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Campfire Stories about America's Drug War

live from Lake Rights-Be-Gone

by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher



December 30, 2019



OUNSELOR RICK: Kids, gather around, I have a good horror story for you.

KIDS: Oooh!

COUNSELOR RICK: That's right, ears in the full upright position. This one's downright eerie.

Now then, once upon a time, there were these godsend plants that could help people get over depression and conquer loneliness.

ANTOINE: THAT'S not scary!

COUNSELOR RICK: Oh, just you wait, Antoine. See, these plants grew all around us, they were our natural birthright as Earthlings, but then these bigoted people known as "Drug Warriors" decided that these plants were somehow evil.

SALLY: That's silly, Counselor Rick. Plant medicines can't be evil, only people can be evil.

ANTOINE: That's right. Medicines can be good OR bad: it all depends on how they're used.

COUNSELOR RICK: You know that, kids, and I know that, but these people were... well, how should I put this...?

ANTOINE: Dumb as crap?

COUNSELOR RICK: Well, let's just say they were superstitious.

SALLY: Sounds like they were regular cretins to me.

COUNSELOR RICK: Now, now, Sally, be nice.

ANTOINE: Counselor Rick! Counselor Rick!

COUNSELOR RICK: Yes, ANTOINE?

ANTOINE: I think I've heard this one before.

COUNSELOR RICK: Oh, really?

ANTOINE: Oh, yeah, you're talking about that science-fiction story called "Fahrenheit 452," where the government burns plants in order to stop citizens from improving their mental focus and expanding their minds!

COUNSELOR RICK: Antoine shoots and scores!

SALLY: Ooh, Counselor Rick, I don't want to hear that story. It scares me.

ANTOINE: Me too, Counselor Rick. Just imagine a government that is so evil that it bars its own citizens from accessing the plants and fungi that grow at their very feet. I don't think I'm gonna be able to sleep tonight just thinking about it!

COUNSELOR SUE: Now you've done it, Rick, the kids are all going to have nightmares about DEA fascists kicking down their doors in order to rob them of naturally occurring godsends.

COUNSELOR RICK: Relax, kids. We're living in the 22nd century, remember? The DEA was abolished over a hundred years ago.

[kids crying]

COUNSELOR SUE: Rick, exactly how long have you been a camp counselor?

COUNSELOR RICK: Sorry, Sue. I guess I forgot just how scary the old Drug War days really were.


COUNSELOR SUE: You think?


COUNSELOR RICK: Well, it could have been worse.

COUNSELOR SUE: How's that, Rick?

COUNSELOR RICK: I could have told them about the bad old days when all the big corporations forced employees to undergo the indignity of drug testing without any probable cause, all in order to enforce the government's Sharia against the use of naturally occurring substances.

COUNSELOR SUE: Brrr! Now that really IS scary!

COUNSELOR RICK: I know, right?

COUNSELOR SUE: Thanks for bringing that up, Rick. Now I too won't be able to get to sleep tonight!

COUNSELOR RICK: That is pretty lame indeed, the government essentially forcing people to become Christian Scientists when it comes to psychological healing.

COUNSELOR SUE: You're not helping matters, Rick.



What Have We Learned?



Select the appropriate takeaway message from the above admittedly charming satire.


  1. Some plants are just plain bad and kids should be taught that from the git-go!

  2. Submitting to a drug test is a patriotic responsibility.

  3. The therapeutic needs of the suffering must be ignored so that we can carry on a full-scale Drug War. Grrr! (This answer recommended by the National Association of Prison Guards)

  4. Plant medicines can be good or bad, depending on their specific use.



  5. Answer: That's right, kids, the answer is 4: "Plant medicines can be good or bad, depending on their specific use." Unfortunately you'll never learn this from the Drug Warriors, whose patronizing MO is to insist that plant substances are bad in and of themselves. That's why we have no godsend medicines today for depression and other psychological maladies: because the unscientific Drug Warriors believe that plants are bad without regard to how they're used... which is a fib, kids, okay? And you can tell those typically Caucasian anti-scientific so-and-so's that I said so, too! Humph!

