Open letter to Niamh Eastwood (Executive Director of Release) and Dr. David Nicholl (NHS neurologist), in response to their recent interview about laughing gas on Channel 5, UK
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
January 26, 2023
Open letter to Niamh Eastwood (Executive Director of Release) and Dr. David Nicholl (NHS neurologist), in response to their recent interview about laughing gas on Channel 5, UK
As a 64-year-old chronic depressive, I am bothered by the fact that discussion about controversial psychoactive substances never takes into account people like myself. Everyone is so concerned about the safety of a relatively small number of young people, whom we fail to educate about drugs, yet no one ever worries about the MILLIONS of folks like myself who are living what Thoreau called "lives of quiet desperation." Laughing gas, for obvious reasons, could be a blessing in my life when used wisely and at appropriate times, at appropriate intervals, in appropriate doses, etc. Even if it doesn't work according to materialist reductionist standards, it would work for me by merely giving me something to look forward to.
But folks like myself are never considered to be stakeholders when the topic turns to potential substance criminalization.
The newscasters who spoke to you were all but saying that N2O should be outlawed, that all the evidence points that way. But that's nonsense. The only reason that "all the evidence points that way" is because they are ignoring all stakeholders except ignorant juveniles. In America, it's more specific than that: we outlaw coca to protect not just juveniles, but AMERICAN juveniles, for we do not care how many MEXICAN juveniles lose parents to the Drug War down south, given the fact that the prohibition we champion naturally creates violence.
When evaluating drugs, we must stop thinking about merely those who misuse the substance. If that's the only standard, then no drugs would be legal, least of all alcohol and cigarettes.
We have to think about those who will be killed by the violence caused by drug prohibition, we have to think of those who may commit suicide because we have outlawed godsend treatments, we have to think about how scientists will be censored because they will have trouble researching the drugs that we demonize and criminalize.
The Drug War and prohibition only make sense to people because they ignore all these considerations.
(By the way, the idea that most use is recreational ignores the fact that some users may be self-medicating1 -- which is understandable in a world where the default legal treatment for depression and anxiety is a lifetime regimen of addictive tranquilizing drugs.)
It's all well and good to "attack the suppliers," but what about the depressed who thereby go without a godsend medicine?
This is why we have to push for education and stop prosecuting substance users. The money that we're currently spending on law enforcement should go to teams of healthcare workers instead, who will visit affected communities with kiosks and concerts and block parties, etc., and spread the news about how to use popular substances as safely as possible. Unfortunately, this goes against the grain of Drug War ideology, which tells us to fear drugs rather than to understand them.
Nor should we simply fight suppliers. We need suppliers. But we need regulation for a clean drug supply -- and regulation to make sure that all the info is out there to teach safe use.
Otherwise the safety that everyone talks about is purchased by the misery of folks like myself.
It's the same MO every time a drug gets misused: "Oh, we must outlaw it to save our children!"
Great, but then we throw millions of sufferers under the bus by denying them what, for them, is godsend medicine.
It's like the crackdown on MDMA in Britain, one of the safest drugs on the planet.. The drug brought unprecedented peace to the dance floor, and yet it was demonized because it was associated with a single solitary death -- A DEATH WHICH WAS CAUSED BY THE DRUG WAR ITSELF WHICH CAUSED USERS TO FEAR SUBSTANCES RATHER THAN TO UNDERSTAND HOW TO USE THEM CORRECTLY. The 100-pound Leah Betts, in short, should have remained hydrated while dancing and using Ecstasy, something she would have known had we decided to teach users instead of punishing them.
(By the way, If we're really concerned about safety, we would actually ENCOURAGE the use of MDMA, at least for hotheads, so that they would feel enough love in their heart that they could no longer bring themselves to shoot up grade schools. The use of MDMA could also help the world avoid nuclear Armageddon by bringing people together in love -- talk about SAFETY! But the Drug Warrior is, of course, blind to all positive uses of so-called "drugs.")
And what did the crack down on Ecstasy accomplish? After Ecstasy was removed from rave concerts, the dance floor became so violent that special forces troops had to police the venues. Special forces! (See the documentary "One Nation" by concert promoter Terry "Turbo" Smith.) But the Drug Warriors who scream about safety concerns never worry about such things. Despite their alleged concern for the safety of our youth, they're absolutely blind to the violence generated by their own prohibition policies.
And so Ecstasy is pilloried for a handful of well-publicized deaths, while alcohol kills 90,000 people a year in the States and nobody bats an eyelash.
The Drug War is all about scaring kids about drugs rather than educating them ("drugs" being Drug War Newspeak for "substances of which pharmacologically clueless politicians disapprove"). Biden's Office on Drug Control Policy actually had a charter that forbade it from considering positive uses for "drugs," for fear of sending the wrong message. In other words, the ONDCP is a propaganda arm of the US government. Its goal is to inspire fear, not knowledge about safe use.
Drug warriors may save a few lives of juveniles with prohibition, but only by throwing victims of the Drug War, including the millions of depressed people around the world, under the bus.
