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Drug Prohibition and the Metaphysical Search for 'Real' Religious Inspiration

a review of essay number 6 in Hallucinogens: A Reader, edited by Charles Grob

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

June 26, 2025



The following remarks are part of a series of responses to the essays contained in the 2001 book "Hallucinogens: A Reader," edited by Charles Grob1. The comments below are in response to essay number 6: "Chemical and Contemplative Ecstasy: Similarities and Differences" by Roger Walsh, M.D., Ph.D.


Walsh confronts the metaphysical question of whether drugs "really" increase religiosity, but I contend that this is an ill-conceived question. It is based on the presumption that there is an identifiable one-size-fits-all "sober" state against which we are to judge the effects of psychedelics. There is no such paradigmatic ideal and baseline state however. Each individual has a unique biochemistry and psychology and life story that renders their reactions to life very different from those of their fellows. They already have drugs in their "systems," even if we consider them to be stone sober. Everybody has drugs in their system. That is their biochemistry. To ask about the role that chemicals play in producing a specific behavior or impulse is therefore misconceived -- for behavior is produced by the totality of inputs -- chemical and otherwise -- and the unique way that they interact in an individual at a certain time and in a certain environment and so on. The very term "biochemistry" reminds us that we are all on drugs all the time. The question is therefore NOT: how do those drugs effect us -- but rather how does the wide array of chemical and non-chemical incentives combine (with our upbringing, our psychology, our default biochemistry, etc.) to influence behavior?

Does mescaline increase religiosity? That is a meaningless question. The drug experience is dependent on a vast array of factors besides the use of mescaline by itself. This is why Sartre2 experienced hell on mescaline while many others (most notably Aldous Huxley) experienced pure joy. The outcome of drug use always depends on the unique combination of a vast array of inputs. We should therefore resist the temptation to reify psychoactive drugs as all-powerful causative agents that have one specific outcome of use.

Meanwhile, the idea that drug-aided religiosity is not "real" is highly problematic. It begs endless philosophical questions, such as:

1) If I sharpen my mind with the use of cocaine 3 4 5 and feel closer to nature for having done so (and therefore feel more "religious" according to my definition of that term), is that somehow not a "valid" religious benefit? Why not, exactly?

2) If morphine 6 gives me a deep appreciation of the intricacies of Mother Nature and I view this as a religious advancement on my part, in what sense am I "wrong"?

The moralist's attempt to say that drug-aided religiosity is not "real" reminds me of the materialist's attempt to tell us that drugs like laughing gas 7 and morphine 8 and coca and phenethylamines cannot "really" help the depressed. Both moralist and materialist are blinded to the obvious. The moralists are blinded by their preconceived ideas about what constitutes a "real" religion. In the case of the materialist, they are biased by the Behaviorist doctrine that real benefits must be discovered under a microscope and can never be seen by the naked eye -- or divined easily by common sense. Common sense tells me that laughter would help the depressed and that states of extreme concentration would help a writer -- and yet Drug War morality and materialist ideology both teach us to pretend that no such help is available, that such help is somehow illusory.

Of course, exceptions are made when money is at stake. Thus speed is rebranded as Ritalin so that we can give it to grade schoolers to improve their concentration levels -- but if we tried to improve the concentration levels of adults with speed, it is considered wrong and demonized as the use of "meth." It makes you wonder how stupid Drug Warriors think we are... and if they might be right about that, at least when it comes to substances that we demonize as "drugs."











Notes for essay entitled Drug Prohibition and the Metaphysical Search for 'Real' Religious Inspiration: a review of essay number 6 in Hallucinogens: A Reader, edited by Charles Grob:

1: Hallucinogens: a reader Grob, M.D., editor, Charles, Penguin Putnam, 2002 (up)
2: Sartre and Speed: a review of essay number 4 in Hallucinogens: A Reader, edited by Charles Grob DWP (up)
3: What the Honey Trick Tells us about Drug Prohibition DWP (up)
4: Sigmund Freud's real breakthrough was not psychoanalysis DWP (up)
5: “Freud on Cocaine : Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.” 2023. Internet Archive. 2023. https://archive.org/details/freudoncocaine0000freu/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater. (up)
6: Three takeaway lessons from the use of morphine by William Halsted, co-founder of Johns Hopkins Medical School DWP (up)
7: Forbes Magazine's Laughable Article about Nitrous Oxide DWP (up)
8: Three takeaway lessons from the use of morphine by William Halsted, co-founder of Johns Hopkins Medical School DWP (up)




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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




No drug causes addiction after one use. From this fact alone, it follows that even drugs like meth and crack and Fentanyl can be used wisely -- on an intermittent basis.

They drive to their drug tests in pickup trucks with license plates that read "Don't tread on me." Yeah, right. "Don't tread on me: Just tell me how and how much I'm allowed to think and feel in this life. And please let me know what plants I can access."

MDMA legalization has suffered a setback by the FDA. These are the people who think Electro Shock Therapy is not used often enough! What sick priorities.

We have to deny the FDA the right to judge psychoactive medicines in the first place. Their materialist outlook obliges them to ignore all obvious benefits. When they nix drugs like MDMA, they nix compassion and love.

Prohibitionists have the same M O they've had for the last 100+ years: blame drugs for everything. Being a drug warrior is never having the decency to say you're sorry -- not to Mexicans, not to inner-city crime victims, not to patients who go without adequate pain relief...

It is far better to "treat the symptoms" than to irreversibly modify brain chemistry in one particular way based on the theories of a financially-motivated biochemical determinist working for a pharmaceutical company.

Mariani Wine is the real McCoy, with Bolivian coca leaves (tho' not with cocaine, as Wikipedia says). I'll be writing more about my experience with it soon. I was impressed. It's the same drink "on which" HG Wells and Jules Verne wrote their stories.

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.

Ann Lemke's case studies make the usual assumptions: getting free from addiction is a morality tale. No reference to how the drug war promotes addiction and how banned drugs could solve such problems. She does not say why daily SSRI use is acceptable while daily opium use is not. Etc.

It's just plain totalitarian nonsense to outlaw mother nature and to outlaw moods and mental states thru drug law. These truths can't be said enough by us "little people" because the people in power are simply not saying them.


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