Homepage of the Drug War Philosopher, Brian Quass
blog icon orange rss icon with stylized radio waves bird icon for twitter bird icon for twitter substack icon


back navigation arrow forward navigation arrow


Drug War Propaganda from Hollywood

how movies toe the line with prohibition ideology

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

January 14, 2025



I thought I'd watch "Smile 2" last night since I had found "Smile 1" reasonably enjoyable. This was a mistake, however, because the opening scene was pure Drug War agitprop. It was clearly written to advance the notion that drugs are the problem, not prohibition.

The movie begins with the efforts of a livid vigilante to punish a drug dealer whose recent gunplay had inadvertently killed a woman and her young child. Sure, that's evil -- no one likes a wanton killer. But how much more evil were the politicians and other demagogues who created a world in which such people do such things?!

We did not have Americans torturing each other and firing guns carelessly in public before the War on Drugs incentivized such extreme violence. And yet movies like "Smile 2" keep reinforcing the idea that drugs and drug dealers are the problem, not prohibition, that we have only to crack down hard enough -- with vigilantes, if needed -- and the problem will go away, nay, that it is our duty to crack down and to erase drug dealers from the face of the earth.

Just think about what the Drug War has done here. Think about the movies that you've seen which feature extreme torture and extreme disregard for human life. Chances are that the vast majority of their plots concerned drug dealing.

Does anyone see what's going on here? Substance prohibition has created the violence on which these movies are all-too-accurately based. And this is inexcusable because common sense psychology tells us that prohibition would do precisely this. People like to get rich and there will always be a morally challenged minority which will go to extreme measures when extreme incentives are offered thanks to insane social policies like prohibition.

This is another reason why the FDA is enormously biased when it comes to drug approval. Not only do they ignore the obvious positive effects of the drugs that they bash, but they also ignore the obvious negative effects of outlawing drugs. The FDA is supposedly all about keeping us safe, right? And yet by outlawing drugs, they are enabling torture and wholesale murder!

And yet no one sees this -- nor will they ever see this thanks to movies like "Smile 2"!

Schopenhauer says that the truth will eventually be known, but I am beginning to wonder.

I never thought of myself as a great genius, but the idiocy of the vast majority on these topics is beginning to swell my head. Either I am a genius, being the only one to recognize these obvious syllogistic truths, or there are a fair percentage of people out there who "get this" but are just not speaking up -- or else they are hiding their knowledge in academic-speak. Academic Philip Jenkins wrote about the Drug War in "Synthetic Panics1" in reasonably lucid prose, but his work has had limited effect for two reasons: 1) He refrained from drawing any overt conclusions from the data that he had amassed, and 2) He gave his book a title that did not even mention "drugs." In other words, he shielded himself from mainstream criticism, but only at the cost of diminishing the impact of his book.

Even factual and assumption-free movies about drug-related deaths are propaganda in the age of the Drug War. They may not be propaganda "in and of themselves," but collectively they are part of an obvious propaganda campaign -- a campaign of censorship designed to make us associate drugs with nothing but death, dying and dead-end streets.

*drugwarmovies 2 3 *










Notes for essay entitled Drug War Propaganda from Hollywood: how movies toe the line with prohibition ideology:

1: 'Synthetic Panics' by Philip Jenkins DWP (up)
2: Glenn Close but no cigar DWP (up)
3: Running with the torture loving DEA DWP (up)




read more essays here





Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




Drug prohibition is a crime against humanity.

Cop and detective shows are loaded with subtle drug war propaganda, including lines like, "She had a history of drug use, so..." The implication being that anyone who uses substances that politicians hate cannot be trusted.

Do drug warriors realize that they are responsible for the deaths of young people on America's streets? Look in the mirror, folks. People were not dying en masse from opium overdoses when opiates were legal. It took your prohibition to accomplish that! Stop arresting, start teaching safe use!

The best harm-reduction strategy is to re-legalize drugs.

And so, by ignoring all "up" sides to drugs, the DEA points to potential addiction as a knock-down argument for their prohibition. This is the logic of children (and uneducated children at that). It is a cost-benefit analysis that ignores all benefits.

If our loved ones should experience severe depression and visit an emergency room for treatment, they will be started on a regime of dependence-causing Big Pharma drugs. They will not be given any drugs that elate and inspire.

All of our problems with opioids and opiates could have been avoided had the busybody Chicken Littles in America left well enough alone and let folks continue to smoke regulated opium peaceably in their own homes.

Before anyone receives shock therapy -- or the right to assisted suicide -- they should have the option to start using opium or cocaine daily -- in fact, any drug that makes them feel that life is worth living again.

"When two men who have been in an aggressive mood toward each other take part in the ritual, one is able to say to the other, 'Come, let us drink, for there is something between us.' " re: the Mayan use of the balche drink in Encyc of Psych Plants, by Ratsch & Hofmann

"The homicidal drug is booze. There's more violence on a Saturday night in a neighborhood tavern than there has been in the whole 20-year history of LSD." -- Timothy Leary


Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us






back navigation arrow forward navigation arrow
Book Cover

Break the ice with a sledgehammer: place this book on your coffee table.

This book features 150 annotated images, designed to force brainwashed Americans to confront the fact that drug prohibition is wrong. Here is what author Richard Parrish II says of the book's compiler: "The drug prohibition philosopher provides first-hand, principled, persuasive, and insightful arguments against the current drug prohibition regime..."

Purchase Your Copy
Book Cover

Diary of a Drug Fiend

This is the only full-cast recording of Aleister Crowley's 1922 classic paeon to common sense. It is the first book -- and so far almost the only book -- to stake out a philosophy of drug use that is compatible with human freedom, one in which we learn to use drugs as wisely as possible for the benefit of humanity. This recording was produced by the Drug War Philosopher and your purchases help support his effort to push back against the tragically counterproductive policy of drug prohibition, in the name of human freedom and of humanity's right to heal.

Purchase Your Copy



No cookies, no ads paid for by amoral and immoral billionaires (or trillionaires).


Unless otherwise indicated, no AI is used in the creation of site content. These essays represent the original ideas of their author and not the ideas that the author SHOULD have based on an algorithmic parsing of existing data. For more on this subject, consider the AI-related viewpoints to which the author subscribes as delineated in the New York Times opinion piece entitled "What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity" by Rebecca Winthrop of the Brookings Institution.

The Partnership for a Death Free America is a proud sponsor of The Drug War Philosopher website @ abolishthedea.com.


Copyright 2026, Brian Ballard Quass Contact: quass@quass.com

tombstone for American Democracy, 1776-2024, RIP (up)