an open letter to Caroline Chatwin & Richard G. Alexander, authors of 'Virtuous drug use in the neoliberal age'
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
May 18, 2025
Your paper is excellent1. Unfortunately, it stops just short of drawing the conclusion that follows so naturally from the facts that it adduces, namely, that the prohibitionist mindset is the problem, not drugs. It was the prohibitionist mindset that first taught us to inquire into the motives of various substance users, a notion which immediately opened a Pandora's box of conflicting opinions about drugs, giving everyone a chance to chime in on what they personally considered to be problematic given their own strategic interests in life.
As GK Chesterton wrote in "Eugenics and Other Evils":
"The [prohibitionist] argument is based on health ; and it is said that the Government must safeguard the health of the community. And the moment that is said, there ceases to be the shadow of a difference between beer and tea."2
This is why each country in the world has its own pet list of outlawed substances, because drug criminalization is based entirely on subjective viewpoints - albeit these foregone conclusions will often be backed up by cherry-picked research to give an air of objectivity to the politically made choices.
Take Sjostic's parochial musings about the supposed uselessness of cannabis3. Does he not realize that the substance had religious uses in the Vedic era in the Punjab? Does Sjostic believe that religious use is not a valid use of drugs? Who made him an expert on such ultimate questions? Religious use aside, it is only a lack of imagination that blinds Sjostic to obvious benefits of cannabis use. I used to use cannabis on a regular basis, not just for the so-called "high" but because regular use lowered my overall anxiety level and so made life more enjoyable for me. What qualifies Sjostic to tell me that such use is improper? Is he miffed because I was not spending my money on Valium instead, a drug that is more addictive than heroin
"Just ONE HORSE took the life of my daughter." This message brought to you by the Partnership for a Death Free America.
Proof that materialism is wrong is "in the pudding." It is why scientists are not calling for the use of laughing gas and MDMA by the suicidal. Because they refuse to recognize anything that's obvious. They want their cures to be demonstrated under a microscope.
A lot of drug use represents an understandable attempt to fend off performance anxiety. Performers can lose their livelihood if they become too self-conscious. We only call such use "recreational" because we are oblivious to the common-sense psychology.
The Drug War is the most important evil to protest, precisely because almost everybody is afraid to do so. That's a clear sign that it is a cancer on the body politic.
It's really an insurance concern, however, disguised as a concern for public health. Because of America's distrust of "drugs," a company will be put out of business if someone happens to die while using "drugs," even if the drug was not really responsible for the death.
@HKSExecEd The use of Ecstasy brought UNPRECEDENTED peace and love to the British dance floors in the 1990s. When are political scientists going to acknowledge the potential for such substances to pull our species back from the brink of nuclear annihilation?
The DEA should be put on trial for crimes against humanity for withholding godsend medicine from the depressed. Here is just one typical drug-user report that appeared in "Pihkal": "A glimpse of what true heaven is supposed to feel like..."
In the board game "Sky Team," you collect "coffees" to improve your flying skills. Funny how the use of any other brain-focusing "drug" in real life is considered to be an obvious sign of impairment.
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.
Trump supports the drug war and Big Pharma: the two forces that have turned me into a patient for life with dependence-causing antidepressants. Big Pharma makes the pills, and the drug war outlaws all viable alternatives.
"Just ONE HORSE took the life of my daughter." This message brought to you by the Partnership for a Death Free America.