bird icon for twitter bird icon for twitter


The REAL Lesson of the Opium Wars

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher





November 2, 2019



"All these anti-opium articles, speeches, and resolutions are based upon the same model. They assume certain statements as existing and acknowledged facts which have never been proved to be such, and then proceed to draw deductions from those alleged facts."
--William H. Brereton, The Truth About Opium1




Author's Follow-up:

July 11, 2025

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up


The following was written six years ago, when I was first beginning to study the warped philosophical assumptions behind the War on Drugs and the substance demonization for which it stands. Since then, I have learned much more about the motivations behind opium prohibition, to the point that I fear that my former musings are now inadequate and that they might therefore inadvertently serve, as it were, to praise prohibition with faint condemnation. I have learned over the years that it is almost impossible to exaggerate the counterproductive and inhumane idiocy of the prohibitionist mindset. Nevertheless I will let my former musings stand as a sort of historical marker of my Pilgrim's Progress through the maze of disinformation and misdirection that constitutes America's unprecedented wholesale outlawing of psychoactive medicines.

Meanwhile, I encourage all seekers of the massively hushed-up truth on this topic to read William Brereton's The Truth About Opium: Refutation of the Fallacies of the Anti-Opium Society and a Defence of the Indo-China Opium Trade.2 Sure, Brereton had his own prejudices, of course, though he addresses these in the lectures of which this book consists, and, I think, does so in a reassuring and convincing manner. This is beside the point, however; for my goal on this website is not to advance an inductive argument about the upsides and downsides of any given drugs: my goal is to demonstrate that the whole mindset of drug prohibition is wrong and counterproductive: that it is wrong to judge drugs as good or bad "per se," that all drugs, even Botox and cyanide, have positive uses, and that to criminalize drugs because they can be misused by one demographic is anti-scientific and an inhumane policy. It is racist and xenophobic as well, basically telling the world: If a drug can be misused by a white American young person at one dose when used for one reason, then it must not be used by anyone in the world at any dose for any reason. This is the issue.

Also, I know that some doctors make a big distinction between dependence and addiction. I have a psychiatrist who thinks Effexor is great because it does not cause addiction, only dependence. I do not understand that point of view. When I tried to get off Effexor too quickly, I literally wished that I were dead. Literally. Why is that outcome so much better than being addicted? Answer? Because it leaves the doctor UNBOTHERED! I was not going to bother my doctor by phone -- I was just going to sit quietly at home and contemplate suicide. Why is that so much better than experiencing a craving, doc?

The irony is that anyone can end physical opiate addiction in a week -- whereas it is unclear if one can ever end their biochemical dependence on SNRIs like Effexor, at least in a world wherein all other psychoactive alternatives have been ruthlessly outlawed. Indeed, my previous psychiatrist told me that Effexor has a 95% recidivism rate for long-term users after three years, far worse than that for heroin. So for these -- and many, many other reasons to be found throughout my hundreds of drug-related essays -- I insist that we all should have the right to smoke opium nightly as opposed to using Big Pharma drugs daily, or indeed to use any other drug, dependence-causing or not. Dependence in itself is not evil, after all: we are all dependent on chemicals of all kinds. Unwanted dependency is the evil, and such dependency will be the norm until we claw back our right to self-medicate3 from the self-interested medical establishment, meanwhile loudly denying the lie that they are the experts when it comes to mind and mood medicine and that they, not we, are experts on how we think and feel in life -- and even, indeed, on how we should be allowed to think and feel in life. Finally, when all drugs are re-legalized and we actually learn from best practices, then we can fight drugs with drugs. Dependent on Effexor? Surely, not for long when one can exchange the drug for laughing gas on Friday, phenethylamines on Saturday, and opium on Sunday. (I'd better stop this talk about common-sense freedom lest I give a brainwashed reader a coronary. You've got to realize that they have been shielded their whole lifetime from such honest talk about drugs, the fact that they actually have benefits!)

Let's end this unprecedented power grab by the medical industry. Let's reclaim our right to take care of our own emotional and mental states.

I preface thus much lest my six-year-old essay should fall short, written as it was before I had recognized the disempowering, racist and xenophobic tyranny of the status quo with respect to opium and other so-called "hard" drugs. That very category, "hard drugs," is political, of course. Drugs are only dangerous when we refuse to teach safe use, refuse to ensure drug quality and refuse to provide choices. They are not dangerous in and of themselves. We should no more say "Drugs bad!" than we used to say "Fire bad!" Yet racist and xenophobic politicians use the term "hard" in an attempt to render the use of certain drugs "beyond the pale," unthinkable, as it were, to the average digitally hypnotized citizen. What are hard drugs then, in plain English? Hard drugs are just those drugs which, if used intelligently, could make most drug stores irrelevant -- and which might even inspire entire new religions! That's what Drug Warriors really fear about the substances that they demonize as "hard," failing to realize that the addictive potential of some such drugs could be easily dealt with by fighting drugs with drugs, in a world wherein we sought to learn about drugs rather than to demonize them.




