My brother fell off a riding lawn mower, hit his head on a rock, and died. Ever since then, I've been working tirelessly to outlaw riding mowers and rocks.
The statement is superstitious because it blames inanimate objects - in this case mowers and rocks - for something that was caused by a lack of wisdom and education. Had the brother had the knowledge and experience to use the riding mower correctly, he would not have fallen off the mower, whether a rock had been nearby at the time or not.
Now consider the following statement:
My brother died by taking an overdose of drugs. Ever since then, I've been working tirelessly to outlaw drugs.
It's the exact same reasoning as above.
The speaker is blaming inanimate objects. But the death in question was caused by the misuse of those substances, not by the substances themselves. To blame the substances is merely a superstitious response, worthy of the pre-logical cave persons of yore.
That's why the Drug War is the ultimate case of throwing the baby out with the bath water. In order to make the world "safe," we villainize any illegal substance that we associate with a death. But because we've identified the wrong villain - the drug itself rather than the lack of education that led to its misuse - we end up making the world a far more dangerous place.
Take the case of Leah Betts in England. She died after taking an Ecstasy tablet at a rave concert. Of course, the immediate superstitious Drug Warrior response was to crack down on Ecstasy use. Everyone ignored the rational fact that the death was caused by a lack of education - a lack of education about the proper use of Ecstasy (the need for proper hydration during strenuous activities such as rave dancing).
And what was the result of the crackdown? The hitherto peaceful rave scene became a shooting gallery as dancers switched from Ecstasy to crack cocaine and fentanyl.
That's what happens when we employ the superstitious reasoning referred to above. While it may feel good to scapegoat ecstasy, our doing so deprives millions of depressed and anxious people around the world of a godsend treatment. But that's the price we pay as a society for our superstitious outlook, which insists that criminalized substances can be labelled evil without regard for the way that they are actually used or misused.
That's why I depict the Drug Warrior as a benighted caveman on this website, because the Drug War way of thinking is superstitious. It vilifies substances in cases where the real villain is a lack of education.
The Drug War ideology is superstition. It is therefore the philosophical problem par excellence of our time. It's an ideology that could not pass the "snicker test" if the westerners who championed it understood the basics of logical reasoning, specifically the important difference between efficient and final causes as described by Aristotle over 2,000 years ago.
Alcohol makes me sleepy. But NOT coca wine. The wine gives you an upbeat feeling of controlled energy, without the jitters of coffee and without the fury of steroids. It increases rather than dulls mental focus.
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.
Many psychedelic fans are still drug warriors at heart. They just think that a nice big exception should be carved out for the drugs that they're suddenly finding useful. Wrong. Substance demonization is wrong, root and branch. It always causes more suffering than freedom.
John Halpern wrote a book about opium, subtitled "the ancient flower that poisoned our world." What nonsense! Bad laws and ignorance poison our world, NOT FLOWERS!
The press is having a field day with the Matthew Perry story. They love to have a nice occasion to demonize drugs. I wonder how many decades must pass before they realize that people are killed by ignorance and a corrupted drug supply, not by the drugs themselves.
What I want to know is, who sold Christopher Reeves that horse that he fell off of? Who was peddling that junk?!
Drug warriors have taught us that honest about drugs encourages drug use. Nonsense! That's just their way of suppressing free speech about drugs. Americans are not babies, they can handle the truth -- or if they cannot, they need education, not prohibition.
All drugs have positive uses at some dose, for some reason, at some time -- but prohibitionists have the absurd idea that drugs can be voted up or down. This anti-scientific notion deprives the modern world of countless godsends.
Until we legalize ALL psychoactive drugs, there will be no such thing as an addiction expert. In the meantime, it's insulting to be told by neuroscience that I'm an addictive type. It's pathologizing my just indignation at psychiatry's niggardly pharmacopoeia.
I knew all along that Measure 110 in Oregon was going to be blamed for the problems that the drug war causes. Drug warriors never take responsibility, despite all the blood that they have on their hands.
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, Drug War Ideology: the modern superstition published on August 26, 2020 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)
onsider the following superstitious statement:
You have been reading an article entitled, Drug War Ideology: