How mainstream drug attitudes have become worse than ever in the 21st century
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
March 15, 2026
The depressing thing about reading Thomas Szasz1 today is that it makes me think as follows: If such an intelligent man can so clearly present the facts of the case and not succeed in changing mainstream minds, what chance do I have as a relative dimwit, a thoroughly "unconnected" dimwit at that? For I am sorry to say that the situation since Szasz's time has gotten worse when it comes to America's drug attitudes, not better. This is obvious given the bizarre reaction of pundits of all stripes to the case of Claire Brosseau, the depressed Canadian who is fighting for her right to assisted suicide.2 Had Szasz been around today, he would surely be pointing out the fact that Claire's morbid activism must be seen in light of drug prohibition, which outlaws all the drugs that could cheer Claire up in a trice! The state first outlaws Claire's right to heal, and now Claire demands that the same state help her to die BECAUSE of the depression that the state thus brought about! Claire should be fighting to end drug prohibition which outlaws her right to heal, not arguing for a new recherché right to have the state help her to die!
New York Times healthcare reporter Stephanie Nolen reported on Claire's situation in late 2025 in an article in which drug prohibition was never mentioned, not once, neither by Claire nor by her two psychiatrists nor by Nolen herself. 3 And the story gets weirder. Surely, I thought, at least the Cato Institute would see the role of drug prohibition here in sending Claire to the gallows. But when I wrote to Jeffery Singer45 on this score, he referred me to his statements on the matter in which he never once mentioned drug prohibition, although he did call for Claire's right to obtain healthcare from non-state sources. It seems that even Singer believes that Claire's case is all about assisted suicide and that drug prohibition is somehow a separate and unrelated topic. Consider what these people are saying by ignoring the potential benefits of drugs in Claire's case: they are saying that death itself is better than drug use! Let's say that again: they are saying that death itself is better than drug use!
This is what happens when the media censors all positive drug use from the public record.
Nolen seems to know nothing about drug benefits, many of which, however, are common sense as in the case of laughing gas. Instead she assures us that Claire has tried "drugs" and that they failed -- as if "drugs" was an objective category rather than a catchall phrase for the endless list of competitors to alcohol of which racist politicians disapprove. It is simply not possible that "drugs" could fail for Claire, although any particular drug could fail. It will be difficult to find the right drug given our draconic drug laws, but drugs could never fail Claire in a free market. If we consider the healing value of anticipation, there is great obvious power in drugs like opium, laughing gas, phenethylamines and cocaine to cheer the depressed up, and without addicting her, although, the precise drugs to use for that purpose will obviously vary from person to person.
This is all common sense stuff. But some drug or drugs will work, if we value Claire's life and let her find them, preferably with the help of a pharmacologically savvy empath 67 After all, the bogus category of "drugs" includes the kinds of substances that have inspired entire religions and philosophies, as Soma inspired the Vedic religion8 and laughing gas inspired the philosophy of William James910. The phenethylamines synthesized by Alexander Shulgin even gave users what they described as a glimpse of heaven itself.11 One merely displays their ignorance of pharmacology and ethnobotany and drug history in general when they dismiss the power of drugs in less than a full sentence, as does Nolen in her politically correct treatment of the Brosseau case.
It might be said that we cannot blame Nolen for ignoring drug prohibition if none of the principals in the case ever mention it themselves, and yet this connection is so obvious to me that I am astounded that a health reporter would NOT mention it, if only to draw these people out and have them confront the 6,000-pound gorilla in the room. Claire is asking for nothing less than death itself, so surely the fact that drug prohibition drastically limits her ability to cheer herself up should be considered as HUGELY relevant to her story. And yet, as I have shown repeatedly, Americans -- even Libertarians -- seem to observe the following rules of politeness in public discourse: never admit that there are positive uses for drugs, and never admit that there are negative outcomes to prohibition.
This is why anti-violence groups for inner cities never blame drug prohibition for the presence of guns in the first place.12 They have a prior commitment to the drug-hating ideology of the War on Drugs, and so even ending inner-city violence comes in second place to that objective. The problem, of course, is that if we never acknowledge the problem, we will never end it.
Some might say that the book by Carl Hart shows that American attitudes are changing about drugs.13 Hart published the tellingly titled "Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear" in 2020.14 We do, of course, owe Hart a debt of gratitude for speaking common sense from the user's point of view. Unfortunately, Hart opens his book by insisting that the drugs that he uses are for recreational use only and that all of our real concerns about our psychological health should be treated by a doctor. (Hart apparently wanted to reassure Big Pharma that he was not trying to lay his hands on their golden goose: namely, the dependent patient.) Can Hart really believe that, though, that drugs that have inspired entire religions cannot be used to cheer one up, for instance? And who are these doctors that Hart wants me to visit? These are the doctors who "saved me" from time-honored substances like opium and laughing gas and phenethylamines by shunting me off onto a Big Pharma med that is far harder to kick than heroin 15! They have thereby turned me into a patient for life, a ward of the healthcare state, and an eternal child. And yet Hart tells me that drugs that can give me glimpses of heaven somehow should not be used to cheer myself up?!
He would not say that if he were a 67-year-old who had to see a doctor less than half his age every three months of his life for permission to buy another refill of an under-performing, expensive and highly dependence-causing "med." The big mistake of my life was to ever go to doctors in the first place in my teens -- but then what could I do? I was depressed, and drug prohibition had given psychiatry a monopoly on prescribing mind and mood medicine. This is why I envy those who have the guts and the wisdom to use outlawed drugs wisely despite drug prohibition and I wish them Godspeed in avoiding the Christian Science Police, who are determined to punish them as severely as humanly possible -- with the same fervor as protestants once punished Catholics in the 16th century, inventing ever-new ways to make their lives a hell.16 For them, drug use must always end in tragedy -- and their job is to turn that "idée fixe" of theirs into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
New article in Scientific American: "New hope for pain relief," that ignores the fact that we have outlawed the time-honored panacea. Scientists want a drug that won't run the risk of inspiring us.
If there was free speech in America, we would see billboards demanding freedom to use psychoactive substances for religious purposes, or to heal, or to follow-up on the research of William James regarding the nature of human consciousness.
There are endless ways that psychoactive drugs could be creatively combined to combat addiction and a million other things. But the drug warrior says that we have to study each in isolation, and then only for treating one single board-certified condition.
His answer to political opposition is: "Lock them up!" That's Nazi speak, not American democracy.
In the Atomic Age Declassified, they tell us that we needed hundreds of thermonuclear tests so that scientists could understand the effects. That's science gone mad. Just like today's scientists who need more tests before they can say that laughing gas will help the depressed. Science today is all about ignoring the obvious.
Scientists are so used to ignoring "drugs" that they don't even realize they're doing it. Yet almost all books about consciousness and depression (etc.) are nonsense these days because they ignore what drugs could tell us about those topics.
Assisted suicide cannot be discussed meaningfully without discussing the drug prohibition that renders it necessary in the first place.
Proof that materialism is wrong is "in the pudding." It is why scientists are not calling for the use of laughing gas and MDMA by the suicidal. Because they refuse to recognize anything that's obvious. They want their cures to be demonstrated under a microscope.
Drug-designing chemists have no expertise in deciding what constitutes a cure for depression. As Schopenhauer wrote:
"The mere study of chemistry qualifies a man to become an apothecary, but not a philosopher."
There's a run of addiction movies out there, like "Craving!" wherein they actually personify addiction as a screaming skeleton. Funny, drug warriors never call for a Manhattan Project to end addiction. Addiction is their golden goose.
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