Essay date: April 16, 2022



Critique of the Philosophy of Happiness

an open letter to Stanford Philosophy Department




The Philosophy of Happiness should be all ABOUT the Drug War and its highly debatable assumptions about the definition of true happiness.

n honest 'Philosophy of Happiness' is not possible in the age of the Drug War, especially when the said philosophy does not even acknowledge the existence of that war in its otherwise quite detailed introduction. For the Drug War is not value-neutral when it comes to happiness, but rather it is based on a highly debatable ideology: namely, that we have some sort of moral duty to be happy without using the criminalized substances that racist politicians have convinced us to refer to (or rather to denigrate as) 'drugs' -- and the even more debatable (indeed outright false) notion that the use of all such criminalized substances must end in poverty and ruin. To the extent that this latter belief is true, of course, it is because drug legislation is written with the goal of ruining the 'user' through loss of drug supply, loss of freedom, loss of job, loss of housing, loss of ability to get loans for education, loss of voting rights, loss of eligibility for welfare, etc. In short, legislation does most of the hard work of ruining the user, but the Drug Warrior is more than happy to superstitiously ascribe every bit of the user's downfall to the amoral substance that they have demonized as a "drug."

Yet, the introduction to this subject on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy website never mentions drugs but in a negative light, first by fretting that 'drug' use may bring about a kind of happiness that renders the user indifferent to the real world, and second by questioning the use of antidepressants which bring about a happiness which is expressed in ways that might be at odds with the 'user's' true original personality. Of course these are both important issues to cover, but they are scarcely the whole story. There is a whole world of drug use that involves neither the overpowering soma of Huxley nor the use of Big Pharma meds that change brain chemistry in unpredictable ways. There is the use of "drugs" to gain self-transcendence and to take a break from full-on reality. There is the use of "drugs" to focus the mind and to increase cerebral output. There is the use of "drugs" to appreciate mother nature, or music, or to better appreciate one's fellow human beings. There are even drugs to increase one's religiosity.

Take opium for instance, in the 19th century. In those days, one was not a scumbag for becoming happy through the occasional use of opium (happy both in using and, most importantly, in "LOOKING FORWARD to using opium") and even the regular users were referred to as "habitués," not as morally challenged "addicts" (the term which came into vogue only after the criminalization of the poppy). Yes, as many as 1 in 10 Americans were habituated to opium use in the early 1900s. But that's nothing compared to the fact that 1-in-4 American women are now chemically dependent on Big Pharma antidepressants today. 1 in 4. For the Drug War can outlaw specific psychoactive substances but it cannot outlaw the desire to be happy.

So how can we discuss an abstract philosophy of happiness in a world in which one's attempts to find happiness are strictly controlled by the federal government in this way? Stanford's apparent answer to this dilemma: Just ignore the government's role in controlling drug choices and pretend that we're studying happiness (its rarity, its causes, etc.) from a natural baseline, in a world, in short, where one actually has free access to the plants and fungi that grow at their very feet. Well, that's not the world we live in, and Stanford's course should not tacitly imply and/or assume that it is. When they do so, they are clearly implying that their "philosophy of happiness" presupposes the Christian Science ideology of Mary Baker Eddy, at least when it comes to psychoactive drugs, and this is a premise that should be acknowledged, not implied. Why? Because the idea that psychoactive "drugs" are bad is not a truth that naturally suggests itself to a person (at least not in the absence of daily Drug War propaganda), least of all to those who grew up say in a rain forest, surrounded by what they consider to be godsend plant medicine.

Sedation may mean happiness according to the self-interested definition of a Big Pharma chemist (the chemist who designed this very expensive poison for me, which was never originally intended for long-term use), but it is not happiness according to myself. For my philosophy of life (and what brings me happiness) is to know myself, and the world around me, to the extent possible, and to be as creative as possible and open to novel thoughts -- and not to be side-lined with drug-induced sleepiness.

Yet the government tells me that when it comes to psychoactive pharmacology, I can only improve my happiness through the use of the most dependence-causing substances on the planet, for many SSRIs are harder to kick than heroin (source: Julie Holland).

In short, a course about the Philosophy of Happiness should be all ABOUT the Drug War and its highly debatable assumptions about the definition of "true happiness" and how it is or is not to be obtained.

To ignore the Drug War in this course is like ignoring the fact that hammers have been outlawed when creating a course entitled A Philosophy of Nailing. Yes, there are other ways to "drive in" a nail than with a hammer, just as there are other ways to find happiness than with drugs (and/or with the mind-easing anticipation of their upcoming use). But there's still something very strange about creating a course about Nailing without even mentioning the 64,000-pound gorilla in the room, namely the fact that hammers in one's own society are actually illegal.

