How the Drug War has turned the entire world into one big Christian Science theocracy
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
September 12, 2022
Some of us believe with the fictional Sherlock Holmes (and the very real HG Wells, Marcus Aurelius, and Benjamin Franklin) that improving and expanding the mind is a categorical imperative rather than a mortal sin. For us, the real sin is to fail to maximize one's potential in life. So where can we go to practice our religion, to be all that we can be, to "know ourselves" in the Platonic acceptation of that phrase? Surely we can vote with our feet and simply leave the Christian Science theocracies, wherein all the empowering substances from coca to opium 1 are demonized rather than safely leveraged for the good of human beings and of humanity.
But not so. For so powerful is the propaganda of Drug War America, combined with the hidden biases of reductive materialism 2 which scorn all non-quantifiable healing, that the vast majority of powerful psychoactive substances are illegal EVERYWHERE ON THE PLANET, from the North Pole to the South Pole, from Bogata to Beijing, this despite the fact that many of them grow at our very feet.
Surely, this status quo represents a crime against humanity3, especially as it outlaws substances that could tame humanity's violence-prone heart and thus help us avoid the eventual nuclear annihilation toward which our species seems inevitably headed.
Then, for God's sake, speak up! If not on behalf of human potential and world peace, then on behalf of the many silent and unrecognized victims of Drug War ideology: the thousands of black Americans who die in inner cities every year thanks to drug-war prohibition, the dying children who go without godsend medicine in hospices, the victims of the ongoing civil war in Mexico that America creates and profits from in an unconscionable effort to keep boots on the ground south of the border -- or your own parents, who die in agony (by being "taken off of life support") because our Christian Science drug-war sensibilities will not allow us to give them morphine 4 even on their death beds.
Brian Quass
You may ask, what is this Drug War propaganda that is so effective as to turn the entire planet into Christian Scientists with respect to psychoactive medicine?
Answers:
1) The propaganda of omission in the media, 5 in which positive uses of criminalized substances are never mentioned in movies 67 , TV shows 8 or print.
2) The propaganda of omission in academia, in which positive uses of criminalized substances are never mentioned in drug-related research papers, with all such studies dealing only with abuse and misuse.
3) The propaganda of amnesia, in which we ignore historical incidents that clash with Drug War sensibilities, such as the psychedelic-fueled Eleusinian mysteries9 and the fact that the Vedic-Hindu religion was inspired by psychoactive plant medicine.
4) The propaganda of lies, in which groups like the Partnership for a Drug Free America 10 tell us that the drugs which have inspired entire religions will actually "fry the brain11" (whereas if any drugs fry the brain, they are the Big Pharma 1213 meds upon which 1 in 4 American women are chemically dependent for life!) The lies of the DEA, which, since 1973, has been telling us that drugs that have inspired entire religions somehow have no positive uses whatsoever (a blatant lie, insomuch as every drug on the planet has some positive use for someone, somewhere, at some time, as even the deadly Botox has positive uses, both in cosmetic surgery and in the treatment of spastic diseases like dysphonia).
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.
Almost every mainstream article about psychology and consciousness is nonsense these days because it ignores the way that drug prohibition has stymied our investigation of such subjects.
We know that anticipation and mental focus and relaxation have positive benefits -- but if these traits ae facilitated by "drugs," then we pretend that these same benefits somehow are no longer "real." This is a metaphysical bias, not a logical deduction.
Drugs that sharpen the mind should be thoroughly investigated for their potential to help dementia victims. Instead, we prefer to demonize these drugs as useless. That's anti-scientific and anti-patient.
It is a violation of religious liberty to outlaw substances that inspire and elate. The Hindu religion was inspired by just such a drug.
Irony of ironies, that the indignant 19th-century hatred of liquor should ultimately result in the outlawing of virtually every mind-affecting substance on the planet EXCEPT for liquor.
Addiction was not a big thing until the drug war. It's now the boogie-man with which drug warriors scare us into giving up our freedoms. But getting obsessed on one single drug is natural in the age of choice-limiting prohibition.
Drug Prohibition is a crime against humanity. It outlaws our right to take care of our own health.
I could tell my psychiatrist EXACTLY what would "cure" my depression, even without getting addicted, but everything involved is illegal. It has to be. Otherwise I would have no need of the psychiatrist.
Prohibitionists have blood on their hands. People do not naturally die in the tens of thousands from opioid use, notwithstanding the lies of 19th-century missionaries in China. It takes bad drug policy to accomplish that.
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