FDA gives breakthrough status to LSD Lite from MindMed
by 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 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
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.
That's the problem with prohibition. It is not ultimately a health question but a question about priorities and sensibilities -- and those topics are open to lively debate and should not be the province of science, especially when natural law itself says mother nature is ours.
Addiction thrives BECAUSE of prohibition, which outlaws drug alternatives and discourages education about psychoactive substances and how to use them wisely.
It's disgusting that folks like Paul Stamets need a DEA license to work with mushrooms.
If MAPS wants to make progress with MDMA they should start "calling out" the FDA for judging holistic medicines by materialist standards, which means ignoring all glaringly obvious benefits.
News flash: certain mushrooms can help you improve your life! It's the biggest story in the history of mycology! And yet you wouldn't know it from visiting the websites of most mushroom clubs.
It's because of such reductive pseudoscience that America will allow us to shock the brains of the depressed but won't allow us to let them use the plant medicines that grow at their feet.
For those who want to understand what's going on with the drug war from a philosophical point of view, I recommend chapter six of "Eugenics and Other Evils" by GK Chesterton.
The main form of drug war propaganda is censorship. That's why most Americans cannot imagine any positive uses for psychoactive substances, because the media and the government won't allow that.
Mad in America solicits personal stories about people trying to get off of antidepressants, but they will not publish your story if you want to use entheogenic medicines to help you. They're afraid their readers can't handle the truth.
It's a category error to say that scientists can tell us if psychoactive drugs "really work." It's like asking Dr. Spock of Star Trek if hugging "really works." ("Hugging is highly illogical, Captain.")
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, LSD for puritans: FDA gives breakthrough status to LSD Lite from MindMed, published on March 7, 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)
You have been reading an article entitled, LSD for puritans: FDA gives breakthrough status to LSD Lite from MindMed, published on March 7, 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)