Open letter to Niamh Eastwood (Executive Director of Release) and Dr. David Nicholl (NHS neurologist), in response to their recent interview about laughing gas on Channel 5, UK
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
January 26, 2023
Open letter to Niamh Eastwood (Executive Director of Release) and Dr. David Nicholl (NHS neurologist), in response to their recent interview about laughing gas on Channel 5, UK
As a 64-year-old chronic depressive, I am bothered by the fact that discussion about controversial psychoactive substances never takes into account people like myself. Everyone is so concerned about the safety of a relatively small number of young people, whom we fail to educate about drugs, yet no one ever worries about the MILLIONS of folks like myself who are living what Thoreau called "lives of quiet desperation." Laughing gas, for obvious reasons, could be a blessing in my life when used wisely and at appropriate times, at appropriate intervals, in appropriate doses, etc. Even if it doesn't work according to materialist reductionist standards, it would work for me by merely giving me something to look forward to.
But folks like myself are never considered to be stakeholders when the topic turns to potential substance criminalization.
The newscasters who spoke to you were all but saying that N2O should be outlawed, that all the evidence points that way. But that's nonsense. The only reason that "all the evidence points that way" is because they are ignoring all stakeholders except ignorant juveniles. In America, it's more specific than that: we outlaw coca to protect not just juveniles, but AMERICAN juveniles, for we do not care how many MEXICAN juveniles lose parents to the Drug War down south, given the fact that the prohibition we champion naturally creates violence.
When evaluating drugs, we must stop thinking about merely those who misuse the substance. If that's the only standard, then no drugs would be legal, least of all alcohol and cigarettes.
We have to think about those who will be killed by the violence caused by drug prohibition, we have to think of those who may commit suicide 1 because we have outlawed godsend treatments, we have to think about how scientists will be censored because they will have trouble researching the drugs that we demonize and criminalize.
The Drug War and prohibition only make sense to people because they ignore all these considerations.
(By the way, the idea that most use is recreational ignores the fact that some users may be self-medicating2 -- which is understandable in a world where the default legal treatment for depression and anxiety is a lifetime regimen of addictive tranquilizing drugs.)
It's all well and good to "attack the suppliers," but what about the depressed who thereby go without a godsend medicine?
This is why we have to push for education and stop prosecuting substance users. The money that we're currently spending on law enforcement should go to teams of healthcare workers instead, who will visit affected communities with kiosks and concerts and block parties, etc., and spread the news about how to use popular substances as safely as possible. Unfortunately, this goes against the grain of Drug War ideology, which tells us to fear drugs rather than to understand them.
Nor should we simply fight suppliers. We need suppliers. But we need regulation for a clean drug supply -- and regulation to make sure that all the info is out there to teach safe use.
Otherwise the safety that everyone talks about is purchased by the misery of folks like myself.
It's the same MO every time a drug gets misused: "Oh, we must outlaw it to save our children!"
Great, but then we throw millions of sufferers under the bus by denying them what, for them, is godsend medicine.
It's like the crackdown on MDMA in Britain, one of the safest drugs on the planet.. The drug brought unprecedented peace to the dance floor, and yet it was demonized because it was associated with a single solitary death -- A DEATH WHICH WAS CAUSED BY THE DRUG WAR ITSELF WHICH CAUSED USERS TO FEAR SUBSTANCES RATHER THAN TO UNDERSTAND HOW TO USE THEM CORRECTLY. The 100-pound Leah Betts, in short, should have remained hydrated while dancing and using Ecstasy, something she would have known had we decided to teach users instead of punishing them.
(By the way, If we're really concerned about safety, we would actually ENCOURAGE the use of MDMA , at least for hotheads, so that they would feel enough love in their heart that they could no longer bring themselves to shoot up grade schools. The use of MDMA 3 could also help the world avoid nuclear armageddon 4567 by bringing people together in love -- talk about SAFETY! But the Drug Warrior is, of course, blind to all positive uses of so-called "drugs.")
