How the Drug War Outlaws Criticism of Immanuel Kant
an open letter to Professor Daniel A. Bonevac of the University of Pittsburgh
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
March 13, 2024
ood evening, Professor Bonevac.
I am a 65-year-old philosopher in Basye, Virginia, writing to thank you for your fascinating discussion of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason1 on the YouTube video posted in 20172.
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"3. 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 James4 and Aldous Huxley5 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 potential6.
I would argue, in fact, that a full understanding of Kant (and his potential limitations as an "intoxiphobic westerner7") 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 healers8. 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 War9" 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"5. 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"4.
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 oxide12, 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?
Open Letters
Check out the conversations that I have had so far with the movers and shakers in the drug-war game -- or rather that I have TRIED to have. Actually, most of these people have failed to respond to my calls to parlay, but that need not stop you from reading MY side of these would-be chats.
I don't know what's worse, being ignored entirely or being answered with a simple "Thank you" or "I'll think about it." One writes thousands of words to raise questions that no one else is discussing and they are received and dismissed with a "Thank you." So much for discussion, so much for give-and-take. It's just plain considered bad manners these days to talk honestly about drugs. Academia is living in a fantasy world in which drugs are ignored and/or demonized -- and they are in no hurry to face reality. And so I am considered a troublemaker. This is understandable, of course. One can support gay rights, feminism, and LGBTQ+ today without raising collegiate hackles, but should one dare to talk honestly about drugs, they are exiled from the public commons.
Somebody needs to keep pointing out the sad truth about today's censored academia and how this self-censorship is but one of the many unacknowledged consequences of the drug war ideology of substance demonization.
We live in a make-believe world in the US. We created it by outlawing all potentially helpful psychological meds, after which the number-one cause of arrest soon became "drugs." We then made movies to enjoy our crackdown on TV... after a tough day of being drug tested at work.
When Americans "obtain their majority" and wish to partake of drugs safely, they should be paired with older adults who have done just that. Instead, we introduce them to "drug abusers" in prerecorded morality plays to reinforce our biased notions that drug use is wrong.
Clearly a millennia's worth of positive use of coca by the Peruvian Indians means nothing to the FDA. Proof must show up under a microscope.
We've got to take the fight TO the drug warriors by starting to hold them legally responsible for having spread "Big Lies" about "drugs." Anyone involved in producing the "brain frying" PSA of the 1980s should be put on trial for willfully spreading a toxic lie.
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 2024 Colorado bill was withdrawn -- but only when pols realized that they had been caught in the act of outlawing free speech. They did not let opponents speak, however, because they knew the speeches would make the pols look like the anti-democratic jerks that they were.
Rick Strassman isn't sure that DMT should be legal. Really?! Does he not realize how dangerous it is to chemically extract DMT from plants? In the name of safety, prohibitionists have encouraged dangerous ignorance and turned local police into busybody Nazis.
"If England [were to] revert to pre-war conditions, when any responsible person, by signing his name in a book, could buy drugs at a fair profit on cost price... the whole underground traffic would disappear like a bad dream." -- Aleister Crowley
The search for SSRIs has always been based on a flawed materialist premise that human consciousness is nothing but a mix of brain chemicals and so depression can be treated medically like any other physical condition.
The DEA should be tried for crimes against humanity. They have been lying about drugs for 50 years and running interference between human beings and Mother Nature in violation of natural law, depriving us of countless potential and known godsends in order to create more DEA jobs.
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, How the Drug War Outlaws Criticism of Immanuel Kant: an open letter to Professor Daniel A. Bonevac of the University of Pittsburgh, published on March 13, 2024 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)
ood evening, Professor Bonevac.
You have been reading an article entitled, How the Drug War Outlaws Criticism of Immanuel Kant: an open letter to Professor Daniel A. Bonevac of the University of Pittsburgh, published on March 13, 2024 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)