when former drug users proselytize on behalf of America's Drug War Cult
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
March 18, 2025
few months ago, I received a tweet from a Drug Warrior assuring me in a nice fatherly tone that I would change my mind about drugs when I was "older," just I wait and see! I guess he failed to realize that I was already 65 years old at the time and that if I was going to change my mind on a subject, I had better start doing that pronto. Nevertheless, the tweet came in handy. It reminded me that there are a large number of people who condemn drugs, not so much for being dangerous as for being superfluous and ridiculous, as things that any grown-up could and should do without. "Silly Rabbit," they seem to say, "kicks are for hedonists. There is no mature and sensible reason why anyone should wish to alter their mental state - except perhaps to get meaninglessly plastered by alcohol." The anthem for this condescending mindset, by the way, is the 1974 "No-No Song" by Ringo Starr, in which the Beatles drummer declaims as follows:
"No thank you, please, it only makes me sneeze and then it makes it hard to find the door."
I have encountered this attitude among some of my former schoolmates, especially those who used to use drugs irresponsibly in their youth. These days, it's a point of honor for them to say that they no longer "do drugs." They preen themselves on their wholesale renunciation of all the substances that have been outlawed by our racist politicians, as who should say: "I do not 'do drugs' anymore, just as I no longer use skateboards or drink Red Bull or scribble graffiti on freight cars! I am an adult, after all, thank you very much, indeed!"
Generally speaking, one might assume that Ringo Starr is on our side in our war against the Drug War, and yet with friends like Ringo, one scarcely needs enemies. For surely this notion that drug use is silly, even when put forward in the lyrics of a facetious and disingenuous pop hit, can only aid and abet and give comfort to the Drug Warriors who, for their part, are focusing on the supposed dangers of drugs. These two attitudes combined - the idea that drugs are both unnecessary AND dangerous - provide the one-two punch that is keeping drug re-legalization "down and out" when it comes to public opinion.
But surely any philosopher reading this essay sees what is going on here. We are being taught to judge the propriety of drug use based only on examples culled from reports of the irresponsible and uneducated use by young people. If we judged other risky activities in this way, those activities would be banned at once, and not just for young people but for everyone. There would be no more horseback riding, no more drag-racing, no more cliff climbing - and certainly no more rifle shooting or beer swilling - no, not for anyone.
Putting aside this hypocritical inconsistency for a moment, it is demonstrably false to claim that there are no good reasons for drug use. That statement betrays a total ignorance of anecdote, of history, and of psychological common sense. It is, however, a mindset that is all-too-easy to adopt in a world that has effectively banned all positive reports of substance use from all media. One searches in vain for movies and books that depict the beneficial use of drugs for positive purposes. One searches in vain for news stories that cover the sane and sensible use of drugs. We are all obliged to believe that drug use must end in disaster while our politicians crank out drug laws to make that outcome as likely as possible. Yet, in the words of the "X-Files" tagline, "the truth is out there." The truth about beneficial drug use can be found in such books as "Pihkal" by Alexander Shulgin1, "The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide" by James Fadiman2, "Plants of the Gods" by Richard Schultes3 - and even in "The Varieties of Religious Experience" by William James4. It will be remembered that James used laughing gas to study altered states and that he urged his fellow philosophers to do the same. Or perhaps it will NOT be remembered, given that James's work with altered states is not even mentioned in his online biography at Harvard University, where he founded the department of psychology5. Apparently, the polymath's personal history had to be rewritten to pass muster with the sensibilities of the Drug Warrior.
