***************** The Criminalization of Nitrous Oxide is No Laughing Matter by the Drug War Philospher at AbolishTheDEA.com
computer screen with words DRUG WAR BLOG


The Criminalization of Nitrous Oxide is No Laughing Matter

an open letter to the Drug Policy Alliance

by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher




March 22, 2023

hannel 5 UK recently interviewed Niamh Eastwood (Executive Director of Release) and Dr. David Nicholl (NHS neurologist) about the perceived need to criminalize the use of laughing gas.

Although the guests were diplomatic, the presenter was goading them on to admit what to her was an obvious conclusion: namely, that laughing gas must be outlawed to protect "our children."

Whenever biased coverage of this kind occurs, DPA should send complaint letters to station management, just as it now sends protest letters to Congress.

The letter would point out that "our children" are not the only stakeholders in the prohibition game. What about the rights of the hundreds of millions of the depressed to godsend treatment? What about philosophers who want to follow up on the work of William James, whose use of laughing gas inspired his entire philosophy? What about the rights of minorities in inner cities to be free from random gunfire?

The protest letter would continue with some more stubbornly ignored Drug War home truths, such as the following:

Drug prohibition has destroyed the rule of law in Central America, militarized police forces around the world, created "no-go" zones in inner cities, and censored scientists. News organizations should be taught to remember this before ignorantly championing a drug control policy that has killed millions and facilitated the election of fascists, even in the United States, by disfranchising millions of minority voters.

Even if "our children" were the only stakeholders in the drug game, the answer in a free society would be to educate them about all psychoactive substances, rather than to proceed down the murderous and anti-scientific road of prohibition.

Such letters should then be endorsed by DPA members and shipped to station management at Channel 5 -- and to every other station and network which (wittingly or otherwise) promotes drug-war hysteria by ignoring the seemingly endless downsides of prohibition.

Best Wishes

Brian Quass
abolishthedea.com

Nitrous Oxide: Possession of laughing gas to be criminal offence"

Laughing Gas







Laughing gas is the substance that inspired William James' philosophy about human perception and the nature of ultimate reality. "No account of the universe in its totality," wrote James, "can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded." And yet disregard them we must because the drug war has outlawed all substances that help create such states. This is a veto on human progress. It is also psychological common sense that laughing gas could be used to prevent suicides and treat depression -- but materialist science ignores common sense. This is why they need to butt out when it comes to psychoactive medicine. They are no experts on emotional states, except in their own dogmatic materialist minds. It is a category error to place materialists in charge of our thoughts and feelings. We actually know what works for ourselves. And if there are any experts in the field, they are not materialists, they are pharmacologically savvy empaths, what the indigenous world calls shaman.

  • Forbes Magazine's Laughable Article about Nitrous Oxide
  • Keep Laughing Gas Legal
  • Listening to Laughing Gas
  • The Criminalization of Nitrous Oxide is No Laughing Matter
  • Why the FDA should not schedule Laughing Gas
  • William James rolls over in his grave as England bans Laughing Gas

