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Case Studies in Wise Drug Use

by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

January 7, 2025



Drug War propaganda has taught us since childhood that it is impossible to use psychoactive substances safely, and that these drugs have no positive uses in any case. These are two enormous lies.

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Here are a variety of case studies from a utopian world in which drugs are legal again and society is dedicated to learning how to use them safely for the psychological and spiritual benefit of humankind.

Case Studies in Wise Drug Use


Keith: Keith is a sullen teenager who was recently 'outed' by his schoolmates for drawing up plans to 'shoot up' the high school. He was removed from school temporarily and put in intensive entheogen therapy with empathic counselors, using a variety of phenethylamines inspired by Alexander Shulgin. He has been learning compassion, not through words but through actual feelings.

Cedric: Cedric is a teenager who was contemplating suicide. He has been given a laughing gas 1 kit as a sort of epi pen for the depressed. He is instructed to use it whenever he begins to have suicidal thoughts. Meanwhile, he is in weekly group therapy in which he meets with fellow teenagers to talk while the group is under the influence of drugs that inspire and create feelings of bliss. He is thereby learning, experientially, that life can be good and that there is such a thing as meaning and hope -- not by listening to the 'words, words, words' of psychoanalytic theory, but by leapfrogging all the theoretical protocols and learning from actual experience. His mood is not just buoyed by drug use, but by the health-improving anticipation of such use.

Sally: Sally does not use psychoactive drugs on a daily basis, with the exception of coffee. But she is a big music fan and loves using phenethylamines every once in a while to appreciate music more deeply. She finds that her drug experiences help her hear music more powerfully, even when she is not actually 'under the influence.'

Bob: Bob is an academic whose livelihood depends on his frequent publication of well-researched and annotated papers. He is, however, prone to gloomy procrastination. He is working with a pharmacologically savvy empath2 3 to help him use a variety of cognition-enhancing drugs while avoiding becoming dependent on any single one of them. He no longer procrastinates and has improved mood thanks to the virtuous circle of vocational success that his increased productivity has created for him.

Joe: Joe is a comedian who was near to self-destructing on stage thanks to self-doubt, which, of course, seriously degraded his public performances. A pharmacologically savvy empath is helping him to choose a variety of drugs that help him to perform energetically and without stage fright, thereby creating a virtuous circle of success for Joe while yet steering him clear of unwanted dependency.

Philomena: Philomena is a 60-year-old philosopher who obtains great philosophical and religious insights from smoking opium and has decided to use the substance nightly, in the same way that her friends use antidepressants 4 daily.

Len: Len is a nature lover who joins a group once every month to go out together in nature under the influence of morphine 5 . The drug gives the group an enormously increased appreciation of the detailed and ornate harmony of the natural world around them, which the group enjoys discussing as they take this monthly 'enchanted hike' together.

Herbert: Herbert ignored all the public service announcements and school courses about discussing drug use with pharmacologically savvy empaths. He has become dependent on a substance that he no longer enjoys using. He has therefore started working with such an empath on plan to incrementally replace the unwanted drug with a variety of new drugs whose effects he does enjoy. The transition will take about a year and will involve no gnashing of teeth, because unlike today's drug rehab, there is no effort to turn Herbert into a drug-free Christian Scientist, merely to help him achieve his psychosocial goals in life.

Sal: Sal is a philosopher who gets together once a month with other philosophers to discuss philosophical matters while smoking opium .

Bob: Bob uses opium every weekend, the better to enjoy classical music concerts.

Anne: Anne is a rock star who wants to be ecstatic on stage so that she can reach new musical heights and thus make a living. She considers herself just like the Grecian oracles of yore who cultivated ecstatic states in order to perform THEIR jobs. She has consulted a pharmacologically savvy empath to help her choose and schedule a wide variety of inspirational substances for use at various concerts, such that she can perform with the necessary self-forgetfulness while yet not developing an unwanted dependency upon any one substance.


How can this state of safe and wise use come about? Easy. We simply have to start teaching kids 6 from grade school that the only evils are unwanted dependency and obvious toxicity. That's it. Drugs in themselves are not evil, only a lack of knowledge about them is evil. And it is, of course, precisely this lack of knowledge that the Drug Warrior says should be public policy. It is a disgrace that a supposedly free and scientific country would champion such willful ignorance.

