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Huxley's Reservations about Mescaline

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

May 8, 2025



In "The Doors of Perception,1" Aldous Huxley frets that the transcendent states produced by drugs like mescaline are so enticing that some users might be tempted to remain isolated in their ecstatic states continually, never more taking part in the everyday world of sober reality. I would like to respond to that concern in this short essay.

First, I would point out that there are worse things than spending one's life in a hermit-like state of ecstasy. Much of the violence in today's world is due to the fact that young males in particular are not comfortable staying at home and minding their own business. They are easily encouraged by demagogues to go downtown and smash things on behalf of various causes. Even those who are constitutionally immune to such cynical admonitions will still feel the need to escape their hometown lest they begin climbing the walls. This pathological restlessness on the part of Homo sapiens is what French philosopher La Bruyere was thinking when he wrote: "Ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir être seul 2" -- i.e., "This great evil, to not be able to be alone."

Drugs like mescaline can help people be alone. That is, they can help make people comfortable in their own skin. How? By helping them see that the wonders of the world are nearby and do not require travel. In fact, when wisely used, drugs like mescaline could be the long-sought-for answer to that post-war poser: "How are you gonna keep them down on the farm?" ANSWER: By encouraging the strategic use of reality-enhancing drugs like mescaline to remind them that the grass is just as green here on the farm as it is anywhere else.

Consider the following effects of morphine as described in the short story "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains" by Edgar Allan Poe.

"In the meantime the morphine had its customary effect- that of enduing all the external world with an intensity of interest. In the quivering of a leaf- in the hue of a blade of grass- in the shape of a trefoil- in the humming of a bee- in the gleaming of a dew-drop- in the breathing of the wind- in the faint odors that came from the forest- there came a whole universe of suggestion- a gay and motley train of rhapsodical and immethodical thought.3"


How are you gonna keep them down on the farm? ANSWER: By making the farm beautiful in their eyes! By making them see the farm through the eyes of a child! And drugs can do precisely that.

As with any activity, there are those who will overdo it. There are those who love the alcoholic state so much that they seek inebriation 24/7. We call these people drunkards. (Incidentally, there would be no drunkards in the world were we able to use all drugs wisely for the benefit of humanity, assuming that such knowledge were made available on a practical basis to those with an alcoholic disposition.)

In a free world, we would learn the precise threats posed to actual people by specific drugs and educate and prescribe accordingly. We will not save everyone from themselves - but that is no reason to outlaw drugs.

Social norms and education will keep most people on the straight and narrow with regard to all risky activities, drug use included. The idea that drugs pose a unique risk in this regard is sheer drug-warrior dogma and is disproved by the fact that most people use drugs wisely4, even today, in an age in which the Drug Warrior does everything they can to make drug use as dangerous as possible. How? By refusing to teach safe use, refusing to regulate product, and refusing to make all drug options available so that the user can make a free and informed choice of drugs based on their specific situation, including their goals in life, their stage of life, their priorities in life, their genetics, their biochemistry, etc. - in other words, all the specifics that the Drug Warrior dogmatically ignores in preference to idiotically claiming that drugs are bad per se outside of all context.

The extreme attractiveness of these altered states is precisely why they hold such potential, Aldous. nuclear war 5 would be unimaginable in a world in which everyone was happy just to be alive and to rejoice in the world around them. Sure, this can and will be taken to extremes by certain individuals, those who will overdo it and so live out of touch with everyday realities and their fellow human beings. But that is a concern common to all risky activity, that some people will overdo it. That should go without saying. The real headline about drugs like mescaline is that they can help the average responsible human being to live a fuller, more enjoyable life, a life, moreover, in which they are inoculated against the "hate virus" that is always being propagated by demagogue politicians around the world.

To repeat: The compelling nature of such drug use is what makes it so wonderful. We should not lose track of this fact by adopting the Drug Warrior practice of focusing lopsidedly on downsides only. To paraphrase Shakespeare, "Dost thou think, Mr. Huxley, because some people are irresponsible, there shall be no more mescaline and phenethylamines?"

"Nearly every American has the financial means to drink all day long, remaining intoxicated throughout his waking hours. Yet very few people choose to do this, and perhaps the reason is too obvious to need stating: They have more important things to do. They have responsibilities to employers, family members, friends, and neighbors." --Jacob Sullum, from Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, p. 986





Author's Follow-up:

May 08, 2025

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up




In "The Concept of Nature," Alfred North Whitehead wrote the following:

"In the presentation of a novel outlook with wide ramifications, a single line of communications from premises to conclusions is not sufficient for intelligibility. Your audience will construe whatever you say into conformity with their pre-existing outlook.7"


This is a precept that I must keep in mind, given that the idea of using drugs for human benefit is, unfortunately, a very novel mindset indeed in 21st-century America. I must therefore attempt to answer the kneejerk objections that will occur to the reader who has been brainwashed from grade school in the substance-demonizing ideology of the War on Drugs, above all by the censorship of all positive reports of drug use in the media.