Like almost everyone else in America, John Halpern looks at the opium wars of the 19th century and draws two erroneous conclusions. I discuss and refute those two conclusions below.


1) Opium is a drug from hell.

Why do we think that opium is the drug from hell? Why? Because we never hear from the thousands of human beings who have used opium responsibly and to good effect. How many westerners know that Benjamin Franklin used opium? How many know that Marcus Aurelius was also a big fan of the drug? How many westerners know or care that opium had a great productive influence on writers like De Quincey, Poe and Lovecraft? How many westerners know that opium has been found to cure the common cold by many users?

This is the Drug Warrior strategy, by the way, to never admit to or point out any positive uses of Mother Nature's psychoactive drugs, to constantly highlight the negative, thereby leaving the impression that these substances truly are evil incarnate. If these people focused their polemics on driving, we would come to feel that driving only led to accidents and should therefore be outlawed. Unfortunately, the worst villain in this story is the news media. Cowed as they are by the DEA and public hysteria, they studiously avoid reporting positive news about substance use, thereby giving the impression, through selective negative reporting, that illegal substance use is always substance abuse.

Here's a headline you'll never see: "'Responsible opium use helps me write creatively and prolifically!'"

While it's true that opium can become addictive if used on a daily basis (especially when eaten rather than smoked), this is a property of opium that no westerner has a right to complain about (a property, by the way, which opium shares with alcohol, caffeine and nicotine). As I type this, 1 in 4 American women are dependent for life on Big Pharma drugs -- 1 in 4. Besides, opium addiction can be "kicked" in a week whereas certain modern anti-depressants like Effexor CAN NEVER BE STOPPED according to a recent study by the NIH itself, which reports a 95% recidivism rate for those who try.

2) We should therefore make opium illegal.

The lesson of the opium war is not that natural substances should be illegal. Opium itself never injured anyone in the 19th century. It was the PROFIT MOTIVE that made opium a bad thing. It was the PROFIT MOTIVE that flooded the market and brought forward only the most potent productions of the poppy plants. It was the same PROFIT MOTIVE that allows today's Big Pharma to get away scot-free with addicting an entire nation.

But writers like Halpern ignore this. Instead of blaming exploitative capitalism, they make a scapegoat out of the substances themselves. The real lesson of the opium war, however, is that the PROFIT MOTIVE should have no role when it comes to the sale of psychoactive substances, not because the substances are evil incarnate, but because the PROFIT MOTIVE encourages irresponsible and uninformed use of such substances.

Indeed, the whole opioid crisis today exists because of the PROFIT MOTIVE, not because poppy plants are the spawn of the devil, as the superstitious Drug Warrior prefers to believe -- probably because they can't bring themselves to criticize capitalism, and so Mother Nature's plants become convenient scapegoats.

Afterthoughts



Language counts because it is laden with stealth assumptions. When we say "Opium War," we superstitiously associate the evils of the conflict in question with a plant, turning Mother Nature into a scapegoat for human evil and giving a free pass to the phenomenon of unbridled and militaristic capitalism, which is really the villain of the piece.

Related tweet: June 2, 2023


"Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death." -Jean Cocteau

Opium




Young people were not dying in the streets when opiates were legal in the United States. It took drug laws to accomplish that. By outlawing opium and refusing to teach safe use, the Drug Warrior has subjected users to contaminated product of uncertain dosage, thereby causing thousands of unnecessary overdoses.

Currently, I myself am chemically dependent on a Big Pharma drug for depression, that I have to take every day of my life. There is no rational reason why I should not be able to smoke opium daily instead. It is only drug-war fearmongering that has demonized that choice -- for obvious racist, economic and political reasons.

You have been lied to your entire life about opium. In fact, the Drug War has done its best to excise the very word "opium" from the English vocabulary. That's why the Thomas Jefferson Foundation refuses to talk about the 1987 raid on Monticello in which Reagan's DEA confiscated Thomas Jefferson's poppy plants in violation of everything he stood for, politically speaking. It's just plain impolite to bring up that subject these days.

It's hard to learn the truth about opium because the few books on the subject demonize it rather than discuss it dispassionately. Take the book by John Halpern: "Opium: How an ancient flower shaped and poisoned our world." It's a typical Drug Warrior title. A flower did not poison our world, John: our world was poisoned by bad laws: laws that were inspired first and foremost by racism, followed closely by commercial interests, politics, misinformation and lies.

