It is premised on an article of faith: namely, that the best life is one lived without the aid of psychoactive medicines. Therefore it is a violation of Church and State when government tells me I must live my life according to the Drug War ethic of prohibition. For I do not find it morally reprehensible for a man or woman to access the medicinal bounty of Mother Nature to improve his or her mind. It is not part of MY religion to be repelled by such behavior. To the contrary, I find it a moral responsibility to be all that I can be in this life, and if that goal can be aided by Mother Nature's plants, herbs, and fungi, then I consider it a moral obligation to pursue that enlightenment.
Author's Follow-up: September 2, 2022
The Drug War is a greater outrage than almost anyone else seems to give it credit for. It's not just a good idea that was bound to fail -- it's a bad idea that is already failing spectacularly as we write (by causing civil wars overseas, denying medical godsends to billions, denying morphine 1 to kids in hospice, killing thousands of inner-city Americans every year, censoring scientists -- or rather bamboozling them with so much tacit drug-war ideology that said scientists do not even recognize that they're being censored). The government has no business trying to get citizens to stop using plants and fungi whose psychoactive powers have inspired entire religions. The use of such proscriptions is inherently a war on religion, essentially requiring the whole world to green-light only those drugs that have been approved of by WASP politicians, namely alcohol, tobacco and coffee. And if one doesn't like the world without godsend medicines, they can always "come home" to the Christian church, by accepting the existence of a higher power while declaring yourself incapable of using so much as aspirin safely.
Thus conscience (or rather false consciousness) doth make cowards of us all.
Thus via prohibition, the Drug War hopes to turn everyone into a practicing Christian -- or else execute them for drug dealing: the more things change... It's a religious war by another name.
Author's Follow-up:
The above essay was written almost six years ago, when I had just begun to unmask the hateful but unspoken premises upon which the Drug War is based. Spoiler alert: the takeaway message from my subsequent six years of study could be wrapped up in one short sentence: "Prohibition is evil." The proof is extant.
Another summary of my conclusions about the Drug War over the past six years could be stated as follows:
"The Drug War is based on two huge lies: 1) that drug use has no upsides, and 2) that prohibition has no downsides."
Better yet, prohibition is a crime against religious liberty insofar as it outlaws the same kinds of medicines that inspired the Hindu religion: namely, drugs that inspire and elate.
But returning to the theme of the above 2019 essay:
If anyone doubts my thesis that the Drug War represents the outlawing of religion, I have just three words for them: the Hindu religion. As much as even Hindus might refuse to admit it, the Hindu religion was inspired by drug use. It was created thanks to the use of a drug that inspired and elated. Just consider the following handful of citations about Soma in Vedic scripture:
"Soon as his song of praise is born, the Soma, Indra's juice, becomes A thousand-winning thunderbolt."
"Swift to the purifying sieve flows Soma 2 as exalted Law, Slaying the fiends, loving the Gods."
"Effused as cheerer of the men, flowing best gladdener, thou art A Prince to Indra with thy juice."
"Flow on, Sage Soma, 3 with thy stream to give us mental power and strength."
The take-home message from the Rig Veda is the following: A religion was created thanks to the use of a drug that inspired and elated. From this it follows that prohibition is a crime against religious liberty. It is worse than the outlawing of a specific existing religion -- prohibition is the outlawing of the religious impulse itself.
All uplifting drugs are potential antidepressants. Science denies that fact by claiming that drug efficacy must be proven quantitatively. And so they ignore anecdote, history and psychological common sense.
Healthline posted an article in 2021 about the benefits of getting off of antidepressants. They did not even mention the biggest benefit: NO LONGER BEING AN ETERNAL PATIENT -- no longer being a child in the eyes of an all-knowing healthcare system.
Drug War propaganda is all about convincing us that we will never be able to use drugs wisely. But the drug warriors are not taking any chances: they're doing all they can to make that a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I wonder if Nixon knew what a favor he was doing medical capitalism when he outlawed psychedelics. Those drugs can actually cure things, and there's no money in that.
The fact that drugs have positive uses for human beings is a psychological corollary of Husserl's phenomenology and Whitehead's philosophy of organism.
How would we even KNOW that outlawed drugs have no positive uses? We first have to incorporate them in a sane, empathic and creative way to find that out, and the drug war makes such a sensible approach absolutely impossible.
Thanks to the Drug War, folks are forced to become amateur chemists to profit from DMT, a drug that occurs naturally in most living things. This is the same Drug War that is killing American young people wholesale by refusing to teach safe use and regulate drug supply.
Only a pathological puritan would say that there's no place in the world for substances that lift your mood, give you endurance, and make you get along with your fellow human being. Drugs may not be everything, but it's masochistic madness to claim that they are nothing at all.
"Now, now, Sherlock, that coca preparation is not helping you a jot. Why can't you get 'high on sunshine,' like good old Watson here?" To which Sherlock replies: "But my good fellow, then I would no longer BE Sherlock Holmes."
How else will they scare us enough to convince us to give up all our freedoms for the purpose of fighting horrible awful evil DRUGS? DRUGS is the sledgehammer with which they are destroying American democracy.
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