an open letter to UNODC, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
August 29, 2024
There are no drugs of abuse. There are bad laws and social policies (like a refusal to educate) that make drugs dangerous.
Thousands of young people were not dying in the streets when opium 1 was legal in America. They're dying in the streets now from opiates because prohibition limits their ability to find safe drugs with known dosages, while promoting fear instead of knowledge.
These deaths were all preventable -- and they were all caused by DRUG WARRIORS!
End the Drug War: get out of the business of ruining people's lives because they are trying to use time-honored medicines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Start educating, stop arresting!
Start regulating, rather than demanding that everyone in the world stop using indigenous godsends!!! DRUG WARRIORS are as biased and insane as Francisco Pizarro when it comes to drug policy. They are in complete denial: they blame all the downsides of prohibition on "drugs" themselves.
No wonder. They don't want to accept the sad truth: that THEY are responsible for the thousands of deaths of young people on American streets.
Self-medication is not a dirty word. It has always been a fundamental right to take care of one's own health -- until the medical establishment demonized the practice for obvious financial reasons.
Americans won't be true grown-ups until they learn to react to drug deaths the same way that they react to deaths from horseback riding and mountain climbing.
My consciousness, my choice.
I know. I'm on SNRIs. But SSRIs and SNRIs are both made with materialist presumptions in mind: that the best way to change people is with a surgical strike at one-size-fits-all chemistry. That's the opposite of the shamanic holism that I favor.
There would be almost no recidivism for those trying to get off drugs if all drugs were legal. Then we could use a vast variety of drugs to get us through those few hours of late-night angst that are the bane of the recidivist.
Rick Strassman reportedly stopped his DMT trials because some folks had bad experiences at high doses. That is like giving up on aspirin because high doses of NSAIDs can kill.
Attempts to improve one's mind and mood are not crimes. The attempt to stop people from doing so is the crime.
Most people think that drugs like cocaine, MDMA, LSD and amphetamines can only be used recreationally. WRONG ! This represents a very naive understanding of human psychology. We deny common sense in order to cater to the drug war orthodoxy that "drugs have no benefits."
There's a run of addiction movies out there, like "Craving!" wherein they actually personify addiction as a screaming skeleton. Funny, drug warriors never call for a Manhattan Project to end addiction. Addiction is their golden goose.
A Pennsylvanian politician now wants the US Army to "fight fentanyl." The guy is anthropomorphizing a damn drug! No wonder pols don't want to spend money on education, because any educated country would laugh a superstitious guy like that right out of public office.
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