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LSD for puritans

FDA gives breakthrough status to LSD Lite from MindMed

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

March 7, 2024



The drug makers even list euphoria and visions as "adverse effects."


Ugh! I cannot stand it. The FDA is now approving LSD for anxiety (from MindMed) -- but in a form that has gotten rid of all that pesky ecstasy and those silly visions that are associated with the drug1. This is so very telling: it wasn't public health after all that bothered Americans about LSD, it was the fact that it made us feel ecstatic and have visions. The ecstasy offended us because we're puritans and the visions offended us because we're scientific materialists. We don't believe in transcendence. Besides, we want drugs that are one-size-fits-all. The drug makers even list euphoria and visions as "adverse effects." Adverse effects! Adverse effects??? Give me the adverse effects, damn it! I would almost rather have prohibition than have legalization 2 limited to these "defanged" versions of drugs that have been doctored or diluted in such a way as to remove all ecstasy and insight that the substances are known to provide in their uncensored doses.

This is what we learn from the "breakthrough" status that has been given to LSD by the FDA: that our scientists think that euphoria and visions are adverse effects!

They should at least provide two versions of the drug, one of which INCLUDES the euphoria and the so-called "hallucinations." Otherwise the FDA is showing a pharmacological prejudice against those who believe in the cathartic nature of transcendent experience, those who, like myself, are convinced that ecstasy is actually good for us - and this, by the way, is not a question for which the FDA has any standing whatsoever, let alone some kind of expertise in resolving for us by regulatory fiat.

It's not enough that the government censors the truth about drugs: now they are censoring the drugs themselves. Instead of relegalizing godsend medicine, they are making that medicine safe for puritans and materialists - and for capitalists, who now can find a way to market LSD. So typical, that the drug had to be made profitable and inoffensive to our milksop zeitgeist before we could have the luxury of using it legally. Just look up the company, MindMed. I did so and thought I'd see all sorts of talk about LSD as a treatment. Instead, I saw articles about money from Forbes Magazine and Bloomberg News. It's all about turning LSD into a saleable product and thereby making a mint - but in the meantime denuding the drug of everything that had made it promising in the first place, its power to change lives and bring ethereal visions.

End prohibition. Get the FDA out of the business of deciding how much ecstasy and inspiration we're allowed to have in this life!

Here are a few Tweets I fired off as I groaned about this new development in politically correct medicine:

Author's Follow-up: March 10, 2024

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up


I got slammed for this essay because the guy said, "It's all about money and power, you idiot!" -- or words to that effect. But we are talking about two different things. Yes, for the MindMed company, it's surely all about money -- but the question is: why do Americans (and the FDA) think that it makes sense to create a version of LSD that lacks the very attributes that made the drug popular in the first place?! Why do they not see this as absurd on the face of it? This is what we need to confront: we cannot eradicate greed from the human heart, but we can educate Americans whose attitudes are based on assumptions that they are not even aware of. For more, see this essay on the "causes" of the Drug War.









Notes for essay entitled LSD for puritans: FDA gives breakthrough status to LSD Lite from MindMed:

1: Single dose of LSD provides immediate and lasting relief from anxiety, study says LaMotte, Sandee, CNN, 2024 (up)
2: “National Coalition for Drug Legalization.” n.d. National Coalition for Drug Legalization. https://www.nationalcoalitionfordruglegalization.org/. (up)




read more essays here





Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




Cop and detective shows are loaded with subtle drug war propaganda, including lines like, "She had a history of drug use, so..." The implication being that anyone who uses substances that politicians hate cannot be trusted.

"Like Christians burning mosques and temples to spread the word of Jesus, modem drugabuseologists burn crops to spread the use of alcohol." -- Ceremonial Chemistry, p. 48

I don't believe in the materialist paradigm upon which SSRIs were created, according to which humans are interchangeable chemical robots amenable to the same treatment for human sadness. Let me use laughing gas and MDMA and coca and let the materialists use SSRIs.

A lot of drug use represents an understandable attempt to fend off performance anxiety. Performers can lose their livelihood if they become too self-conscious. We only call such use "recreational" because we are oblivious to the common-sense psychology.

If NIDA covered all drugs (not just politically ostracized drugs), they'd produce articles like this: "Aspirin continues to kill hundreds." "Penicillin misuse approaching crisis levels." "More bad news about Tylenol and liver damage." "Study revives cancer fears from caffeine."

Google founders used to enthuse about the power of free speech, but Google is actively shutting down videos that tell us how to grow mushrooms -- MUSHROOMS, for God's sake. End the drug war and this hateful censorship of a free people.

Classic prohibitionist gaslighting, telling me that "drugs" is a neutral term. What planet are they living on?

If opium were legal, then most of the nostrums peddled by drug stores today would be irrelevant. (No wonder the drug war has staying power!)

You can get a Ph.D. in healthcare, and not learn a thing about the glaringly obvious benefits of drugs, as demonstrated by history, anecdote and common sense.

I've been told by many that I should have seen "my doctor" before withdrawing from Effexor. But, A) My doctor got me hooked on the junk in the first place, and, B) That doctor completely ignores the OBVIOUS benefits of indigenous meds and focuses only on theoretical downsides.


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






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