Open letter to Wolfgang Smith

introduction to the Drug War Philosopher website at abolishthedea.com

Open letter to Wolfgang Smith

author of 'The Quantum Enigma'

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

August 19, 2022

I greatly enjoyed the documentary "The End of Quantum Reality," which I was happy to purchase, and am now looking forward to reading Wolfgang's refutation of Stephen Hawking's "Grand Design."

Update

Wolfgang seems to understand that the materialist quantitative bias has implications for everyone in all parts of our lives -- and yet I wonder if he can see something which almost every other smart person seems to be blind to today, and that is materialism ¹'s role in the Drug War and in our attitude toward medicine in general. We live in a world in which 1 in 4 American women are chemically dependent on Big Pharma ² meds for depression -- meds justified on the scientistic ground that they fix a chemical imbalance (which is wrong for both philosophical and scientific reasons) -- and yet laughing gas and ultra-safe Ecstasy are illegal to use for depression. Why? Because today's drug researchers don't care how much the depressed laugh: they want to see quantitative proof the substance "really" works. Likewise, Descartes didn't care how animals screeched and howled -- he needed quantitative proof before he would say that animals could "really" experience pain. In other words, they want to study pain and depression in the physical world only, not the corporeal one. (As Rimbaud said: science is too slow for us -- too slow for animals and too slow for the depressed)

The results of this world view lead to reductio ad absurdum today, when doctors can ask with a straight face: "Can laughing gas ³ help the depressed?" (see essay link below)

I've written to over 100 philosophers on this subject without receiving any response. The Drug War terrifies folk. I just hope that Wolfgang has not been fooled by the Drug War propaganda campaign of self-censorship, thanks to which one never hears of the positive use of safe but criminalized substances, either in books or movies ⁴ ⁵ or TV shows ⁶ -- and certainly never in cop shows, this despite the fact that the kind of drugs that we demonize today have inspired entire religions -- including the Vedic/Hindu religion that influences Wolfgang today.

I hope your organization will consider speaking out philosophically against the Drug War -- for science is not free in America, insofar as study of certain botanicals has been criminalized. Galileo knew he was censored by the church but today's scientists almost unanimously pretend that they are free when they are not. Otherwise they would write disclaimers after their articles, saying that their research on a given topic was limited by Drug War laws and the way that those laws discourage project funding.

Psychoactive plant medicine has been shown to grow neurons in the brain, and yet scientists write books about depression, addiction, Alzheimer's, etc., in which they seem to be giving us the final word on these topics -- but they are actually reckoning without their host, namely the fact that they live in the time of a Drug War, which starkly limits the places in which they can search for answers and cures. Researching the therapeutic value of MDMA is particularly difficult, insofar as the anti-scientific DEA treats MDMA ⁷ like highly fissionable material and requires researchers (should they be grudgingly approved to obtain the drug) to do the same.

I hope what I'm saying here means something to you, because it's hard for my ideas to gain traction in a world that's been full of Drug War lies and presuppositions ever since the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 first essentially outlawed a plant (the poppy). Wolfgang has seen through so much in his work -- I hope he can see through the anti-scientific Drug War as well -- especially since the Drug War outlaws the kind of plant medicine that inspired the Indian religion with which he is so understandably fascinated.

Thanks again to Wolfgang and those who brought his important work to my attention.

The Links Police

cop car image courtesy ReiRever via tenor.com

Do you know why I pulled you over? That's right, because the Drug War gives me carte blanche to be a noxious busybody. That, plus the fact that you might be interested in the following links related to materialism and the Drug War.
To wit...

editor note from abolishthedea.com

August 19, 2022

For more information about Wolfgang Smith, visit The Philos-Sophia Initiative.

Author's Follow-up: May 3, 2023

follow-up on essay by the Drug War Philosopher

Upon perusing various works of the author, I was sorry to notice that he shared some common drug-war prejudices, like the idea that hippies were nuts for using psychedelic medicine, or rather for using it for improper reasons. But the mindset of the 1960 hippies can only be fairly judged by contrasting it with the mindset of the age against which they were rebelling, a mindset which was responsible for thermonuclear weapons and the war in Vietnam. Against that backdrop, a huge lot of silliness and even childish irresponsibility is to be tolerated, being so immensely preferable to the alternative: namely, the world of today in which we outlaw the very psychoactive substances that inspired the philosophy of William James, those medicines whose use tends to demonstrate or at least hint at the unseen and neglected world(s) of which Smith otherwise approvingly writes.

Drug warriors like Michael Pollan look at the '60s and say: "Think of the young lives that could have been ruined back then!" To which I say: "Think of the billions of lives of all ages that could disappear thanks to the militaristic mindset against which these young lives were rebelling!"

The dinosaurs were around for 150 million years. Modern humans, thanks to that militaristic mindset, will be lucky to be around for 5,000 years.

Open Letters

Materialism

Notes:

1: How materialists lend a veneer of science to the lies of the drug warriors DWP (up)
2: 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)
3: Forbes Magazine's Laughable Article about Nitrous Oxide DWP (up)
4: Glenn Close but no cigar DWP (up)
5: Running with the torture loving DEA DWP (up)
6: The Dead Man DWP (up)
7: How the Drug War killed Leah Betts DWP (up)

read more essays here

Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US

People magazine should be fighting for justice on behalf of the thousands of American young people who are dying on the streets because of the drug war.

If media were free in America, you'd see documentaries about people using drugs wisely for a wide variety of praiseworthy purposes.

Now the US is bashing the Honduran president for working with "drug cartels." Why don't we just be honest and say why we're REALLY upset with the guy? Drugs is just the excuse, as always, now what's the real reason? Stop using the drug war to disguise American foreign policy.

Just saw a People's magazine article with the headline: "JUSTICE FOR MATTHEW PERRY." If there was true justice, their editorial staff would be in jail for promoting user ignorance and a contaminated drug supply. It's the prohibition, stupid!!!

The term "drugs" is no more objective than the term "scabs." Both are meant to defame the things that they denote.

The MindMed company (makers of LSD Lite) tell us that euphoria and visions are "adverse effects": that's not science, that's an arid materialist philosophy that does not believe in spiritual transcendence.

I passed a sign that says "Trust Trump." What does that mean? Trust him to crack down on his opposition using the U.S. Army? Or trust him not to do all the anti-American things that he's saying he's going to do.

The formula is easy: pick a substance that folks are predisposed to hate anyway, then keep hounding the public with stories about tragedies somehow related to that substance. Show it ruining lives in movies and on TV. Don't lie. Just keep showing all the negatives.

The massive use of plea deals lets prosecutors threaten drug suspects into giving up their rights to a fair trial.

The Hindu religion was created thanks to the use of a drug that inspired and elated. It is therefore a crime against religious liberty to outlaw substances that inspire and elate.

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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