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Open Letter to Anthony Gottlieb

author of The Dream of Enlightenment

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

May 29, 2022



Dear Mr. Gottlieb:

Enjoying your book on the Enlightenment, but I believe the latest news about empathogenic medicines (like MDMA and psilocybin) shows that Hobbes' belief about a fixed and combative "human nature" was misinformed. In the 1990s, MDMA 1 brought unprecedented peace, love and understanding to the British dance floor among dancers of all ethnicities, religions and skin colors -- until Drug Warriors criminalized the substance after one single well-publicized death, which was the result of Drug War prohibitions, which prioritized fear over education when it comes to psychoactive substances. Why don't we have a peaceful world, then? Not because human beings are naturally combative and restless but because we westerners prioritize a know-nothing War on Drugs over having a peaceful world. I invite you to see my essay entitled and ended the peaceful Rave scene. To this day, philosophers "reckon without their host" when they ignore the Drug War while speculating on the "true nature" of human beings, which turns out to be quite pharmaceutically pliable indeed. For this reason, no modern speculation about human nature is complete without mentioning the Drug War and how it prevents us from treating "haters" with empathogenic substances - thus possibly even preventing school shootings.

Thanks again for the enjoyable read!












Notes:

1: How the Drug War killed Leah Betts DWP (up)




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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




If the depressed patient laughs, that means nothing. Materialists have to see results under a microscopic or they will never sign off on a therapy.

Almost all of today's magazine articles about human psychology should come with the following disclaimer: "This article was written from the standpoint of Drug War ideology, which holds that outlawed substances can have no beneficial uses whatsoever."

Drug War censorship is supported by our "science" magazines, which pretend that outlawed drugs do not exist, and so write what amount to lies about the supposed intransigence of things like depression and anxiety.

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

Had we really wanted to "help" users, we would have used the endless godsends of Mother Nature and related synthetics to provide spirit-lifting alternatives to problem use. But no one wanted to treat users as normal humans. They wanted to pathologize and moralize their use.

Question: Why do doctors judge cocaine by its worst possible use? Answer: Follow the money.

Prohibitionists will me that we're all children when it comes to drugs, and can never -- but never -- use them wisely. That's like saying that we could never ride horses wisely. Or mountain climb. Or skateboard.

When folks die in horse-related accidents, we need to be asking: who sold the victim the horse? We've got to crack down on folks who peddle this junk -- and ban books like Black Beauty that glamorize horse use.

Here is a sample drug-use report from the book "Pihkal": "More than tranquil, I was completely at peace, in a beautiful, benign, and placid place." Prohibition is a crime against humanity for withholding such drug experiences from the depressed (and from everybody else).

Alexander Shulgin is a typical westerner when he speaks about cocaine. He moralizes about the drug, telling us that it does not give him "real" power. But so what? Does coffee give him "real" power? Coke helps some, others not. Stop holding it to this weird metaphysical standard.


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






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

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