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 fungus.
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 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 could never boast.
Author's Follow-up: December 1, 2022
Speaking of psychedelic benefits, check out the work of Alexander Shulgin.
Open Letters
Check out the conversations that I have had so far with the movers and shakers in the drug-war game -- or rather that I have TRIED to have. Actually, most of these people have failed to respond to my calls to parlay, but that need not stop you from reading MY side of these would-be chats.
I don't know what's worse, being ignored entirely or being answered with a simple "Thank you" or "I'll think about it." One writes thousands of words to raise questions that no one else is discussing and they are received and dismissed with a "Thank you." So much for discussion, so much for give-and-take. It's just plain considered bad manners these days to talk honestly about drugs. Academia is living in a fantasy world in which drugs are ignored and/or demonized -- and they are in no hurry to face reality. And so I am considered a troublemaker. This is understandable, of course. One can support gay rights, feminism, and LGBTQ+ today without raising collegiate hackles, but should one dare to talk honestly about drugs, they are exiled from the public commons.
Somebody needs to keep pointing out the sad truth about today's censored academia and how this self-censorship is but one of the many unacknowledged consequences of the drug war ideology of substance demonization.
UNESCO celebrates the healing practices of the Kallawaya people of South America. What hypocrisy! UNESCO supports a drug war that makes some of those practices illegal!
In 1886, coca enthusiast JJ Tschudi referred to prohibitionists as 'kickers.' He wrote: "If we were to listen to these kickers, most of us would die of hunger, for the reason that nearly everything we eat or drink has fallen under their ban."
We deal with "drug" risks differently than any other risk. Aspirin kills thousands every year. The death rate from free climbing is huge. But it's only with "drug use" that we demand zero deaths (a policy which ironically causes far more deaths than necessary).
It's always wrong to demonize drugs in the abstract. That's anti-scientific. It begs so many questions and leaves suffering pain patients (and others) high and dry. No substance is bad in and of itself.
Some fat cat should treat the entire Supreme Court to a vacation at San Jose del Pacifico in Mexico, where they can partake of the magic mushroom in a ceremony led by a Zapotec guide.
If we encourage folks to use antidepressants daily, there is nothing wrong with them using heroin daily. A founder of Johns Hopkins used morphine daily and he not only survived, but he thrived.
Problem 2,643 of the war on drugs:
It puts the government in charge of deciding what counts as a true religion.
America is an "arrestocracy" thanks to the war on drugs.
Here's one problem that supporters of the psychiatric pill mill never address: the fact that Big Pharma antidepressants demoralize users by turning them into patients for life.
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.
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, Open Letter to Vincent Rado: agreeing to disagree?, published on November 26, 2022 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, Open Letter to Vincent Rado: agreeing to disagree?, published on November 26, 2022 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)