To learn something approaching to "the truth about Opium," read the book of that name by William Brereton, written to defend the time-honored panacea from the uninformed and libelous attacks of Christian missionaries.


  • A Misguided Tour of Monticello
  • How the Jefferson Foundation Betrayed Thomas Jefferson
  • How the Monticello Foundation betrayed Jefferson's Legacy in 1987
  • Jefferson
  • Jefferson Bashing on Medium.com
  • The Dark Side of the Monticello Foundation
  • The REAL Lesson of the Opium Wars
  • In Defense of Opium
  • Medications for so-called 'opioid-use disorder' are legion
  • Open Letter to Margo Margaritoff
  • Opium for the Masses by Jim Hogshire
  • Re-Legalize Opium Now
  • Smart Uses for Opium and Coca
  • The Drug War Cure for Covid
  • The Drug-Hating Bias of Modern Science
  • The Kangaroo Courts of Modern Science
  • The REAL Lesson of the Opium Wars
  • The Truth About Opium by William H. Brereton
  • Why doctors should prescribe opium for depression

  • Monticello Sells Out Thomas Jefferson




    In 1987, the jackbooted DEA stomped onto Thomas Jefferson's estate of Monticello and confiscated the founding father's poppy plants in violation of everything that he stood for politically speaking. And yet the Thomas Jefferson Foundation pretends to this day that the raid never took place. They give no explanation to their visitors as to why the Foundation sold out the man whom they were meant to be honoring. And so all their visitors get a sanitized version of history, designed to let Americans feel that everything's fine, that there is no Drug War, and life goes on. What an absolute disgrace, this so-called Thomas Jefferson Foundation. They should remove all the signs in Albemarle County that read "Hallowed Ground" -- because those grounds have been dishonored by the Foundation itself. THEY SOLD OUT THOMAS JEFFERSON -- and are now so pusillanimous and cowardly that they will not even admit that the raid ever took place -- a raid to confiscate flowers, for god's sake.

    I wrote a letter to the head of Guest Services at Monticello and he responded: "I'm sorry you do not think that we are doing enough to explain the DEA raid." I responded in turn: "But you are doing NOTHING to explain the raid! You are pretending it never happened!" I then asked the director of guest services to correct me if I was wrong -- and he had nothing further to say. What absolute schmucks! Jefferson is spinning right now in his thoroughly dishonored grave.

  • A Misguided Tour of Monticello
  • How the Jefferson Foundation Betrayed Thomas Jefferson
  • How the Monticello Foundation betrayed Jefferson's Legacy in 1987
  • Jefferson
  • Jefferson Bashing on Medium.com
  • The Dark Side of the Monticello Foundation
  • The REAL Lesson of the Opium Wars


  • Notes:

    1: The Truth About Opium by William H. Brereton (up)
    2: The Truth About Opium by William H. Brereton (up)
    3: Restoring our Right to Self-Medication: how drug warriors work together with the medical establishment to prevent us from taking care of our own health (up)







    Ten Tweets

    against the hateful war on US




    That's why I created the satirical Partnership for a Death Free America. It demonstrates clearly that drug warriors aren't worried about our health, otherwise they'd outlaw shopping carts, etc. The question then becomes: what are they REALLY afraid of? Answer: Free thinkers.

    Check out the 2021 article in Forbes in which a materialist doctor professes to doubt whether laughing gas could help the depressed. Materialists are committed to seeing the world from the POV of Spock from Star Trek.

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

    That's how antidepressants came about: the idea that sadness was a simple problem that science could solve. Instead of being caused by a myriad of interrelated issues, we decided it was all brain chemistry that could be treated with precision. Result? Mass chemical dependency.

    It's just plain totalitarian nonsense to outlaw mother nature and to outlaw moods and mental states thru drug law. These truths can't be said enough by us "little people" because the people in power are simply not saying them.

    Who would have thought back in 1776 that Americans would eventually have to petition their government for the right to even possess a damn mushroom. The Drug War has destroyed America.

    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.

    Many prohibition haters have their own list of drugs that they feel should be outlawed. They're missing the point. Drugs cannot be judged up or down. Prohibition is the problem. Say otherwise and you open the door to endless substance demonization by politicians.

    Some fat cat should treat the entire Supreme Court to a vacation at San Jose del Pacifico in Mexico, where they can partake of the magic mushroom in a ceremony led by a Zapotec guide.

    People magazine should be fighting for justice on behalf of the thousands of American young people who are dying on the streets because of the drug war.


    Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us






    Open Letter to Addiction Specialist Gabor Mate
    Running with the DEA -- er, I mean the Devil


    Copyright 2025 abolishthedea.com, Brian Quass

    (up)