an open letter to Bence Szaszko and Ulrich S. Tran
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
April 28, 2025
his morning I saw a paper in Academia.edu entitled "The mind's abyss: exploring the adverse effects of distinct forms of meditation.1" This is one of the endless series of "scientific" papers that are written based on the crazy idea that drug prohibition provides a natural baseline for research in the realm of psychology and consciousness. It is galling to me because such papers are wrapped up in the trimmings of "science" -- footnoted and professionally vetted to a "t" -- and so garner thousands of academic "hits" -- and yet essays that remind us about the false presumptions of such work are exquisitely ignored -- not just by "pay to play" but by "professionalize to play."
Here is a letter that I wrote to the dual authors of the paper in question: Bence Szaszkó and Ulrich S. Tran.
With respect, I would point out that there is an irony in focusing on the downsides of meditation in the age of the Drug War. We have outlawed all of the psychoactive substances that William James himself told us to use in order to study the meditative states234. Now, without even mentioning that prohibition, we are attacking the meditative state itself.
There is an agenda at work here, an agenda to pathologize human transcendence. It is the unearned victory of materialism and fear mongering with the help of drug law. Until we start holding the Drug War responsible for this self-censorship on the part of academia, science will remain a handmaiden of Drug Warriors and purblind materialists.
If you truly believe that Drug Prohibition is a natural baseline from which to study the human condition, a disclaimer should be added to your papers to that effect -- since such a conclusion is by no means common sense.
AFTERWORD
The question of meditation downsides is interesting and no doubt even important. But there is something odd about focusing on that subject in a world in which we have outlawed all other forms of transcending the self -- in a world where we refuse to even mention that prohibition because we consider it to be such a natural prohibition.
It is as if a society had a long-time prohibition against all food except gruel --- and then one day the scientists began questioning whether gruel itself was good to eat. Perhaps it is not. But surely the big story of the time is that all other food was outlawed, not that the exclusive use of gruel for nutrition was problematic!
The Szaszkó and Tran paper is just one example of the endless content being cranked out today by academia and non-fiction writers in America: its merit depends entirely on whether or not you are willing to pretend along with the authors that drug prohibition does not exist and that it has no consequences in the realm of psychology and consciousness. Well, the fact is that drug prohibition DOES exist and that it has drastically censored our science on such subjects -- and until scientists and authors acknowledge this fact -- until they acknowledge that the Drug War exists and has pernicious effects -- then science will remain censored in fealty to the Drug War ideology of substance demonization.
Note that I am not insisting that the authors do not make any important points: I am merely pointing out that the publication of such papers in the age of the Drug War begs the following question: why is the author silent about the legislated censorship of the free study of human consciousness and self-transcendence? I find it impossible to focus on the details of any paper that ignores that great injustice and thereby censors endless details whose elucidation might have cast a very different light on the subjects under discussion.
Censorship
The Drug War is all about censorship. If you don't believe it, just ask yourself how many movies and magazine articles you've seen about the safe and wise use of opium, or of coca, or of MDMA, or of psychedelics. As Carl Hart reminds us, most people use these drugs wisely, but you will not see such use portrayed in movies or books. Instead, you will see books and movies in which drugs are personified as evil incarnate in the form of "Cocaine Bears" and "Meth Gators." This is because the drug-war propaganda of censorship has rendered Americans childish about drugs. The American government is all about keeping us infantile in this way. The government is engaged in a full-blown campaign of drug-related censorship, with the White House actually working with TV producers to spread the party line on drugs in TV shows. That is why we have a National Institute on Drug Abuse and not a National Institute on Drug Use.
Meanwhile, the government's FDA refuses to approve MDMA, a drug which has killed no one, properly speaking, and yet they approve Big Pharma drugs whose side effects as announced on prime-time television include death itself, this in a world in which liquor causes 178,000 deaths a year. This is the same FDA that approves brain-damaging shock therapy for the depressed while refusing to sign off on naturally occurring drugs that could make ECT unnecessary. This fact is obvious. Common sense itself screams out loudly and clearly that this is so. But scientists ignore common sense these days for two reasons: first, because of their fealty to the drug war ideology of substance demonization, and second because of their stubborn belief in the inhumane tenets of behaviorism, which tell us that user feelings and opinions do not matter when it comes to studying drug use, that all that counts is quantifiable data about brain chemistry and genetics.
By the way, if you want to be personally censored, just try publishing an article about safe and wise drug use online -- say, about the wise use of opium. Such accounts are simply not allowed by most publishers -- not because they are not true, but because they spread a message that is contrary to the drug-war ideology of substance demonization and so must be suppressed. I myself have been blocked numerous times from posting comments and publishing articles simply because I point out positive real uses of drugs -- safe and productive drug use that has actually taken place despite the fact that the government does everything it can to make drug use risky by refusing to regulate product and refusing to teach safe use. The Mad in America website solicits life stories from victims of the psychedelic pill mill, but they refuse to publish mine, despite the fact that I have used such drugs for 40 years now. The life story that I submitted to them contained neither lies nor proselytization, and yet the organization told me that it might be seen as medical advice. This is how publishers shut down free speech about drugs, by claiming that factually honest accounts about drug use constitute medical advice.
