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Why the FDA should not schedule Laughing Gas

The laughable proposal to crack down on nitrous oxide

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

August 8, 2023



Brian submitted the following comment to Regulations.gov regarding the proposed "scheduling" of nitrous oxide and related substances. For the background story on the laughable proposal, see FDA Wants Public Input On International Scheduling Of Nitrous Oxide And Other Drugs Ahead Of WHO Meeting. To comment on the anti-philosophical proposal, visit this link at regulations.gov. (Deadline for comments is August 24, 2023.)

William James is considered by many to be America's greatest philosopher. His entire philosophy was inspired by the world he encountered under the influence of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas . In his master work, "The Varieties of Religious Experience," James wrote the following: "No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded." When you "schedule" substances like laughing gas , then you are censoring science and philosophy.

You are also denying godsend treatments for chronic depressives like myself. For laughing gas improves mood -- not just the gas itself, but LOOKING FORWARD to use. Materialists may not be able to "prove that" with their reductive reasoning, but, frankly, it's common psychological sense. Even the Reader's Digest knows that laughter is the best medicine. Instead of scheduling nitrous oxide, we should be teaching safe use and making it available to researchers and the depressed.

I perfectly understand that some folks may misuse it -- but we should teach them, not arrest them. We have got to stop acting like drugs must be banned if they are capable of misuse. All drugs can be misused. We must teach, not practice fearmongering. You may feel like you're saving a few hundred users from their own folly by scheduling, but you are simultaneously throwing millions of the depressed under the bus, along with philosophers who wish to follow up the studies of William James.

Instead of SWAT teams ready to arrest Americans, we need SWAT teams full of educators, ready to teach safe use wherever drug problems arise. That could surely happen if we spent the multi-billion-dollar DEA budget on educating rather than arresting.

The DEA scheduling system is political, not scientific. It outlaws drugs that have inspired entire religions. Coca was considered divine by the Inca, mushrooms by the Maya, and the psychedelic Soma inspired the Vedic-Hindu religion. We have to stop using the scheduling system to outlaw substances that inspire religions and philosophical thought. That kind of censorship is not what America should be about.

In conclusion, when you schedule mind-expanding substances like laughing gas , you are not just denying godsend treatment to millions, but you are censoring science and philosophy and telling researchers to "stand down" in their attempt to study ultimate reality. William James would be rolling in his grave to know that his philosophical field of inquiry has been shut down by government. Let's be the free country that we purport to be. Let's not censor science and philosophy.

Please do not "schedule" laughing gas and other related mind-enhancing substances in a way to limit their legitimate and beneficial use for science, philosophy, and the depressed.

Laughing gas is already out of reach for myself for practical reasons, and so I have to suffer without relief for depression that is untouched by the Big Pharma 1 2 drugs that have made me chemically dependent for life. That's why we actually need to make substances like laughing gas 3 MORE available, not less.

Scheduling and cracking down is not the answer. That's why the drug situation in the country is now incalculably worse than it was in 1914 when Congress first affectively outlawed a plant in violation of the natural law upon which America was founded. Let's learn from our mistakes. Let's start educating instead of outlawing. Let's start educating about substances instead of "scheduling" them. The prohibition thus created has already had ruinous effects by resulting in no-go zones in inner cities. For as Ann Heather Thompson wrote in The Atlantic in 2014: "Without the War on Drugs, the level of gun violence 4 that plagues so many poor inner-city neighborhoods today simply would not exist."












Notes for essay entitled Why the FDA should not schedule Laughing Gas: The laughable proposal to crack down on nitrous oxide:

1: Seife, Charles. 2012. “Is Drug Research Trustworthy?” Scientific American 307 (6): 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1212-56. (up)
2: 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)
3: Forbes Magazine's Laughable Article about Nitrous Oxide DWP (up)
4: Firearm Violence in the United States Center for Gun Violence Solutions, Johns Hopkins University (up)




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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




That's how antidepressants came about: the idea that sadness was a simple problem that science could solve. Instead of being caused by a myriad of interrelated issues, we decided it was all brain chemistry that could be treated with precision. Result? Mass chemical dependency.

It is a crime against humanity to withhold cocaine from the depressed and those with impaired cognition.

Drug warriors aren't just deciding for us about drugs. They're telling us that we no longer need Coleridge poems, Lovecraft stories, Robin Williams, Sherlock Holmes, or the soma-inspired Hindu religion.

We have to deny the FDA the right to judge psychoactive medicines in the first place. Their materialist outlook obliges them to ignore all obvious benefits. When they nix drugs like MDMA, they nix compassion and love.

I can't believe that no one at UVA is bothered by the DEA's 1987 raid on Monticello. It was, after all, a sort of coup against the Natural Law upon which Jefferson had founded America, asserting as it did the government's right to outlaw Mother Nature.

The press once again hauls out the easy answer. Reiner's son was using drugs! Aha! Of course, that explains EVERYTHING! [sigh]

Here is a sample drug-use report from the book "Pihkal": "More than tranquil, I was completely at peace, in a beautiful, benign, and placid place." Prohibition is a crime against humanity for withholding such drug experiences from the depressed (and from everybody else).

Your drug war has caused the disappearance of over 60,000 Mexicans over the last 20 years. It has turned inner cities into shooting galleries. It has turned America into a penal colony. It has destroyed the 4th amendment and put bureaucrats in charge of deciding if our religions are "sincere."

"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.

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.


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