open letter to US Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
May 24, 2023
May 24, 2023
The following screed was rapped out in double-time by a dude who by rights should be working on his freelance assignment right now (the nature of which work, however, shall remain a secret here in deference to the time sensitivities of the no-doubt harried reader). Brian couldn't stop himself, so pissed was he with the ongoing attempt by the US government to blame every imaginable earthly ill on the politically created boogieman called "drugs." These comments, by the way, were sent directly to the esteemed representatives via their websites, despite the nagging suspicion by the author that the duo in question have been hopelessly brainwashed by the Christian Science ideology of the war on Americans, AKA the War on Drugs.
By the way, the efficient causes of this harangue (if one might wax philosophical for just a moment) were the superstitious tweets of one Alex Berenson which Brian, alas, read this morning, in which the prohibitionist author tweaked reformers for the problems that he blamed on marijuana legalization. As usual, all the problems that he cited (to the extent that they were not just the figments of a nature-fearing imagination) were actually the result of the ongoing prohibition of all of marijuana's competitors. With this niggling impetus then -- and with the anxious knowledge of tomorrow's US Senate vote on the troglodytic HALT Act -- Brian could do nought else but expostulate, even if it meant that the poor guy would be up past midnight tonight catching up on that undefined freelancing work of his that I alluded to above.
Dear Senators
Prohibition has been the biggest mistake in American history. It is wrong root and branch. Our attitude towards "drugs" is prehistoric and anti-scientific. We come at the issue from the wrong direction. We should be awestruck at Nature's healing power (which God said was good) and be seeking all sorts of ways to use it safely and wisely. Instead, we believe that all psychoactive substances are bad -- without even asking for proof.
It is a self-fulfilling prophecy, which leads to folks seeking transcendence from a corrupted drug supply furnished by dealers interested in the bottom line.
Please end this folly. We need an amendment that prohibits prohibition -- which causes death and sorrow and denies godsend medicines to the distressed. Even now, in America's hysterical attempt to blame opioids for every evil under the sun, we are denying godsend pain medicine to kids in hospice --based on our superstitious belief in the evil of opiates. Opium was considered a godsend by Avicenna, Galen and Paracelsus. It is not evil. Bad social policies are evil.
FREE SCIENCE. Stop the NIDA campaign to make us think that drugs can only be used for evil. It is propaganda, not science, because they completely ignore the reason people use "drugs": in order to transcend self and improve their lives. That is the truth. NIDA is all about ignoring that fact.
The Drug War has led to the election of Drug Warriors like Trump by jailing hundreds of thousands of blacks. If unchecked, the Drug War will completely destroy America. It is not wrong in parts -- it is wrong ROOT AND BRANCH. It is a WRONG WAY OF LOOKING AT THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!
No wonder it leads to chaos, inner-city deaths, and the end of the rule of law in Latin America!!!!
Please vote NO ON HALT!
May 24, 2023
"The biggest mistake in American history." Well, slavery was worse. (Remember, the old boy wrote this in a hurry.) That said, however, the Drug War can be seen as the extension of slavery by other means, as the book Whiteout makes abundantly clear.
Open Letters
Check out the conversations that I have had so far with the movers and shakers in the drug-war game -- or rather that I have TRIED to have. Actually, most of these people have failed to respond to my calls to parlay, but that need not stop you from reading MY side of these would-be chats.
I used to be surprised at this reticence on the part of modern drug-war pundits, until I realized that most of them are materialists. That is, most of them believe in (or claim to believe in) the psychiatric pill mill. If they happen to praise psychedelic drugs as a godsend for the depressed, they will yet tell us that such substances are only for those whose finicky body chemistries fail to respond appropriately to SSRIs and SNRIs. The fact is, however, there are thousands of medicines out there that can help with psychological issues -- and this is based on simple psychological common sense. But materialist scientists ignore common sense. That's why Dr. Robert Glatter wrote an article in Forbes magazine wondering if laughing gas could help the depressed.
As a lifelong depressive, I am embarrassed for Robert, that he has to even ask such a question. Of course laughing gas could help. Not only is laughter "the best medicine," as Readers Digest has told us for years, but looking forward to laughing is beneficial too. But materialist scientists ignore anecdote and history and tell us that THEY will be the judge of psychoactive medicines, thank you very much. And they will NOT judge such medicines by asking folks like myself if they work but rather by looking under a microscope to see if they work in the biochemical way that materialists expect.
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.
In Mexico, the same substance can be considered a "drug" or a "med," depending on where you are in the country. It's just another absurd result of the absurd policy of drug prohibition.
It's interesting that Jamaicans call the police 'Babylon,' given that Babylon denotes a society seeking materialist pleasures. Drug use is about transcending the material world and seeking spiritual states: states that the materialist derides as meaningless.
The Thomas Jefferson Foundation is a drug war collaborator. They helped the DEA confiscate Thomas Jefferson's poppy plants in 1987. They have refused to talk about that ever since.
Even when laudanum was legal in the UK, pharmacists were serving as moral adjudicators, deciding for whom they should fill such prescriptions. That's not a pharmacist's role. We need an ABC-like set-up in which the cashier does not pry into my motives for buying a substance.
The drug war is a way for conservatives to keep America's eyes OFF the prize. The right-wing motto is, "Billions for law enforcement, but not one cent for social programs."
I wish someone would tell Getty Images to start earning an honest living. I bought AI credits only to find that words like "mushrooms" and "drugs" could not be used. Nor "blood," nor "violence." And they refuse to refund my $14,99. Who is their service for, Ozzie Harriet?
There are neither "drugs" nor "meds" as those terms are used today. All substances have potential good uses and bad uses. The terms as used today carry value judgements, as in meds good, drugs bad.
Chesterton might as well have been speaking about the word 'addiction' when he wrote the following: "It is useless to have exact figures if they are exact figures about an inexact phrase."
Prohibition is a crime against humanity. It forces us to use shock therapy on the severely depressed since we've outlawed all viable alternatives. It denies medicines that could combat Alzheimer's and/or render it psychologically bearable.
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, Another Cry in the Wilderness: open letter to US Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, published on May 24, 2023 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)
You have been reading an article entitled, Another Cry in the Wilderness: open letter to US Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, published on May 24, 2023 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)