How the Drug War Outlaws Criticism of Immanuel Kant

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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 Reason ² on the YouTube video posted in 2017 ³.

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 James ⁵ and Aldous Huxley ⁶ 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 potential ⁷.

I would argue, in fact, that a full understanding of Kant (and his potential limitations as an "intoxiphobic westerner ⁸") 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 healers ⁹. 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 War ¹⁰" 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 oxide ¹³, 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

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up

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?

Immanuel Kant

Open Letters

Notes:

1: What drug use could tell us about the rationalist triumphalism of Immanuel Kant DWP (up)
2: The Critique of Pure Reason Kant, Immanuel, Project Gutenberg, 1781 (up)
3: Kant's Transcendental Idealism Bonevac, Daniel, 2021 (up)
4: Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers Schultes, Richard, 1979 (up)
5: The Varieties of Religious Experience James, William, Goodreads, New York, 1902 (up)
6: “The Doors of Perception.” n.d. Goodreads. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3188964-the-doors-of-perception. (up)
7: The Concept of Nature Whitehead, Alfred North (up)
8: Intoxiphobia DWP (up)
9: Plant Teachers (up)
10: How Scientific American reckons without the drug war DWP (up)
11: “The Doors of Perception.” n.d. Goodreads. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3188964-the-doors-of-perception. (up)
12: The Varieties of Religious Experience James, William, Goodreads, New York, 1902 (up)
13: The Criminalization of Nitrous Oxide is No Laughing Matter DWP (up)

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Everyone's biggest concern is the economy? Is nobody concerned that Trump has promised to pardon insurrectionists and get revenge on critics? Is no one concerned that Trump taught Americans to doubt democracy by questioning our election fairness before one single vote was cast?

Had the DEA been active in the Punjab and 1500 BCE, there would be no Hindu religion today.

The prohibitionist motto: "Billions for arrest, not one cent for education."

The Drug War treats doctors like potential criminals and it treats the rest of us like children. Prohibition does not end drug risks: it just outsources them to minorities and other vulnerable populations.

Med-dependent patients of the world, unite -- to end drug prohibition, that is. You have nothing to lose but your prescription bottles and your status as a ward of the healthcare state.

In "The Book of the Damned," Charles Fort writes about the data that science has damned, by which he means "excluded." The fact that drugs can inspire and elate is one such fact, although when Fort wrote his anti-materialist broadside, drug prohibition was in its infancy.

The Holy Trinity of the Drug War religion is Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and John Belushi. "They died so that you might fear psychoactive substances with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."

In America, they save the depressed from cocaine and opium by turning them into patients for life with dependence-causing "meds." Now 30-year-old doctors get to treat 67-year-olds like children, with new visits every damn three months.

If I smoke opium nightly, I am a drug scumbag. If I use Big Pharma "meds" every day of my life, I am a good patient.

Wade Davis writes that cocaine was outlawed because 400 people consumed toxic doses worldwide. What about the 49,000 that commit suicide every year because we have outlawed drugs that could cheer them up!!!

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