Finally, there is another soma than that mentioned by Aldous Huxley, namely, the naturally occurring psychoactive substance that inspired the entire Vedic religion. Had the DEA rushed in back then and outlawed soma, would we dare to write a philosophy of happiness in the ancient Indus Valley without even mentioning the fact that the history-changing soma plant had been outlawed?


ADDENDUM April 27, 2022

I thought I was complaining about one course, but I have searched the entire literature on happiness at Stanford and there appears to be no happiness-related course or intensely annotated paper that even mentions the Drug War, let alone speculates how it may conduce to unhappiness. This is why it's so hard to make a philosophical dent in the Drug War, because no one acknowledges that it exists. How does the Drug War prevent happiness? By denying the depressed either a vacation from self-doubt (with drugs like opium and psychedelics) or a way to override that self-doubt with raw motivation (with the coca plant). This reveals that Stanford views psychoactive drugs from the Christian Science perspective of Mary Baker Eddy, and yet that ideology seems so natural to them that they do not even consider it to be a bias.

ADDENDUM June 24, 2022

Nor is philosophy "above" drugs. Marcus Aurelius wrote his meditations under the influence of generous helpings of opium. Plato's view of the afterlife was inspired by a draft of the psychedelic kykeon at Eleusis. These philosophers never felt it necessary to acknowledge their indebtedness to plant medicines because it never occurred to them that there was something wrong or particularly novel about using them -- unlike the Drug Warrior, who sees the use of psychoactive plant medicine as a defining moment in one's life on planet Earth, one which immediately taints the user on moral grounds and casts doubt on everything that they henceforth do and say in the world.

The Links Police

Do you know why I pulled you over? That's right, because you were about to drive right by these related essays on the topic of happiness and the Drug War.

Critique of the Philosophy of Happiness
In Praise of Doctor Feelgood
The Politically Incorrect Cure for the Common Cold
Using Opium to Fight Depression
The Therapeutic Value of Anticipation

Next essay: The Menace of the Drug War
Previous essay: 'Intoxiphobia' by Russell Newcombe

More Essays Here


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...end the war on drugs. Shop today. And tomorrow.


Monticello Betrayed Thomas Jefferson


In 1987, the Monticello Foundation invited the DEA onto the property to confiscate Thomas Jeffersons poppy plants, in violation of the Natural Law upon which the gardening fan had founded America

The Drug War Censors Science - Bumper Sticker


Drive the point home that the Drug War censors scientists -- by outlawing and otherwise discouraging research into the kinds of drugs that have inspired entire religions.

Protest The Dea Bumper Sticker


Millions have needlessly suffered over the last 50 years because the DEA has lied about psychedelics, claiming that they are addictive and have no therapeutic value. Stop the lies, start the research.

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In a former life, I bought this bumper sticker myself. My friends got quite a kick out of it, as I recall!
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href="https://www.abolishthedea.com/">AbolishTheDEA.com

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You have been reading essays by the Drug War Philosopher, Brian Quass, at abolishthedea.com. Brian is the founder of The Drug War Gift Shop, where artists can feature and sell their protest artwork online. He has also written for Sociodelic and is the author of The Drug War Comic Book, which contains 150 political cartoons illustrating some of the seemingly endless problems with the war on drugs -- many of which only Brian seems to have noticed, by the way, judging by the recycled pieties that pass for analysis these days when it comes to "drugs." That's not surprising, considering the fact that the category of "drugs" is a political category, not a medical or scientific one.

A "drug," as the world defines the term today, is "a substance that has no good uses for anyone, ever, at any time, under any circumstances" -- and, of course, there are no substances of that kind: even cyanide and the deadly botox toxin have positive uses: a war on drugs is therefore unscientific at heart, to the point that it truly qualifies as a superstition, one in which we turn inanimate substances into boogie-men and scapegoats for all our social problems.

The Drug War is, in fact, the philosophical problem par excellence of our time, premised as it is on a raft of faulty assumptions (notwithstanding the fact that most philosophers today pretend as if the drug war does not exist). It is a war against the poor, against minorities, against religion, against science, against the elderly, against the depressed, against those in pain, against children in hospice care, and against philosophy itself. It outlaws substances that have inspired entire religions, Nazifies the English language and militarizes police forces nationwide.

It bans the substances that inspired William James' ideas about human consciousness and the nature of ultimate reality. In short, it causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, meanwhile violating the Natural Law upon which Thomas Jefferson founded America. (Surely, Jefferson was rolling over in his grave when Ronald Reagan's DEA stomped onto Monticello in 1987 and confiscated the founding father's poppy plants.)

If you believe in freedom and democracy, in America and around the world, please stay tuned for more philosophically oriented broadsides against the outrageous war on godsend medicines, AKA the war on drugs.