You will notice that many of my case studies involve the use of opium . I chose this drug on purpose since it has been so thoroughly demonized in the public mind as to have virtually disappeared from public discourse. We have been programmed into forgetting that the drug even exists, despite the fact that it was considered a panacea by ancient physicians. Yet it is psychological common sense that opium can have beneficial uses -- that almost all psychoactive drugs can have potential beneficial uses, at some dose, for some people, in some circumstance, at some time, etc.

The reader should be able to imagine many other case studies about beneficial drug use that will be possible once we jettison our dogmatic insistence that drugs are evil. Many of them will involve psychedelics, yes, but it is important that we do not limit ourselves to benefitting from psychedelics alone, since to do so is to agree with the Drug Warrior that some drugs are, indeed, bad. That's simply wrong. Ignorance is bad, not drugs.

Indeed, the world is our pharmacological oyster once we stop ignorantly demonizing drugs and start learning how to use them wisely instead.

There is no doubt that far, far less death will result from such a policy than that which comes about from prohibition, the policy which created the Mafia as we know it today. Re-legalizing drugs will mean the end of drug lords and civil wars overseas and drive-by shootings. Yes, there are those who will suffer from this new freedom thanks to their own immaturity and idiocy, but if that's a reason to outlaw drugs, then we should outlaw drinking and car driving for the exact same reason. The most we can do, the most that we NEED to do, is to teach honestly about drugs and to stop obsessing about misuse, but to show Americans examples of wise use.

It's time for America to grow up and start using drugs for the benefit of humankind and end this crazy idea that drugs are evil and that society should encourage young people to be ignorant about them. I write for the countless millions who suffer in silence because they are not considered stakeholders on this topic, those forced to live a second-best life because racist politicians have outlawed godsend substances that grow at our very feet, some of which substances have inspired entire religions.

Here is where the materialist comes to the rescue of Big Pharma and the Drug War by claiming that drugs have not been proven to work in the way implied above, but that is a lie! The proof is extant. Drugs DO work to improve mind and mood. Scientists ignore this fact because they operate according to the principles of reductive materialism 7 and behaviorism, according to which the actual experience of actual people is unimportant: all that counts is what scientists can discover under a microscope. This willful blindness to psychological common sense is, in turn, based on a category error: namely, the ruinous notion that materialists are the experts when it comes to mind and mood medicines, when in reality, the experts are empathic individuals with a knowledge of how drugs actually work from a human being's point of view -- not a Dr. Spock from the tellingly named National Institute of Drug Abuse, who comes to the table full of unspoken Christian Science biases against drug-aided mind therapy.

But the question is not, how can inspirational drugs help? The question is, how can they NOT? How can the creation of blissful and compassionate states NOT help the would-be suicide 8 and the hothead? How can they NOT conduce to better music appreciation? How can they not inspire productive conversations and promote new creative literature, etc. etc.? The fact is that they do, if materialist science will only open its eyes and look past the censorship that has all but outlawed the publication of positive news about the politically created boogieman called 'drugs.'

The proof is extant. Drugs can help. If scientists cannot see this, they are simply the slow kid in the class and should not be allowed to hold up human progress with their dogmatic myopia. Let us proceed with human progress while they struggle to see what is staring them in the face.

The evidence for drug efficacy is found everywhere these days, albeit in sites and books that are pooh-poohed by the establishment. One can sift through the user accounts on Erowid or in the books of drug researchers like Grof, Grob, Fadiman, Winninger, Richards and Griffiths. Another resource are the works of Alexander Shulgin, the author and pharmacologist who helped develop MDMA and related empathogens. Here are some citations from Shulgin's 1980 lab book.

'We felt and expressed great love for one another, admired the light, the youth, and the softness we saw in each other's faces.'


Just imagine the therapeutic power of putting a sulky teenage hater in such a state of mind, especially when he or she is surrounded by fellow haters of his own age in a drug-aided therapy session guided by a highly empathic adult, one who knows about drugs, not just from reading books but by using and observing actual use and thereby learning what usage patterns actually work in the long run.

Or, imagine inspiring the following sentiments in a young would-be suicide, who sees naught but grayness in the rainbow of life's possibilities:

'It was a marvelous day, full of euphoria, beauty, and marvelous feelings for all present. The typical glow, softening of features, and ease of communication was everywhere present.'


