Homepage of the Drug War Philosopher, Brian Quass
blog icon orange rss icon with stylized radio waves bird icon for twitter bird icon for twitter substack icon


back navigation arrow forward navigation arrow


Charles Fort Didn't Know from Damnation

an open letter to Mitch Horowitz, author of Uncertain Places

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

March 2, 2025



Hi, Mitch!

My name is Ballard Quass and I have been studying the philosophy of the Drug War for the last ten years.

April 2025 Update

I am currently enjoying your book of essays entitled 'Uncertain Places.' 1

I am writing to suggest to you that the ultimate 'damned' facts today, in the Fortean sense of that word, are facts concerning the benefits of drugs. No facts are more totally damned. While UFOs and PEAR studies have been largely scorned by materialist society, one can now write about such things without being totally ostracized. But no one can write freely about common-sense drug benefits without being ghosted by mainstream society.

I have learned this the hard way over the last five years. During that time I have written hundreds of letters to top-ranked philosophers around the globe on this topic -- including many non-fiction authors -- and less than five have ever responded to me, and even then it was usually just a curt 'thank you' rather than the beginning of the productive discussion that I was hoping to facilitate by corresponding with them. Not only have my letters been ignored, but my posted comments have been blocked on websites that supposedly discuss drugs freely.

Here are just a few of the glaringly obvious drug benefits that no one is free to discuss these days without being totally marginalized:

1) The power of laughing gas 2 to cheer up the depressed.

2) The power of MDMA 3 to bring people together in peace and harmony.

3) The blatantly obvious power of opium to inspire and elate.

Indeed, before the west 'damned' upbeat stories about opium , the drug was considered an actual panacea.

This list of positive drug benefits could go on and on. Many of the benefits are just basic common sense, but again, materialists ignore common sense thanks to their adherence to behaviorist and reductionist principles.

When the FDA evaluates psychoactive drugs these days, it ignores all OBVIOUS benefits of drug use 4 . Not only that, but it ignores all OBVIOUS downsides of prohibition. This is because society has 'damned' all facts that point to such truths. Why? Because Americans have a 'previous commitment' to the Drug War ideology of substance demonization.

Meanwhile, our science mags tell us that depression is a tough nut to crack -- but that is only true because we have outlawed everything that obviously works for depression.

So thoroughly have such topics of discussion been 'damned' that I doubt that you yourself are going to respond to this email. I say this with all due respect, not because I know the first thing about you personally, but because I have written literally hundreds of letters like this to established authors over the years and few have ever responded -- and even those few have ignored the substance of my comments.



Nevertheless, I am enjoying your book... and I hope that you will contemplate my proposition: namely, that today's most fiercely 'damned' facts are those that concern the positive uses for drugs, closely followed by those facts that concern the negative effects of prohibition.

Thanks for your valuable time!

PS Positive facts about psychedelics are slowly approaching mainstream status in academia, perhaps, but no one dares point out that opium and coca have obvious positive uses, let alone the hundreds of phenethylamines synthesized by Alexander Shulgin 5 6. Meanwhile, Americans have been taught to think of daily opium 7 smoking as outrageous, while they tell us that we have an actual duty to 'keep taking our meds.' I would go so far as to say that Charles Fort 'didn't know from damned,' insofar as he wrote before America had damned psychoactive drug benefits wholesale. These kinds of drug-related facts are so damned that even Forteans themselves damn them, as is shown by their ongoing failure to respond to my letters to them on this very topic.



Author's Follow-up:

April 06, 2025

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up


It's been over a month and Mitch has not yet seen fit to respond. What delicious irony! As a Fortean himself, Mitch's failure to respond to my claims constitutes proof of their veracity. Positive talk about drug use is indeed the ultimate "damned" fact of all time!