  • 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 Spot
  • Another Cry in the Wilderness
  • Canadian Drug Warrior, I said Get Away
  • Common Sense Drug Withdrawal
  • Critique of the Philosophy of Happiness
  • Depressed? Here's why you can't get the medicines that you need
  • Drug Dealers as Modern Witches
  • Drug War Murderers
  • Drugs are not the problem
  • End the Drug War Now
  • Feedback on my first legal psilocybin session in Oregon
  • Finally, a drug war opponent who checks all my boxes
  • Freedom of Religion and the War on Drugs
  • Getting off antidepressants in the age of the drug war
  • God and Drugs
  • Hello? MDMA works, already!
  • Heroin versus Alcohol
  • How Addiction Scientists Reckon without the Drug War
  • How National Geographic slanders the Inca people and their use of coca
  • How Scientific American reckons without the drug war
  • How the Drug War is Threatening Intellectual Freedom in England
  • How the Drug War Outlaws Criticism of Immanuel Kant
  • How the Drug War Screws the Depressed
  • How the Monticello Foundation betrayed Jefferson's Legacy in 1987
  • How the US Preventive Services Task Force Drums Up Business for Big Pharma
  • How to Unite Drug War Opponents of all Ethnicities
  • I'll See Your Antidepressants and Raise You One Huachuma Cactus
  • Ignorance is the enemy, not Fentanyl
  • Illusions with Professor Arthur Shapiro
  • In Defense of Religious Drug Use
  • Keep Laughing Gas Legal
  • Majoring in Drug War Philosophy
  • MDMA for Psychotherapy
  • My Realistic Plan for Getting off of Big Pharma Drugs and why it's so hard to implement
  • No drugs are bad in and of themselves
  • Open Letter to Addiction Specialist Gabor Mate
  • Open Letter to Anthony Gottlieb
  • Open Letter to Congressman Ben Cline, asking him to abolish the criminal DEA
  • Open Letter to Diane O'Leary
  • Open Letter to Dr. Carl L. Hart
  • Open Letter to Erica Zelfand
  • Open Letter to Erowid
  • Open Letter to Francis Fukuyama
  • Open Letter to Gabrielle Glaser
  • Open letter to Kenneth Sewell
  • Open Letter to Lisa Ling
  • Open Letter to Margo Margaritoff
  • Open Letter to Nathan at TheDEA.org
  • Open letter to Professor Troy Glover at Waterloo University
  • Open Letter to Richard Hammersley
  • Open Letter to Rick Doblin and Roland Griffiths
  • Open Letter to Roy Benaroch MD
  • Open Letter to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
  • Open Letter to the Virginia Legislature
  • Open Letter to Variety Critic Owen Glieberman
  • Open Letter to Vincent Hurley, Lecturer
  • Open Letter to Vincent Rado
  • Open letter to Wolfgang Smith
  • Predictive Policing in the Age of the Drug War
  • Prohibition Spectrum Disorder
  • Prohibitionists Never Learn
  • Regulate and Educate
  • Replacing antidepressants with entheogens
  • Review of When Plants Dream
  • Science is not free in the age of the drug war
  • Science News Continues to Ignore the Drug War
  • Science News magazine continues to pretend that there is no war on drugs
  • Solquinox sounded great, until I found out I wasn't invited
  • Speaking Truth to Big Pharma
  • Teenagers and Cannabis
  • The common sense way to get off of antidepressants
  • The Criminalization of Nitrous Oxide is No Laughing Matter
  • The Depressing Truth About SSRIs
  • The Drug War and Armageddon
  • The Invisible Mass Shootings
  • The Menace of the Drug War
  • The Mother of all Western Biases
  • The problem with Modern Drug Reform Efforts
  • The Pseudoscience of Mental Health Treatment
  • The Right to LIVE FULLY is more important than the Right to DIE
  • There is nothing to debate: the drug war is wrong, root and branch
  • Time for News Outlets to stop promoting drug war lies
  • Top 10 Problems with the Drug War
  • Unscientific American
  • Using plants and fungi to get off of antidepressants
  • Vancouver Police Seek to Eradicate Safe Use
  • Weed Bashing at WTOP.COM
  • Whitehead and Psychedelics
  • Why CBS 19 should stop supporting the Drug War
  • Why DARE should stop telling kids to say no
  • Why Philosophers Need to Stop Dogmatically Ignoring Drugs
  • Why Rick Doblin is Ghosting Me
  • Why Science is the Handmaiden of the Drug War
  • Why the Drug War is Worse than you can Imagine
  • Why the FDA is not qualified to judge psychoactive medicine
  • Why the Holocaust Museum must denounce the Drug War
  • William James rolls over in his grave as England bans Laughing Gas



  • People

    about whom and to whom I've written over the years...

