Better Living Through Chemistry
Benedict Carey reports in The New York Times about a slight loosening by the anti-drug nannies in the magic mushrooms department:
If there's a drug for social phobia, maybe there could be one to help us relax in the company of death.Last month, the Food and Drug Administration gave the go-ahead to a Harvard University plan to study the recreational drug "ecstasy" as a treatment for anxiety in terminal cancer patients. Elsewhere, researchers in California are studying the effect of psilocybin - the active ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms - in similar patients. Both teams hope to learn whether the drugs, which can induce effusiveness and heightened awareness, will help people express and manage their fears in a therapeutic setting.
Although these illegal drugs are controversial, their use is a natural outgrowth of the medicalization of all emotional difficulty, from childhood shyness to adult phobias and depression. Doctors already prescribe antidepressants widely to dying patients, as well as anti-anxiety medications, like Valium, which can be emotionally numbing.The possibility of using potent consciousness-altering agents raises a question: At what point do the theological, cultural and personal significance of mortality become altered, or lost? Does going high into that good night risk mocking end-of-life customs - prompting rave flashbacks rather than life review, rude jokes rather than amends?
"I see death not only as an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of your own existence, but to offer your life as a gift to others," said the Rev. Donald Moore, a professor of theology at Fordham University. The end presents us with a time to ponder - and discuss, if possible - what life has meant and might continue to mean for others. Any drug that interferes with that experience comes at a steep cost, he said.
"If I never ponder these things," Father Moore said, "if I never face up to these questions intellectually, if I'm so spaced out it doesn't make any difference, then I think the experience is pretty empty and meaningless. In death we can become more a part of others' lives, and if I have decided simply to escape, I may have missed that opportunity."
How lovely that Reverend Moore has figured out the right way to die for the rest of us. Thanks, but I'll reflect on life while I'm alive, but as long as I'm going to be decomposing, I'll go for that "steep cost" he predicts of "going high into that good night."
Kind of like the advocate for natural (no anesthesics) childbirth who talks big until her own precious human cannonball comes ripping its way down the canal. First pangs of cancer and I'll bet the Rev is begging for any and everything in the medicine cabinet. Wonder if he tells his dentist...don't need no stinking novacain, drill it, big guy. Oh, maybe he's one of those pain me, baby, guys?
Harvard? I sort of remember this guy named Leary and something about giving a number of drunks this chemical that turned them inside out and got them straightened out, at least for a couple of days. That must be one crazy campus. Turning out corporate weasels, lawyer loons, and poli-sci panzers, while on the other side of the school lurks a bunch of chemistry heads trying to mainstream the stuff they took at their frat party last Friday.
Okay, so maybe I'm just bitter I couldn't get into the Ken Kesey Kool-Aid Acid Test when it came to the LB State cafeteria because I didn't have the 5 bucks.
allan at January 23, 2005 5:19 PM
"First pangs of cancer and I'll bet the Rev is begging for any and everything in the medicine cabinet."
My guess is that Rev. Moore is actually a big advocate for pain medication, just like all the other folks in the "Death is SO Interesting" Hospice movement (eg, Kubler-Ross and Cicely what's-her-name). But what he really DOESN'T want you doing is living fully until you die. He wants you to die a little, then wax poetic about it, die a little bit more, then look soulfully into the social worker's eyes, etc.
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