I am writing to suggest that Harvard make some reference to William James' views regarding laughing gas and the 'anesthetic revelation 2 ' in your online biography of the man at
James urged philosophers to use such substances to study reality4, and Harvard's omission of that fact reads to me like academic censorship on behalf of Drug War sensibilities5. As someone who has written literally hundreds of essays on such topics, I am convinced that the Drug War ideology of substance demonization leads to suicides by denying fast-working feel-good medicine like laughing gas to the severely depressed -- under the apparent theory that suicide 6 is actually better than 'drug use.'7 In the same way, we use brain-damaging shock therapy on the depressed, apparently under the view that it is better to damage their brains than to let them use 'drugs.'8
Is this not insanity itself?
The fact is that there are hundreds of drugs that elate and inspire, some of which have almost NO addictive potential whatsoever (like the phenethylamines of Alexander Shulgin9) - and yet Drug Warriors are implicitly telling us that death is preferable to their use - death -- this despite the fact that Big Pharma drugs advertised on prime-time television report death itself as a potential side effect. Besides, surely even chemical dependency is better than the death of a suicidal individual. Americans clearly think so, insofar as 1 in 4 American women take a Big Pharma 1011 drug every day of their life.
I guess we must abide by tyrannous drug laws, but that does not mean that we have to rewrite history to make it seem like those laws are just, or that the Drug War is some sort of natural baseline from which to study mind and mood. Nothing could be further from the truth. So I urge you to revise Harvard's online biography of William James to mention his work with laughing gas .
Sincerely Yours.
PS I write because I have a suicidal relative who recently visited the ER for severe depression - and it frustrates me that the modern protocol is to withhold from her anything that would clearly work. It seems to me that the modern physician's job is first and foremost to vindicate the materialist approach to mind and mood medicine (by prescribing 'meds' inspired by the doctrines of reductionism and behaviorism) and only secondarily to help the suicidal. But the suicidal need decisive help NOW, in the form of rapid-acting elation and inspiration, not theoretical help that might kick in, more or less, in a month or two if they're lucky.
PPS I am the only philosopher who has formally protested the FDA's recent plan to treat laughing gas as a 'drug.' I did this out of respect for William James and on behalf of academic freedom. I tried to encourage some Harvard philosophers to join me, but no luck. This is why I was disturbed to see that the Harvard bio of William James does not even mention laughing gas 12 . I fear that the Drug War has led to censorship at Harvard, or at least to self-censorship.
PPPS I should add that I am a 66-year-old philosophy major and chronic depressive. I have published hundreds of philosophical essays against the War on Drugs over the last six years at abolishthedea.com. During that time, I have written hundreds of personal letters to American and British philosophers on this subject and have yet to receive a reply from any of them. It seems to be 'more than people's jobs are worth' to discuss the philosophy of drug use - or to criticize the role of materialist science when it comes to mind and mood medicine -- but if you're an exception to this rule, I invite you to visit my site. My most recent essay on these topics is entitled: 'How the Myth of Mental Illness Supports the War On Drugs'13 (link below). I share physicist David Bohm's concern that modern psychology is still under the obsolete thrall of behaviorism, thanks to which it ignores all positive uses of drugs - whether suggested by anecdote, history and/or the common-sense motivations of incentives and anticipation. In this way, our modern psychologists give a veneer of 'science' to the DEA's lie that time-honored medicines have no positive uses whatsoever, even though drugs like Soma, coca and opium 14 have helped inspire entire religions in the past1516.
You will never believe this, but Professor Nock has not yet seen fit to vouchsafe me a response viz. my scruples about Harvard censorship. To be fair, however, I imagine that he's struggling with the issue. I can sense that he is losing sleep over the implicit message that he might be sending via a non-response. "Shall I stop ghosting Brian and face Drug War censorship head on," quoth Matt, "or shall I not rather steer the course of mainstream propriety and continue pretending that Drug War prohibitions represent a natural baseline from which to study reality?"
Wait, the vision is becoming clearer. I see a wife... or a significant other of some kind... approaching our Matt.
"Stop beating yourself up," quoth he... or is it a she... or even a they? "Brian cannot expect you to discuss drug-related issues openly with him -- especially given the fact that he lacks the tenured status that, time out of mind, has constituted the minimum entry-level barrier for access to the Ivory Tower stalwart. And believe me, mister, you are as stalwart as it comes when it comes to the Ivory Tower, or my name is not..." ...whatever his or her name is, which, I cannot quite make out that level of detail in my otherwise inspired reveries. "I mean, look at you, you are chairperson of the Harvard Psychology Department, for Peter's sake!"
But what's this?
I see Matt shaking his head with doleful vigor, as who should say, "Yes, but do I deserve my status, given the fact that I am brazenly ignoring the psychoactive legacy of the very man thanks to whom I have this job?!"
It makes one feel kind of bad, to be putting our professor through this probable wringer -- to be forcing him to face these probable demons and to catechize himself in these probably derisive terms.
Any self-respecting mycologist should denounce the criminalization of mushrooms.
Drug prohibition is not a victimless crime.
"Can I use poppies, coca, laughing gas, MDMA?" "NO," says the materialist, "We must be SCIENTIFIC! We must fry your brain and give you a lobotomy and make you a patient for life with the psychiatric pill mill! That's true SCIENCE!"
All uplifting drugs are potential antidepressants. Science denies that fact by claiming that drug efficacy must be proven quantitatively. And so they ignore anecdote, history and psychological common sense.
The Partnership for a Drug Free America should be put on trial for having blatantly lied to Americans in the 1980s about drugs, while using our taxpayer money to do so!
That's another problem with "following the science." Science downplays personal testimony as subjective. But psychoactive experiences are all ABOUT subjectivity. With such drugs, users are not widgets susceptible to the one-size-fits-all pills of reductionism.
We drastically limit drug choices, we refuse to teach safe use, and then we discover there's a gene to explain why some people have trouble with drugs. Science loves to find simple solutions to complex problems.
"Those gentlemen who adopt the anti-opium doctrine... are only comparable to the monomaniac, who, sane upon every subject but one, is thoroughly daft upon that." --William Brereton
The drug war is a meta-injustice. It does not just limit what you're allowed to think, it limits how and how much you are allowed to think.
Why don't those politicians understand what hateful colonialism they are practicing? Psychedelics have been used for millennia by the tribes that the west has conquered -- now we won't even let folks talk honestly about such indigenous medicines.
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