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The FDA is not qualified to judge psychoactive drugs

Here's why.

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

June 14, 2024



The FDA sets a ridiculous standard of safety for drugs like MDMA 1 . This is because they focus only on the downsides of use. They do not care in the least about the millions who suffer in silence thanks to the outlawing of such drugs. This is why the approval of psychoactive drugs is always based on philosophical assumptions. For the question is not just, "How dangerous is a drug?" but rather "How important are freedom of thought and the power to control one's own mind?" And the FDA has no expertise in deciding such philosophical matters!

By ignoring the needs of such would-be beneficiaries of the drug, the FDA is essentially telling us that freedom of the mind is not important and that the prime imperative in life is to avoid risk at all costs, even if it means the silent suffering of vast swaths of humanity. Of course, this default philosophical premise is a mistake, even on its own terms, for it fails to calculate, or to even consider, the risk of leaving the world full of dissatisfied people, who may take out that dissatisfaction on themselves or others.





Author's Follow-up:

April 05, 2025

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up




This is the same FDA that approves of Big Pharma 2 3 drugs whose side effects as advertised on prime-time television include death itself 4 . This is the same FDA that thinks that brain-damaging shock therapy is a valuable treatment. They will not let you improve your mood with phenomenally safe drugs, many of which grow at our very feet, but not to worry: if you get TOO depressed, the FDA is ready to help you damage your brain. It may not make you thrive in life, but it will take your mind off of your problems -- and everything else for that matter.

The important thing is, you will no longer be a problem for the nursing staff that you will henceforth require. You will be all compliance and not put up a fight.

This is proof that the materialist approach to mind and mood medicine is perverted and sick. It causes the behaviorist to ignore all obvious benefits to drugs and to prefer suicide 5 to drug use. When is America going to wake up?









Notes:

1: How the Drug War killed Leah Betts DWP (up)
2: Seife, Charles. 2012. “Is Drug Research Trustworthy?” Scientific American 307 (6): 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1212-56. (up)
3: LaMattina, John. n.d. “Why Is Biopharma Paying 75% of the FDA’s Drug Division Budget?” Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2022/09/22/why-is-biopharma-paying-75-of-the-fdas-drug-division-budget/. (up)
4: RINVOQ RX List (up)
5: Why Americans Prefer Suicide to Drug Use DWP (up)




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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




AI is like almost every subject under the sun: it takes on a very different and ominous meaning when we view it in light of the modern world's unprecedented wholesale outlawing of psychoactive medicine.

Here are some political terms that are extremely problematic in the age of the drug war: "clean," "junk," "dope," "recreational"... and most of all the word "drugs" itself, which is as biased and loaded as the word "scab."

The healthcare industry turns all the emotional downsides of drug prohibition into "illnesses."

Before anyone receives shock therapy -- or the right to assisted suicide -- they should have the option to start using opium or cocaine daily -- in fact, any drug that makes them feel that life is worth living again.

Opium is a godsend, as folks like Galen, Avicenna and Paracelsus knew. The drug war has facilitated a nightmare by outlawing peaceable use at home and making safe use almost impossible.

Prohibitionists are responsible for the 200,000-plus killed in the US-inspired Mexican drug war in the 21st century.

Heroin versus Antidepressants https://abolishthedea.com/heroin_versus_antidepressants.php

Americans have learned nothing but half-truths and lies about cocaine and opium thanks to the total censorship of drug benefits.

Drug Prohibition is a crime against humanity. It outlaws our right to take care of our own health.

No drug causes addiction after one use. From this fact alone, it follows that even drugs like meth and crack and Fentanyl can be used wisely -- on an intermittent basis.


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






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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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