Thank God for Erowid

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Thank God for Erowid

in response to a 2015 Vice article by Adam Rothstein

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

May 15, 2025

In his 2015 article about Erowid ¹ in Vice magazine, Adam Rothstein makes the following bizarre claim:

"Erowid wouldn't pass peer-review standards for medical science journals—and perhaps not even the objectivity-standards of Wikipedia." ²

What? Whatever gave Adam the idea that peer-review journals are objective when it comes to drugs - let alone that Wikipedia is? Such sources are enormously biased because they focus almost exclusively on abuse and misuse and scarcely at all on the godsend potentials of outlawed medicines.

Consider the following description of a "trip" on morphine as quoted from "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains" by Edgar Allan Poe.

"In the meantime the morphine had its customary effect- that of enduing all the external world with an intensity of interest. In the quivering of a leaf- in the hue of a blade of grass- in the shape of a trefoil- in the humming of a bee- in the gleaming of a dew-drop- in the breathing of the wind- in the faint odors that came from the forest- there came a whole universe of suggestion- a gay and motley train of rhapsodical and immethodical thought.³"

This is the description of an enormously positive upside of morphine ⁴ use - its ability to help us to cultivate a deep appreciation of Mother Nature - and yet how often do peer-review journals trumpet such benefits as something to investigate and to take advantage of for the benefit of humankind? Answer: Never. The materialist scientists start their cost-benefit analyses about such drugs by first dogmatically ignoring all such glaringly obvious benefits of use! This is not objectivity. This is dogmatic blindness.

Consider the following descriptions of the use of phenethylamines as recorded in Pihkal by Alexander Shulgin ⁵:

"I experienced the desire to laugh hysterically at what I could only describe as the completely ridiculous state of the entire world."

"I feel that it is one of the most profound and deep learning experiences I have had."

"I find that I can just slightly redirect my attention so that it applies more exactly to what I am doing. I feel that I can learn faster. This is a `smart' pill!"

"I acknowledged a rapture in the very act of breathing."

Again, these are enormous drug benefits! But the materialist scientists of our peer-review journals approach such anecdotes like Dr. Spock of Star Trek, completely unimpressed and eager to get back to their microscopes.

To be objective means to be fair and to be open to ALL evidence - and not just the stuff that casts drugs in a suspicious light. It is clear, therefore, that Erowid is far more objective about drugs than peer-review journals, to say nothing of the brainwashed mainstream on Wikipedia, which has been shielded for a lifetime from positive news about drugs thanks to media censorship. Scientists are passion-scorning behaviorists ⁶ ⁷ when it comes to psychology and so they feel free to ignore anecdote, history and common sense when evaluating drugs. This is not objectivity on their part; it is rather a sign that they have an agenda when it comes to drugs: a materialist agenda to dismiss obvious drug benefits out of hand in the name of behaviorist principles - which is "convenient," as the Church Lady would say, because it allows them to toe the Drug War party line that drugs have no benefits and so absolves them of what would otherwise be their moral duty to speak up against the science-stopping public policy known as drug prohibition.

Objective? We are talking about scientists who actually promote brain-damaging shock therapy for the depressed but will not approve of drugs that would make such brain damage unnecessary ⁸. Objective? We are talking about scientists who cannot find anything but abuse potential in the kinds of drugs that have inspired entire religions ⁹. Objective? We are talking about scientists who cannot even figure out if laughing gas could help the depressed ¹⁰. Laughing gas, for God's sake! In an objective world, we would give laughing gas kits to the suicidal, just as we now give epi pens to those with severe allergies. Instead of doing so, our scientists have stood by as the government seeks to treat laughing gas ¹¹ like a "drug," thus making it even less practical to use than ever, this despite the fact that William James encouraged philosophers to use the substance to investigate the nature of perception and reality ¹².