To say that such drug-induced states could not have any therapeutic value for the suicidal and the angry is just willful nonsense.

As far as music appreciation is concerned, Shulgin himself said the following after listening to Mahler's 1st 'under the influence':

'The powerful finale of the symphony ended with God saying to me, 'Trust Me, trust Me.''


This is how people actually feel under the influence, it is how drugs actually WORK in the real world. We do not need endless studies by the FDA to say that drugs can work in a variety of holistic therapeutic ways, the proof is extant. They have worked and they can work. But that is a conclusion that drug researchers dogmatically ignore, and for two reasons: 1) in order to toe the line with the Drug War ideology of substance demonization and 2) to remain in lockstep with academic orthodoxy which falsely maintains that the world of mind and mood is best understood by a behaviorist approach, which ignores all obvious emotional indications and looks under a microscope for efficacy instead. According to that orthodoxy, common sense means nothing: the scientists are the ones who will tell us when we are happy and when we are not, thank you very much. They are the ones who will tell us how to cure depression, and believe me, they will not be giving us insight-creating drugs to attain that end.

Of course, the longevity of this willful blindness is easily understood. There is a lot of money riding on the status quo, and so scientists and Drug Warriors alike are going to do all they can to keep us from acknowledging psychological common sense. That's why I created this whole website: because the prevalence of these false beliefs is rotting the American mind. Someone has to push back. Someone has to point out that we are ignoring the obvious. Someone has to say that the emperors are wearing no lab coats, that they are, in fact, stymying human progress with their myopic scientism, not advancing it.

Incidentally, this essay illustrates the fact-free fanaticism of the Chicken Little Drug Warrior in teaching us to fear drugs: Shulgin experimented regularly and for a lifetime with psychoactive medicine and he did not fry his brain: to the contrary, he left behind a legacy of hints that are hidden in plain sight about how drugs could be used beneficially by humanity rather than being turned into the whipping boy for social problems. But Drug Warriors know what they're doing. They have no interest in stopping suicides, nor in preventing school shootings. Least of all do they care about inspiring great literature, a love of nature, or philosophical insights. Their goal is to use baseless fearmongering to abnegate the hard-won freedoms of democracy that were enumerated in the Declaration of Independence. You remember the Declaration of Independence? That's the document that Ronald Reagan officially rendered null and void when he ordered the DEA to stomp onto Monticello 9 in 1987 and confiscate Thomas Jefferson's poppy plants in violation of everything he stood for, politically speaking.



Author's Follow-up: January 8, 2025

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up



One example not listed above would involve the use of entheogens and psychedelics to fight PTSD. This is something that the FDA is shamelessly preventing by continuing to insist that MDMA 10 use is 'risky' while yet approving of Big Pharma 11 12 meds whose published side effects include death itself 13 14! It is psychological common sense that psychedelics and other entheogens and entactogens can be leveraged to change the negative autonomic reactions associated with that condition. But the slow kid in the room, i.e., the reductive materialist, cannot figure that out. Why not? Because he or she has a previous commitment to the hateful emotion-free principles of behaviorism.

Let's also be clear: psychoactive drugs in themselves are not the answer. They do not work like Pepto-Bismol. They cannot be presumed to cause the same effect in different people without reference to a wide array of influential circumstances.

The ability of any one specific person to benefit from a given drug involves a host of variables: including that person's education level, their goals in life, their view about the world, and their emotional state at the precise time of usage, etc. Then too there is dosage, the immediate environment, the time of day... in other words, all the details that Drug Warriors scrupulously ignore. Drug warriors do not want to hear any details. They do not want to disseminate any knowledge. They want to instill fear instead.

This is why some of the above case examples assume the presence of what I call a pharmacologically savvy empath. This is an educated, empathic individual who is personally familiar with drugs and can choose among a vast pharmacopoeia of psychoactive substances for therapeutic use based on circumstances and the empath's ideally profound knowledge of human personality types, etc. In other words, this 'PSE' is a kind of expert that has yet to be acknowledged in the west, but one which has many things in common with the curandero of the Andes. They will employ drugs in the interests of holistically improving behaviors and attitudes.

