How the Drug War is Threatening Intellectual Freedom in England
an open letter to British Philosophers
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
June 3, 2023
I sent the following letter today to Professor Tom Stoneham at York University -- as well as ALL the members of the Oxford University Department of Philosophy (one by one, mind, not by bulk mail), with the exception of Senior Fellow Ian Rumfitt. (It seems Senior Fellows are not required to post their email addresses on the Oxford website. Well, that's frustrating. But then I suppose he's earned it... [sigh] Still, one would hope he'd be open to new ideas. But then who am I to dictate terms? It's just that... No, no, I am silent. I'm sure the honorable gentleman knows what he's about. It's just that... But mum's the word.)
I am writing to you on a matter of great concern to the field of philosophy, namely, the fact that England is preparing to outlaw the use of laughing gas . As you know, this is the substance whose use inspired the philosophy of William James. In regard to such experiences, James wrote: "No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded."
And yet disregard them we must thanks to Drug War prohibition.
I believe that all philosophers, tenured or otherwise, should speak up against this outlawing of intellectual progress. As distasteful as it is, we must speak up against the Drug War. We must encourage government to start educating its citizens about safe use rather than continuing to pursue a policy of prohibition which outlaws human progress and criminalizes the very investigations that James would ask us to pursue. This change of course is all the more urgent when we consider the body count of the current policy, which even as we speak is killing thousands a day thanks to the corrupted and uncertain drug supply that prohibition guarantees.
Moreover, those who advocate the prohibition of substances like laughing gas never take into account all the stakeholders in such a decision. They are blind to the hundreds of millions of the depressed, for instance, who must go without a godsend substance thanks to our statistically lopsided focus on abuse and misuse. Besides, the hundreds of millions (in the US, billions) that we spend on arresting people could easily be spent on educating those people about safe use.
For these and endless other reasons, I believe, in fact, that the Drug War is the philosophical problem par excellence of our time and that philosophy as a field can no longer ignore it without becoming complicit in the way that it censors philosophy and the human sciences in general.
If these ideas strike the least chord with you, I urge you to speak up on behalf of intellectual freedom and ask your government to begin educating potential substance users rather than arresting them. We should be able to follow up on the philosophical leads of philosophers like William James without our governments ordering us to cease and desist.
June 3, 2023 Brian was bothered by the inability to reach Senior Fellow Professor Rumfitt, at least in part, by the fact that most of the other members of the Oxford Philosophy Department looked like they were about ten years old. Not that this should disqualify them, of course. I fancy I was a bit of a clever clogs at that age myself. I'm just sayin'... Or rather Brian is just sayin'...
Typical. I have received not one single response from Oxford. It never ceases to amaze me how many academics worldwide have just said no to freedom of research.
Author's Follow-up: December 1, 2023
Westerners have no right to complain about high suicide rates. They have made it clear with their harebrained laws that they would rather folks commit suicide 1 than to use most psychoactive substances. It's Mary Baker Eddy on steroids. It's Christian Science Sharia. As for Oxford, probably shouldn't single them out, since William James' alma mater, Harvard, is also silent about the ongoing attempt to classify laughing gas 2 as a dirty evil rotten drug.
Author's Follow-up:
May 04, 2025
It has been almost two years since I importuned Tom Stoneham on the subject of nitrous oxide. He has not yet seen his way clear to respond to me, but hope springs eternal, at least on this side of the Atlantic.
His silence is remarkable, however, considering that he himself is a specialist on the philosophy of George Berkeley. Tom does not seem to realize that drug prohibition outlaws precisely those drugs whose strategic use could help us understand the issues with which Berkeley dealt: the investigation of the ontological nature of the concepts of mind and matter. These things can be directly investigated by philosophers with the informed use of psychoactive substances. Indeed, this is the kind of research that William James urged us to undertake (see "Varieties of Religious Experience34" and "The Will to Believe.5" He discusses the subject in connection with the so-called "anesthetic revelation 67 " by philosopher B.P. Blood8. But I fear folks like Tom assume that drug law is all about outlawing hedonism -- and therefore fail to see the obvious ways in which drug prohibition has outlawed philosophical investigation itself, to say nothing of human progress. I say this because it certainly could not be that British philosophers are AFRAID to speak up about drugs and on behalf of academic freedom?
Or could it?
In case Tom wishes to learn more about how the Drug War outlaws his freedom to philosophize, I invite him to read my recent essay on the topic entitled (naturally enough) How the Drug War Outlaws Philosophy.
Despite the 50 year-long war on drugs, the global cocaine supply has grown by 400%. --Elma Mrkonjic
Check out the 2021 article in Forbes in which a materialist doctor professes to doubt whether laughing gas could help the depressed. Materialists are committed to seeing the world from the POV of Spock from Star Trek.
This just in on the drug scene: A new New York Times report shows that America has been flooding the world with antidepressants, alcohol and cigarettes!
The DEA stomped onto Thomas Jefferson's estate in 1987 and confiscated the founding father's poppy plants in violation of everything he stood for, politically speaking. And the TJ Foundation helped them! They sold out Jefferson.
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!"
Racist drug warriors make cities dangerous with drug prohibition -- then they use that danger as an excuse to send in the National Guard.
I could tell my psychiatrist EXACTLY what would "cure" my depression, even without getting addicted, but everything involved is illegal. It has to be. Otherwise I would have no need of the psychiatrist.
If religious liberty existed, we would be able to use the inspiring phenethylamines created by Alexander Shulgin in the same way and for the same reasons as the Vedic people of India used soma.
Clearly a millennia's worth of positive use of coca by the Peruvian Indians means nothing to the FDA. Proof must show up under a microscope.
Besides, why should I listen to the views of a microbe?
(up)