Six Reasons Why Americans Are Bamboozled by the Drug War
showing why philosophy still matters and why its absence empowers tyrants
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
May 22, 2020
The more I write and read about the war on plants (more disingenuously known as the Drug War), the more I understand why America has "gone there," by which I mean they've essentially signed off on the Christian Science notion that Mother Nature's medicines are bad for us, at least when it comes to psychological healing.
First, consider that 1 in 8 American males and 1 in 4 American females are addicted to modern antidepressants 1. They have their whole lives invested in the notion that these pills are miracle drugs, and they're generally not open to those who dare to say otherwise. There's a whole new social pastime in which patients gossip about their latest pill regimen and how it stacks up to the previously failed regimen that they had been following. In this sense, taking Big Pharma meds is fun. One is never at a loss for a discussion topic in our medicalized culture. When you add in the close friends of these addicts and the doctors who provide the meds in the first place, there are tens of millions out there who are biased in favor of the pill-pushing status quo.
Thus seeing Big Pharma pills as "the light and the way," we are blind to the vast rain forest of non-addictive (and or far-less-addictive) natural godsends that sit there, waiting for us to put them to use, rather than demonizing them, ostracizing them, and ultimately burning them in the name of an anti-nature Drug War.
Second, as noted above, the very use of the word "drugs" in "Drug War" is disingenuous and helps disguise the fact that what we're cracking down on are plant medicines, which, in the eyes of other cultures have been seen as medical and emotional godsends. Viewed in this way, one can clearly see a philosophical link between the witch hunts of the past, the colonialist outrages of the Conquistadores, and the modern Drug War: in each case, the powers that be had nothing but contempt for the plants that brought about consciousness raising - and felt free to marginalize, stigmatize, and even kill those who sought expanded consciousness through plant medicine.
Third, the substitution of the word "drugs" for "plants" also has helped Americans overlook the violation of natural law that is implicit in the outlawing of Mother Nature's plants, recognizing which the whole notion of a Drug War becomes both absurd and unconstitutional. The United States was founded on the notion that there are natural laws which must override common law, now and for all time, and surely one of the most obvious of rights under such law is the right of the human being to what Locke called "the use of the Earth and all that lies therein." In other words, the Drug War is a violation of natural law. Sure, the Drug War has been in effect since 1914, but as Thomas Paine wrote: "If the present generation or any other are disposed to be slaves, it does not lessen the right of the succeeding generation to be free. Wrongs cannot have a legal descent."
Fourth, Americans have a whole mythology built up around the idea of addiction and salvation. Gabor Mate epitomizes this viewpoint by incorrectly ascribing almost all addiction to inner pain, meanwhile ignoring the great addiction of our time, the one mentioned above whereby 1 in 8 American males and 1 in 4 American females are addicted to antidepressants. Mate's refusal to even call this addiction shows the hypocrisy of the use of that word. {^"Addiction," it turns out, is really a pejorative epithet which we apply only to the habitual use of those drugs that we love to hate.}{ That's why psychiatrists feel free to ignore the great addiction of our time, because their selective use of the word "addiction" blinds them to it. Meanwhile, they white-wash the psychiatric pill pushing practice by referring to it as "medication maintenance."
Fifth, Americans fail to understand that the impulse to self-medicate2 makes perfect sense, no matter how hard the psychiatrist tries to stigmatize 3 that practice. Consider what happens to those who FAIL to self-medicate when it comes to tweaking their own moods for the better. What happens? Under the current psychiatric paradigm, that person becomes addicted to Big Pharma 45 meds, turns into an eternal patient, and has to spend an enormous amount of time and money as a ward of the state. One can scarcely imagine a more disempowering process. No wonder that self-medication is considered a serious option by many, despite the self-serving moralizing of the psychiatrist on this topic.
Sixth, Americans have fallen for the notion that a drug dealer is, of necessity, a scumbag. This is an easy bias to maintain when we're talking about a "Drug War," but when we correctly describe the new prohibition as a "war on plants," that hateable drug dealer becomes a far less hateable "plant dealer." Still, it's no wonder why folks like Trump want to kill such people, and why calm and sober stakeholders like psychiatrists would cry "amen" were he to do so. Just think how much psychiatry has to lose by people self-medicating. Besides, those who self-medicate are implicitly telling us that the emperor is wearing no clothes, that the pill-pushing psychiatric paradigm is anti-patient - and that's a message that the shrinks must suppress at any cost.
The best long-term treatment for OUD would be to normalize the nightly smoking of opium at home, not to addict the user to government-supplied drugs that render them impervious to the benefits of the poppy plant.
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 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.
Pro-psychedelic websites tell me to check with my "doctor" before using Mother Nature. But WHY? I'm the expert on my own psychology, damn it. These "doctors" are the ones who got me hooked on synthetic drugs, because they honor microscopic evidence, not time-honored usage.
Alcohol is a drug in liquid form. If drug warriors want to punish people who use drugs, they should start punishing themselves.
Had the DEA been active in the Punjab and 1500 BCE, there would be no Hindu religion today.
"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
What is the end game of the drug warrior? A world in which no one wants drugs? That's not science. It's the drug-hating religion of Christian Science. You know, the American religion that outsources its Inquisition to drug-testing labs.
Americans were always free to take care of their own health -- until drug warriors handed doctors a monopoly on providing mind and mood medicine. Instead of denouncing this attack on our healthcare autonomy, doctors began demonizing self-care as a mortal sin.
I agree that Big Pharma drugs have wrought disaster when used in psychotherapy -- but it is common sense that non-Big Pharma drugs that elate could be used to prevent suicide and obviate the need for ECT.
The best long-term treatment for OUD would be to normalize the nightly smoking of opium at home, not to addict the user to government-supplied drugs that render them impervious to the benefits of the poppy plant.
