Blinded by the Scientific Light

introduction to the Drug War Philosopher website at abolishthedea.com

label reading 'add as a preferred source on Google'

Blinded by the Scientific Light

How researchers ignore all obvious benefits of drug use

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

April 17, 2026

I recently had an essay of mine ¹ accepted for upcoming publication on the Mad in America website. Mad in America ² is a website and organization founded by author Robert Whitaker to critique the psychiatric pill mill. It was Robert's eye-opening book, "Mad In America,³" which introduced me back in the twenty-teens to the problems with the current pharmaceutical status quo. I had always questioned the idea that our "meds" were so many scientifically derived miracle drugs, but Robert helped me understand why this was false from the perspective of science itself. Of course, I've since come to realize that the pill mill is wrong for a variety of purely philosophical reasons as well, yet it was eye-opening to see that SSRIs and SNRIs were not "scientific," even when judged by their own standards.

I was surprised, however, that Robert signed off on my submitted essay, for reasons that should become clear from its button-pushing title:

From the psychiatric pill mill to assisted suicide for the depressed: How America's jaundiced view of drugs has deprived the psychiatric field of common sense ⁴

If there's one thing that I've learned in the process of studying America's drug attitudes over the last seven years, it is that any mention of drug benefits in a paper submitted to mainstream media is likely to result not only in non-publication, but also in the complete ghosting of the would-be author by the contacted party. Imagine my surprise then when Robert responded personally to my submission query, stating that he was interested in the ideas that I had raised and inviting me to submit an essay on the topic. Imagine my further amazement when Robert subsequently signed off on my essay submission and bade his editor get to work on preparing the same for publication.

You can read that proposal for yourself as I have published it as an open letter on this site: What the assisted suicide debate tells us about the evils of drug prohibition ⁵. Judge for yourself how atypically open-minded Robert is on the subject of potential drug benefits.

This unexpected thumbs-up has encouraged me to "press my luck" by taking a closer look at the articles on the Mad in America website and commenting on them from my apparently unique perspective, as diplomatically as possible, however, so as not to earn the eternal enmity of their authors.

ESSAY: "The Hype for Psychedelic Drugs Relies on Unblinding" by Peter Simons ⁶

COMMENT:
I have a very different take on such findings than most, Peter. I ask, why are we doing such scientific studies in the first place? In my view, we have been sent on a fool's errand by our dedication to the scientific method in the age of drug prohibition. We are now trying to find out, "scientifically," whether psychedelics are good or bad in and of themselves, when the goodness or badness of psychedelics (as indeed of all psychoactive medicine) depends entirely on the context of use. It follows that psychedelics cannot be studied in the objective way that scientists would desire for the simple reason that, like it or not, high expectations are crucial to a positive outcome of use.

A blind study would prove nothing because it would be seeking to answer the wrong question: namely, how does this psychedelic substance perform when the user has no expectations of efficacy? Of course, the easiest way to answer that question would be to "hand someone a mickey" and then see how they respond. In the case of psychedelics, however, this approach would likely result in "bad trips all around." We cannot ignore user expectations like this without deforming the very experience that we are attempting to evaluate. These are the kinds of concerns that Native American activist Albert Hensley had in mind when he complained as follows about the scientific study of peyote:

It is utter folly for scientists to attempt to analyze this medicine. Can science analyze God's body?⁷

In fact, the efficacy of psychedelic drugs has long since been proven in the real world, it's just that western scientists have changed the definition of "efficacy" to accord with their own behaviorist and reductionist presuppositions.

Psychedelics were efficacious in the Punjab in 1500 BCE insofar as the psychoactive Soma juice inspired the creation of the Vedic, and hence the Hindu, religion ⁸. They were efficacious in the pre-Columbian Aztec kingdom, where they were ritually employed in the healing of body and mind ⁹. They were efficacious in the various Mayan cultures, where they were used to facilitate communication with the spirit world ¹⁰. They have been proven efficacious in our time as well, if we judge efficacy by outcome of use, as can be seen by the thousands of user reports by Grof ¹¹, Fadiman ¹², Grob ¹³ et al. The very fact that we westerners are now stroking our beards and asking ourselves if these substances have any positive uses is a demonstration of our ignorance of (and/or our indifference to) the indigenous view of such substances. I say this with all due respect for modern drug researchers, not to disparage their use of the scientific method but to suggest that they cease employing it in cases where it does not properly apply, lest in so doing they become guilty of the sin of pharmacological colonialism.

Finally, a word in defense of the psychedelic researchers who are being charged in articles of this kind with the hyping of drug benefits. Let us remember that these drugs were not originally outlawed for scientific reasons but rather for political ones. It follows that all research on this subject – and all criticism of such research – will always have a political component. It will either be serving to help justify the politically created policy of drug prohibition or to call it into question. Moreover, the very idea that we must "justify" the use of these drugs on a scientific basis, without reference to the obvious benefits seen in anecdote and history, is problematic, to put it mildly. We have thereby placed the supporters of psychedelic drug use in an odd position, indeed, where they are forced to prove the obvious, while yet prohibiting them from using any proof that would, indeed, appear obvious to any fair observer. We say as materialists, "Yes, but we want to see if psychedelics REALLY work!", but that is really just a way of saying that we demand proof of efficacy that will accord with our philosophical penchant for reductionism and biological determinism. In other words, the game is rigged to look only for downsides of use, and psychedelic supporters know this. We should therefore avoid criticizing them too harshly for their supposed bias in performing research that they never should have been required to undertake in the first place.

Such drugs work, and have worked, for entire civilizations. This is all we need to know.

