Unscientific American

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Unscientific American

How the authors at Scientific American self-censor their articles in deference to America's Drug War

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

May 12, 2020

I sent the following message to the editors of Scientific American today, on May 12, 2020:

Attention Editors: please start acknowledging the Drug War's role in limiting scientific inquiry

Good afternoon.

Could you please pass this along to your staff and management? The following is written in response to a May 2018 article by Dana G. Smith entitled "At What Age Does Our Ability to Learn a New Language Like a Native Speaker Disappear?"

My topic is not so much the article itself as the fact that, like many SA articles, the author has left out a whole angle to the story in deference and obedience to America's anti-scientific Drug War, as if the Drug War prohibitions somehow provided a rational baseline for scientific inquiry. {^ The fact is that the Drug War provides anti-scientific obstacles to research on many subjects about which Scientific American authors write, and I believe it's about time that SA started acknowledging that fact in the articles themselves, thereby shaming the Drug Warriors for impeding scientific progress in a supposed free country.}{

Thanks for your consideration,

Ballard Quass.
abolishthedea.com

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for the fascinating article about language acquisition ("At What Age Does Our Ability to Learn a New Language Like a Native Speaker Disappear?")

I'd like to suggest however that you've limited your inquiry, albeit unwittingly, in deference to America's Drug War.

If science were free to investigate and research all the products of Mother Nature (and not just the ones of which politicians approve), it would discover something that psychedelic rebels have known for half a century now: namely, that psychedelic plant medicines can create fascinating and useful new connections in the brain that provide the substance user with whole new ways of looking at the world and whole new ways to process previously unintelligible information about that world.

The Drug War Censors Science
Scientists: It's time to wake up to the fact that you are censored by the Drug War. Drive the point home with these bumper stickers.

In other words, there is every reason to believe that one day, when America has finally cast off the anti-scientific slough of Drug War prohibitions, we will find ways to vastly improve the language learning abilities of older human beings through the strategic use of psychedelic substances that grow around us in the natural world. Right now, however, scientists who even broach such a topic must keep an eye over their shoulder lest their colleagues eye them askance for invoking the names of plants about which we are not even supposed to speak in so-called scientific America - let alone to speak positively.

I realize that this assertion is speculative, but it is a tantalizing hypothesis indeed, considering not only the anecdotal evidence of psychedelic-inspired mind expansion over the past 50 years, but the fact that there are hundreds - perhaps thousands - of promising plant medicines of this kind that are completely off limits to scientific investigation thanks to the DEA's mendacious and self-serving drug scheduling system, plants which a human being can be jailed for merely possessing, never mind that the substances in question grow unbidden at their very feet.

In short, I think that there is a whole angle to this story that scientists are ignoring thanks to Drug War sensibilities, and which they must ignore, since they are currently forbidden to even study the kind of plants that we're talking about here.

Yours in the name of true scientific freedom...

Ballard Quass

Abolishthedea.com

PS If I may make a suggestion: One way to change this anti-scientific status quo is for Scientific American's authors to start thinking about how their articles might change were the Drug War not in force with respect to psychoactive plants and their ability to change the mind (to better process new kinds of information, to ease depression, to help one make their peace with death, etc.). Then, once an SA author has determined that their story has angles that scientists cannot adequately pursue thanks to Drug War prohibitions, those authors should state this fact clearly and matter-of-factly in their articles, with a comment such as: "Note: Topic X will not be pursued further in this article thanks to American Drug War prohibitions which prevent scientists from studying such hypotheses in detail."

By thus acknowledging the censorship function of the Drug War viz scientific inquiry, the author can help bring about legal reforms by shaming the Drug Warriors who have shackled scientific investigation in this way.

PPS I will be publishing this letter on my website (abolishthedea.com) as an open letter to Scientific American, probably under the title (or at least subtitle) of: "How scientists self-censor in deference to America's Drug War." I realize that this self-censorship is not conscious, but that really just makes it all the more insidious.

Open Letters

Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US

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.

Aleister Crowley actually TRIED to get addicted to drugs and found he could not. These things are not inevitable. The fact that there are town drunkards does not mean that we should outlaw alcohol.

The FDA approves of shock therapy and the psychiatric pill mill, but they cannot see the benefits in MDMA, a drug that brought peace, love and understanding to the dance floor in 1990s Britain.

Think you can handle a horse? So did Christopher Reeves. The fact is, NOBODY can handle a horse. This message brought to you by the Partnership for a Death Free America.

I'm told antidepressant withdrawal is fine because it doesn't cause cravings. Why is it better to feel like hell than to have a craving? In any case, cravings are caused by prohibition. A sane world could also end cravings with the help of other drugs.

In a free future, newspapers will have philosophers on their staffs to ensure that said papers are not inciting consequence-riddled hysteria through a biased coverage of drug-related mishaps.

The proof that psychedelics work has always been extant. We are hoodwinked by scientists who convince us that efficacy has not been "proven." This is materialist denial of the obvious.

After watching my mother suffer because of the drug war, I hate to hear people tell me that the problem is drugs. WRONG! That's a western colonialist viewpoint. God loved his creation (see Genesis). He did not make trash. We need to use entheogenic medicines wisely.

"The homicidal drug is booze. There's more violence on a Saturday night in a neighborhood tavern than there has been in the whole 20-year history of LSD." -- Timothy Leary

"All these anti-opium articles... are based upon the same model. They assume certain statements as existing and acknowledged facts which have never been proved to be such, and then proceed to draw deductions from those alleged facts." --William Brereton

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

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tombstone for American Democracy, 1776-2024, RIP

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