One of my several shortcomings as a writer -- of which there are no doubt several -- shortcomings I mean, not writers -- is that I assume that my readers know what the hell I'm talking about when they actually do not. Sound familiar, eh? I thus have a tendency to write tersely in cases where a little prolixity would go a long way. Go on, admit it, you were probably thinking the exact same thing, weren't you? Go on, admit it, I won't bite.
With this in mind, I would like to devote this entire post to the task of fleshing out what I mean when I say that America's Drug War represents a kind of Christian Science Sharia—a claim that I have made in passing in at least ten of my essays over the last year, assuming that I was merely stating a commonplace. Then a friend of mine politely pointed out that some of my readers—bless their hearts—might not be familiar with the theology of Christian Science, nay, with the politically charged connotations of the word «sharia» itself as disapprovingly used in the 21st century by a xenophobic Westerner, and that it was therefore incumbent upon me to dilate on the topic at hand.
This task of clarification is crucial because once one understands the statement that «the Drug War is Christian Science Sharia»—the evil of that quixotic project becomes apparent and we develop an immunity to the Drug War propaganda that pervades Western society, not least in the form of cop shows and Drug War movies 1234 , both of which promote the once uniquely Western view that Mother Nature's psychoactive plant medicines can bring about nothing but madness and despair. Briefly then, though hopefully not tersely.
Christian Science is a religion founded in late 19-century America by Mary Baker (aka Mary Baker Eddy), after she discovered what she took to be the overlooked healing power of spirituality as demonstrated by Jesus in the New Testament. She came to believe that physical suffering was an illusion, that it had no objective reality, and that it could be overcome by faith alone. Given this theological understanding, many modern-day Christian Scientists, like Baker herself before them, feel no need for modern medical intervention and seek to do without its various ministrations (including prescriptions and surgery), sometimes with tragic results. In the 1980s, there were sensational media coverage of Christian Scientists being charged with child abuse for allowing their children to die of treatable diseases due to the parents' religious conviction that healing could come about through spiritual intervention alone.
Having thus briefly explained the Christian Science outlook on suffering, I trust that it is apparent why the Drug War represents the enforcement of Christian Science precepts. The Drug War says, in effect, that human beings should not -- and indeed must not - use Mother Nature's medicines in an attempt to improve their psychological well-being. And this is simply the doctrine of Mary Baker herself with respect to illness. It is a religious belief, especially as many Drug Warriors suggest that the proper alternative to so-called drug use is to believe in the Christian God. Yet there is no scientific reason why we should not use the plants and fungi of our choice to improve and expand our cognition - there is only the conviction of the Drug Warrior that it is somehow wrong to do so. Of course Drug Warriors who hold this faith have to work constantly to censor history in order to delete counterfactual examples from the past. Thus we read of Benjamin Franklin's creativity, without being told how he used opium 5 to stimulate that creativity. Thus we read of Sigmund Freud's highly prolific work output, without being told how cocaine 67 helped drive him to produce that output. Thus we learn of Francis Crick's great insight in discovering the DNA helix, without being told how he used psychedelics to help achieve that insight.
Having thus established that the Drug War represents the enforcement of Christian Science precepts, I will end my efforts at clarification by defining the word "sharia," both in its original sense and in its generally pejorative modern connotation in the west. We read in Webster's, that "sharia" is:
"the body of formally established sacred law... governing in theory not only religious matters but regulating as well political, economic, civil, criminal, ethical, social, and domestic affairs in Muslim countries."
More to our purpose here is the modern connotation of the word "sharia" in the west, where it conjures images of a police state run by a theocratic government that will brook no dissent and whose laws are emphatically harsh. By thus describing the Drug War as "sharia" in this pejorative sense, I hope to highlight the highly ironic fact that Americans (and westerners in general) are living under the very form of government that they purport to detest, a kind of western "sharia," that subjects them to a set of ultra harsh drug laws (which may soon include the death penalty in America) should they choose to violate the Christian Science doctrine of renouncing Mother Nature's psychoactive plant medicines when it comes to treating "what ails them," psychologically speaking.
QED, the Drug War is really the enforcement of Christian Science Sharia.
If enough freedom-loving westerners can "get their head around this fact," then we can stop impotently shouting "End the Drug War!" to deaf politicians around the globe and start shouting "End Christian Science Sharia!" instead, thereby revealing to the Drug Warriors that we're "onto" their game and that we know all about their stealth efforts to make us conform with the anti-scientific moral philosophy of the religious reformer popularly known as Mary Baker Eddy.
Author's Follow-up: March 26, 2025
This is not some abstract concern. America will refuse to allow you to earn a living in the States if you are a Christian Science heretic. They do this through the extrajudicial punishment of drug testing 8 , which forbids you to work in America unless you foreswear the benefits of nature's bounty. Of course, these laws are only for the poor. The company owners can do what they will. But then one of the many anti-democratic effects of the Drug War is to emasculate the labor force. What better way to show labor who's in charge than requiring employees to urinate upon demand? Nor is this about uncovering impairment. Impairment need never be found. If drug labs merely find the least trace of a substance of which politicians disapprove, you are no longer allowed to work in the States -- until such time as you renounce your right to Mother Nature's medicines and of medicines based thereon.
Everyone's biggest concern is the economy? Is nobody concerned that Trump has promised to pardon insurrectionists and get revenge on critics? Is no one concerned that Trump taught Americans to doubt democracy by questioning our election fairness before one single vote was cast?
I have nothing against science, BTW (altho' I might feel differently after a nuclear war!) I just want scientists to "stay in their lane" and stop pretending to be experts on my own personal mood and consciousness.
A law proposed in Colorado in February 2024 would have criminalized positive talk about drugs online. What? The world is on the brink of nuclear war because of hate-driven politics, and I can be arrested for singing the praises of empathogens?
Alexander Shulgin is a typical westerner when he speaks about cocaine. He moralizes about the drug, telling us that it does not give him "real" power. But so what? Does coffee give him "real" power? Coke helps some, others not. Stop holding it to this weird metaphysical standard.
Classic prohibitionist gaslighting, telling me that "drugs" is a neutral term. What planet are they living on?
Addiction was not a big thing until the drug war. It's now the boogie-man with which drug warriors scare us into giving up our freedoms. But getting obsessed on one single drug is natural in the age of choice-limiting prohibition.
Drug Prohibition Downside #1,529:
aviation accidents caused by pilots who failed to use mind-sharpening drugs to improve their situational awareness. (See, for instance, Comair flight 5191)
One merely has to look at any issue of Psychology Today to see articles in which the author reckons without the Drug War, in which they pretend that banned substances do not exist and so fail to incorporate any topic-related insights that might otherwise come from user reports.
By reading "Drug Warriors and Their Prey," I begin to understand why I encounter a wall of silence when I write to authors and professors on the subject of "drugs." The mere fact that the drug war inspires such self-censorship should be grounds for its immediate termination.
In the 19th century, author Richard Middleton wrote how poets would get together to use opium "in a series of magnificent quarterly carouses."
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