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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.

April 2025 Update

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

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up




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.

Well done, Channel 5.














Notes for essay entitled The Criminalization of Nitrous Oxide is No Laughing Matter: an open letter to the Drug Policy Alliance:

1: Nitrous Oxide: Possession of laughing gas to be criminal offence (up)
2: Forbes Magazine's Laughable Article about Nitrous Oxide DWP (up)




read more essays here





Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




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.

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

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.

A Pennsylvanian politician now wants the US Army to "fight fentanyl." The guy is anthropomorphizing a damn drug! No wonder pols don't want to spend money on education, because any educated country would laugh a superstitious guy like that right out of public office.

Drugs like opium and cocaine should come with the following warning: "Outlawing of this product may result in inner-city gunfire, civil wars overseas, and rigged elections in which drug warriors win office by throwing minorities in jail."

A law proposed in Colorado in February 2024 would have criminalized positive talk about drugs online. What? The world is on the brink of nuclear war because of hate-driven politics, and I can be arrested for singing the praises of empathogens?

No wonder the "Justice" Department relies on plea deals; otherwise juries could use nullification to free those charged with mere drug possession.

My cousin says we should punish drug dealers. I say we should punish those politicians who created those drug dealers out of whole cloth by passing unprecedented laws against the use of Mother Nature's bounty.

Countless millions suffer needlessly in silence because of America's fearmongering about drugs.

The best long-term treatment for OUD would be to normalize the nightly smoking of opium at home, not to addict the user to government-supplied drugs that render them impervious to the benefits of the poppy plant.


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






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