No, I am NOT a wild-eyed dreamer when it comes to drugs

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No, I am NOT a wild-eyed dreamer when it comes to drugs

an open letter to my sis

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

October 28, 2024

I missed this email, I'm afraid. Thanks for the invite, however. It would have been nice to get together, especially if we could have gone out for a lobster meal or two -- and sailing -- and maybe a trip to Bailey's Island, by boat and/or car. Then maybe I wouldn't have had to pay almost $300 to stay at a Motel 6 in Dover, New Hampshire... tho' the low-class "digs" were nice in their own modest way.

The message of the story you sent me ("Play Isn't Just for Children" ¹) is really common sense. However, I am always a little impatient with such accounts, because they are published under the belief that merely describing proper attitudes toward life can help bring those attitudes about. I have seldom found that to be the case, however. Whereas, a low dose of psilocybin helps me to live with the mindset of which the author speaks. But then all self-help articles in America are based on the idea that one can lift oneself up, emotionally speaking, by their own bootstraps while ignoring helpful medicines placed here, presumably, by God him-her-or-itself. In fact, in some ways, the whole self-help genre has repressive drug law to thank for its very existence. We outlaw substances that can help people feel good, and so we are reduced to writing books and articles that simply tell us how well-adjusted people feel, assuming that merely knowing those facts will somehow affect our own feelings in daily life. That is the shortcoming of the Freudian ² system: it works on the unspoken assumption that understanding one's condition will naturally lead to improvement of that condition. There is some minor truth to this dictum, of course, and increased knowledge is obviously helpful in the long run, and yet the phenomenon of PTSD (and we all have PTSD to some extent) reminds us that mere words do not change ingrained feelings (except maybe over large swaths of time). Life just does not work that way.

But that's the philosopher in me speaking. Although not transformative in itself, such articles (as "Play Isn't Just for Children") can remind one of the attitudes that we should ideally possess and so can still have value -- even if the author is obliged to pretend that there are no natural substances that can help us achieve the end states that she advocates. This is part of the great censorship of science and psychology that has been brought about by the War on Drugs. Scientific American ³ and Science News ⁴ continue to write as if depression is a huge problem -- but almost all of their articles on this subject assume that prohibition is a natural baseline, that in drawing our conclusions about the intransigence of such psychological conditions, we can safely (and with academic integrity) ignore all substances of which politicians disapprove. In a free world, we could creatively leverage the power of such substances to improve mood -- not based on materialist science but based on common psychological sense. But materialists ignore common sense, just as they ignore all anecdotal accounts of positive drug use, however time-honored and prolific-- as when Dr. Robert Glatter wrote an article in Forbes in 2021 asking whether laughing gas could help the depressed ⁵.

The fact that he has to ask shows that he has been bamboozled by the western lie that "proof of efficacy" must be found under a microscope -- that we can safely ignore the laughter of a depressed person, that we can safely ignore their testimony that they LOOK FORWARD to occasional use of laughing gas and that this anticipation has powerful psychological knock-on benefits as well. As a materialist, Glatter is unmoved by any of that: he wants to see proof of efficacy under his microscope and he is deaf to mere laughter. He considers himself to be the judge and jury as to whether people like myself would "REALLY" be helped by laughing gas ⁶ . And that is a category error. Materialist scientists are great at determining the trajectory of billiard balls on a pool table but they have no expertise in the quirky realm of human emotions, spirituality and motivation. The fact is that I myself am the expert when it comes to the question: "What would motivate ME personally?..." but materialist science wants to reduce me to a human widget that responds predictably to molecular processes and so need not be considered as a unique individual.

