The Educational Use of Psychoactive Plants

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The Educational Use of Psychoactive Plants

Music Appreciation Class in the Year 2120

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

March 26, 2020

If there's one thing that the Drug Warrior steadfastly ignores, it is the power of many criminalized substances to sharpen the mind and increase appreciation of the world around us. That's why Thomas De Quincey indulged before visiting the opera, not in order to "party down" but rather to delightedly devote his full mental capacities to the orchestra; that's why Edgar Allan Poe's Augustus Bedloe indulged before exploring Mother Nature, not to "get high" according to the Drug Warrior's vulgar definition of that term, but to be sure that he delighted in each and every botanical wonder that came before his eyes, rather than stumbling through a world of vague greenery, which is all that generally registers in the blurry eye of the hurried "ennuye man of the world," as Poe would have put it.

This therapeutic propensity of Mother Nature's plant medicine is often so pronounced, in fact, that I believe we can look forward to a day in which society sanctions the strategic use of such substances for the express purpose of bringing about such otherwise elusive goals as "music appreciation," even in subjects for whom a minuet by Bach (let alone a concert by Mahler) might have hitherto sounded like a mere cacophony of purposeless audio waves.

The only thing stopping us from employing such pedagogical strategy (other than drug law, of course) is the unexamined notion that there is something wrong with using Mother Nature's plants to improve our cognition and enjoyment of the world around us. This belief, however, is nothing but a matter of Christian Science faith on the part of the Drug Warrior. {^There is, in fact, no rational reason why human beings should forego the benefits of Mother Nature's pharmacy.}{ We certainly do not adopt that prejudice when it comes to physical health; to say that we should employ it in the realms of mental health and human consciousness is mere Christian Science prejudice.

Here's where the hypocritical Drug Warrior will wring his or her hands about the supposed potential for addiction in such a scheme, failing to notice that America is already the most addicted country in the world, not because of cocaine ¹ , opium and magic mushrooms but because of the daily use of prescription anti-depressants by more than one-eighth of the American population, some of which "medicine" has a recidivism rate equal to that of heroin ². Indeed, so many American women are addicted to these emotion-muting drugs -- a staggering one out of four -- that we have a nation full of real-life Stepford Wives courtesy of Big Pharma ³ ⁴ .

Rather than blowing the whistle on this overmedicated dystopia, Drug Warriors spend their time lying about Mother Nature's medicines. But despite Drug War hysteria to the contrary, the fact is that opium and cocaine ⁵ ⁶ are not addictive when used in moderation, whereas modern antidepressants ⁷ are addictive EVEN WHEN THEY ARE USED AS DIRECTED. Besides, the most powerful music appreciation drug of all is probably a psychedelic substance, and psychedelics are about the least addictive drugs in the world. At any rate, the pedagogical utopia of which I write presupposes a world in which we've exchanged the Drug Enforcement Agency with the Drug EDUCATION Agency, an organization that presents only statistical facts about substance-use outcomes for every psychoactive substance in the world - including alcohol and anti-depressants, along with a list of not only the potential drawbacks of these substances, but their potential benefits as well.

Once America stops enforcing Christian Science sharia, music appreciation class will finally truly be music APPRECIATION class.

EPILOGUE: I was recently watching a Great Courses lecture series by Professor Robert Greenberg entitled "Understand Great Music." As fabulous as his lectures are, Professor Greenberg says absolutely nothing during these lectures about the astonishing fact that many of Mother Nature's godsend plants seem custom-made to help us appreciate music, which is, after all, the very goal of the Professor's lectures. Surely he should at least mention this astonishing fact in passing. Unfortunately, Greenberg, like the rest of us, would never think of bringing up the topic. He's heard all the Drug War lies about how Mother Nature's plants "fry the brain,⁸" never stopping to think that he was being blatantly lied to by Christian Science enemies of Mother Nature's godsends. (Freud used "coke," Benjamin Franklin used "opium ⁹ ," Francis Crick used psychedelics, and none of their brains were fried: to the contrary, their minds were focused and inspired by their strategic use of the substances in question.)

Nor will many of Greenberg's students "call him" on this omission (in fact, I'm the first and so far only one to even notice it, as far as I can tell). Yet I trust and hope that one day this omission will be "glaring" to all sensible people, that it will be natural to speak of using Mother Nature's plants to facilitate learning, to inspire students, and to give them a deep appreciation of the natural world around them. That day will only arrive, however, when Americans abandon the superstitious anti-nature Drug War and start considering psychoactive plants objectively, and with a view toward how they can be safely used to achieve real-world educational goals, starting, first and foremost, with inspiring a love of music in formerly tin-eared students.

Notes for essay entitled The Educational Use of Psychoactive Plants: Music Appreciation Class in the Year 2120:

1: What the Honey Trick Tells us about Drug Prohibition DWP (up)
2: Hall, Wayne, and Megan Weier. 2016. “Lee Robins’ Studies of Heroin Use among US Vietnam Veterans.” Addiction 112 (1): 176–80. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.13584. (up)
3: Seife, Charles. 2012. “Is Drug Research Trustworthy?” Scientific American 307 (6): 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1212-56. (up)
4: LaMattina, John. n.d. “Why Is Biopharma Paying 75% of the FDA’s Drug Division Budget?” Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2022/09/22/why-is-biopharma-paying-75-of-the-fdas-drug-division-budget/. (up)
5: Sigmund Freud's real breakthrough was not psychoanalysis DWP (up)
6: “Freud on Cocaine : Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.” 2023. Internet Archive. 2023. https://archive.org/details/freudoncocaine0000freu/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater. (up)
7: Antidepressants and the War on Drugs DWP (up)
8: Meds fry the brain, not drugs DWP (up)
9: The Truth About Opium by William H. Brereton DWP (up)

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The DEA outlawed MDMA in 1985, thereby depriving soldiers of a godsend treatment for PTSD. Apparently, the DEA staff slept well at night in the early 2000s as American soldiers were having their lives destroyed by IEDs.

The Drug War is the ultimate example of strategic fearmongering by self-interested politicians.

Prohibition is wrong root and branch. It seeks to justify the colonial disdain for indigenous healing practices through fearmongering.

When psychiatrists write about heroin, they characterize dependency as enslavement. When they write about antidepressants, they characterize dependency as a medical duty.

Any self-respecting mycologist should denounce the criminalization of mushrooms.

John Halpern wrote a book about opium, subtitled "the ancient flower that poisoned our world." What nonsense! Bad laws and ignorance poison our world, NOT FLOWERS!

If drug war logic made sense, we would outlaw endless things in addition to drugs. Because the drug war says that it's all worth it if we can save just one life -- which is generally the life of a white suburban young person, btw.

There are a potentially vast number of non-addictive drugs that could be used strategically in therapy. They elate and "free the tongue" to help talk therapy really work. Even "addictive" drugs can be used non-addictively, prohibitionist propaganda notwithstanding.

Today's Washington Post reports that "opioid pills shipped" DROPPED 45% between 2011 and 2019..... while fatal overdoses ROSE TO RECORD LEVELS! Prohibition is PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE.

Oregon's drug policy is incoherent and cruel. The rich and healthy spend $4,000 a week on psilocybin. The poor and chemically dependent are thrown in jail, unless they're on SSRIs, in which case they're congratulated for "taking their meds."

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The Educational Use of Psychoactive Plants

Music Appreciation Class in the Year 2120

Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US

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