If you want evidence that the American people have been bamboozled by the Drug War, just search the Web for "famous drug users." Almost all of the "hits" will feature the judgmental term "addiction" (rather than "habituation" or "use") and almost none of the "hits" will refer to addiction to LEGAL drugs, thereby ignoring the astounding fact that 1 in 4 American women are chemically dependent on SSRI antidepressants even as I type this.
This evidence is proof of at least two things: 1) that the Drug War has scrambled our brains when it comes to logical thinking, and 2) that the Drug War is not about America's health: it's about disempowering Americans when it comes to controlling their own mental state, meanwhile turning that power over to "health care professionals" and their arsenal of addictive synthetic medications supplied to them by Big Pharma.
In short, it's all about keeping the DEA, psychiatrists, and drug companies in business for many years to come (and patients be damned, addicted and charged high prices), by continuing the American government's immoral and unconstitutional criminalization of the plants of Mother Nature, the birthright of every human being. It's all about what Thomas Szasz called the infantilization of Americans when it comes to psychoactive substances.
It must warm the heart of any DEA hardliner to scan these links which describe Mother Nature as a drug kingpin and describe us human beings as mere babies when it comes to psychoactive substances, as if we're all totally unable to advisedly use the plants of Mother Nature to sharpen our mental acumen and see behind the veil.
The facts show otherwise - as if in a sane and free world we should even need to justify our prima facie human right to the plants and fungi that grow at our very feet.
Bill Gates used "drugs," Richard Feynman used "drugs," Sigmund Freud used "drugs," Thomas Edison used "drugs," Benjamin Franklin used "drugs," Omar Khayyam used "drugs," Marcus Aurelius used "drugs," even Plato himself used what we'd call "drugs" at the Eleusinian mysteries1 - but you won't see the beaming faces of any of these highly successful people splattered over the front-pages of these moralizing anti-drug websites. Instead, look for the deathly pale head shots of John Belushi, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin, the holy trinity of anti-heroes which the Christian Scientists of the Drug War want to keep before our eyes, lest we humans take it into our head that we have the power and the right to decide what plants we'll eat and which we will avoid.
The Drug Warriors (which is to say 95% of the American public, judging by the plethora of moralizing pages returned in the above-mentioned Web search) want the whole "drug" story to be about the John Belushis of the world, the irresponsible drug users, and those who make bad choices. Why? Because they need to keep distracting our attention from the unprecedented injustice that they perpetrated on humanity in the 20th century when they criminalized plants, of all things, thereby denying human beings free access to the therapeutic output of Mother Nature that grows at their very feet. They want the whole narrative to be about 12-step programs and fallen humanity, with nothing about those luminaries who have chosen wisely from Mother Nature's psychoactive bounty and come away better for the experience, with more focus, energy and empathy for humankind.
Americans will play along with the maudlin Drug Warrior narrative (of a weak humanity, ever threatened by nature's far-too-powerful substances) until we finally notice that the Drug War is a religion: namely, Christian Science as applied to psychoactive substances: i.e., the metaphysical notion that we "should not be" using nature's substances to improve our minds.
The latest research on psychedelic therapies shows that this creed is not only wrong, but that it has resulted in untold suffering over the last 50 years, thanks to the fact that the Drug War mindset has strongly discouraged research and clinical trials of these promising new treatments.
We'll know we're finally on the right track when a Web search for "famous drug users" turns up unbiased Web pages that unapologetically reveal how famous Americans have improved their minds with the help of the psychoactive bounty of Mother Nature. What a welcome change that will be from the usual party-line Websites delivering the usual maudlin narrative according to which every so-called "drug" user is a latent John Belushi.
Until then, the Drug War remains a violation of natural law and a political pretext to invade other countries on behalf of securing the monopoly interests of Big Liquor against all comers, including those substances that America loves to hate (such as coca, opium and entheogenic plants) that have been used responsibly by non-western cultures for millennia.
Author's Follow-up: April 1, 2025
Psst! Don't tell anyone, but the Hindu religion was inspired by a drug. They called it Soma. To learn more, please see my essay entitled: &729&.
And so, by ignoring all "up" sides to drugs, the DEA points to potential addiction as a knock-down argument for their prohibition. This is the logic of children (and uneducated children at that). It is a cost-benefit analysis that ignores all benefits.
The drug war outlaws everything that could help both prevent addiction and treat it. And then they justify the war on drugs by scaring people with the specter of addiction. They NEED addiction to keep the drug war going.
I have dissed MindMed's new LSD "breakthrough drug" for philosophical reasons. But we can at least hope that the approval of such a "de-fanged" LSD will prove to be a step in the slow, zigzag path toward re-legalization.
This is the problem with trusting science to tell us about drugs. Science means reductive materialism, whereas psychoactive drug use is all about mind and the human being as a whole. We need pharmacologically savvy shaman to guide us, not scientists.
If Americans cannot handle the truth about drugs, then there is something wrong with Americans, not with drugs.
Scientists are responsible for endless incarcerations in America. Why? Because they fail to denounce the DEA lie that psychoactive substances have no positive medical uses. This is so obviously wrong that only an academic in an Ivory Tower could believe it.
News flash: certain mushrooms can help you improve your life! It's the biggest story in the history of mycology! And yet you wouldn't know it from visiting the websites of most mushroom clubs.
I'm grateful to the folks who are coming out of the woodwork at the last minute to deface their own properties with "Trump 2024" signs. Now I'll know who to thank should Trump get elected and sell us out to Putin.
I'll never understand Americans. Most of them HATE big government -- and yet they have no problem with government using drug prohibition to control how and how much they can think and feel in this life. Talk about warped priorities.
In the Atomic Age Declassified, they tell us that we needed hundreds of thermonuclear tests so that scientists could understand the effects. That's science gone mad. Just like today's scientists who need more tests before they can say that laughing gas will help the depressed. Science today is all about ignoring the obvious.
And so, by ignoring all "up" sides to drugs, the DEA points to potential addiction as a knock-down argument for their prohibition. This is the logic of children (and uneducated children at that). It is a cost-benefit analysis that ignores all benefits.