t's disappointing that a documentary about Chicago gun violence would not even mention the social policy that caused it: namely the Drug War. At least that's the impression one gets from Jessica Kiang's six-paragraph review of the film in Variety, in which the word 'drugs' is not even mentioned.
It's as if Americans (documentary makers included) have become so indoctrinated in the drug-war ideology of substance demonization that they now take the Drug War as a natural baseline and therefore ignore its out-sized role in causing social problems: first and foremost the prevalence of gun violence in poor inner-city environments.
Inner-city violence will never end if we continue to ignore the single-most important reason that it exists in the first place.
Brian might have added that Lisa Ling from CNN did the exact same thing. She created a whole documentary about violence in Chicago ("This is Life with Lisa Ling: Chicago's History of Violence") and never ONCE mentioned the DRUG WAR! NOT ONCE! Is Lisa getting kickbacks from the DEA to remain quiet about this? Has she not heard how liquor prohibition created the American Mafia out of whole cloth? Can she really not understand that prohibition causes violence?
Thankfully, there are a rare few in the media who recognize this glaringly obvious fact, like Heather Ann Thompson of the Atlantic, who wrote in 2014 that: "Without the War on Drugs, the level of gun violence that plagues so many poor inner-city neighborhoods today simply would not exist."
Incidentally, Brian's too self-effacing to mention this, but do you know what? He has queried Variety NINE TIMES about the failure of his comments to appear on their digital page, and they have never so much as acknowledged his email. I betcha that Variety is thinking: "Oh, dear, we can't let this guy's comments appear: he's gonna start calling our reviewers out when it comes to those exciting Drug War movies!"
Well, no fear, Brian, I've got your back. (Let me know if you're free Wednesday night for a nice dish of stromboli!)
Drug War Movies
Hollywood supports the war on drugs by refusing to show wise use while always depicting drug use in the worst possible light. Like all media, they refuse to show beneficial use -- and if they're not depicting drugs as dangerous dead-ends, they're at least showing use to be frivolous and dangerous. The producers kowtow to drug warrior sensibilities.
The DEA rating system is not wrong just because it ranks drugs incorrectly. It's wrong because it ranks drugs at all. All drugs have positive uses. It's absurd to prohibit using them because one demographic might misuse them.
When folks banned opium, they did not just ban a drug: they banned the philosophical and artistic insights that the drug has been known to inspire in writers like Poe, Lovecraft and De Quincey.
If you're looking for an anti-Christ, just look for an American presidential politician who has taught us to hate our enemies. Gee, now, who could that be, huh? According to Trump, Jesus was just a chump. Winning comes before anything at all in his sick view of life.
Don't the Oregon prohibitionists realize that all the thousands of deaths from opiates is so much blood on their hands?
More materialist nonsense. "We" are the only reason that the universe exists as a universe rather than as inchoate particles.
There are a potentially vast number of non-addictive drugs that could be used strategically in therapy. They elate and "free the tongue" to help talk therapy really work. Even "addictive" drugs can be used non-addictively, prohibitionist propaganda notwithstanding.
Typical materialist protocol. Take all the "wonder" out of the drug and sell it as a one-size-fits all "reductionist" cure for anxiety. Notice that they refer to hallucinations and euphoria as "adverse effects." What next? Communion wine with the religion taken out of it?
Mad in America publishes stories of folks who are disillusioned with antidepressants, but they won't publish mine, because I find mushrooms useful. They only want stories about cold turkey and jogging, or nutrition, or meditation.
Imagine the Vedic people shortly after they have discovered soma. Everyone's ecstatic -- except for one oddball. "I'm not sure about these experiences," says he. "I think we need to start dissecting the brains of our departed adherents to see what's REALLY going on in there."
America's "health" system was always screaming at me about the threat of addiction from drugs. Then what did it do? It put me on the most dependence-causing meds of all time: SSRIs and SNRIs.
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, All these Sons: Another documentary that ignores the Drug War?, published on April 25, 2022 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)