a little well-intentioned feedback from a victim of America's war on mind medicine
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
May 12, 2022
Editor's Comments:
May 28, 2025
Don't look at me, I told the Herr Philosopher that he should delete this post. But he told me, "Ellen" he said -- my name is Ellen -- "Ellen," he said, "this post should rather remain online as testimony to the fact that I, too, am human, that I, too, am subject to mercurial moods, for..." and here he raised his right index finger into the air by way of emphasis, "...I come from a race that has been noted, time out of mind, for vigour of fancy and ardour of passion." I was like, wow! What can one say to THAT? Of course, I later realized that Brian was just facetiously quoting the opening to "Eleonora" by Edgar Allan Poe, but his response really impressed me at the time -- I figured for the moment that he actually did come from a race of tempestuous visionaries. Why not? But you had to be there, I guess, confronted as I was by his lofty forehead and his scintillating orbs. "Those eyes! Those large, those shining, those divine orbs! They became to me twin stars of Leda, and I to them devoutest of astrologers." Or so I thought at the time. It later occurred to me that the boss was just joking, however -- except for the bit about his simple humanity, of course. I think the Human League said it best: Brian is only human, born to make mistakes, in light of which bombshell I ask the reader to place the most generous possible construction on the perhaps somewhat unhinged harangue that follows.
DISCUSSION QUESTION:
Is the term "unhinged harangue" redundant? Why or why not?
--------
Dear Drug Warrior:
You've made me live my whole life without godsend medicine that grows at my very feet. You've made sure that newly discovered godsends for depression like MDMA and nitrous oxide are unavailable to me. You've forced me to rely on the psychiatric pill mill with its expensive and ineffective meds that cause chemical dependency, thanks to which I have to take these mind-numbing pills every day of my life for the rest of my life. You have overthrown natural law by denying me the freely given bounty of Mother Nature and established America as a drug-hating Christian Science republic, completely ignorant of the fact that psychoactive medicines spawned entire religions, that Benjamin Franklin enjoyed opium, that HG Wells enjoyed coca wine, and that Plato's views of the afterlife were inspired by the psychedelic mysteries at Eleusis.
You've ensured, in short, that I've been unnecessarily depressed my entire life thanks to your unprecedented hubris in outlawing godsend medicines.
But wait, there's more: while screwing me over royally like this, you have created a world of violence out of whole cloth, including civil wars overseas and thousands of deaths a year in the States, with almost 800 a year in Chicago alone -- all caused by the prohibition of substances about which you lie lie lie, insisting against all evidence that they can only be used for evil.
No, you are the evil, Drug Warrior -- you and your anti-patient, anti-nature, anti-scientific war against Godsend medicines.
And what has your Drug War accomplished? There were no young people dying on our streets when opiates were legal. It took drug prohibition to accomplish that. How? By refusing to teach safe use, refusing to regulate product as to quantity and quality, and refusing to re-legalize the endless alternative substances that could keep using from obsessing about one substance in the first place.
Oh, did I mention that you have stolen elections for fascist conservatives like Trump because you wrote your hateful unconstitutional anti-medicine laws with an eye toward disfranchising millions of minorities?
I think what I'm trying to say here, Drug Warrior, is, um... Oh, yes here's what I'm driving at: Go to hell!
Ten Tweets
against the hateful war on US
Scientists are censored as to what they can study thanks to drug law. Instead of protesting that outrage, they lend a false scientific veneer to those laws via their materialist obsession with reductionism, which blinds them to the obvious godsend effects of outlawed substances.
Brits have a right to die, but they do not have the right to use drugs that might make them want to live. Bad policy is indicated by absurd outcomes, and this is but one of the many absurd outcomes that the policy of prohibition foists upon the world.
Drug warriors are full of hate for "users." Many of them make it clear that they want users to die (like Gates and Bennett...). The drug war has weaponized humanity's worst instincts.
The media called out Trump for fearmongering about immigrants, but the media engages in fearmongering when it comes to drugs. The latest TV plot line: "white teenage girl forced to use fentanyl!" America loves to feel morally superior about "drugs."
Someone should stand outside Jefferson's estate and hand out leaflets describing the DEA's 1987 raid on Monticello to confiscate poppy plants. That raid was against everything Jefferson stood for. The TJ Foundation DISHONORED JEFFERSON and their visitors should know that!
I can't believe people. Somebody's telling me that "drugs" is not used problematically. It is CONSTANTLY used with a sneer in the voice when politicians want to diss somebody, as in, "Oh, they're in favor of DRUGS!!!" It's a political term as used today!
This is why we would rather have a depressed person commit suicide than to use "drugs" -- because drugs, after all, are not dealing with the "real" problem. The patient may SAY that drugs make them feel good, but we need microscopes to find out if they REALLY feel good.
Clearly a millennia's worth of positive use of coca by the Peruvian Indians means nothing to the FDA. Proof must show up under a microscope.
Philip Jenkins reports that Rophynol had positive uses for treating mental disorders until the media called it the "date rape drug." We thus punished those who were benefitting from the drug, tho' the biggest drug culprit in date rape is alcohol. Oprah spread the fear virally.
We're living in a sci-fi dystopia called "Fahrenheit 452", in which the police burn thought-expanding plants instead of thought-expanding books.
Scientists are censored as to what they can study thanks to drug law. Instead of protesting that outrage, they lend a false scientific veneer to those laws via their materialist obsession with reductionism, which blinds them to the obvious godsend effects of outlawed substances.