Other ignored stakeholders include: victims of drive-by shootings, victims of a tainted and unpredictable drug supply, those who lose their livelihoods due to unconstitutional "drug tests" -- and the biggest victim of all: democracy itself, which disappears as we militarize police forces, censor our scientists, outlaw religions, and Nazify the English language, calling our fellow citizens "scumbags" and "filth," should they dare to sell Mother Nature's plant medicines to their fellow human being.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, laughing gas has other uses than just "recreation": it can evoke spiritual states. Indeed, the use of laughing gas inspired the whole philosophy of William James, teaching him that "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy." And so to outlaw substances like laughing gas is to outlaw philosophy and human progress itself. This fact alone should prevent us from continuing down the well-worn dead-end path of prohibition, littered as it is with hundreds of thousands of deaths in Mexico alone over the last ten years.
To repeat: the money that we are throwing away on law enforcement should be turned over to health workers who will launch real education campaigns, teaching how to use all psychoactive substances as safely as possible -- rather than teaching potential users to "just say no" and thereby proselytizing them on behalf of the drug-hating religion known as Christian Science.
Most of all, we need to acknowledge ALL the stakeholders (including folks like myself) when we discuss potential drug criminalization, not just the young whom we ourselves have failed to educate because we're too busy punishing them instead.
January 26, 2023
The headlines in the UK claim that the laughing gas ban is being considered to "combat bad behavior," but in the interview, Dr. Nicholl spoke only of safety concerns.
*william*
Laughing Gas
Laughing gas is the substance that inspired William James' philosophy about human perception and the nature of ultimate reality. "No account of the universe in its totality," wrote James, "can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded." And yet disregard them we must because the Drug War has outlawed all substances that help create such states. This is a veto on human progress. It is also psychological common sense that laughing gas could be used to prevent suicides and treat depression -- but materialist science ignores common sense. This is why they need to butt out when it comes to psychoactive medicine. They are no experts on emotional states, except in their own dogmatic materialist minds. It is a category error to place materialists in charge of our thoughts and feelings. We actually know what works for ourselves. And if there are any experts in the field, they are not materialists, they are pharmacologically savvy empaths, what the indigenous world calls shaman.
Check out the conversations that I have had so far with the movers and shakers in the drug-war game -- or rather that I have TRIED to have. Actually, most of these people have failed to respond to my calls to parlay, but that need not stop you from reading MY side of these would-be chats.
I don't know what's worse, being ignored entirely or being answered with a simple "Thank you" or "I'll think about it." One writes thousands of words to raise questions that no one else is discussing and they are received and dismissed with a "Thank you." So much for discussion, so much for give-and-take. It's just plain considered bad manners these days to talk honestly about drugs. Academia is living in a fantasy world in which drugs are ignored and/or demonized -- and they are in no hurry to face reality. And so I am considered a troublemaker. This is understandable, of course. One can support gay rights, feminism, and LGBTQ+ today without raising collegiate hackles, but should one dare to talk honestly about drugs, they are exiled from the public commons.
Somebody needs to keep pointing out the sad truth about today's censored academia and how this self-censorship is but one of the many unacknowledged consequences of the Drug War ideology of substance demonization.
If there is an epidemic of "self-harm," prohibitionists never think of outlawing razor blades. They ask: "Why the self-harm?" But if there is an epidemic of drug use which they CLAIM is self-harm, they never ask "Why the self-harm?" They say: "Let's prohibit and punish!"
I passed a sign that says "Trust Trump." What does that mean? Trust him to crack down on his opposition using the U.S. Army? Or trust him not to do all the anti-American things that he's saying he's going to do.
If I want to use the kind of drugs that have inspired entire religions, fight depression, or follow up on the research of William James into altered states, I should not have to live in fear of the DEA crashing down my door and shouting: "GO! GO! GO!"
This is why we would rather have a depressed person commit suicide than to use "drugs" -- because drugs, after all, are not dealing with the "real" problem. The patient may SAY that drugs make them feel good, but we need microscopes to find out if they REALLY feel good.
Folks like Sabet accuse folks like myself of ignoring the "facts." No, it is Sabet who is ignoring the facts -- facts about dangerous horses and free climbing. He's also ignoring all the downsides of prohibition, whose laws lead to the election of tyrants.
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."
Drug testing labs should give high marks for those who manage to use drugs responsibly, notwithstanding the efforts of law enforcement to ruin their lives. The lab guy would be like: "Wow, you are using opium wisely, my friend! Congratulations! Your boss is lucky to have you!"
Only a pathological puritan would say that there's no place in the world for substances that lift your mood, give you endurance, and make you get along with your fellow human being. Drugs may not be everything, but it's masochistic madness to claim that they are nothing at all.
Americans love to hate heroin. But there is no rational reason why folks should not use heroin daily in a world in which we consider it their medical duty to use antidepressants daily.
The drug war has created a whole film genre with the same tired plots: drug-dealing scumbags and their dupes being put in their place by the white Anglo-Saxon establishment, which has nothing but contempt for altered states.
If there is an epidemic of "self-harm," prohibitionists never think of outlawing razor blades. They ask: "Why the self-harm?" But if there is an epidemic of drug use which they CLAIM is self-harm, they never ask "Why the self-harm?" They say: "Let's prohibit and punish!"