Solquinox sounded great, until I found out I wasn't invited
an open letter to the Psychedelic Society of Vermont
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
August 9, 2025
A few days ago, I saw a Tweet by Dr. Rick Barnett inviting his followers to check out an upcoming annual event that he is hosting in Vermont in September of this year. The profered link took me to a page entitled "Soulquinox: Psychedelic Science and Spirituality Summit," sponsored apparently by the Psychedelic Society of Vermont. The site intro was enticing to me as someone who "has skin in this game," given my intention of using psychedelics to get off of Effexor in the coming year. It was written by Rick himself and begins as follows:
"Each year our community gathers in the Green Mountains of Vermont to "cerebrate" (think deeply about something; ponder) and celebrate the role psychedelics may have in personal growth, healing, and health."
"Great," I thought to myself, "Those topics are right up my alley. I'm going through my own decisions right now about healing with psychedelics." So I clicked on the link that said "register now"... and got a rude awakening. It turns out that mere patients are not welcome at this event, it's only for "health professionals." To be exact, the pop-up notice admonished me as follows:
"This event is for health professionals only. This applies to you and any/all of your +1 attendees."
Well, let me tell you, my "+1 attendees" were not too happy to read THAT!
Okay, I can kind of understand the restriction: the guys want to talk shop. But it seems to me that they are "reckoning without their host" if they do not at least hear from one person who speaks for the millions (including the 1 in 4 American women) who are dependent on Big Pharma meds for life. What is the psychedelic renaissance doing for them -- and more importantly, what do THEY have to say about protocols that THEY believe will work? When it comes to using psychedelics for drug withdrawal, the patients are the experts because they can tell you what would work for them from a psychological point of view, rather than you telling them what should work for them. Perhaps I'm touchy having been ignored for years now, but I get this message all the time from psychiatrists: I should be taking my meds, not speculating on protocols. That's THEIR job, thank me very much. As Professor Lilloman said after interrupting a doubtful Mel Brooks in "High Anxiety":
It IS "nece"! I know what is "nece." Don't tell ME what is "nece." I tell YOU what is "nece."
So thinking, I sent the following message to the Soulquinox sponsor, the Psychedelic Society of Vermont..
I appreciate that you want to have a meeting with service providers only, but shouldn't you be open to the ideas of long-term recipients of mental health services in the USA, so that you can get an idea of what THEY think might work for THEM?
I'm a 65-year-old trying to get off of Effexor and I have a plan that I'd like your folks to discuss: namely, the compounding of Effexor such that I get off it in a year while the dose drops 364/365th every day -- during which time I microdose on psilocybin and any other godsend that makes sense and is (or becomes) legal (for a wonder), such as huachuma cactus.
When I presented this idea to my psychiatrist, he said he had never heard of such a thing and thought I should drop my Effexor dose by 35 mgs every month instead, and then start "counting pilules," though he himself said this would cause brain zaps and the possible return of my depression.
Now, I am not a doctor, but my plan makes perfect psychological sense and does not try to turn me into a compounding pharmacist. Psychological misgivings are minimized, first by the low almost imperceptible changes in dose and second by the fact that one knows they are getting help from natural medicine. For we all know how high recidivism rates are for getting off such drugs without the help of plant teachers. Yet no one wants to hear from me because I'm just a patient.
I have written hundreds of essays on this topic as the Drug War Philosopher at abolishthedea.com and I am still looking for someone in the healing business who thinks a patient is worth listening to on such topics. Too many of them think we should just shut up and take our meds -- that we should have no role in deciding what would work for us.
The healthcare business needs to do better by the millions that it has turned into eternal patients, and one start would be for counselors to actively solicit ideas from those who have been disempowered for decades now by the pill mill of materialist science.
The drug war is the defeatist doctrine that we will never be able to use psychoactive drugs wisely. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy because the government does everything it can to make drug use dangerous.
Many people take antidepressants believing their depression has a biochemical cause. Research does not support this belief. --Dr. Noam Shpancer, Psychology Today
If psychoactive drugs had never been criminalized, science would never have had any reason or excuse for creating SSRIs that muck about unpredictably with brain chemistry. Chewing the coca leaf daily would be one of many readily available "miracle treatments" for depression.
71% of the depressed have relapses after getting off their meds. Doctors blame this on depression, but increasing evidence suggests that these people are having withdrawal problems.
Musk and co. want to make us more robot-like with AI, when they should be trying to make us more human-like with sacred medicine. Only humans can gain creativity from plant medicine. All AI can do is harvest the knowledge that eventually results from that creativity.
In the 19th century, poets got together to use opium "in a series of magnificent quarterly carouses" (as per author Richard Middleton). When we outlaw drugs, we outlaw free expression.
In "Four Good Days" the pompous white-coated doctor ignores the entire formulary of mother nature and instead throws the young heroin user on a cot for 3 days of cold turkey and a shot of Naltrexone: price tag $3,000.
"Drugs" is imperialist terminology. In the smug self-righteousness of those who use it, I hear Columbus's disdain for the shroom use of the Taino people and the Spanish disdain for the coca use of the Peruvian Indians.
We've created a faux psychology to support such science: that psychology says that anything that really WORKS is just a "crutch" -- as if there is, or there even should be, a "CURE" for sadness.
Two of the biggest promoters of the psychedelic renaissance shuffle their feet when you ask them about substance prohibition. Michael Pollan and Rick Strassman just don't get it: prohibition kills.
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