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Open Letter to Vincent Rado

agreeing to disagree?

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

November 26, 2022




November 29, 2022
The author cordially invites you to keep following Vincent Rado. Nothing he is tweeting is 'wrong,' as far as Brian can see. However, Vincent does emphasize elements of the truth that Brian considers a little off-point at this moment in history, given the Drug Warrior's insistence on demonizing substances. For instance, when we attack the claims made for demonized drugs, Brian thinks that we should ideally do so in a nuanced way that does not give fuel to the Drug Warrior, who is liable to say: "See? Even opponents of the Drug War say that the claims for psychoactive medicines are nonsense!"

In Brian's view, psychedelics have a well-established history of working miracles, and that fact should not be obscured simply because the news media, as always, likes to err in the direction of hyperbole by suggesting that what works for some will work for everybody. For psychedelics, as we know, are not like physical medicines. You cannot just "take them" and wait for something to happen. To promote a successful experience, you need the right set and setting, ideally with the help of an empathic guide who knows something about the psychedelic experience. That said, some people are ready for the experience without even knowing it. In the documentary "Fantastic Fungi," Paul Stamets describes how the whimsical consumption of a few mushrooms in his youth brought about the end of his childhood stuttering, by separating himself FROM himself for just long enough so that Paul could see what he was doing to himself, as it were, and to determine once and for all to stop it.

Er, but now onto the essay proper!




I am tempted to part ways with Vincent Rado on Twitter. That could be a mistake on my part. It could be that I'm just misunderstanding where he's coming from. After all, he lists himself as a founder of the DC Psychedelic Society, so I would think he would be on the same page as myself.

But his latest post seems to be saying that psychedelics do not have any particular potential when it comes to healing, and that's a position that seems strange to me for someone with such a bio. What's more, that stance does not accord with history. As I mentioned in response, we know that Plato got his philosophy of the afterlife from the psychedelic ritual at Eleusis and that the Vedic-Hindu religion was inspired by a psychedelic plant med or fungus1.

Yet, Vincent mocks me for these allusions, asking me if I am a Hindu and if I was in attendance when Plato partook of a psychedelic. Vincent wants to know why I keep harping on these cases.

The reason I bring these things up is because no one else does, Vincent. That's the problem with the Drug War. No one discusses anything but the down sides of psychoactive medicine. That's why I take issue with Vincent's posts which seem to downplay the potential of psychedelics.

They have one benefit right out of the starting gate, in that they are not addictive -- in stark contrast to the Big Pharma meds on which 1 in 4 American women are addicted for life.

I know there are hucksters in the world and that they're going to try to profit from any newly offered medicine or therapy, but let's be cynical about the hucksters, not the medicines, unless we have reason to believe that they really do not work as promised. I also realize that there are no panaceas -- and yet we can't conclude that psychedelics will not be useful for the depressed simply because modern users do not always see their depression lifted. Modern use is typically uninformed use, where folks take psychedelic like a magic pill and want to sit back and have something happen to them. That's not how the magic comes about. That's how bad trips happen.

I have personal experience with psychedelics that also makes me reject the cynicism that Vincent seems to have on this topic. I was delighted by the insights I received as a teenager from a psychedelic substance and it expanded my expectations about the amazing growth potential that psychoactive drugs in general could have under the right situations -- an incredibly greater value than the mind-numbing tricyclics I was taking at the time. That's why it bothers me to see claims about psychedelics being denounced -- even tho, again, I agree that hucksters will always exaggerate. Just because a flatterer says that I am 6 feet tall does not mean that I should not still insist that I am 5'6". I am under no obligation to tell folks that I'm 5'4" just because someone else exaggerates.

I think psychedelics are extraordinary for another reason. My experience with peyote presented my mind with a slide show of Mesoamerican imagery. From a philosophical viewpoint, that tells me something about reality and consciousness, that life is far more interwoven than we may think. It tells me something about ontology, the true fundamental reality in which we dwell. That's extraordinary to me, and so, again, I recoil from attempts to claim that psychedelics are nothing special.

