Homepage of the Drug War Philosopher, Brian Quass
blog icon orange rss icon with stylized radio waves bird icon for twitter bird icon for twitter substack icon


back navigation arrow forward navigation arrow


In Defense of Religious Drug Use

an open letter to Samuel Bendeck Sotillos

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

April 8, 2024



I wrote the following in response to the paper entitled Drug-Induced Mysticism Revisited: Interview with Charles Upton, by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos posted on Academia.edu.1

Hi, Samuel.

I am interested in eventually reading your interview with Charles Upton. I say eventually, because I dislike reading criticisms of drug use in an age where almost all drug use (and almost all psychoactive plant medicines) are illegal. It gives critics like Upton an upper hand because they have only the evidence of a few gung-ho spiritualists and presumed "hippies" to critique. I say, let's see what drugs can and cannot do for spirituality when we extract the drug experience from those with whom Drug Warriors have always sought to connect it: the disempowered and supposedly irresponsible hippy.

I sense, however, that Upton is going to take the same general line as Wolfgang Smith2, who refers to the use of drugs by hippies as satanic while granting that past saints may have also partaken, to both their own benefit and to that of the human species.

Anyway, I won't take more of your time, but as a depressive 65-year-old who has been denied plant medicines for a lifetime now, I do not want to read about the limitations of plant medicines. It is also interesting to me that Upton and Smith are proponents of Islam and Christianity respectively, so it is not surprising to me that they would cast a jaundiced eye on religious inspiration that bypasses these formalized religions entirely. But I would reassure them that use of drugs like huachuma can inspire love, which can inspire a belief in Christianity, at least, insofar as its premier tenet - for many - is the primacy of love.

I write this today for two reasons: I just saw your post at Academia.edu - and I leave in two hours for Peru, to experience what the huachuma cactus may have to offer me in fighting depression... and maybe even in inspiring my religious sensibilities... who knows?... in the general direction of a board-certified religion!

Best wishes - and I look forward to eventually reading your interview, hopefully in a world in which plant medicines are legal again - as if governments ever had a true right to outlaw the same!


Abolishthedea.com

PS I think Smith is unfair to hippies. Sure, many were vague about what they wanted - after all, they were mostly kids -- but let's think about what the mainstream wanted at that time: nuclear weaponry, a Drug War, and the real politik of mutual hatred and distrust. This latter attitude resulted in the near destruction of America by nuclear weapons, not once, but twice in the early '60s alone: first the Air Force dropped a thermonuclear bomb or two on North Carolina by mistake... and then Cuba came "one military vote" away from nuking the Eastern Seaboard. Give me wacky flower children any day over the "tombstone children" of Edward Teller and company.

PPS Also, even the best-case arguments against drug-induced spiritualism will seem suspect in general until such substances are free. Until then, such critiques will read to many as an attempt to normalize the patently unjust status quo, a kind of sour grapes approach: dismissing a priori the power of drugs that we will never be allowed to sample under various circumstances and under various philosophical assumptions.












Notes for essay entitled In Defense of Religious Drug Use: an open letter to Samuel Bendeck Sotillos:

1: Drug-Induced Mysticism Revisited: Interview with Charles Upton Sotillos, Samuel Bendeck (up)
2: Cosmos and Transcendence: Breaking Through the Barrier of Scientistic Belief Smith, Wolfgang (up)




read more essays here





Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




Brits have a right to die, but they do not have the right to use drugs that might make them want to live. Bad policy is indicated by absurd outcomes, and this is but one of the many absurd outcomes that the policy of prohibition foists upon the world.

Psychedelic retreats tell us how scientific they are. But science is the problem. Science today insists that we ignore all obvious benefits of drugs.

Freud thought cocaine was a great antidepressant. His contemporaries demonized the drug by focusing only on the rare misusers. That's like judging alcohol by focusing on alcoholics.

"All these anti-opium articles... are based upon the same model. They assume certain statements as existing and acknowledged facts which have never been proved to be such, and then proceed to draw deductions from those alleged facts." --William Brereton

I should have added to that last post: "I in no way want to glorify or condone drug demonization."

Any self-respecting mycologist should denounce the criminalization of mushrooms.

Drug prohibition has resulted in hundreds of thousands of completely unnecessary deaths thanks to totally preventable drug overdoses!

Just saw a People's magazine article with the headline: "JUSTICE FOR MATTHEW PERRY." If there was true justice, their editorial staff would be in jail for promoting user ignorance and a contaminated drug supply. It's the prohibition, stupid!!!

The Drug War is the ultimate example of strategic fearmongering by self-interested politicians.

It is a violation of religious liberty to outlaw substances that inspire and elate. The Hindu religion was inspired by just such a drug.


Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us






back navigation arrow forward navigation arrow
Book Cover

Break the ice with a sledgehammer: place this book on your coffee table.

This book features 150 annotated images, designed to force brainwashed Americans to confront the fact that drug prohibition is wrong. Here is what author Richard Parrish II says of the book's compiler: "The drug prohibition philosopher provides first-hand, principled, persuasive, and insightful arguments against the current drug prohibition regime..."

Purchase Your Copy
Book Cover

Diary of a Drug Fiend

This is the only full-cast recording of Aleister Crowley's 1922 classic paeon to common sense. It is the first book -- and so far almost the only book -- to stake out a philosophy of drug use that is compatible with human freedom, one in which we learn to use drugs as wisely as possible for the benefit of humanity. This recording was produced by the Drug War Philosopher and your purchases help support his effort to push back against the tragically counterproductive policy of drug prohibition, in the name of human freedom and of humanity's right to heal.

Purchase Your Copy



No cookies, no ads paid for by amoral and immoral billionaires (or trillionaires).


Unless otherwise indicated, no AI is used in the creation of site content. These essays represent the original ideas of their author and not the ideas that the author SHOULD have based on an algorithmic parsing of existing data. For more on this subject, consider the AI-related viewpoints to which the author subscribes as delineated in the New York Times opinion piece entitled "What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity" by Rebecca Winthrop of the Brookings Institution.

The Partnership for a Death Free America is a proud sponsor of The Drug War Philosopher website @ abolishthedea.com.


Copyright 2026, Brian Ballard Quass Contact: quass@quass.com

tombstone for American Democracy, 1776-2024, RIP (up)