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 drugs that have made me chemically dependent for life. That's why we actually need to make substances like laughing gas 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 that plagues so many poor inner-city neighborhoods today simply would not exist."
Laughing gas is the substance that gave William James his philosophy of reality. He concluded from its use that what we perceive is just a fraction of reality writ large. Yet his alma mater (Harvard) does not even MENTION laughing gas in their bio of the man.
In a sane world, we'd package laughing gas for safe use and give it to the suicidal -- saying, "Use before attempting to kill yourself." But drug warriors would rather have suicide than drug use.
Now drug warriors have nitrous oxide in their sights, the substance that inspired the philosophy of William James. They're using the same tired MO: focusing exclusively on potential downsides and never mentioning the benefits of use, and/or denying that any exist.
WILLIAM JAMES
William James knew that there were substances that could elate. However, it never occurred to him that we should use such substances to prevent suicide. It seems James was blinded to this possibility by his puritanical assumptions.
So he writes about the mindset of the deeply depressed, reifying the condition as if it were some great "type" inevitably to be encountered in humanity. No. It's the "type" to be found in a post-Christian society that has turned up its scientific nose at psychoactive medicine.
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You have been reading an article entitled, Why the FDA should not schedule Laughing Gas: The laughable proposal to crack down on nitrous oxide, published on August 8, 2023 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
You have been reading an article entitled, Why the FDA should not schedule Laughing Gas: The laughable proposal to crack down on nitrous oxide, published on August 8, 2023 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)