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." 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'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 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 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 or TV shows -- 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 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
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...
No Drug War Keychains The key to ending the Drug War is to spread the word about the fact that it is Anti-American, unscientific and anti-minority (for starters)
Monticello Betrayed Thomas Jefferson By demonizing plant medicine, the Drug War overthrew the Natural Law upon which Jefferson founded America -- and brazenly confiscated the Founding Father's poppy plants in 1987, in a symbolic coup against Jeffersonian freedoms.
The Drug War Censors Science Scientists: It's time to wake up to the fact that you are censored by the drug war. Drive the point home with these bumper stickers.
You have been reading essays by the Drug War Philosopher, Brian Quass, at abolishthedea.com. Brian is the founder of The Drug War Gift Shop, where artists can feature and sell their protest artwork online. He has also written for Sociodelic and is the author of The Drug War Comic Book, which contains 150 political cartoons illustrating some of the seemingly endless problems with the war on drugs -- many of which only Brian seems to have noticed, by the way, judging by the recycled pieties that pass for analysis these days when it comes to "drugs." That's not surprising, considering the fact that the category of "drugs" is a political category, not a medical or scientific one.
A "drug," as the world defines the term today, is "a substance that has no good uses for anyone, ever, at any time, under any circumstances" -- and, of course, there are no substances of that kind: even cyanide and the deadly botox toxin have positive uses: a war on drugs is therefore unscientific at heart, to the point that it truly qualifies as a superstition, one in which we turn inanimate substances into boogie-men and scapegoats for all our social problems.
The Drug War is, in fact, the philosophical problem par excellence of our time, premised as it is on a raft of faulty assumptions (notwithstanding the fact that most philosophers today pretend as if the drug war does not exist). It is a war against the poor, against minorities, against religion, against science, against the elderly, against the depressed, against those in pain, against children in hospice care, and against philosophy itself. It outlaws substances that have inspired entire religions, Nazifies the English language and militarizes police forces nationwide.
It bans the substances that inspired William James' ideas about human consciousness and the nature of ultimate reality. In short, it causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, meanwhile violating the Natural Law upon which Thomas Jefferson founded America. (Surely, Jefferson was rolling over in his grave when Ronald Reagan's DEA stomped onto Monticello in 1987 and confiscated the founding father's poppy plants.)
If you believe in freedom and democracy, in America and around the world, please stay tuned for more philosophically oriented broadsides against the outrageous war on godsend medicines, AKA the war on drugs.
PS The drug war has not failed: to the contrary, it has succeeded, insofar as its ultimate goal was to militarize police forces around the world and help authorities to ruthlessly eliminate those who stand in the way of global capitalism. For more, see Drug War Capitalism by Dawn Paley.
Rather than apologetically decriminalizing selected plants, we should be demanding the immediate restoration of Natural Law, according to which "The earth, and all that is therein, is given to men for the support and comfort of their being." (John Locke)
Site and its contents copyright 2023, by Brian B. Quass, the drug war philosopher at abolishthedea.com. For more information, contact Brian at quass@quass.com.
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." 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'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 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)
