The Criminalization of Nitrous Oxide is No Laughing Matter
an open letter to the Drug Policy Alliance
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
March 22, 2023
Channel 5 UK recently interviewed Niamh Eastwood (Executive Director of Release) and Dr. David Nicholl (NHS neurologist) about the perceived need to criminalize the use of laughing gas 1.
Although the guests were diplomatic, the presenter was goading them on to admit what to her was an obvious conclusion: namely, that laughing gas must be outlawed to protect "our children."
Whenever biased coverage of this kind occurs, DPA should send complaint letters to station management, just as it now sends protest letters to Congress.
The letter would point out that "our children" are not the only stakeholders in the prohibition game. What about the rights of the hundreds of millions of the depressed to godsend treatment? What about philosophers who want to follow up on the work of William James, whose use of laughing gas inspired his entire philosophy? What about the rights of minorities in inner cities to be free from random gunfire?
The protest letter would continue with some more stubbornly ignored Drug War home truths, such as the following:
Drug prohibition has destroyed the rule of law in Central America, militarized police forces around the world, created "no-go" zones in inner cities, and censored scientists. News organizations should be taught to remember this before ignorantly championing a drug control policy that has killed millions and facilitated the election of fascists, even in the United States, by disfranchising millions of minority voters.
Even if "our children" were the only stakeholders in the drug game, the answer in a free society would be to educate them about all psychoactive substances, rather than to proceed down the murderous and anti-scientific road of prohibition.
Such letters should then be endorsed by DPA members and shipped to station management at Channel 5 -- and to every other station and network which (wittingly or otherwise) promotes drug-war hysteria by ignoring the seemingly endless downsides of prohibition.
Best Wishes
Brian Quass
abolishthedea.com
Author's Follow-up:
April 17, 2025
Am I really the only person in the world who sees the affront to philosophy from the outlawing of laughing gas , the substance which inspired the ontology of William James? If I am not, please let me know. Get in touch at quass@quass.com. Or even if you don't know, get in touch. I'd like to hear from someone who is not completely bamboozled by the paleolithic ideology of the War on Drugs.
I have written to hundreds of philosophers on the subject and been ghosted by almost all of them -- and gaslighted by the rest. I can find no philosopher who is willing to admit that the quest for truth has been stymied by drug prohibition. Do they not realize that drug use inspired the Hindu religion? Do they not understand that drug use gives us glimpses of other potential realities? Do they not recall what James himself said about such things in "The Varieties of Religious Experience:
"No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded."
Yet disregard them we must because of the paleolithic belief that drugs are bad.
Wake up, World: drugs are bad only in the sense that fire is bad. Both are dangerous substances that humanity can put to beneficial uses -- if it prefers progress over dogmatic superstition.
How disgusting that the UK is making laughing gas 2 possession a criminal offence. It is just as wrong -- and asinine -- as outlawing fire.
Thanks to such viewpoints, the severely depressed have to have their brains damaged by shock therapy, the suicidal are denied the use of substances that could keep them from killing themselves, the hothead is denied treatments that could keep him or her from shooting up a grade school, and the philosopher is barred from studying the true nature of mind and matter.
Here's one problem that supporters of the psychiatric pill mill never address: the fact that Big Pharma antidepressants demoralize users by turning them into patients for life.
"I can take this drug that inspires me and makes me compassionate and teaches me to love nature in its byzantine complexity, or I can take Prozac which makes me unable to cry at my parents' funeral. Hmm. Which shall it be?" Only a mad person in a mad world would choose SSRIs.
Americans heap hypocritical praise on Walt Whitman. What they don't realize is that many of us could be "Walt Whitman for a Day" with the wise use of psychoactive drugs. To the properly predisposed, morphine gives a DEEP appreciation of Mother Nature.
Democratic societies need to outlaw prohibition for many reasons, the first being the fact that prohibition removes millions of minorities from the voting rolls, thereby handing elections to fascists and insurrectionists.
National Geo published an article entitled "Coca: a Blessing and a Curse." Coca was never a curse. Most people used it wisely, just as most people drink wisely. Doctors demonized it because it really worked and it could put them out of business. https://abolishthedea.com/sigmund_freuds_real_breakthrough_was_not_psychoanalysis.php
Until prohibition ends, rehab is all about enforcing a Christian Science attitude toward psychoactive medicines (with the occasional hypocritical exception of Big Pharma meds).
"Now, now, Sherlock, that coca preparation is not helping you a jot. Why can't you get 'high on sunshine,' like good old Watson here?" To which Sherlock replies: "But my good fellow, then I would no longer BE Sherlock Holmes."
The Partnership for a Death Free America is launching a campaign to celebrate the 50th year of Richard Nixon's War on Drugs. We need to give credit where credit's due for the mass arrest of minorities, the inner city gun violence and the civil wars that it's generated overseas.
A generally educated person meets new ideas with curiosity and fascination. An illiberally educated person meets new ideas with fear. --James B. Stockade.
Timothy Leary's wife wrote: "We went to Puerto Rico and all we did was take cocaine and read Faust to one another." And there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with that!!! The drug war is all about scaring us and making illegal drug use as dangerous as possible.
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