They will then tell us that we should see our doctors about such topics -- failing to realize that it was our doctors themselves who rendered us dependent on Big Pharma to begin with! Their drugs cause greater dependence than anything nature has to offer, and yet we are only allowed to discuss drugs with these folks whose entire careers depend on the psychiatric pill mill itself!
This is why I say that the drug war is a cancer on the body politic and must be eliminated if Americans want to restore democracy and make it last this time.
If we need to censor any speech, it should be the speech of drug warriors. They are the ones who advocate policies that have turned inner cities into shooting galleries around the world and resulted in the disappearance of 60,000 Mexican citizens in the last 20 years, while turning the rule of law into a joke in much of Latin America.
What am I advocating after all? Merely intellectual and spiritual freedom. Merely the end of censorship. Merely the renewed freedom of religion. Merely the return of freedom of speech. Merely the informed use of psychoactive drugs, especially entheogens like MDMA, to help bring people together in this age when hate has put our species on the brink of nuclear annihilation.
And yet I am beyond the pale? Say rather that the Drug War Industrial Complex is beyond the pale -- supported as it is by the same sort of short-sighted idiots who made the criminal decision in the 1950s to develop thermonuclear weapons, the same people who were to denounce the peace-loving 'flower children' of the next decade as Communist subversives.(Drug Warriors hated both "summers of love" -- the U.S. version in the 1960s and the U.K. version in the 1990s, and used drug hysteria to quash both and to turn the world into haters. After they cracked down on Ecstasy in the U.K., the dance floors erupted into such alcohol-fueled violence that event organizers had to hire special forces troops to keep the peace.)
Incidentally, anyone who doubts our society's willingness to suppress free speech need only look at the blacklisting of Americans by HUAC in the 1950s. It must be remembered that this persecution of dissenters was not based on the outing of any supposed criminal activities that they had committed but rather on their mere championing of ideas that were anathema to the powers-that-be. The government loves censorship and always has.
And the Internet Age has not changed anything. To the contrary, it has rendered censorship far more easy and efficient for cowardly publishers thanks to the use of algorithms written anonymously by philosophically challenged techies.
High suicide rates? What a poser! Gee, I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that the US has outlawed all substances that elate and inspire???
Drug-designing chemists have no expertise in deciding what constitutes a cure for depression. As Schopenhauer wrote:
"The mere study of chemistry qualifies a man to become an apothecary, but not a philosopher."
The front page of every mycology club page should feature a protest of drug laws that make the study of mycology illegal in the case of certain shrooms. But no one protests. Their silence makes them drug war collaborators because it serves to normalize prohibition.
The American Philosophy Association should make itself useful and release a statement saying that the drug war is based on fallacious reasoning, namely, the idea that substances can be bad in themselves, without regard for why, when, where and/or how they are used.
I might as well say that no one can ever be taught to ride a horse safely. I would argue as follows: "Look at Christopher Reeves. He was a responsible and knowledgeable equestrian. But he couldn't handle horses. The fact is, NO ONE can handle horses!"
Today's drug laws tell us that we must respect the historical use of sacred medicines, while denying us our personal right to use them unless our ancestors did so. That's a meta-injustice! It negatively affects the way that we are allowed to experience our world!
Drug prohibition is the biggest tyranny imaginable. It is the government control of pain relief. It is government telling us how and how much we are allowed to think and feel in this life.
Imagine if we held sports to the same safety standard as drugs. There would be no sports at all. And yet even free climbing is legal. Why? Because with sports, we recognize the benefits and not just the downsides.
It's disgusting that folks like Paul Stamets need a DEA license to work with mushrooms.
If there is an epidemic of "self-harm," prohibitionists never think of outlawing razor blades. They ask: "Why the self-harm?" But if there is an epidemic of drug use which they CLAIM is self-harm, they never ask "Why the self-harm?" They say: "Let's prohibit and punish!"
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, Demonizing Human Transcendence: an open letter to Bence Szaszko and Ulrich S. Tran, published on April 28, 2025 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
his morning I saw a paper in Academia.edu entitled "The mind's abyss: exploring the adverse effects of distinct forms of meditation.1" This is one of the endless series of "scientific" papers that are written based on the crazy idea that drug prohibition provides a natural baseline for research in the realm of psychology and consciousness. It is galling to me because such papers are wrapped up in the trimmings of "science" -- footnoted and professionally vetted to a "t" -- and so garner thousands of academic "hits" -- and yet essays that remind us about the false presumptions of such work are exquisitely ignored -- not just by "pay to play" but by "professionalize to play."
You have been reading an article entitled, Demonizing Human Transcendence: an open letter to Bence Szaszko and Ulrich S. Tran, published on April 28, 2025 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