    Alexander, Lamar
    Letter to Lamar Alexander
    Barrett, Frederick S.
    The common sense way to get off of antidepressants
    Why the Drug War is Worse than you can Imagine
    Benaroch MD, Roy
    Open Letter to Roy Benaroch MD
    Bloom, Josh
    Science is not free in the age of the drug war
    Buchanan, Julian
    Finally, a drug war opponent who checks all my boxes
    Chalmers, David
    David Chalmers and the Drug War
    Chelmow MD, David
    How the US Preventive Services Task Force Drums Up Business for Big Pharma
    Chomsky, Noam
    Chomsky is Right
    Chomsky's Revenge
    Noam Chomsky on Drugs
    Cline, Ben
    Open Letter to Congressman Ben Cline, asking him to abolish the criminal DEA
    Close, Glenn
    Glenn Close but no cigar
    De Quincey, Thomas
    The Therapeutic Value of Anticipation
    Dick, Philip K.
    Drug Laws as the Punishment of 'Pre-Crime'
    Doblin, Rick
    Constructive criticism of the MAPS strategy for re-legalizing MDMA
    Is Rick Doblin Running with the Devil?
    Why Rick Doblin is Ghosting Me
    Ellsberg, Daniel
    Drug Warriors Fiddle while Rome Gets Nuked
    Floyd, George
    The Racist Drug War killed George Floyd
    Fort, Charles
    The Book of the Damned
    Fox, James Alan
    The Invisible Mass Shootings
    Friedman, Milton
    How Milton Friedman Completely Misunderstood the War on Drugs
    Fukuyama, Francis
    Open Letter to Francis Fukuyama
    Gibb, Andy
    How The Drug War Killed Andy Gibb
    Gimbel, Steven
    Heroin versus Alcohol
    Glaser, Gabrielle
    Open Letter to Gabrielle Glaser
    Glieberman, Owen
    Open Letter to Variety Critic Owen Glieberman
    Glover, Troy
    Open letter to Professor Troy Glover at Waterloo University
    Goswami, Amit
    Alternative Medicine as a Drug War Creation
    Gottlieb, Anthony
    Open Letter to Anthony Gottlieb
    Grandmaster Flash, musician
    Grandmaster Flash: Drug War Collaborator
    Griffiths, Roland
    Depressed? Here's why you can't get the medicines that you need
    Open Letter to Rick Doblin and Roland Griffiths
    Gupta, Sujata
    The Mother of all Western Biases
    Hammersley, Richard
    Open Letter to Richard Hammersley
    Handwerk, Brian
    How National Geographic slanders the Inca people and their use of coca
    Harris, Kamala
    Why I Support Kamala Harris
    Harrison, Francis Burton
    Screw You, Francis Burton Harrison
    Hart, Carl
    Open Letter to Dr. Carl L. Hart
    What Carl Hart Missed
    Harvey, Dennis
    How Variety and its film critics support drug war fascism
    Heidegger, Martin
    Heidegger on Drugs
    Hogshire, Jim
    I've got a bone to pick with Jim Hogshire
    Opium for the Masses by Jim Hogshire
    What Jim Hogshire Got Wrong about Drugs
    Hurley, Vincent
    Open Letter to Vincent Hurley, Lecturer
    Hutton, Ronald
    Drug Dealers as Modern Witches
    James, William
    How the Drug War is Threatening Intellectual Freedom in England
    Keep Laughing Gas Legal
    The Criminalization of Nitrous Oxide is No Laughing Matter
    William James rolls over in his grave as England bans Laughing Gas
    Jefferson, Thomas
    A Misguided Tour of Monticello
    How the Jefferson Foundation Betrayed Thomas Jefferson
    How the Monticello Foundation betrayed Jefferson's Legacy in 1987
    Jefferson
    The Dark Side of the Monticello Foundation
    Jenkins, Philip
    'Synthetic Panics' by Philip Jenkins
    Jenkins DA, Brooke
    Prohibitionists Never Learn
    Kant, Immanuel
    How the Drug War limits our understanding of Immanuel Kant
    How the Drug War Outlaws Criticism of Immanuel Kant
    Kastrup, Bernardo
    How Bernardo Kastrup reckons without the drug war
    Kenny, Gino
    The Right to LIVE FULLY is more important than the Right to DIE
    Kirsch, Irving
    Brahms is NOT the best antidepressant
    Klang, Jessica
    All these Sons
    Kotek, Tina
    Regulate and Educate
    Koterski, Jospeh
    America's Blind Spot
    Kurtz, Matthew M.
    How Scientific American reckons without the drug war
    Langlitz, Nicolas
    Why the FDA is not qualified to judge psychoactive medicine
    Lee, Spike
    Spike Lee is Bamboozled by the Drug War
    Leshner, Alan I.
    How the Drug War Screws the Depressed
    Lewis, Edward
    Psilocybin Mushrooms by Edward Lewis
    Ling, Lisa
    Open Letter to Lisa Ling
    Locke, John
    John Locke on Drugs
    Maples-Keller, Jessica


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    Some Tweets against the hateful war on drugs

    We have a low tolerance for the downsides of drug use only. We are fine with high risk levels for any other activity on earth. If drug warriors were serious about saving lives, they'd outlaw guns, free flying, free diving, and all pleasure trips to Mars.
    The FDA is not qualified to tell us whether holistic medicines work. They hold such drugs to materialist standards and that's pharmacological colonialism.
    Just think how much money bar owners in the Old West would have saved on restoration expenses if they had served MDMA instead of whiskey.
    All the problems that folks associate with drugs are caused by prohibition. Thousands were not dying on the streets when opioids were legal in America. It took prohibition to bring that about.
    First America takes away the citizen's right to manage their own pain by rendering opium illegal. Then the psychiatric field treats the resultant epidemic of depression by damaging the patient's brain, i.e., by treating depressed patients with shock therapy.
    The DEA should be tried for crimes against humanity. They have been lying about drugs for 50 years and running interference between human beings and Mother Nature in violation of natural law, depriving us of countless potential and known godsends in order to create more DEA jobs.
    The Thomas Jefferson Foundation is a drug war collaborator. They helped the DEA confiscate Thomas Jefferson's poppy plants in 1987. They have refused to talk about that ever since.
    The benefits of entheogens read like the ultimate wish-list for psychiatrists. It's a shame that so many of them are still mounting a rear guard action to defend their psychiatric pill mill -- which demoralizes clients by turning them into lifetime patients.
    It's no wonder that folks blame drugs. Carl Hart is the first American scientist to openly say in a published book that even the so-called "hard" drugs can be used wisely. That's info that the drug warriors have always tried to keep from us.
    The existence of a handful of bad outcomes of drug use does not justify substance prohibition... any more than the existence of drunkards justifies a call for liquor prohibition. Instead, we need to teach safe use and offer a wide choice of uncontaminated psychoactive drugs.
    More Tweets






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    You have been reading an article entitled, The Criminalization of Nitrous Oxide is No Laughing Matter: an open letter to the Drug Policy Alliance, published on March 22, 2023 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)