    Comedy






    The drug war is laughable -- or it would be if the drug warriors hadn't deprived us of laughing gas, the substance that William James himself used to study alternate realities. (Gee, thanks, folks, for censoring academia. Don't worry, though, I'm not going to call you prohibitionists 'fascist bastards' on THAT account. Mom just didn't raise me like that.)_

  6. A Dope Comedy Routine About Drugs
  7. A Drug Warrior in our Midst
  8. A Misguided Tour of Monticello
  9. American City Homicide Awards 2021
  10. Blowing Up Arkansas
  11. Campfire Stories about America's Drug War
  12. Comedian Adderall Zoloft Riffs on the Drug War
  13. COPS PRESENTS the top 10 traffic stops of 2023
  14. Dragnet meets the Drug War
  15. Drug War Comedy Routine
  16. Drug War Copaganda
  17. Drug War Jeopardy!
  18. Drug War: the Musical!
  19. Funny Animated Gifs about America's imperialist and racist Drug War
  20. Introduction to the Drug War Philosopher Website at AbolishTheDEA.com
  21. One of these things is not like the other
  22. Plants Divine, All Plants Excelling
  23. Public Service Announcements for the Post-Drug War Era
  24. Rat Out Your Neighbors
  25. The DEA: Poisoning Americans since 1973
  26. The Drug War Board Game
  27. The Joy of Drug Testing
  28. Thought Crimes Blotter





  29. computer screen with words DRUG WAR BLOG


    Next essay: Hypocritical America Embraces Drug War Fascism
    Previous essay: Depressed? Here's why.

    More Essays Here




    Some Tweets against the hateful war on drugs

    If any master's candidates are looking for a thesis topic, consider the following: "The Drug War versus Religion: how the policy of substance prohibition outlaws the attainment of spiritual states described by William James in 'The Varieties of Religious Experience.'"
    Drug use is judged by different standards than any other risky activity in the western world. One death can lead to outrage, even though that death might be statistically insignificant.
    This hysterical reaction to rare negative events actually creates more rare negative events. This is why the DEA publicizes "drug problems," because by making them well known, they make the problems more prevalent and can thereby justify their huge budget.
    To oppose the Drug War philosophically, one has to highlight its connections to both materialism and the psychiatric pill mill. And that's a problem, because almost everyone is either a Drug Warrior, a materialist, and/or has a vested interest in the psychiatric pill mill.
    When the FDA tells us in effect that MDMA is too dangerous to be used to prevent school shootings and to help bring about world peace, they are making political judgments, not scientific ones.
    The DEA stomped onto Thomas Jefferson's estate in 1987 and confiscated the founding father's poppy plants in violation of everything he stood for, politically speaking. And the TJ Foundation helped them! They sold out Jefferson.
    In "How to Change Your Mind," Michael Pollan says psychedelic legalization would endanger young people. What? Prohibition forces users to decide for themselves which mushrooms are toxic, or to risk buying contaminated product. And that's safe, Michael?
    Psychedelics and entheogens should be freely available to all dementia patients. These medicines can increase neuronal plasticity and even grow new neurons. Besides, they can inspire and elate -- or do we puritans feel that our loved ones have no right to peace of mind?
    Americans are far more fearful of psychoactive drugs than is warranted by either anecdote or history. We require 100% safety before we will re-legalize any "drug" -- which is a safety standard that we do not enforce for any other risky activity on earth.
    So much harm could be reduced by shunting people off onto safer alternative drugs -- but they're all outlawed! Reducing harm should ultimately mean ending this prohibition that denies us endless godsends, like the phenethylamines of Alexander Shulgin.
    More Tweets



    The latest hits from Drug War Records, featuring Freddie and the Fearmongers!


    1. Requiem for the Fourth Amendment



    2. There's No Place Like Home (until the DEA gets through with it)



    3. O Say Can You See (what the Drug War's done to you and me)






    front cover of Drug War Comic Book

    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, Campfire Stories about America's Drug War: live from Lake Rights-Be-Gone, published on December 30, 2019 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)