The rest is just a search for drug downsides in an effort to lend scientific plausibility to a racist and xenophobic attempt to outlaw all psychoactive substances except for the purportedly Christian drugs of liquor and antidepressants. Of course, neither of those latter two substances are ever asked to meet the meticulous safety standards that we have placed in the way of psychedelic drug approval, a fact that reminds us of the political motivations behind the War on Drugs.

Do psychedelics work for everyone? No, but then what drugs do? One user's meat is another user's poison. But we only limit the number of people for whom psychedelics will work if we teach people to expect one-size-fits-all results from such medicines, or from psychoactive medicines in general. The specifics of use are all important when it comes to mind and mood medicine, and of course it is precisely the specifics of use that Drug Warriors counsel us to ignore, preferring instead that we judge drugs up or down based on worst-case scenarios.

Finally, if we are going to blame psychedelic researchers for hyping drugs, let us also recognize the inherent biases of mainstream drug researchers, especially those who work for the federal government. Biopharma pays 75% of the FDA's Drug Division budget ¹⁴, after all, and Biopharma has a lot to lose if drug re-legalization takes away their current monopoly on the creation of mind and mood medicine. Indeed, mainstream drug researchers would not even be performing the kinds of income-generating studies that we're discussing here had our government not taken the unprecedented step of outlawing nearly all of the psychoactive bounty of Mother Nature, thereby forcing Americans to turn to dependence-causing pills to treat whatever ails them. If psychedelic researchers can be dismissed as cheerleaders because of their supposed self-interest in producing drug-friendly lab results, then surely mainstream drug researchers can be dismissed as foot-draggers for the exact same reason.

Notes:

1: From the psychiatric pill mill to assisted suicide for the depressed: How America's jaundiced view of drugs has deprived the psychiatric field of common sense -- scheduled for publication in 2026 on the Mad in America web zine (up)
2: “Mad in America - Science, Psychiatry and Social Justice.” 2016. Mad in America. October 2, 2016. https://www.madinamerica.com/. (up)
3: “Mad in America Book.” 2011. Mad in America. August 25, 2017. https://www.madinamerica.com/mad-america-book/. (up)
4: From the psychiatric pill mill to assisted suicide for the depressed: How America's jaundiced view of drugs has deprived the psychiatric field of common sense -- scheduled for publication in 2026 on the Mad in America web zine (up)
5: What the assisted suicide debate tells us about the evils of drug prohibition DWP (up)
6: Simons, Peter. 2026. “The Hype for Psychedelic Drugs Relies on Unblinding.” Substack.com. Mad in America. March 27, 2026. https://madinamerica.substack.com/p/hype-for-psychedelic-drugs. (up)
7: “Artificial Paradises : A Drugs Reader : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.” 2020. Internet Archive. 2020. https://archive.org/details/artificialparadi0000unse/page/2/mode/2up?view=theater. (up)
8: “Soma: The Nectar of the Gods.” n.d. History of Ayurveda. https://www.historyofayurveda.org/library/soma. (up)
9: Gonzalez Romero, Osiris. 2024. “Xochipilli: Psychedelic Plants, Song, and Ritual in Aztec Religion | Center for the Study of World Religions.” Harvard.edu. September 13, 2024. https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2024/09/xochipilli-psychedelic-plants-song-an (up)
10: Ouellette, Jennifer. 2024. “Maya Used Hallucinogenic Plants in Rituals to Bless Their Ball Courts.” Ars Technica. May 2, 2024. https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/05/study-the-maya-blessed-their-ball-courts-in-rituals-with-hallucinogenic-plants/. (up)
11: The transpersonal vision: the healing potential of nonordinary states of consciousness Grof, Stanislav, Sounds True, Boulder, Co., 1998 (up)
12: Fadiman, James. Psychedelicexplorersguide.com. 2011. https://www.psychedelicexplorersguide.com/. (up)
13: “Charles Grob, MD - ReConnect.” 2024. ReConnect -. June 25, 2024. https://reconnect.ucla.edu/team-member/charles-grob-md/. (up)
14: 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)

Ten Tweets
against the hateful war on US

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.

One merely has to look at any issue of Psychology Today to see articles in which the author reckons without the Drug War, in which they pretend that banned substances do not exist and so fail to incorporate any topic-related insights that might otherwise come from user reports.

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.

How else will they scare us enough to convince us to give up all our freedoms for the purpose of fighting horrible awful evil DRUGS? DRUGS is the sledgehammer with which they are destroying American democracy.

Question: Why do doctors judge cocaine by its worst possible use? Answer: Follow the money.

"There has been so much delirious nonsense written about drugs that sane men may well despair of seeing the light." -- Aleister Crowley, from "Essays on Intoxication"

When we place the FDA in charge of deciding whether a psychoactive drug should be re-legalized or not, we are asking them to decide on things like the relative importance of appreciating a sunset, a task for which the FDA has no expertise whatsoever.

It's amazing. Drug law is outlawing science -- and yet so few complain. Drug law tells us what mushrooms we can collect, for God's sake. Is that not straight-up insane? Or are Americans so used to being treated as children that they accept this corrupt status quo?

John Halpern wrote a book about opium, subtitled "the ancient flower that poisoned our world." What nonsense! Bad laws and ignorance poison our world, NOT FLOWERS!

This hysterical reaction to rare negative events actually creates more rare negative events. This is why the DEA publicizes "drug problems," because by making them well known, they make the problems more prevalent and can thereby justify their huge budget.

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

Next essay:
Previous essay:

No cookies, no ads.

Attention, Teachers and Students: Read an essay a day by the Drug War Philosopher and then discuss... while it's still legal to do so!

The Partnership for a Death Free America is a proud sponsor of The Drug War Philosopher website @ abolishthedea.com. Updated daily.

Copyright 2025, Brian Ballard Quass Contact: quass@quass.com

(up)