Here's an idea: let's start teaching kids the truth about drugs
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
September 8, 2025
We need to be honest with kids about drugs. Imagine that! We need to stop pretending that drugs are somehow evil in and of themselves without regard for context of use. This is the "Fire bad!" mentality of caveman days and it is unbecoming of a purportedly free and scientifically oriented society. This is the know-nothing attitude that would have us demonize dangerous substances rather than to learn how to use them as wisely as possible for human benefit.
Of course, the main reason that we are not honest with kids about drugs is that we are not honest with ourselves about drugs. We as a society are playing a big game of make-believe in which we pretend that a vast pharmacopoeia of psychoactive drugs can have no beneficial uses whatsoever. It is an exercise in willful ignorance. We hold this view in spite of history, anecdote and common sense, all of which scream out that drug use has obvious psychological benefits. As a result, all our warnings to kids are discounted because young people see that we are giving them a "party line." They know that drugs can inspire and elate. They know that drugs can actually sharpen the mind. They know that drugs have inspired entire religions1. They know that drugs can be used wisely, even in a world in which Drug Warriors are doing everything they can to make drug use as dangerous as possible.
Instead of giving kids ideas about drug use by hauling out caches of hated drugs in an auditorium and demonizing the confiscated substances in real-time -- in a way reminiscent of those two-minute hate sessions in the book "1984," the dystopian novel by George Orwell -- we simply need to teach kids a couple of basic lessons:
1) That they should wait until they are adults to make their own decisions about which, if any, drugs make sense for them at any given time in their life -- including antidepressants, coffee, nicotine and alcohol.
2) That they should understand that the real enemy is unwanted dependency, not drugs in the abstract. Instead of creating boogiemen out of every new drug that comes along -- like ice, PCP, crack, Fentanyl, and oxy2 -- we need to drive the point home that daily use of such substances can cause dependency. This is not rocket science. It is a simple message that can actually be taught. People use potentially addictive drugs wisely all the time, but we are not allowed to hear about it3. And how do they use them wisely? It's very simple. They merely refrain from using any particular dependence-causing drug on a regular basis. They vary the routine such that they do not become dependent on any one substance4 -- which, of course, is another reason to end prohibition, for it makes it difficult to vary drug use because it limits drug choice to the few substances that a self-interested dealer is willing and able to provide.
All young kids need to know, however, is that they should be educated about drug use before they make drug-use decisions as adults and that safe and beneficial use is, indeed, possible.
It is not surprising, however, that we do not teach kids to avoid drug dependency, because our entire drug policy actually encourages drug dependency. One in four American women take a Big Pharma med every day of their life -- and they are considered good patients for doing so. This mass pharmacological dystopia came about because we were told that the pills in question were made scientifically and so solved "real" problems. The scientists now tell us that these pills do not fix a chemical imbalance, in fact, they may actually cause one5. In 2022, Noam Shpancer admitted in Psychology Today that "We don't know how antidepressants work.6" To which I would add that, we don't know that they work at all, if by "work" we mean that they help one achieve self-actualization in life as opposed to merely keeping one from committing suicide, in which case a sharp blow on the head with a log would work just as well.
This is ironic, of course. America outlawed opium, partly on the grounds that it could cause unwanted dependencies. Then we went on to create a world in which chemical dependency is the accepted norm -- if only it is provided by a pharmaceutical company. This begs an enormous question: why is it wrong for me to smoke opium at home of an evening while I am considered a good patient for taking a Big Pharma drug every day of my life? Why do we not see that the outlawing of opium smoking in America led to the use of drugs that are far more potentially addictive in nature? At some level, kids recognize this hypocrisy and so all attempts to demonize drugs will fall on deaf ears.
As Thomas Szasz wrote:
"Drug education... is the name we give to the state-sponsored effort to inflame people's hatred and intolerance of other people's drug habits, which is as indecent as it would be to inflame people's hatred and intolerance of other people's religious habits and call it 'religion education.'" -- Our Right to Drugs
CONCLUSION
If we want to teach kids about drugs, we first have to teach ourselves as adults: We need to learn that substances are only good or bad in connection with how they are used: for what reason, at what dose, in which circumstances. We need to realize that it is anti-scientific tyranny to outlaw drugs for everybody merely because they could be misused by the young people whom we refuse to teach about safe use. In doing so, we throw all potential beneficiaries of such substances under the bus, while, of course, turning inner cities into a shooting gallery and destroying the rule of law in Latin America.