In the utopia imagined above, the billions that the Drug Warrior spends today on propaganda and censorship will instead go to ad campaigns and school courses that emphasize the need for knowledge and responsibility, without constantly harping on 'drugs' as a boogieman. It is precisely those hysterical campaigns that give kids ideas about using drugs irresponsibly. We need to just shut the hell up about drugs and guide people who are interested in drug use (presumably every adult except for Christian Scientists) to reliable information and safe supply. Meanwhile, the media needs to start covering drug deaths in the way that they cover car accidents, without turning their stories into a morality tale about the supposed evil of psychoactive substances.

Let's hope that someday, people will be pressured into using drugs that inspire compassion. Barring divine intervention, that is surely the only way that our world is going to avoid nuclear annihilation.

It's funny, though, I keep running into people who exude a moral air and say things like, 'Well, I personally, have no need for drugs.'

Firstly, that is THEIR opinion. It could be that their abrasive personality is rubbing their neighbors the wrong way and so they have an obligation to change that with drug use -- just as a smelly person has an obligation to use deodorant. Then, too, such people probably drink alcohol and coffee and/or take antidepressants daily -- so their seeming disdain for drugs is hypocritical.

But the real question is, why would they NOT want to use drugs, at least on occasion? Why would they not want to improve their ability to appreciate music and the world around them? Why would they not want to see beyond the Veil of Maya and gain insights about Reality writ large? Why would they not want to improve their ability to contemplate the world and to communicate more effectively about it?

Either such people do not value self-improvement or they believe one or more of the many lies of the Drug Warriors, such as the idea that addictive drugs have to be used addictively or that drug use is morally wrong. That latter viewpoint is a religious tenet, by the way, and if folks are going to demur on that basis, they could at least have the honesty to tell us so, to say unequivocally that: 'I am a Christian Scientist when it comes to drugs, so I feel that it is immoral to use them.'

I would not agree with them but at least I could respect their honesty. Instead, most people who say they 'have no need' of drugs merely evince a kind of disdain for use, one that testifies to the fact that they have been brainwashed since childhood in the drug-hating ideology of the Drug War. The truth is, they have been turned into drug-hating Christian Scientists by drug-war propaganda, and the least they can do is to acknowledge that fact!

Finally, why would one 'just say no' to a pharmacopoeia that we have yet to even
locate and investigate? Surely, that is premature. The world is full of psychoactive medicines of whose potential the west is only now beginning to become vaguely aware. The ethnobotanical work of Richard Schultes in 'Plants of the Gods' provides but a tantalizing glimpse of the treasure trove of psychoactive medicines that Mother Nature has to offer if only we would stop deriding such substances in advance and investigate them with the interest of a suffering humanity in mind.

What's that? You say that it's wrong to glamorize drugs? The Vedic scriptures are all about glamorizing drugs. The Vedic and hence the Hindu religion exists today thanks to the inspiration gleaned from the consumption of the psychedelic Soma.

Besides, this is a world in which we glamorize drinking, driving, mountain climbing, and horseback riding. 100,000 are injured every year in that latter activity alone. Yet horseback riding is shamelessly glorified in every western ever produced. And yet it's wrong to glamorize the use of medicines like coca and opium 15 that have inspired entire religions. I sense a hidden agenda here, Mr. or Mrs. Drug Warrior16.

If you're still disagreeing with me at this point, you need to see one of those experts who helps tear brainwashed people away from cults, for the Drug War is nothing but a superstitious cult teaching its devotees to scorn the bounty of Mother Nature, that same Mother Nature which the Christian god himself told us was good.

Teach, don't demonize; educate, don't arrest.

Stop using the Drug War as an excuse to destroy American freedoms.



Author's Follow-up: April 1, 2025

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up




Most readers have been brainwashed to believe that drugs have no positive uses. Let me remind them, therefore, that the Hindu religion was inspired by drug use. See the many positive references to the use of the psychoactive Soma in Hindu scriptures, such as the following in the Rig Veda. Remember in reading them that 15-year-olds like Niomi Russell17 are being killed today because America refuses to recognize the positive side of drug use -- which, as these citations clearly imply, is a sign of deep religious intolerance.


Positive Drug Use in Vedic Scripture 18


"The singer of their praise awaits whatever grace the Ashvins give, Who save when Soma gladdens them."