Of course, even if there were no good reasons for "drug use," it does not follow that we should outlaw the practice. (Is there a good reason for drag-racing or beer drinking?) But the claim is hopelessly subjective in nature. It is not clear what is meant either by "good reasons" or by "drug use." Objectively speaking, the latter term refers to such a wide variety of activities as to render it meaningless. And the term "good reasons" is entirely subjective. I claim that a good reason for certain drug use is that I can better see and appreciate the intricate body structure of a Monarch Butterfly. Is that good enough for you? Another claims that drugs let them rise above self-destructive impulses and to thus perform more naturally on stage and so earn a living. Is that a good enough reason for you? Still another uses drugs to obtain the sorts of feelings experienced by the drug study participant who wrote the following in the book Pihkal by Alexander Shulgin:
"An energetic feeling began to take over me. It continued to grow. The feeling was one of great camaraderie, and it was very easy to talk to people.6"
Is that a good enough reason for using drugs, to have a feeling of camaraderie with your fellow human beings?
Yet a fourth claims that they want to follow through on the suggestion of William James, that philosophers study altered states in order to learn about the nature of reality.
Is that a good enough reason for using drugs? Is it good to have a free academia?
We see then that the Drug War is all about the subjective evaluation of the propriety of drug use - which is no surprise, however, since the word "drugs" itself is the ultimate in vague terminology. The term only seems to make sense to us in light of a purely fictional notion: namely, that there are two types of psychoactive substances in the world: meds, which are good, and drugs, which are evil. This is the drug-war apartheid of which Julian Buchanan7 writes, this imaginary division of drugs into two separate types of substances. In reality, however, drugs are drugs are drugs. None of them are either good or bad in themselves. The only thing that is bad is a lack of education. But the Drug Warrior's job is to convince us otherwise, that drugs can be bad in and of themselves. Unfortunately, this erroneous belief is not just a piece of harmless superstition; it has tragic consequences in the real world for it results in legislation that forces millions around the world to go without godsend medicine. Why? Because racist politicians have this strange idee fixe: they believe that a drug that can be misused by white American young people at one dose for one reason in one context must not be used by anyone for any reason in any context ever.
That is the inhumane upshot of our War on Drugs: it makes life worse for countless millions who go without godsend medicines. They are countless because they are never considered stakeholders in drug policy debates despite the fact that they are the group that suffers most thanks to the mindless prohibitions of the Drug War. And this, of course, is only the beginning of the unnecessary heartache that the Drug War brings about, for we have yet to even mention the inner-city violence and the gangs and drug cartels that drug prohibition has created out of whole cloth. We have yet to mention the 60,000 who were "disappeared" in Mexico over the last two decades thanks to the U.S.-backed Drug War south of the border8. We have yet to mention the 67,000 gun deaths in inner-cities of the last decade9, deaths which would never had occurred had drug prohibition not incentivized the creation of heavily armed gangs in poor neighborhoods. We have yet to mention how the Drug War has destroyed American liberty, taking out the 4th amendment wholesale and denying freedom of religion to those sects whose adherents consider Mother Nature to be a goddess rather than a drug kingpin.
Of course there may be plenty of good reasons why specific people should wish to refrain from using specific drugs given their own personality and biochemistry and perhaps even their own genetics. But this reminds us of the key point that Drug Warriors always ignore: namely, that the propriety of any specific case of drug use must always be established by specifics, not by generalities. The variables to be considered must include factors such as the following: who used what drug(s) for what reasons under what circumstances at what doses in what context... etc. etc. etc. In other words, we must take into account all of the variables that the Drug Warriors ignore. And why do they ignore them? Because the Drug Warrior's goal is to convince the world that there are no positive uses for "drugs," and so they do not want to hear any upbeat "specifics" lest such facts should "send the wrong message" to the young people whom the Drug Warrior is trying to brainwash on the subject. The last thing that the Drug Warrior wants is for a full and honest discussion about drug use. Fortunately for them, they can point to purblind materialist drug researchers to support their views about the supposed uselessness of drugs, since those scientists are behaviorists in their approach to psychology and are therefore blind to all obvious drug benefits for their own dogmatic reasons. For such scientists, drug efficacy must be determined by looking under a microscope, not by looking at actual use by actual people in actual circumstances.
