and why I cannot understand how enemies of the drug war could do otherwise
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
October 29, 2024
This election to me is not about the issues. I do not want to fix the economy (or ruin it, for that matter) if it means putting a man in office who does not believe in the American democratic process and who has done everything he can to make us distrust the mainstay of democracy itself: the voting process. Nor is this election about the propriety of alternate lifestyles or of Confederate war memorials or even Roe v Wade (about all of which I believe that people can rationally disagree). This election is about fundamental democratic principles: the basic principles upon which America was founded, most notably the voting process in which all political parties have historically participated in order to ensure not just fairness, but the all-important perception of fairness, which alone can guarantee the survival of any democratic country by giving a measure of recognizable legitimacy to anyone who enters the Oval Office as Commander-in-Chief.
As a young person, I often volunteered to work at polling stations for presidential and state elections, and it was always inspiring for me. I saw people on both sides of the political divide working together to ensure accuracy, transparency and fairness. This is why a shiver went down my spine when Donald Trump made it clear in his September 2016 debate with Hillary Clinton that he did not trust the voting process and was already reserving the right to declare himself the winner if the votes did not go in his favor -- this after Al Gore in 2000 conceded an election result that he could have justifiably challenged, and why? Because he did not want to put America through a divisive and time-consuming recount process. How utterly different from the self-serving instinct of Donald Trump, who would happily put the country through any and all levels of unrest provided only that he be declared the winner.
I state this publicly here in answer to the cowardice of Jeff Bezos, who, for obvious financial reasons, has told his editors at the Washington Post (one week before election day, no less) that they cannot endorse Kamala Harris for president. Of course, I have slightly less "reach" than Bezos, but since this is a matter of principle, even we little people need to take a stand.
I am surely flattering myself to think that this essay of mine will either gain or lose followers for an online non-entity such as myself. That said, I assume that those few who do read my essays are, at very least, against the War on Drugs, and I cannot understand how someone with such views could support Donald Trump, a man who embodies the Drug War strategy of the "Big Lie." Say that American elections are unfair often enough and loudly enough and people will begin to believe it. And may Trump be cursed for all time for using that strategy to damage, and perhaps destroy, American democracy.
I know, I know: Kamala Harris, at best, represents "Drug War Lite," and will obviously have to be goaded by progressive state laws and public pressure to end her oppressive D.A. mentality when it comes to drug use. But she does appear to be open to common sense and not actuated merely by the desire to appear "tough on drugs." Meanwhile, Donald Trump has called for the execution of drug dealers and for the bombing of Mexico to stop the flow of drugs into the States. In other words, Donald Trump is determined to take the colonialist intolerance of the Drug War to its natural catastrophic conclusion: gleefully destroying the lives of minorities and foreigners in the process, like his fascist populist buddy, former Mexican President Obrador. You remember Andres. He was the guy who labeled the press "necrophiliacs" for attempting to determine the fate of the 60,000 Mexicans who have been "disappeared" as a result of Mexico's U.S.-sponsored War on Drugs1.
This populist madness is all about leveraging hatred for political gain and needs to be snuffed out at the polls, while we still have polls - something that Donald Trump appears to feel is unnecessary since he is, of course, always right and must of necessity be the eternal victor. (Trump is the epitome of the pathologically cocksure 'right man' discussed in The New Inquisition by Robert Anton Wilson.2)
The irony is that Donald Trump is right when he says that the election process is unfair, but he is right for the wrong reasons. The election process is unfair because millions of minorities have been removed from the voting rolls and thrown in jail thanks to drug laws that were written precisely for that purpose.
So he writes about the mindset of the deeply depressed, reifying the condition as if it were some great "type" inevitably to be encountered in humanity. No. It's the "type" to be found in a post-Christian society that has turned up its scientific nose at psychoactive medicine.
To treat opioid use disorder (which is really prohibition disorder syndrome) we should normalize the peaceable smoking of opium at home as an alternative to drinking alcohol.
Drug warriors are full of hate for "users." Many of them make it clear that they want users to die (like Gates and Bennett...). The drug war has weaponized humanity's worst instincts.
It's rich when Americans outlaw drugs and then insist that those drugs did not have much to offer in any case. It's like I took away your car and then told you that car ownership was overrated.
Alcohol makes me sleepy. But NOT coca wine. The wine gives you an upbeat feeling of controlled energy, without the jitters of coffee and without the fury of steroids. It increases rather than dulls mental focus.
Americans won't be true grown-ups until they learn to react to drug deaths the same way that they react to deaths from horseback riding and mountain climbing. They don't blame such deaths on horses and mountains; neither should they blame drug-related deaths on drugs.
People say shrooms should not be used by those with a history of "mental illness." But that's one of the greatest potential benefits of shrooms! (They cured Stamets' teenage stuttering.) Some folks place safety first, but if I did that, I'd die long before using mother nature.
If the depressed patient laughs, that means nothing. Materialists have to see results under a microscopic or they will never sign off on a therapy.
That's why we damage the brains of the depressed with shock therapy rather than let them use coca or opium. That's why many regions allow folks to kill themselves but not to take drugs that would make them want to live. The Drug War is a perversion of social priorities.
Two of the biggest promoters of the psychedelic renaissance shuffle their feet when you ask them about substance prohibition. Michael Pollan and Rick Strassman just don't get it: prohibition kills.
So he writes about the mindset of the deeply depressed, reifying the condition as if it were some great "type" inevitably to be encountered in humanity. No. It's the "type" to be found in a post-Christian society that has turned up its scientific nose at psychoactive medicine.