Open Letter to Nathan at TheDEA.org
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
May 13, 2022
y mistake. Turns out thedea.org is in favor of DEA fearmongering. It champions the idea that bureaucrats should decide how much we can think and feel in life. Here's what I wrote to Nathan after I (finally) figured this out. There is Nothing to Debate: the Drug War is wrong, root and branch.
Open Letters
Check out the conversations that I have had so far with the movers and shakers in the drug-war game -- or rather that I have TRIED to have. Actually, most of these people have failed to respond to my calls to parlay, but that need not stop you from reading MY side of these would-be chats.
I don't know what's worse, being ignored entirely or being answered with a simple "Thank you" or "I'll think about it." One writes thousands of words to raise questions that no one else is discussing and they are received and dismissed with a "Thank you." So much for discussion, so much for give-and-take. It's just plain considered bad manners these days to talk honestly about drugs. Academia is living in a fantasy world in which drugs are ignored and/or demonized -- and they are in no hurry to face reality. And so I am considered a troublemaker. This is understandable, of course. One can support gay rights, feminism, and LGBTQ+ today without raising collegiate hackles, but should one dare to talk honestly about drugs, they are exiled from the public commons.
Somebody needs to keep pointing out the sad truth about today's censored academia and how this self-censorship is but one of the many unacknowledged consequences of the drug war ideology of substance demonization.
America's Blind SpotAnother Cry in the WildernessCanadian Drug Warrior, I said Get AwayCommon Sense Drug WithdrawalCritique of the Philosophy of HappinessDepressed? Here's why you can't get the medicines that you needDrug Dealers as Modern WitchesDrug War MurderersDrugs are not the problemEnd the Drug War NowFeedback on my first legal psilocybin session in OregonFinally, a drug war opponent who checks all my boxesFreedom of Religion and the War on DrugsGetting off antidepressants in the age of the drug warGod and DrugsHello? MDMA works, already!Heroin versus AlcoholHow Addiction Scientists Reckon without the Drug WarHow National Geographic slanders the Inca people and their use of cocaHow Scientific American reckons without the drug warHow the Drug War is Threatening Intellectual Freedom in EnglandHow the Drug War Outlaws Criticism of Immanuel KantHow the Drug War Screws the DepressedHow the Monticello Foundation betrayed Jefferson's Legacy in 1987How the US Preventive Services Task Force Drums Up Business for Big PharmaHow to Unite Drug War Opponents of all EthnicitiesI'll See Your Antidepressants and Raise You One Huachuma CactusIgnorance is the enemy, not FentanylIllusions with Professor Arthur ShapiroIn Defense of OpiumIn Defense of Religious Drug UseIntroduction to the Drug War Philosopher Website at AbolishTheDEA.comKeep Laughing Gas LegalMajoring in Drug War PhilosophyMDMA for PsychotherapyMy Realistic Plan for Getting off of Big Pharma Drugs and why it's so hard to implementNo drugs are bad in and of themselvesOpen Letter to Addiction Specialist Gabor MateOpen Letter to Anthony GottliebOpen Letter to Congressman Ben Cline, asking him to abolish the criminal DEAOpen Letter to Diane O'LearyOpen Letter to Dr. Carl L. HartOpen Letter to Erica ZelfandOpen Letter to ErowidOpen Letter to Francis FukuyamaOpen Letter to Gabrielle GlaserOpen letter to Kenneth SewellOpen Letter to Lisa LingOpen Letter to Nathan at TheDEA.orgOpen letter to Professor Troy Glover at Waterloo UniversityOpen Letter to Richard HammersleyOpen Letter to Rick Doblin and Roland GriffithsOpen Letter to Roy Benaroch MDOpen Letter to the United Nations Office on Drugs and CrimeOpen Letter to the Virginia LegislatureOpen Letter to Variety Critic Owen GliebermanOpen Letter to Vincent Hurley, LecturerOpen Letter to Vincent RadoOpen letter to Wolfgang SmithPredictive Policing in the Age of the Drug WarProhibitionists Never LearnRegulate and EducateReplacing antidepressants with entheogensReview of When Plants DreamScience is not free in the age of the drug warScience News Continues to Ignore the Drug WarScience News magazine continues to pretend that there is no war on drugsSolquinox sounded great, until I found out I wasn't invitedSpeaking Truth to Big PharmaTeenagers and CannabisThe common sense way to get off of antidepressantsThe Criminalization of Nitrous Oxide is No Laughing MatterThe Depressing Truth About SSRIsThe Drug War and ArmageddonThe Invisible Mass ShootingsThe Menace of the Drug WarThe Mother of all Western BiasesThe problem with Modern Drug Reform EffortsThe Pseudoscience of Mental Health TreatmentThe Right to LIVE FULLY is more important than the Right to DIEThere is nothing to debate: the drug war is wrong, root and branchTime for News Outlets to stop promoting drug war liesTop 10 Problems with the Drug WarUnscientific AmericanUsing plants and fungi to get off of antidepressantsVancouver Police Seek to Eradicate Safe UseWeed Bashing at WTOP.COMWhitehead and PsychedelicsWhy DARE should stop telling kids to say noWhy Philosophers Need to Stop Dogmatically Ignoring DrugsWhy Rick Doblin is Ghosting MeWhy Science is the Handmaiden of the Drug WarWhy the Drug War is Worse than you can ImagineWhy the FDA is not qualified to judge psychoactive medicineWhy the Holocaust Museum must denounce the Drug WarWilliam James rolls over in his grave as England bans Laughing Gas
More Essays Here
The latest hits from Drug War Records, featuring Freddie and the Fearmongers!
Some Tweets against the hateful war on drugs
"The homicidal drug is booze. There's more violence on a Saturday night in a neighborhood tavern than there has been in the whole 20-year history of LSD." -- Timothy Leary
In a sane world, we'd package laughing gas for safe use and give it to the suicidal -- saying, "Use before attempting to kill yourself." But drug warriors would rather have suicide than drug use.
Reagan paid a personal price for his idiocy however. He fell victim to memory loss from Alzheimer's, after making a career out of demonizing substances that can grow new neurons in the brain!
Until we legalize ALL psychoactive drugs, there will be no such thing as an addiction expert. In the meantime, it's insulting to be told by neuroscience that I'm an addictive type. It's pathologizing my just indignation at psychiatry's niggardly pharmacopoeia.
I, for one, am actually TRYING to recommend drugs like MDMA and psilocybin as substitutes for shock therapy. In fact, I would recommend almost ANY pick-me-up drug as an alternative to knowingly damaging the human brain. That's more than the hateful DEA can say.
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.
I have nothing against science, BTW (altho' I might feel differently after a nuclear war!) I just want scientists to "stay in their lane" and stop pretending to be experts on my own personal mood and consciousness.
We need a scheduling system for psychoactive drugs as much as we need a scheduling system for sports activities: i.e. NOT AT ALL. Some sports are VERY dangerous, but we do not outlaw them because we know that there are benefits both to sports and to freedom in general.
The FDA says that MindMed's LSD drug works. But this is the agency that has not been able to decide for decades now if coca "works," or if laughing gas "works." It's not just science going on at the FDA, it's materialist presuppositions about what constitutes evidence.
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.
More Tweets
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, Open Letter to Nathan at TheDEA.org published on May 13, 2022 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
