found out about the marijuana use they kicked her out of the house. To be clear, her parents loved her and thought they were doing the right thing because All Drugs Are Bad. Al Anon had taught them that the only way to help her was zero tolerance and tough love.
All of this was before Shane and I had any drug experience ourselves (other than a few marijuana experiences, so we understood at this point how mild marijuana was). It seemed like if marijuana was helping her function, what was the harm? Surely it was better than being addicted to prescription painkillers.
But all that “gateway drug” nonsense was very pervasive and was touted as absolute truth.
With nowhere else to go, D went back into rehab…because of her marijuana use.
Rehab Is Where the Real Problems Began
During her stay in rehab this time, she hooked up with a guy who was in rehab for heroin use. When they left the rehab together, she now had access to street drugs like never before and became addicted to heroin.
During the years that followed, she was in and out of increasingly bad relationships and living situations. At one point she detoxed at our house for a week because she had nowhere else to go. We wanted to help but didn’t know how. We felt like we were on suicide watch and ill-equipped to provide the support she needed.
It has been a few years since I last spoke to her. She was living with a new boyfriend and had rekindled the relationship with her family the last time I saw her. Things seemed relatively stable again. But then about two months ago, her boyfriend passed away from an overdose. This being during the pandemic meant that she was all alone, which was always hard for her even under the best of circumstances.
We received the news from another high school friend that she had passed. It’s still a bit of a shock.
How Things Could Have Been Different
Shane and I both wonder how things might have been different if our drug culture were different.
If marijuana hadn’t been villainized, if psychedelic use was approved in therapeutic settings (especially in regards to treating addiction). It could have been life-changing for her.
What if she had had legal access to marijuana back in college when her anxiety first ramped up? Or if throughout her years in therapy, a doctor had been able to offer her psychedelic treatment? The only thing that the medical community had to offer her were opiates, which took a bad situation and made it catastrophic.
So I am left with the image of my friend as she was in high school, happy and generous and warm-hearted, before she was beaten down by a world that ended up failing her. I will try to remember her like that and hope that she has found peace at last. But I also hope that we can do better for the people who struggle the way that she did. We need to do better.
Shane’s Info Dump
And I’m back.
At Erin’s request, here’s some additional information.
I’ll start with a suicide prevention hotline: 1-800-273-8255.
Please, please, please if you are ever in a situation where you are considering self harm, reach out to someone. Had D reached out to us, we could have at least made her feel like she wasn’t alone. There’s even a Twitter account.
Second, I’m going to follow up with some resources about using psychedelics as a form of therapy:
- Check out the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), which is performing a variety of research on MDMA, marijuana, and other psychedelics. They have a bunch of research on their website, including
- Can Psychedelics Really Help Fight Addiction?
- Psychedelics: Entering a New Age of Addiction Therapy
- The Benefits and Effects of Using Marijuana as a Pain Agent to Treat Opioid Addiction—from the abstract: “In essence, marijuana suppresses cravings induced by opiates and controls opioid withdrawal syndromes….The current literature review concludes that the use of marijuana for opioid addiction is safe and effective.”
I don’t agree with how addiction is often handled in this country, with people with the addiction being vilified and blamed for having a lack of willpower. Addiction treatment mentality often has a zero-tolerance policy for any substance, even those that might do some good.
MAPS and other researchers are doing the work to change how therapy and addiction are treated, and they are doing so with proper scientific research. In another few years, maybe there will be better treatment options for people like D. I can only hope.