How the Drug War Outlaws Criticism of Immanuel Kant
an open letter to Professor Daniel A. Bonevac of the University of Pittsburgh
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
March 13, 2024
Good evening, Professor Bonevac.
I am a 65-year-old philosopher in Basye, Virginia, writing to thank you for your fascinating discussion of Immanuel Kant 1 's Critique of Pure Reason2 on the YouTube video posted in 20173.
I would like to suggest an idea that you may never have heard before, namely that there is another potential source of knowledge of which Kant seems to have been unaware, and that is the knowledge (both metaphysical and practical) that all tribal societies have claimed to receive via the use of those psychoactive substances which in the west we denigrate as "drugs"4. It will be argued that these states are "hallucinations," but this is surely just a Christian Science prejudice, for the filter theory of perception espoused by William James5 and Aldous Huxley6 suggests that the world that we see "on" psychoactive substances is but another aspect of that "real world out there" (the raw and "unprocessed" world of the physicist) which to Whitehead is but an inchoate world of atomic potential7.
I would argue, in fact, that a full understanding of Kant (and his potential limitations as an "intoxiphobic westerner8") cannot be undertaken without a thorough discussion of the philosophy of drug-induced states. As just one example, I took part in a "spirit walk" using peyote in Arizona in 2019, during which I saw (with eyes closed) a neon-green slide show of Mesoamerican imagery. The mere fact that the consumption of a cactus should bring about such culturally specific visions (when consumed in tribal territory, no less) should be fodder for endless philosophical discussions about metaphysics and the possibility (contra Kant) of gaining knowledge about the noumenal world. The goal of the vision, after all, appeared to be to teach me something, and indeed such plant substances are generally referred to as "teachers" by tribal healers9. At least in the tribes' minds, these drugs are definitely providing knowledge, albeit a kind of knowledge for which Kant does not seem to have made any allowance in his Critique of Pure Reason.
Unfortunately, the modern trend in academia is to "reckon without the Drug War10" and so to ignore the philosophical hints that such experiences seem to me to supply in such abundance, starting with the idea that there may be a third type of knowledge beyond both sensibility and understanding, knowledge that we acquire by obtaining surreptitious glimpses through the temporarily opened "doors of perception"11. As radical as this idea may sound, it really is just a restatement of what William James himself said about altered states over a hundred years ago in "The Varieties of Religious Experience":
"No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded"12.
I would argue then that the Drug War and prohibition are limiting our knowledge of Kant. And it is getting worse. The FDA is now seeking to regulate James's pet substance, nitrous oxide13, like any other drug and thus to place it too off limits to scientific (and philosophic) investigation. It is as if the government were thereby stacking the decks in favor of Kant by making it illegal to undertake experiments that might challenge his views about how we can know things as human beings.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic.
Author's Follow-up: October 27, 2024
I know, I'm as startled as you are that the Herr Professor did not quite see his way clear to respond. If you live in his vicinity, do me a favor and make sure he's okay! This is just not like him, right?
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Drug prohibition has resulted in hundreds of thousands of completely unnecessary deaths thanks to totally preventable drug overdoses!
It's disgusting that folks like Paul Stamets need a DEA license to work with mushrooms.
The so-called "herbs" that witches used were drugs, in the same way that "meds" are drugs. If academics made that connection, the study of witchcraft would shed a lot of light on the fearmongering of modern prohibitionists.
Democratic societies need to outlaw prohibition for many reasons, the first being the fact that prohibition removes millions of minorities from the voting rolls, thereby handing elections to fascists and insurrectionists.
The proof that psychedelics work has always been extant. We are hoodwinked by scientists who convince us that efficacy has not been "proven." This is materialist denial of the obvious.
This is why it's wrong to dismiss drugs as "good" or "bad." There are endless potential positive uses to psychoactive drugs. That's all that we should ask of them.
It is folly to put bureaucrats in charge of second-guessing drug prescriptions: what such bureaucrats are really doing is second-guessing the various philosophies of life which are presupposed by the way we use psychoactive drugs.
The DEA stomped onto Thomas Jefferson's estate in 1987 and confiscated the founding father's poppy plants in violation of everything he stood for, politically speaking. And the TJ Foundation helped them! They sold out Jefferson.
If Fentanyl kills, then alcohol massacres. The problem is drug prohibition, not drugs.
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