The Brainless Initiative
why it's time to REALLY study the brain
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
March 10, 2024
At a recent get-together, a healthcare expert assured me that solving crossword puzzles does not help one avoid contracting Alzheimer's 1 Disease in their old age, that we can focus all we want, but if dementia has 'got our ticket,' then the disease will be sure to punch it eventually. This conclusion is not surprising coming from a materialist scientist, who sees the individual as a generic biological widget subject to the inexorable laws of a fully reified illness like Alzheimer's. But even in the age of the Drug War, the medical journals are full of instances in which the human will has altered the course of a seemingly 'destined' illness. I say 'even in the age of the Drug War,' for the Drug War severely limits the psychoactive arsenal that is available for us when it comes to 'unthinking' illness and thinking 'health' instead.
The fact is, no one yet knows what the limits are to mental power. And why not? Because no society has set out with the goal of finding out. Typical tribal societies use psychoactive medicines, but for specific ritual and religious purposes, not as part of an ongoing search for the limits of the human mind. Western societies, on the other hand, demonize psychoactive substances wholesale and so are totally unaware of the way that they can enhance our mental powers. Even when such powers are grudgingly acknowledged, they are demonized with slanderous phrases such as 'getting high' and 'getting wasted.'
But there is a third way of dealing with the fact that the world is full of psychoactive substances - and will be increasingly full of them thanks to the progress of chemical synthesis. That third way involves using psychoactive drugs to leverage the powers of the human mind to fight illness, improve quality of life, and - who knows - perhaps even learn something about the nature of reality itself2.
And how do we accomplish this? By studying drugs, not with the help of materialist scientists whose interest is in the microscopic, but rather with the help of psychonauts whose focus is on the drug user's experience itself in all its subjective and holistic glory3. The possibilities for research are legion and would be limited only by our own creativity, especially when we evaluate the use of various combinations of drugs for certain persons in certain situations with certain desired outcomes in mind: not just resistance to disease, but increased comprehension, increased empathy, increased patience, etc.
But the western world is blind to such a way of thinking. We have a previous commitment to the drug-hating religious ideology of Mary Baker Eddy. And so we launch a multi-billion-dollar BRAIN initiative while simultaneously outlawing all the substances that could help us demonstrate the powers of that brain4.
Author's Follow-up: March 10, 2024
As HG Wells told us, health is not a thing but rather a balance of qualities5. We may find no direct correlation between completing crossword puzzles and avoiding Alzheimer's Disease, but that does not mean that puzzle-solving does not help. Completing a crossword puzzle can trigger other mental improvements that trigger other mental improvements that trigger other mental improvements. We're basically talking about the butterfly effect here, by which every action in a system ultimately affects the entire system and cannot be parceled off as being separate from the whole. We should at least remain agnostic about the powers of such activities until we have fully studied the power of the human brain, and that's a task that we have scarcely even begun, thanks to the fact that we have outlawed almost all the ways of improving that organ.
Notes:
1: What the Honey Trick Tells us about Drug Prohibition DWP (up)
2: As William James wrote: "No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded." (up)
3: Replacing Psychiatry with Pharmacologically Savvy Shamanism DWP (up)
4: The Brain Initiative White House, 2024 (up)
5: Eugenics and Other Evils: An Argument against the Scientifically Organized State Chesterton, GK (up)
read more essays here
Ten Tweets
against the hateful war on US
Mariani Wine is the real McCoy, with Bolivian coca leaves (tho' not with cocaine, as Wikipedia says). I'll be writing more about my experience with it soon. I was impressed. It's the same drink "on which" HG Wells and Jules Verne wrote their stories.
Americans HATE big government -- and yet they have no problem with government using drug prohibition to control their pain relief and how and how much they can think and feel in this life.
This pretend concern for the safety of young drug users is bizarre in a country that does not even criminalize bump stocks for automatic weapons.
As such, "we" are important. The sun is just a chaos of particles that "we" have selected out of the rest of the raw data and declared "This we shall call the sun!" "We" make this universe. Consciousness is fundamental.
Another problem with MindMed's LSD: every time I look it up on Google, I get a mess of links about the stock market. The drug is apparently a godsend for investors. They want to profit from LSD by neutering it and making it politically correct: no inspiration, no euphoria.
The drug war is being used as a wrecking ball to destroy democratic freedoms. It has destroyed the 4th amendment and freedom of religion and given the police the right to confiscate the property of peaceful and productive citizens.
Outlawing opium was the ultimate government power grab. It put the government in charge of pain relief.
America legalizes alcohol and then outlaws all the drugs that could help prevent and cure alcoholism.
When people tell us there's nothing to be gained from using mind-improving drugs, they are embarrassing themselves. Users benefit from such drugs precisely to the extent that they are educated and open-minded. Loudmouth abstainers are telling us that they lack these traits.
Most enemies of inner-city gun violence refuse to protest against the drug prohibition which caused the violence in the first place.
Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us
No cookies, no ads.
Attention, Teachers and Students: Read an essay a day by the Drug War Philosopher and then discuss... while it's still legal to do so!
The Partnership for a Death Free America is a proud sponsor of The Drug War Philosopher website @ abolishthedea.com. Updated daily.
Copyright 2025, Brian Ballard Quass
Contact: quass@quass.com
(up)