how scientists pretend that the drug war does not exist
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
February 3, 2023
When Galileo was censored by the church in 1633 for his heliocentric views on astronomy, he knew he was censored. The Chief Inquisitor, Father Vincenzo Maculani, left no doubt about that. Not only was Galileo sentenced to house arrest, but many of his writings were banned and he had to publicly renounce his ecclesiastically incorrect views. He was even forced to recite The Seven Penitential Psalms once a week for three years.FN0054 (That'll teach him!)
His fate has since become a cause célèbre for scientists everywhere, who bristle at modern-day restrictions on their own research, always with this 17th-century backstory in mind. "Never again" seems to be their motto as they scoff at the benighted clerics of the past.
What they fail to realize, however, is that science today is censored every bit as much as it was censored in Galileo's time. In fact, today's censorship is worse because it is self-censorship on behalf of an ideology: namely, the ideology of the Drug War, which tells us that most psychoactive substances have no positive uses whatsoever, not for anyone, anywhere, at any time, for any reason, at any dose, ever. The fact is, of course, that there are no such substances in the world. To say otherwise is to ignore both science and history. Even cyanide has positive uses. Moreover, some of the medicines that we're talking about here (like Soma, coca and ayahuasca) have inspired entire religions. How can they not be without reasonable uses?
Meanwhile, psychedelic medicines can increase neuronal connectivity and even grow new neurons in the brain, but scientists are highly discouraged from following up such leads, since the outlawing of such substances scares away most potential research funders, including the government itself. But the Drug Warrior's claim that psychoactive substances have no good uses is a self-fulfilling prophecy, for Drug War prohibition keeps scientists from looking for the very positive uses which the Drug Warrior has told us do not exist.
For some concrete examples of how scientists ignore the Drug War, consider the following articles about the mind from Science News. None of these articles even mention the existence of the Drug War, let alone the fact that it outlaws hundreds of psychoactive medicines whose considered use could change the very way that we think about the brain and consciousness. These articles are therefore written without the customary scientific disclosure. The authors are pretending to write from a natural baseline, when the government has actually forced them to look for only certain kinds of answers to their scientific questions, namely those that promote a materialist view of the mind, of consciousness, and of the world at large.
Recent Science News articles about human psychology and the mind
"Psychology has struggled for a century to make sense of the mind"FN0048
MY COMMENT: No wonder, considering that the Drug War has outlawed all the medicines that can give us experiential hints about the nature of mind and consciousness. William James' entire philosophy was inspired by his use of laughing gas FN0055, yet today's scientists and philosophers are forbidden from following up his work because the Drug War will not allow them to "go there."
"50 years ago, an experimental drug hinted at serotonin's many roles in the brain"FN0049
MY COMMENT: The author who cites these experimental "hints" from the 1970s fails to tell us that such research (combined with Drug War prohibition) eventually led to the biggest pharmacological dystopia of all time, thanks to which 1 in 4 American women are now dependent on Big Pharma 12 "meds" for life. Once again, we see the propaganda of omission at work in the Drug War.
"Our brains, our future -- how we might heal our brains"FN0050
MY COMMENT: Spoiler alert: the healing in question will not be provided by those naughty medicines that politicians have told us have no good uses whatsoever.
"Brain Zapping Implants are inching closer to reality"FN0051
MY COMMENT: I think I'd say that they're "creeping" closer to reality instead. Scientists muck about with implants and zap the brain, but they will not even consider the possibility of using time-honored medicine to improve mood. This brain zapping sounds like a "kinder, gentler version of Electroshock therapy" to me, which amazingly is still used today. ECT is a crime against humanity in the age of the Drug War, since we never use such treatment as a last resort, but rather because our government has forbidden the use of godsend substances that have cheered up entire societies (like the Inca with coca) and inspired entire religions (like the Vedic with Soma).
"Brain discoveries open doors to new treatments"FN0052
MY COMMENT: Materialists continue to cast about for "new" treatments, while the mere existence of time-honored old treatments is no longer even acknowledged. Career advancement first, after all, science second.
"U.S. drug deaths dipped in 2018, but cocaine 34 and meth overdoses rose"FN0053
MY COMMENT: The only time that Science News comes close to mentioning the Drug War is when they publish an alarmist article on "drug use," in which they uncritically promote the view that the use of demonized psychoactive substances can only lead to despair and death.
