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)
Ten Tweets
against the hateful war on US
We don't need people to get "clean." We need people to start living a fulfilling life. The two things are different.
After over a hundred years of prohibition, America has developed a kind of faux science in which despised substances are completely ignored. This is why Sci Am is making a new argument for shock therapy in 2023, because they ignore all the stuff that OBVIOUSLY cheers one up.
That's why we damage the brains of the depressed with shock therapy rather than let them use coca or opium. That's why many regions allow folks to kill themselves but not to take drugs that would make them want to live. The Drug War is a perversion of social priorities.
In Mexico, the same substance can be considered a "drug" or a "med," depending on where you are in the country. It's just another absurd result of the absurd policy of drug prohibition.
That's why I created the satirical Partnership for a Death Free America. It demonstrates clearly that drug warriors aren't worried about our health, otherwise they'd outlaw shopping carts, etc. The question then becomes: what are they REALLY afraid of? Answer: Free thinkers.
Westerners have "just said no" to pain relief, mood elevation and religious insight.
My impression has been that the use of cocaine over a long time can bring about lasting improvement..." --Sigmund Freud, On Cocaine, 1884
In America, they save the depressed from cocaine and opium by turning them into patients for life with dependence-causing "meds." Now 30-year-old doctors get to treat 67-year-olds like children, with new visits every damn three months.
Trump supports the drug war and Big Pharma: the two forces that have turned me into a patient for life with dependence-causing antidepressants. Big Pharma makes the pills, and the drug war outlaws all viable alternatives.
America arrests people whose only crime is that they are trying to be all that they can be in life... in such a way that psychiatrists are not getting THEIR cut.
Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us
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Copyright 2025, Brian Ballard Quass
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