Brian Quass
The Drug War Philosopher
abolishthedea.com

PS The drug war has not failed: to the contrary, it has succeeded, insofar as its ultimate goal was to militarize police forces around the world and help authorities to ruthlessly eliminate those who stand in the way of global capitalism. For more, see Drug War Capitalism by Dawn Paley. Oh, and did I mention that most Drug Warriors these days would never get elected were it not for the Drug War itself, which threw hundreds of thousands of their political opposition in jail? Trump was right for the wrong reasons: elections are being stolen in America, but the number-one example of that fact is his own narrow victory in 2016, which could never have happened without the existence of laws that were specifically written to keep Blacks and minorities from voting. The Drug War, in short, is a cancer on the body politic.

Rather than apologetically decriminalizing selected plants, we should be demanding the immediate restoration of Natural Law, according to which "The earth, and all that is therein, is given to men for the support and comfort of their being." (John Locke)

Selected Bibliography

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  • Boullosa , Carmen "A Narco History: How the United States and Mexico Jointly Created the 'Mexican Drug War'"2016 OR Books
  • Brereton, William "The Truth about Opium / Being a Refutation of the Fallacies of the Anti-Opium Society and a Defence of the Indo-China Opium Trade"2017 Anna Ruggieri
  • Burns, Eric "1920: The year that made the decade roar"2015 Pegasus Books
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  • Irwin-Rogers, Keir "Illicit Drug Markets, Consumer Capitalism and the Rise of Social Media: A Toxic Trap for Young People"2019
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  • Miller, Richard Lawrence "Drug Warriors and Their Prey: From Police Power to Police State"1966 Bloomsbury Academic
    • Miller, Richard Louis "Psychedelic Medicine: The Healing Powers of LSD, MDMA, Psilocybin, and Ayahuasca Kindle " 2017 Park Street Press
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    • Noe, Alvin "Out of our Heads" 2010 HiII&Wang,
    • Paley, Dawn "Drug War Capitalism" 2014 AK Press
  • Partridge, Chiristopher "Alistair Crowley on Drugs"2021 uploaded by Misael Hernandez
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    • Richards, William "Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences Hardcover" 2015 Columbia University Press
    • Rosenfeld, Harvey "Diary of a Dirty Little War: The Spanish-American War of 1898 " 2000 Praeger
  • Rudgley, Richard "The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Substances"2014 Macmillan Publishers
    • Russell, Kirk "Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered" 1967 Arlington House
    • Schlosser, Erich "Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety" 2014 Penguin
    • Sewell, Kenneth Clint Richmond "Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S. " 2006 Pocket Star
    • Shirer, William "The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler" 2011 RosettaBooks
  • Shulgin, Alexander "PIHKAL: A Chemical Love Story"1991 Transform Press
  • Shulgin, Alexander "The Nature of Drugs Vol. 1: History, Pharmacology, and Social Impact"2021 Transform Press
    • Slater, Lauren "Blue Dreams: The Science and the Story of the Drugs that Changed Our Minds" 2019 Boston
  • Smith, Wolfgang "Cosmos and Transcendence: Breaking Through the Barrier of Scientistic Belief"0
  • Smith, Wolfgang "Physics: A Science in Quest of an Ontology"2022
  • St John, Graham "Mystery School in Hyperspace: A Cultural History of DMT"2021
    • Straussman, Rick "DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences " 2001 Park Street Press
    • Streatfield, Dominic "Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography" 2003 Picador USA
    • Swartzwelder, Scott "Buzzed: The Straight Facts About the Most Used and Abused Drugs from Alcohol to Ecstasy" 1998 W.W. Norton
    • Szasz, Thomas "Ceremonial Chemistry: the ritual persecution of drugs, addicts, and pushers" 1974 Anchor Press/Doubleday
  • Szasz, Thomas "Interview With Thomas Szasz: by Randall C. Wyatt"0
    • Szasz, Thomas "Our Right to Drugs: The case for a free market" 1992 Praeger
    • Tyler, George R. "Billionaire Democracy: The Hijacking of the American Political System" 2016 Pegasus Books
    • Watts, Alan "The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness" 1965 Vintage
  • Wedel, Janine "Unaccountable: How the Establishment Corrupted Our Finances, Freedom and Politics and Created an Outsider Class"2014 Pegasus Books
  • Weil, Andrew "From Chocolate to Morphine: Everything You Need to Know About Mind-Altering Drugs"2004 Open Road Integrated Media
    • Whitaker, Robert "Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America " 2010 Crown
    • Zinn, Howard "A People's History of the United States: 1492 - present" 2009
    • Zuboff , Shoshana "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power" 2019 Public Affairs
    Site and its contents copyright 2023, by Brian B. Quass, the drug war philosopher at abolishthedea.com. For more information, contact Brian at quass@quass.com.