Ayahuasca is a fascinating substance, especially considering that it works by combining two completely different plants that no one would have ever had a logical reason to try combining in the first place -- which encourages speculation that plant teachers guided Andean shamans to "discover" this medicine. So I am fascinated by ayahuasca, so far mainly for philosophical reasons -- the reasons that William James had in mind when he wrote the following about the drug-induced expansion of human perception:

"No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded." -- (from The Varieties of Religious Experience)

But modern medicine can only evaluate psychoactive substances with regard to their ability to treat or cure one specific board-certified "illness" at a time in the Diagnostic Statistic Manual. This turns the approval process into a glacial game of "death by a thousand approvals"... though even "approvals" are few and far between when it comes to the FDA and psychoactive medicines. They recently decided to put the brakes on MDMA re-legalization ⁷ based on one study from a scientist with a history of creating the kind of scare data that the DEA requires to keep drugs illegal. The facts are that the compassion-generating drug called Ecstasy/MDMA has been used safely for well over half a century now, and the handful of related deaths are all due to the Drug War's refusal to teach safe use (especially the fact that one needs to remain hydrated during use, especially if one is a 100-pound teenager who has been dancing all night!).

And what does the FDA's "disapproval" of Ecstasy tell us? It tells us that they think 100% safety is better than the unprecedented peace, love and understanding that Ecstasy brought to the British dance floors in the 1990s. (That was until the British police cracked down on Ecstasy and dancers switched to alcohol, after which SPECIAL FORCES troops were required to keep the peace at rave concerts.) We must remember that the FDA that disapproves of Ecstasy is the same FDA that APPROVES of brain-damaging shock therapy and the dependence-causing psychiatric pill mill ⁸ . They even approve of drugs whose "side effects," as advertised on prime-time television, include death itself ⁹ . And so their judgments on psychoactive medicine have nothing to do with science, or even with common sense. Their role, apparently, is to give a scientific veneer to the anti-indigenous mindset of the Francisco Pizarros of the world, those who stomp onto indigenous territories and force the locals to replace their use of native medicines with alcohol.

Getting back to the article, "Play Isn't Just for Children."

The title made me think of the following quote from American psychologist Alison Gopnik:

"Babies and children are basically tripping all the time."

This, I think, is why drugs like LSD and psilocybin (and salvia divinorum, and San Pedro cactus, and rapo, and MDMA ¹⁰ , etc...) can have such positive psychological benefits: not because they move chemicals around in the brain in a way that flatters materialist prejudices, but because they make us feel a new wonder in the world, that wonder that we felt naturally as young children.

Love Brian

PS I've been publishing essays on such topics for over six years, and one pushback I get is the idea that I am a "starry-eyed" dreamer, that I think of drugs as a panacea.

First of all, this is a little rich in the age of the Drug War, to not only deny me access to Mother Nature, but to tell me, in effect, that Mother Nature's medicinal powers are overrated in any case. That's like stealing my car and then consoling me with the observation that car ownership is overrated.

Nor do most people NEED bombshell panaceas. Many folks like myself are right "on the edge" of succeeding in life, of thriving in the way that they hope to thrive. They don't need a massive "force" to help them succeed, just a subtle change in their consciousness, an ability to see their past more objectively and to not respond to everyday stimuli with the usual unhelpful learned (mis)behavior. This is how psilocybin helps me, not by turning my surroundings into the set for "Alice in Wonderland" but by subtly opening my eyes and my mind to the beauty and importance of the world around me. Nor does one simply take such a drug and experience sudden improvement. That's the materialist concept of drug taking, according to which the drug does all the heavy lifting. To benefit from psychoactive medicine, one has to have positive intentions and a positive mindset -- the very things that materialist scientists try to get rid of in their efforts to perform "rigorous" trials of these drugs -- which is another way of saying, trials which assume that the human being and their consciousness are just along for the ride when it comes to the use of psychoactive medicines.

That said, all the famous ancient doctors have thought of opium as a panacea: Galen, Avicenna, and Paracelsus, to name a few. So it's no coincidence that opium was the first target of Drug Warriors -- who did not hesitate to combat opium with "Big Lies" about Chinese use of the drug. One lie in particular stands out: that of a 19th-century American missionary who reported falsely that millions of Chinese had died from using opium ¹¹ -- which was a complete invention, on a par with the 1980s lie that drugs "fry the brain ¹²" -- even though the advertisers did not even bother to tell us which psychoactive "drugs" they were talking about: Sugar? Caffeine? Marijuana? Opium? Alcohol? Not only was the ad a lie, but in many cases, it was the opposite of the truth. Amphetamine is so far from frying the brain that the US Air Force required its use by pilots in World War II.