The idea that scientists are objective about drugs in the age of the Drug War is completely false. To the contrary, today's scientists live in a make-believe world: they pretend that the kinds of godsend drug benefits mentioned above do not even exist. That's why magazines like Science News and Scientific American keep telling us that depression is tough to beat, failing to mention that we have outlawed all the substances that could do just that, and not in weeks, months, or years, either, but in mere seconds. But then we have all been taught since grade school that we are eternal children when it comes to drugs and so will never be able to use them wisely for the benefit of humanity. And our scientists help support this defeatist attitude by pretending that the benefits in question do not even exist. Far from being objective, then, today's scientists are helping to normalize drug prohibition by gaslighting ¹³ us about obvious benefits of drug use. That's why I say thank God for Erowid, the only source that treats the subject of drug use objectively by discussing both the potential dangers of drugs AND their many common-sense benefits.

Open Letter to Erowid

Pharmacologically Savvy Empaths

Notes:

1: Erowid (up)
2: Rothstein, Adam. 2015. “How the Most Extreme Trips on Erowid Transformed Modern Drug Culture.” VICE. November 25, 2015. https://www.vice.com/en/article/how-the-most-extreme-trips-on-erowid-transformed-modern-drug-culture/. (up)
3: A Tale of the Ragged Mountains Poe, Edgar Allan (up)
4: Three takeaway lessons from the use of morphine by William Halsted, co-founder of Johns Hopkins Medical School DWP (up)
5: Shulgin, Alexander T, and Ann Shulgin. 2019. Pihkal : A Chemical Love Story. Berkeley, Ca: Transform Press. (up)
6: The purblind coldness of the Behaviorist doctrine is made clear in the following words of its founder, JB Watson, as quoted in the 2015 book "Paradox" by Margaret Cuonzo: "Concepts such as belief and desire are heritages of a timid savage past akin to concepts referring to magic." (Surely, Watson was proactively channeling Dr. Spock of the original Star Trek series.) (up)
7: Behaviorism and the War on Drugs DWP (up)
8: Electroshock Therapy and the Drug War DWP (up)
9: How the Drug War Outlaws Religion DWP (up)
10: Glatter, Robert. 2021. “Can Laughing Gas (Nitrous Oxide) Help People with Treatment-Resistant Depression?” Forbes, June 9, 2021. https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2021/06/09/can-laughing-gas-nitrous-oxide-help-people-with-treatmentresistant-depre (up)
11: Forbes Magazine's Laughable Article about Nitrous Oxide DWP (up)
12: The Varieties of Religious Experience James, William, Goodreads, New York, 1902 (up)
13: The Semmelweis Effect in the War on Drugs DWP (up)

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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US

The DEA should be put on trial for crimes against humanity for withholding godsend medicine from the depressed. Here is just one typical drug-user report that appeared in "Pihkal": "A glimpse of what true heaven is supposed to feel like..."

This is why we would rather have a depressed person commit suicide than to use "drugs" -- because drugs, after all, are not dealing with the "real" problem. The patient may SAY that drugs make them feel good, but we need microscopes to find out if they REALLY feel good.

I thought mycology clubs across the US would be protesting drug laws that make mushroom collecting illegal for psychoactive species. But in reality, almost no club even mentions such species. No wonder prohibition is going strong.

Alcohol is a drug in liquid form. If drug warriors want to punish people who use drugs, they should start punishing themselves.

The worst form of government is not communism, socialism or even unbridled capitalism. The worst form of government is a Christian Science Theocracy, in which the government controls how much you are allowed to think and feel in life.

We should no more arrest drug users than we arrest people for climbing sheer rock faces or for driving a car.

Champions of indigenous medicines claim that their medicines are not "drugs." But they miss the bigger point: that there are NO drugs in the sense that drug warriors use that term. There are no drugs that have no positive uses whatsoever.

Someone tweeted that fears about a Christian Science theocracy are "baseless." Tell that to my uncle who was lobotomized because they outlawed meds that could cheer him up -- tell that to myself, a chronic depressive who could be cheered up in an instant with outlawed meds.

An Englishman's home is his castle. An American's home is a bouncy castle for the DEA.

People are talking about re-scheduling psilocybin, but they miss the point. We need to DE-schedule everything. It's anti-scientific to conclude in advance that any drug has no uses -- and it's a lie too, of course. End drug scheduling altogether! It's childish and wrong.

Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us

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