But answering such objections is like peeling an onion. I might say, for instance, that folks will use drugs like morphine wisely -- but then I must remember that the Drug War has taught Americans that wise use is not even possible. I must then back-pedal and start arguing about the hitherto understood fact that human beings need not be eternal children with respect to the psychoactive nature of the world that they inhabit, that they can actually teach and learn and benefit from knowledge based on real-world experience.

But even if the brainwashed reader cannot wrap their heads around the fact that drugs like morphine 8 and mescaline can actually be used wisely -- and that is indeed a "big ask" in this age of cradle-to-grave Drug War propaganda -- they should at least be comforted by the fact that many phenethylamines are inherently non-addictive -- although, of course, in some sense, any substance at all can be addictive for somebody in some circumstance. A quick search of the Web just now tells me that some people out there are actually addicted to butter.

I guess the readers just have to ask themselves: do they prefer gun violence 9 , unhappiness and nuclear war 10 11 , or would they prefer that we use psychoactive substances as wisely as possible for the benefit of humanity? I would like to think that most people would prefer the latter, but then who knows? Drug warriors prefer that we chronic depressives commit suicide 12 and/or fry our brains with ECT rather than to use drugs, so we cannot count on them to "work with me here" as I try to stave off nuclear annihilation with a common sense approach to substance use.









Notes for essay entitled Huxley's Reservations about Mescaline:

1: “The Doors of Perception.” n.d. Goodreads. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3188964-the-doors-of-perception. (up)
2: As quoted by Edgar Allan Poe in his short story "The Man in the Crowd" (up)
3: “Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Tales - A Tale of the Ragged Mountains (Text-02A).” 2026. Eapoe.Org. 2026. https://www.eapoe.org/works/tales/raggeda.htm. (up)
4: Drug Use for Grownups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear Hart, Carl (up)
5: 8 Nuclear Close Calls that Nearly Spelled Disaster Davidson, Lucy, History Hit, 2022 (up)
6: Sullum, Jacob. 2025. “Saying Yes by Jacob Sullum: 9781585423187 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books.” PenguinRandomhouse.com. 2025. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/288705/saying-yes-by-jacob-sullum/. (up)
7: Alfred North, Whitehead. 1920. Review of The Concept of Nature. Project Gutenberg. Project Gutenberg. 1920. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18835. (up)
8: Three takeaway lessons from the use of morphine by William Halsted, co-founder of Johns Hopkins Medical School DWP (up)
9: Firearm Violence in the United States Center for Gun Violence Solutions, Johns Hopkins University (up)
10: Global Nuclear Warhead Stockpiles (1945-2024) Voronoi, 2023 (up)
11: Nuclear Near-Misses: The Close Calls That Almost Changed the World Atomic Toasters, 2024 (up)
12: Why Americans Prefer Suicide to Drug Use DWP (up)




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I'm going to get on the grade-school circuit, telling kids to say no to horses. "You think you can handle horses, kids? That's what Christopher Reeves thought. The fact is, NOBODY can handle horses!!!"

This is why America is creeping toward authoritarianism -- because of the prohibitionists' ability to get away with everything by blaming "drugs."

Like when Laura Sanders tells us in Science News that depression is an intractable problem, she should rather tell us: "Depression is an intractable problem... that is, in a world wherein we refuse to consider the benefits of 'drugs,' let alone to fight for their beneficial use."

It is folly to put bureaucrats in charge of second-guessing drug prescriptions: what such bureaucrats are really doing is second-guessing the various philosophies of life which are presupposed by the way we use psychoactive drugs.

@HKSExecEd The use of Ecstasy brought UNPRECEDENTED peace and love to the British dance floors in the 1990s. When are political scientists going to acknowledge the potential for such substances to pull our species back from the brink of nuclear annihilation?

The Partnership for a Death Free America is launching a campaign to celebrate the 50th year of Richard Nixon's War on Drugs. We need to give credit where credit's due for the mass arrest of minorities, the inner city gun violence and the civil wars that it's generated overseas.

The drug war has created a whole film genre with the same tired plots: drug-dealing scumbags and their dupes being put in their place by the white Anglo-Saxon establishment, which has nothing but contempt for altered states.

There is something wrong with a country that thinks it can decide what human beings around the world are allowed to ingest.

We need a Controlled Prohibitionists Act, to get psychiatric help for those who think that prohibition makes sense despite its appalling record of causing civil wars overseas and devastating inner cities.

Mad in America solicits personal stories about people trying to get off of antidepressants, but they will not publish your story if you want to use entheogenic medicines to help you. They're afraid their readers can't handle the truth.


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