If I were ever to change my mind on these topics, it would only be because I had succumbed to the siren song of the Drug Warriors, who are forever trying to pawn off misrepresentations and lies as truth. I live in a Drug War society, after all, where people are absolutely afraid to speak up for sanity and where the media pretends that outlawed drugs are either evil or do not exist. In such a world, I could very easily give up in frustration and shout: "You know what, screw it. Let me become one of 'them'. Let me quietly embrace the popular prejudices of our time and say no more about it!"
That is why I created this website in the first place: so that I could keep my mind clear as to what the Drug Warrior is up to when it comes to their misleading and disingenuous arguments against drugs. I wanted to analyze their various claims and decipher their many faulty but hidden premises. The fact that the above-mentioned gentlemen considers my pushback in this quarter to be an immature fad is a disturbing sign. It suggests that he himself has fallen prey to Drug War propaganda and is now in the business of going about enrolling others in the Great American Cult of Substance Demonization. I fear that my very presence as a philosopher against the Drug War constitutes an implicit rebuke to his slavish belief in government propaganda. And so he calls me to join him in the Land of Lethe. "Come on, Brian," he cries. "It will be so easy! No need to think for yourself anymore - just accept the anti-scientific bias of racist politicians as gospel truth! Everybody's doing it! Why fight it anymore?! Just say it to yourself: 'Drugs are bad, drugs are bad...' That's it, you can do it!"
Well, if that is what it means to be an adult, then I gladly renounce my claim to the title.
Properly speaking, MDMA has killed no one at all. Prohibitionists were delighted when Leah Betts died because they were sure it was BECAUSE of MDMA/Ecstasy. Whereas it was because of the fact that prohibitionists refuse to teach safe use.
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.
Drug warriors are too selfish and short-sighted to fight real problems, so they blame everything on drugs.
The Partnership for a Death Free America is launching a campaign to celebrate the 50th year of Richard Nixon's War on Drugs. We need to give credit where credit's due for the mass arrest of minorities, the inner city gun violence and the civil wars that it's generated overseas.
The Drug War has turned America into the world's first "Indignocracy," where our most basic rights can be vetoed by a misinformed public. That's how scheming racist politicians put an end to the 4th amendment to the US Constitution.
"Abuse" is a funny term because it implies that there's a right way to use "drugs," which is something that the drug warriors deny. To the contrary, they make the anti-scientific claim that "drugs" are not good for anybody for any reason at any dose.
I will gladly respect the police once we remove them from Gestapo duty by ending the war on drugs. Police should also learn to live on a budget, without deriving income from confiscating houses and dormitories, etc.
It's "convenient" for scientists that their "REAL" cures happen to be the ones that racist politicians will allow. Scientists thus normalize prohibition by pretending that outlawed substances have no therapeutic value. It's materialism collaborating with the drug war.
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.
Scientists are responsible for endless incarcerations in America. Why? Because they fail to denounce the DEA lie that psychoactive substances have no positive medical uses. This is so obviously wrong that only an academic in an Ivory Tower could believe it.
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, Condescending Drug Warriors: when former drug users proselytize on behalf of America's Drug War Cult, published on March 18, 2025 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)
few months ago, I received a tweet from a Drug Warrior assuring me in a nice fatherly tone that I would change my mind about drugs when I was "older," just I wait and see! I guess he failed to realize that I was already 65 years old at the time and that if I was going to change my mind on a subject, I had better start doing that pronto. Nevertheless, the tweet came in handy. It reminded me that there are a large number of people who condemn drugs, not so much for being dangerous as for being superfluous and ridiculous, as things that any grown-up could and should do without. "Silly Rabbit," they seem to say, "kicks are for hedonists. There is no mature and sensible reason why anyone should wish to alter their mental state - except perhaps to get meaninglessly plastered by alcohol." The anthem for this condescending mindset, by the way, is the 1974 "No-No Song" by Ringo Starr, in which the Beatles drummer declaims as follows:
You have been reading an article entitled, Condescending Drug Warriors: when former drug users proselytize on behalf of America's Drug War Cult, published on March 18, 2025 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)