Of course, most readers have been shielded from reports of positive use for a lifetime. So I will end this essay with an illustrative hypothetical, to remind them that beneficial drug use is indeed possible. Imagine, then, if we actually allowed the suicidal to use the kinds of drugs that inspired the following user reports in the book "Pihkal" by Alexander Shulgin7.
"A glimpse of what true heaven is supposed to feel like... Next day, same sense of serene, quiet joy/beauty persisted for most of the day. A true healing potential."
"I was caught up with the imagery, and there was an overriding religious aspect to the day."
"This is total energy, and I am aware of my every membrane. This has been a marvelous experience, very beautiful, joyous, and sensuous."
"The euphoria grows in intensity for several hours and remains for the rest of the day making this one of the most enjoyable experiences I have ever had."
And these are the kinds of drugs that we are told have no positive uses for anybody, ever. No wonder our kids do not believe us when we lecture them about drugs. We are gaslighting them about drug effects. Worse yet, we are withholding these godsend medicines from the depressed, thereby promoting suicide and the completely unnecessary use of brain-damaging shock therapy!
To reiterate: adults need to grow up before they can hope to send kids a coherent message about drugs. Unfortunately, the big lesson of drug education is that unwanted dependency is the real drug problem -- and that is a message that adults will find hard to accept. Dependency is the name of the game for all legal mind and mood medicine in the 21st century! And let us not forget how this dependency came about: it came about thanks to drug prohibition, which gave self-interested Big Pharma a monopoly on mind and mood medicine -- a monopoly which they promptly used to turn 1 in 4 American women into lifetime customers by developing drugs that are harder to kick than heroin8.
I speak from experience. Someday the Effexor that I am on will surely be recognized as the hardest drug to kick in the world. Nor was I ever told that the drug would turn me into an eternal patient. When this fact became clear, the psychiatrist flipped the script and told me that I had a medical duty to take the drug for a lifetime. This is a drug that is harder to kick than opium. In "Opium for the Masses," Jim Hogshire explains that the physical aspect of an unwanted opium dependency can be overcome in one week, and relatively painlessly at that, with the help of various chemicals. The biochemical downsides of Effexor withdrawal, on the other hand, can last for years -- and it is unclear if they will ever disappear. My own psychiatrist told me that Effexor has a 95% recidivism rate for long-term users who attempt to kick the drug.
And yet even Effexor is not the real villain of this piece. Getting off Effexor is only a nightmare because of drug prohibition. If we re-legalized psychoactive medicine, there are plenty of drugs (like the ones mentioned in the above quotations) that could get me through the withdrawal process by helping me to obfuscate and transcend the downsides of that process. This is psychological common sense. Unfortunately, our Drug Warriors are committed to gaslighting Americans about such obvious drug benefits, and this is a habit that they will have to overcome if they wish to become credible teachers on such topics.
Many in the psychedelic renaissance fail to recognize that prohibition is the problem. They praise psychedelics but want to demonize others substances. That's ignorant however. No substance is bad in itself. All substances have some use at some dose for some reason.
The 1932 movie "Scarface" starts with on-screen text calling for a crackdown on armed gangs in America. There is no mention of the fact that a decade's worth of Prohibition had created those gangs in the first place.
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.
Why does no one talk about empathogens for preventing atrocities? Because they'd rather hate drugs than use them for the benefit of humanity. They don't want to solve problems, they prefer hatred.
We've all been taught since grade school that human beings cannot use psychoactive medicines wisely. That is just a big fat lie. It's criminal to keep substances illegal that can awaken the mind and remind us of our full potential in life.
Kids should be taught in grade school that prohibition is wrong.
The Shipiba have learned to heal human beings physically, psychologically and spiritually with what they call "onanyati," plant allies and guides, such as Bobinsana, which "envelops seekers in a cocoon of love." You know: what the DEA would call "junk."
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.
Prohibition is a crime against humanity. It forces us to use shock therapy on the severely depressed since we've outlawed all viable alternatives. It denies medicines that could combat Alzheimer's and/or render it psychologically bearable.
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!
Many in the psychedelic renaissance fail to recognize that prohibition is the problem. They praise psychedelics but want to demonize others substances. That's ignorant however. No substance is bad in itself. All substances have some use at some dose for some reason.