Notes for essay entitled Charles Fort Didn't Know from Damnation: an open letter to Mitch Horowitz, author of Uncertain Places:

1: Uncertain Places: Essays on Occult and Outsider Experiences Horowitz, Mitch, Inner Traditions, 2022 (up)
2: Forbes Magazine's Laughable Article about Nitrous Oxide DWP (up)
3: How the Drug War killed Leah Betts DWP (up)
4: The FDA is not qualified to judge psychoactive drugs DWP (up)
5: Alexander Shulgin: American Hero DWP (up)
6: Shulgin, Alexander T, and Ann Shulgin. 2019. Pihkal : A Chemical Love Story. Berkeley, Ca: Transform Press. (up)
7: The Truth About Opium by William H. Brereton DWP (up)




read more essays here





Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




For most drugs, dependency is a bug. For Big Pharma antidepressants, it is a feature.

It is a truism to say that we cannot change the world and that therefore we have to change ourselves -- but the drug war outlaws even this latter option.

All drugs have positive uses. It's absurd to prohibit them because one demographic might misuse them.

ME: "What are you gonna give me for my depression, doc? MDMA? Laughing gas? Occasional opium smoking? Chewing of the coca leaf?" DOC: "No, I thought we'd fry your brain with shock therapy instead."

After a long life, I have come to the conclusion that when all the establishment is united, it is always wrong. (Harold MacMillan)

In fact, there are times when it is clearly WRONG to deny kids drugs (whatever the law may say). If your child is obsessed with school massacres, he or she is an excellent candidate for using empathogenic meds ASAP -- or do we prefer even school shootings to drug use???

Rick Strassman isn't sure that DMT should be legal. Really?! Does he not realize how dangerous it is to chemically extract DMT from plants? In the name of safety, prohibitionists have encouraged dangerous ignorance and turned local police into busybody Nazis.

The evidence has been in for well over a century now: people want to use psychoactive substances to transcend the rational mind. It's about time we stopped punishing them for that.

If you're looking for an anti-Christ, just look for an American presidential politician who has taught us to hate our enemies. Gee, now, who could that be, huh? According to Trump, Jesus was just a chump. Winning comes before anything at all in his sick view of life.

National Geo published an article entitled "Coca: a Blessing and a Curse." Coca was never a curse. Most people used it wisely, just as most people drink wisely. Doctors demonized it because it really worked and it could put them out of business. https://abolishthedea.com/sigmund_freuds_real_breakthrough_was_not_psychoanalysis.php


Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us






back navigation arrow forward navigation arrow
Book Cover

Break the ice with a sledgehammer: place this book on your coffee table.

This book features 150 annotated images, designed to force brainwashed Americans to confront the fact that drug prohibition is wrong. Here is what author Richard Parrish II says of the book's compiler: "The drug prohibition philosopher provides first-hand, principled, persuasive, and insightful arguments against the current drug prohibition regime..."

Purchase Your Copy
Book Cover

Diary of a Drug Fiend

This is the only full-cast recording of Aleister Crowley's 1922 classic paeon to common sense. It is the first book -- and so far almost the only book -- to stake out a philosophy of drug use that is compatible with human freedom, one in which we learn to use drugs as wisely as possible for the benefit of humanity. This recording was produced by the Drug War Philosopher and your purchases help support his effort to push back against the tragically counterproductive policy of drug prohibition, in the name of human freedom and of humanity's right to heal.

Purchase Your Copy



No cookies, no ads paid for by amoral and immoral billionaires (or trillionaires).


Unless otherwise indicated, no AI is used in the creation of site content. These essays represent the original ideas of their author and not the ideas that the author SHOULD have based on an algorithmic parsing of existing data. For more on this subject, consider the AI-related viewpoints to which the author subscribes as delineated in the New York Times opinion piece entitled "What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity" by Rebecca Winthrop of the Brookings Institution.

The Partnership for a Death Free America is a proud sponsor of The Drug War Philosopher website @ abolishthedea.com.


Copyright 2026, Brian Ballard Quass Contact: quass@quass.com

tombstone for American Democracy, 1776-2024, RIP (up)