Still, I think one could be forgiven for being a "starry-eyed" dreamer with respect to the potential power of the thousands of godsends that we have outlawed. The Hindu religion was inspired by the use of a psychoactive substance called Soma. Other religions have been inspired by opiates, still others by coca. The idea that drugs that inspire entire religions can have no positive uses is a proposition that only racist Drug Warriors and dogmatic materialists could ever seriously entertain. So the idea that abstinence is the best policy makes absolutely no sense -- unless one is a drug-hating Christian Scientist, in which case, I will respect that person's religion, but they should not try to convince me that their viewpoint is a rational one that should be embraced by any unbiased human being. Their drug-hating view, to repeat, is a religious view, and they should acknowledge it as such.

Finally, we live on the brink of nuclear annihilation, so the idea that compassion-creating drugs have no positive uses is bizarre and even evil. Such drugs could help end school shootings and teach universal understanding, one person at a time. As mycologist Paul Stamets ¹³ believes, we are all closely related and medicines like psilocybin can help us realize this fact. And yet Americans are so brainwashed by the Drug War ideology of substance demonization that we spend billions on the suppression of these drugs, while simultaneously growing a nuclear arsenal which, barring a change of heart, is sure to eventually lead to unthinkable destruction around the world.

Notes:

1: Playing Isn't Just for Children Kunter, Yesim, Simplify Magazine (up)
2: Sigmund Freud's real breakthrough was not psychoanalysis DWP (up)
3: How Scientific American reckons without the drug war DWP (up)
4: How Science News Reckons Without the Drug War DWP (up)
5: Glatter, Robert. 2021. “Can Laughing Gas (Nitrous Oxide) Help People with Treatment-Resistant Depression?” Forbes, June 9, 2021. https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2021/06/09/can-laughing-gas-nitrous-oxide-help-people-with-treatmentresistant-depre (up)
6: Forbes Magazine's Laughable Article about Nitrous Oxide DWP (up)
7: “National Coalition for Drug Legalization.” n.d. National Coalition for Drug Legalization. https://www.nationalcoalitionfordruglegalization.org/. (up)
8: Antidepressants and the War on Drugs DWP (up)
9: RINVOQ RX List (up)
10: How the Drug War killed Leah Betts DWP (up)
11: The Truth About Opium by William H. Brereton DWP (up)
12: Meds fry the brain, not drugs DWP (up)
13: Paul Stamets The Joe Rogan Experience (podcast), 2017 (up)

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Two of the biggest promoters of the psychedelic renaissance shuffle their feet when you ask them about substance prohibition. Michael Pollan and Rick Strassman just don't get it: prohibition kills.

Proof that materialism is wrong is "in the pudding." It is why scientists are not calling for the use of laughing gas and MDMA by the suicidal. Because they refuse to recognize anything that's obvious. They want their cures to be demonstrated under a microscope.

There are endless creative ways to ward off addictions if all psychoactive medicines were at our disposal. The use of the drugs synthesized by Alexander Shulgin could combat the psychological downsides of withdrawal by providing strategic "as-needed" relief.

The drug war is the defeatist doctrine that we will never be able to use psychoactive drugs wisely. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy because the government does everything it can to make drug use dangerous.

Researchers insult our intelligence when they tell us that drugs like MDMA and opium and laughing gas have not been proven to work. Everyone knows they work. That's precisely why drug warriors hate them.

Our tolerance for freedom wanes in proportion as we consider "drugs" to be demonic. This is the dark side behind the new ostensibly comic genre about Cocaine Bears and such. It shows that Americans are superstitious about drugs in a way that Neanderthals would have understood.

Opium could be a godsend for talk therapy. It can help the user step outside themselves and view their problems from novel viewpoints.

Besides, why should I listen to the views of a microbe?

What attracts me about "drug dealers" is that they are NOT interested in prying into my private life. What a relief! With psychiatry, you are probed for pathological behavior on every office visit. You are a child. To the "drug dealer," I am an adult at least.

America legalizes alcohol and then outlaws all the drugs that could help prevent and cure alcoholism.

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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.

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No, I am NOT a wild-eyed dreamer when it comes to drugs

an open letter to my sis

Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US

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