How drug prohibition destroys the lives of the depressed
meanwhile turning them into wards of the healthcare state
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
August 30, 2025
It is frustrating to deal with one's deeply depressed kinfolk in the age of drug prohibition. All the medicines that could help them are outlawed and so one is only able to comfort them with "words, words, words," which are meaningless, however, to a soul in despair. I know because I have been there myself. Such family members belong to a completely unrecognized class of drug-war victims: namely, those who are forced to suffer in silence thanks to the unprecedented outlawing of time-honored medicine. For the most part, however, these victims refuse to protest because they have been told that science has solved depression and that they just have to wait until they discover the right dependence-causing pill combination from Big Pharma and then all will be fine. Well, I know family members who have been playing that game for over forty years now, and they have been cycled through long periods of despair and hope as they are given one dependence-causing med after another to see "what works for them." In between each drug trial, they are unconscionably forced to go cold turkey for the benefit of the doctor, who prioritizes limiting variables over the "patient's" peace of mind. As much as we love to demonize them, a drug dealer would never insist on such an inhumane protocol.
I write therefore on behalf of the sufferers of the future -- in an effort to make America rethink its unprecedented wholesale demonization of psychoactive substances.
Of course, there are many reasons to re-legalize psychoactive medicine. By so doing, we would end the violence of turf wars and the militarization of police forces around the world. We would restore our basic rights which Americans have renounced in favor of fighting the politically created scapegoat called "drugs." We would get rid of our penal colonies for minorities. We would begin to atone for the fact that we have killed half a million Americans since 1971 in our paleolithic War on Drugs1. I focus on the rights of the depressed, however, partly because I have skin in this game and partly because no on else seems to be aware of the obvious way that drug prohibition keeps the depressed from enjoying life. I myself have been deprived of godsend medicines for a lifetime and so deprived of my most basic of rights: to take care of my own health. This is a crucial criticism of the Drug War that someone must finally make, but Americans have been bamboozled on this topic by the propaganda of Drug Warriors and Big Pharma 23 alike. Companies like Astra-Zeneca and Eli Lilly sponsor ads for "depression awareness," in an effort to have us all "take our meds," and these ads have worked4. Americans like to boast that they are on the same page as the pharmaceutical companies when it comes to their need to take dependence-causing meds on a daily basis.
And yet the depressed could be cheered up in a trice -- if we merely began using drugs for the benefit of humanity. And this could be done without addicting the user -- bearing in mind that even dependence is preferable to having that user commit suicide. As Carl Hart reminds us, the majority of drug users use wisely, this despite the fact that our government is doing everything it can to ensure that use is problematic, by refusing to teach safe use, refusing to regulate drugs as to quantity and quality, and refusing to provide would-be users with true choice. All risky activities have victims, however, from horseback riding to mountain climbing to alcohol drinking. Only when it comes to the hypocritically defined category of "drugs" do we insist that the concerns about one demographic -- namely white suburban young people -- must be prioritized over the healthcare needs of everybody else in the world. This is an imperialist and racist evil. It is a crime against humanity5 to deny peace of mind to the depressed -- especially when we do so merely because we refuse to educate young people about drugs, under the bizarre anti-democratic philosophy that ignorance is the best policy.
My uncle underwent brain-damaging shock therapy thanks to these Drug Warrior clowns. The doctors told the family that it was performed as a "last resort," but this was a lie. Shock therapy is never performed as a "last resort" in the age of drug prohibition, it is performed because we have outlawed all common-sense treatments for human sadness.
The world is full of substances that inspire and elate. Consider the following user reports from the book Pihkal by Alexander Shulgin6.
"More than tranquil, I was completely at peace, in a beautiful, benign, and placid place."
"A glimpse of what true heaven is supposed to feel like."
"This is total energy, and I am aware of my every membrane. This has been a marvelous experience, very beautiful, joyous, and sensuous."
Just imagine how frustrating it is to deal with a sorrowing loved one, knowing that America would rather demonize substances that produce such results rather than to learn how to use them as wisely as possible for the benefit of humanity.
As great as it is, "Synthetic Panics" by Philip Jenkins was only tolerated by academia because it did not mention drugs in the title and it contains no explicit opinions about drugs. As a result, many drug law reformers still don't know the book exists.
America created a whole negative morality around "drugs" starting in 1914. "Users" became fiends and were as helpless as a Christian sinner -- in need of grace from a higher power. Before prohibition, these "fiends" were habitues, no worse than Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson.
In 2017 alone, 1,632,921 drug arrests were made with 85.5 percent of those solely for possession. -- War On Us
The search for SSRIs has always been based on a flawed materialist premise that human consciousness is nothing but a mix of brain chemicals and so depression can be treated medically like any other physical condition.
Immanuel Kant wrote that scientists are scornful about metaphysics yet they rely on it themselves without realizing it. This is a case in point, for the idea that euphoria and visions are unhelpful in life is a metaphysical viewpoint, not a scientific one.
The American Philosophy Association should make itself useful and release a statement saying that the drug war is based on fallacious reasoning, namely, the idea that substances can be bad in themselves, without regard for why, when, where and/or how they are used.
I'm going to get on the grade-school circuit, telling kids to say no to horses.
"You think you can handle horses, kids? That's what Christopher Reeves thought. The fact is, NOBODY can handle horses!!!"
The press once again hauls out the easy answer. Reiner's son was using drugs! Aha! Of course, that explains EVERYTHING! [sigh]
The drug war is a whole wrong way of looking at the world. It tells us that substances can be judged "up" or "down," which is anti-scientific and blinds us to endless beneficial uses.
That's the problem with prohibition. It is not ultimately a health question but a question about priorities and sensibilities -- and those topics are open to lively debate and should not be the province of science, especially when natural law itself says mother nature is ours.
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