Yes, Science News does publish the occasional upbeat story about the potential use of psychedelics to help the depressed, but they continue to play ball with the Drug War by implying (mostly by the omission of all contrary facts) that demonized substances really do have no good uses for anyone ever. That's not just a lie, but it's an anti-scientific lie, one that a scientific organization should not countenance.
Why this lack of concern about the Drug War that's killing Mexicans even as we speak and causing record crime sprees in inner cities thanks to the incentivization of violent black markets?
The roaring silence from scientists no doubt springs in part from the fact that they have a materialist bias and so are in no hurry to sign off on substances whose use simply makes a depressed person feel good. Materialists do not care if someone feels good, they want to know if they REALLY feel good, by which they mean, "Do we see the relevant changes in brain chemicals?" That's why psychiatrist Dr. Robert Glatter could ask with a straight face in his 2021 article in Forbes magazine, "Can laughing gas 5 help with treatment resistant depression?"
Conclusion
In preparation for writing an objective book about coca in 1901, author W. Golden Mortimer sent out 10,000 queries "to professors in the several medical colleges, and to those prominent in local medical societies," in order to learn their thoughts about the properties of coca. This was before the "official" beginning of the Drug War in 1914, when the Harrison Narcotics Act first violated natural law by effectively outlawing a plant medicine, namely opium 6 . And yet a sizable percentage of the author's respondents were already approaching the topic from a "moral" point of view, telling Mortimer that he was wrong to be publishing such a factual book because it might lead to more use of a substance whose use conduced only to immorality. Some of the respondents held this view although they readily admitted that they had no firsthand knowledge of the drug whatsoever, but had "a vague fear of insidious danger which they were not prepared to explain, and even preferred not to inquire into."FN0056
It's odd how many scientists assume moral airs when it comes to the study of naturally occurring medicines and yet they have no problem whatsoever with the ongoing scientific study of weapons of mass destruction, like thermonuclear bombs, such as the one that was accidentally dropped on Goldsboro, North Carolina in the '60s. (You know, the H-bomb which came close to obliterating at least half of the East Coast of America, Washington, DC included). When it comes to technology, we're told that it can't be stopped, that its ongoing widespread use is inevitable - but when it comes to medicines that have inspired entire religions, we're told that it's immoral to even understand them. For in the age of Drug War censorship, science is a handmaiden of the government, advancing its pernicious policy of substance demonization. As long as modern scientists are in denial of this fact, they have no right to get on a high horse about the Church's treatment of Galileo in 17th-century Rome.
How else will they scare us enough to convince us to give up all our freedoms for the purpose of fighting horrible awful evil DRUGS? DRUGS is the sledgehammer with which they are destroying American democracy.
When the FDA tells us in effect that MDMA is too dangerous to be used to prevent school shootings and to help bring about world peace, they are making political judgments, not scientific ones.
Two of the biggest promoters of the psychedelic renaissance shuffle their feet when you ask them about substance prohibition. Michael Pollan and Rick Strassman just don't get it: prohibition kills.
America created a whole negative morality around "drugs" starting in 1914. "Users" became fiends and were as helpless as a Christian sinner -- in need of grace from a higher power. Before prohibition, these "fiends" were habitues, no worse than Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson.
To say that taking SSRIs daily is better than using opium daily is a value judgement, not a scientific one.
Let's arrest drug warriors, confiscate their houses, and deny them jobs in America -- until such time as they renounce their belief in the demonstrably ruinous policy of substance prohibition.
Malcolm X sensed an important truth about drugs: the fact that it was always a self-interested category error for Americans to place medical doctors in charge of mind and mood medicine.
Materialists are always trying to outdo each other in describing the insignificance of humankind. Crick at least said we were "a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules." Musk downsizes us further to one single microbe. He wins!
And so, by ignoring all "up" sides to drugs, the DEA points to potential addiction as a knock-down argument for their prohibition. This is the logic of children (and uneducated children at that). It is a cost-benefit analysis that ignores all benefits.
If we encourage folks to use antidepressants daily, there is nothing wrong with them using heroin daily. A founder of Johns Hopkins used morphine daily and he not only survived, but he thrived.
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