Maybe Vincent wasn't trying to say that -- but that's just the message that I get from reading his posts. The reason that bothers me is because it plays right into the Drug Warriors' hands, who have been censoring all positive mention of such substances for over 100 years. That's why I will play the Hotspur to Vincent's Worcester and keep saying Plato, Plato, Plato, chiefly because I'm the only one who dares mention the fact that psychedelic-fueled Eleusinian mysteries lasted 2,000 consecutive years and inspired a who's who of the western philosophy and history. That's something that needs to be said when Drug Warriors are telling ourselves and our kids that such substances are "junk" and "dope."


Author's Follow-up: November 27, 2022



Victor is probably right: my responses did not directly address the Tweet that he had posted about Time magazine flaunting the wonders of psychedelics in fighting depression. Had I been a little less headstrong, I might have fashioned a more diplomatic response. But the Tweet in question suggested that the power of psychedelics to overcome depression was "BS," and I think it's far too early to draw such conclusions -- just as it may be far too early for Time to announce a psychedelic victory over depression.

But my support for the power of psychedelics in this regard must be seen in light of the new paradigm that I am calling for in treating mental conditions, one wherein a pharmacologically savvy empath 2 combines talk therapy with the use of any and all substances, in combination or not, at various doses, to elicit change according to 1) what is likely to work best for a given client and 2) what the client's goals are in undergoing shamanic treatment, again using any substance or substances available on God's green earth or Humanity's white lab rooms.

In other words, I picture a world full of Alexander Shulgins, the famous pharmacologist who tested over 200 psychoactive medicines in order to determine efficacy in improving the mental status of the user. There's a man who knew what the problem was with "drugs" -- it wasn't "drugs" themselves but "the overpower of curiosity with greed," in other words the instinct to turn a buck off of such medicines.

Because of Shulgin's pharmacological genius, the DEA let him be for the most part, but when folks began sending him drugs to taste for safety, the DEA swooped in and fined him $25,000, as if the last thing the DEA wants is for someone to use such drugs safely.

Related tweet: November 29, 2022



Hey, Vincent. Maybe it's a difference in emphasis. I don't expect any drug to do the job, but my emphasis is on the fact that psychedelics have worked miracles that Big Pharma 3 4 could never boast.


Author's Follow-up: December 1, 2022



Speaking of psychedelic benefits, check out the work of Alexander Shulgin.












Notes for essay entitled Open Letter to Vincent Rado: agreeing to disagree?:

1: The Eleusinian Mysteries: A Gateway to the Afterlife in Greek Beliefs (up)
2: pharmacologically-savvy empath: this is an empathic individual with an ethnobotanical knowledge of safe and beneficial drug use worldwide, someone who recognizes psychological common sense and can advise on protocols that meet user needs while avoiding unwanted dependency. (up)
3: Seife, Charles. 2012. “Is Drug Research Trustworthy?” Scientific American 307 (6): 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1212-56. (up)
4: LaMattina, John. n.d. “Why Is Biopharma Paying 75% of the FDA’s Drug Division Budget?” Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2022/09/22/why-is-biopharma-paying-75-of-the-fdas-drug-division-budget/. (up)




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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




The DEA is a Schedule I agency. It has no known positive uses.

Assisted suicide cannot be discussed meaningfully without discussing the drug prohibition that renders it necessary in the first place.

The most addictive drugs have a bunch of great uses, like treating pain and inspiring great literature. Prohibition causes addiction by making their use as problematic as possible and denying knowledge and choices. It's always wrong to blame drugs.

Prohibitionists have the same M O they've had for the last 100+ years: blame drugs for everything. Being a drug warrior is never having the decency to say you're sorry -- not to Mexicans, not to inner-city crime victims, not to patients who go without adequate pain relief...

Someone should stand outside Jefferson's estate and hand out leaflets describing the DEA's 1987 raid on Monticello to confiscate poppy plants. That raid was against everything Jefferson stood for. The TJ Foundation DISHONORED JEFFERSON and their visitors should know that!

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.

Well, today's Oregon vote scuttles any ideas I might have entertained about retiring in Oregon.

Malcolm X sensed an important truth about drugs: the fact that it was always a self-interested category error for Americans to place medical doctors in charge of mind and mood medicine.

Big Pharma drugs have wrought disaster when used in psychotherapy, but it does not follow that the depressed should become Christian Scientists. The use of outlawed drugs can obviate the need for shock therapy.

The Drug War is the legally enforced triumph of human idiocy. We have rigged the deck so that our dunces can be right. The Drug War is a superstition. Indeed, it is THE modern superstition.


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






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