"Thus in the Soma, in wild joy the Brahman hath exalted thee."

"The mighty flowing Soma-draught, brought by the Hawk, hath gladdened thee."

"The Soma juice inspires us, and we are guided by the tradition received from our ancestors."

"Sacrifices and libations of Soma juice give him complete power to perform his great deeds."

"These songs, O Soma-drinker, cheered by Soma, 19 Indra, accept from thy most zealous poet."

"So drink thou of the savoury juice. Indra, whom many laud, accept the strength-conferring Soma 20 juice. Quaff, pour down drink that satisfies."








Notes:

1: Forbes Magazine's Laughable Article about Nitrous Oxide DWP (up)
2: pharmacologically-savvy empath: this is an empathic individual with an ethnobotanical knowledge of safe and beneficial drug use worldwide, someone who recognizes psychological common sense and can advise on protocols that meet user needs while avoiding unwanted dependency. (up)
3: Replacing Psychiatry with Pharmacologically Savvy Shamanism DWP (up)
4: Antidepressants and the War on Drugs DWP (up)
5: Three takeaway lessons from the use of morphine by William Halsted, co-founder of Johns Hopkins Medical School DWP (up)
6: Here's an idea: let's start teaching kids the truth about drugs DWP (up)
7: How materialists lend a veneer of science to the lies of the drug warriors DWP (up)
8: Why Americans Prefer Suicide to Drug Use DWP (up)
9: The Dark Side of the Monticello Foundation DWP (up)
10: How the Drug War killed Leah Betts DWP (up)
11: Seife, Charles. 2012. “Is Drug Research Trustworthy?” Scientific American 307 (6): 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1212-56. (up)
12: 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)
13: RINVOQ RX List (up)
14: Why the FDA is not qualified to judge psychoactive medicine DWP (up)
15: The Truth About Opium by William H. Brereton DWP (up)
16: Glorifying Beneficial Drug Use DWP (up)
17: Niomi Russell Killed By Drive-By Shooters In Southeast DC Failla, Zak, Daily Voice, 2024 (up)
18: The Rig Veda Griffith (translator), Ralph T.H., Archive.org (up)
19: “Blue Tide - Mike Jay.” 2025. Mike Jay. May 18, 2025. https://mikejay.net/books/blue-tide/. (up)
20: Blue Tide: The Search for Soma: a philosophical review of the book by Mike Jay DWP (up)








Ten Tweets

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Even fans of sacred medicine have been brainwashed to believe that we do not know if such drugs "really" work: they want microscopic proof. But that's a western bias, used strategically by drug warriors to make the psychotropic drug approval process as glacial as possible.

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.

Imagine if we held sports to the same safety standard as drugs. There would be no sports at all. And yet even free climbing is legal. Why? Because with sports, we recognize the benefits and not just the downsides.

Psychiatrists never acknowledge the biggest downside to modern antidepressants: the fact that they turn you into a patient for life. That's demoralizing, especially since the best drugs for depression are outlawed by the government.

Science knows nothing of the human spirit and of the hopes and dreams of humankind. Science cannot tell us whether a given drug risk is worthwhile given the human need for creativity and passion in their life. Science has no expertise in making such philosophical judgements.

I might as well say that no one can ever be taught to ride a horse safely. I would argue as follows: "Look at Christopher Reeves. He was a responsible and knowledgeable equestrian. But he couldn't handle horses. The fact is, NO ONE can handle horses!"

ME: "What are you gonna give me for my depression, doc? MDMA? Laughing gas? Occasional opium smoking? Chewing of the coca leaf?" DOC: "No, I thought we'd fry your brain with shock therapy instead."

I know. I'm on SNRIs. But SSRIs and SNRIs are both made with materialist presumptions in mind: that the best way to change people is with a surgical strike at one-size-fits-all chemistry. That's the opposite of the shamanic holism that I favor.

The best harm reduction strategy would be to re-legalize opium and cocaine. We would thereby end depression in America and free Americans from their abject reliance on the healthcare industry, meanwhile ending gang violence and restoring the rule of law in Latin America.

I'd like to become a guinea pig for researchers to test the ability of psychoactive drugs to make aging as psychologically healthy as possible. If such drugs cannot completely ward off decrepitude, they can surely make it more palatable. The catch? Researchers have to be free.


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

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