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Take this Drug Test

to find out why drug prohibition is the outlawing of religion

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

April 27, 2025



Drug prohibition is the outlawing of religion. This is clear from the fact that many reports of drug-use are indistinguishable from experiences of religious epiphanies.


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To prove this to yourself, take the following test. Decide which of the following quotations are drug user reports from the book "Pihkal" by chemist Alexander Shulgin1 and which are reports of religious epiphanies cited in "The Varieties of Religious Experience" by psychologist William James2.


1) "I have the sense of a presence, strong, and at the same time soothing, which hovers over me. Sometimes it seems to enwrap me with sustaining arms."

2) "At one point I went out back and strolled along to find a place to worship. I had a profound sense of the Presence and great love and gratitude for the place, the people, and the activities taking place."

3) "I thought that I was near death; when, suddenly, my soul became aware of God, who was manifestly dealing with me, handling me, so to speak, in an intense personal present reality. I felt him streaming in like light upon me."

4) "I began to become aware of a point, a brilliant white light, that seemed to be where God was entering, and it was inconceivably wonderful to perceive it and to be close to it. One wished for it to approach with all one's heart."

5) "I felt a love to all mankind, wholly peculiar in its strength and sweetness, far beyond all that I had ever felt before. The power of that love seemed inexpressible."

6) "I am experiencing more deeply than ever before the importance of acknowledging and deeply honoring each human being. And I was able to go through and resolve some judgments with particular persons."

Click here to check your answers.

Of course, one does not really need such a test to determine that drug prohibition is the outlawing of religion. They have only to reflect that the Hindu religion owes its very existence to the use of a drug that inspired and elated3, from which it is blazingly clear that it is the outlawing of the religious impulse itself when we outlaw drugs that inspire and elate.


ANSWERS: Quotes 1, 3, and 5 are descriptions of religious epiphanies as cited in "The Varieties of Religious Experience" by William James4. Quotes 2, 4 and 6 are drug user reports that are quoted in "Pihkal" by Alexander Shulgin5.












Notes:

1: Shulgin, Alexander T, and Ann Shulgin. 2019. Pihkal : A Chemical Love Story. Berkeley, Ca: Transform Press. (up)
2: “The Varieties of Religious Experience : William James : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.” 2021. Internet Archive. 2021. https://archive.org/details/the-varieties-of-religious-experience_202109. (up)
3: How the Drug War Outlaws Religion DWP (up)
4: “The Varieties of Religious Experience : William James : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.” 2021. Internet Archive. 2021. https://archive.org/details/the-varieties-of-religious-experience_202109. (up)
5: Shulgin, Alexander T, and Ann Shulgin. 2019. Pihkal : A Chemical Love Story. Berkeley, Ca: Transform Press. (up)




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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




ECT is like euthanasia. Neither make sense in the age of prohibition.

We need a scheduling system for psychoactive drugs as much as we need a scheduling system for sports activities: i.e. NOT AT ALL. Some sports are VERY dangerous, but we do not outlaw them because we know that there are benefits both to sports and to freedom in general.

Getting off antidepressants can make things worse for only one reason: because we have outlawed all the drugs that could help with the transition. Right now, getting off any drug basically means becoming a drug-free Christian Scientist. No wonder withdrawal is hard.

The whole drug war is based on the anti-American idea that the way to avoid problems is to lie and prevaricate and persuade people not to ask questions.

Rick Strassman reportedly stopped his DMT trials because some folks had bad experiences at high doses. That is like giving up on aspirin because high doses of NSAIDs can kill.

In "Psychedelic Refugee," Rosemary Leary writes: "Fueled by small doses of LSD, almost everything was amusing or weird." -- Rosemary Leary In a non-brainwashed world, such testimony would suggest obvious ways to help the depressed.

I have dissed MindMed's new LSD "breakthrough drug" for philosophical reasons. But we can at least hope that the approval of such a "de-fanged" LSD will prove to be a step in the slow, zigzag path toward re-legalization.

The U.S. government created violence out of whole cloth in America's inner cities with drug prohibition -- and now it is using that violence as an excuse to kick the people that they themselves have knocked down.

M. Pollan says "not so fast" when it comes to drug re-legalization. I say FAST? I've gone a whole lifetime w/o access to Mother Nature's plants. How can a botanist approve of that? Answer: By ignoring all legalization stakeholders except for the kids whom we refuse to educate.

Scientists are responsible for endless incarcerations in America. Why? Because they fail to denounce the DEA lie that psychoactive substances have no positive medical uses.


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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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Copyright 2026, Brian Ballard Quass Contact: quass@quass.com

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