And what did the crack down on Ecstasy accomplish? After Ecstasy was removed from rave concerts, the dance floor became so violent that special forces troops had to police the venues. Special forces! (See the documentary "One Nation" by concert promoter Terry Stone.) But the Drug Warriors who scream about safety concerns never worry about such things. Despite their alleged concern for the safety of our youth, they're absolutely blind to the violence generated by their own prohibition policies.
And so Ecstasy is pilloried for a handful of well-publicized deaths, while alcohol kills 90,000 people a year in the States and nobody bats an eyelash.
The Drug War is all about scaring kids about drugs rather than educating them ("drugs" being Drug War Newspeak for "substances of which pharmacologically clueless politicians disapprove"). Biden's Office on Drug Control Policy actually had a charter that forbade it from considering positive uses for "drugs," for fear of sending the wrong message. In other words, the ONDCP is a propaganda arm of the US government. Its goal is to inspire fear, not knowledge about safe use.
Drug warriors may save a few lives of juveniles with prohibition, but only by throwing victims of the Drug War, including the millions of depressed people around the world, under the bus.
Other ignored stakeholders include: victims of drive-by shootings, victims of a tainted and unpredictable drug supply, those who lose their livelihoods due to unconstitutional "drug tests" -- and the biggest victim of all: democracy itself, which disappears as we militarize police forces, censor our scientists, outlaw religions, and Nazify the English language, calling our fellow citizens "scumbags" and "filth," should they dare to sell Mother Nature's plant medicines to their fellow human being.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, laughing gas has other uses than just "recreation": it can evoke spiritual states. Indeed, the use of laughing gas inspired the whole philosophy of William James, teaching him that "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy." And so to outlaw substances like laughing gas is to outlaw philosophy and human progress itself. This fact alone should prevent us from continuing down the well-worn dead-end path of prohibition, littered as it is with hundreds of thousands of deaths in Mexico alone over the last ten years.
To repeat: the money that we are throwing away on law enforcement should be turned over to health workers who will launch real education campaigns, teaching how to use all psychoactive substances as safely as possible -- rather than teaching potential users to "just say no" and thereby proselytizing them on behalf of the drug-hating religion known as Christian Science.
Most of all, we need to acknowledge ALL the stakeholders (including folks like myself) when we discuss potential drug criminalization, not just the young whom we ourselves have failed to educate because we're too busy punishing them instead.
January 26, 2023
The headlines in the UK claim that the laughing gas 8 ban is being considered to "combat bad behavior," but in the interview, Dr. Nicholl spoke only of safety concerns.
There are plenty of "prima facie" reasons for believing that we could eliminate most problems with drug and alcohol withdrawal by chemically aided sleep cures combined with using "drugs" to fight "drugs." But drug warriors don't want a fix, they WANT drug use to be a problem.
My depression would disappear overnight if religiously intolerant America would just allow me to live as freely as Benjamin Franklin.
The Drug War is a crime against humanity.
All drugs have positive uses. It's absurd to prohibit them because one demographic might misuse them.
The Drug War is the ultimate example of strategic fearmongering by self-interested politicians.
I will gladly respect the police once we remove them from Gestapo duty by ending the war on drugs. Police should also learn to live on a budget, without deriving income from confiscating houses and dormitories, etc.
Freud had the right idea: He noticed that cocaine use actually ended depression in his patients. Unfortunately, he was ambitious and was more interested in making a name for himself than in pushing back against the statistically challenged fear mongering of prohibitionists.
The Shipiba have learned to heal human beings physically, psychologically and spiritually with what they call "onanyati," plant allies and guides, such as Bobinsana, which "envelops seekers in a cocoon of love." You know: what the DEA would call "junk."
It is actually illegal to be a Ben Franklin in 21st century America. To put this another way: we outlaw far more than drugs when we outlaw mind and mood medicine.
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.
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