Freedom has become too dangerous for Americans

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Freedom has become too dangerous for Americans

The disturbing connection between drug prohibition and the new phenomenon of 'sensitivity reading' in the publishing industry

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

June 2, 2026

There is a new book on the market that tells us everything that is wrong about drug prohibition. I am referring to the book by PhD Adam Szetela of Cornell University entitled "That Book is Dangerous!: How Moral Panic, Social Media, and the Culture Wars Are Remaking Publishing."¹ Adam's book is all about the new use of human "sensitivity readers" on the part of major American publishers. ² These readers vet the works of authors to make sure that they contain nothing that could offend the minority group to which any particular "sensitivity reader" happens to belong. And so a Black reader will flag potential Black stereotypes in the submitted text of an author, an Italian-American will flag what he or she sees as a stereotypical depiction of Italians, and so forth. The book will then be edited based on these cultural-specific suggestions in order to avoid giving offense to those demographics that the publisher has chosen to protect from the potentially unwelcome insights of an author.

Of course, the average American will see no connection between that subject and drug prohibition, but guess what? That is the very problem of which I speak. For both censorship and drug prohibition exist because we do not hold these truths to be self-evident, that freedom of speech is a basic "given" of a free society, as is the right to take care of one's own health and to access and profit from the bounty of Mother Nature.³ When we start limiting these rights on grounds of expediency, we are, by definition, no longer living in a free country, since a free country is, according to our own American tradition, one with freedom of speech and the right to take care of our own health -- with any exceptions being limited to what everybody would agree to be unusual and egregious circumstances, whereas these two new dispensations normalize censorship as the very status quo of American publishing, while outlawing Mother Nature's medicines for literally everybody, making that freedom-scorning law a rule rather than an exception of any kind.

The whole idea of the Bill of Rights was to remind legislators that some freedoms are too basic to be outlawed based on fearmongering, and yet both the First and Fourth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution are now considered to be too dangerous for Americans to take seriously anymore. There seems to be a growing consensus that we can no longer handle them. Okay, fine. But let's at least be honest with ourselves and the world: if we really want to go down this road of giving up basic rights, we should be honest and discard the adjective "free" for our country -- our actions clearly demonstrate that we feel that freedom is too dangerous for the American people. So let's recognize this uber-sensitive and prohibitive status quo for what it is. I am ready to denominate it with the terms of your choice, but let's not offend human reason by referring to this new worrywart status quo as "freedom." On the other hand, if I can convince you to be repelled at this indifference to the importance of the freedoms that have always been thought to constitute a democracy as conceived of by Thomas Jefferson, let us just say no to the trashing of the Bill of Rights inherent in both "sensitivity reading" and drug prohibition.

Speaking specifically of the former for a moment, this sensitivity censorship simply does not pass either a laugh test or a philosophical test. The best book ever written about Americans was written by a Frenchman.⁴ The most effective book ever written against slavery was by a white American woman.⁵ The fact is that there are both pluses and minuses to being a member of the group about which one is writing. The sensitivity censors are ostensibly fighting prejudice and stereotyping, yet what could be more prejudicial and stereotyping than censoring an author based on their own cultural identity? Besides, this censorship is clearly not politically neutral.

As a white American male, I personally am bothered by non-fiction authors who use the pronoun "she" -- and only the pronoun "she" -- to mean "any given person."⁶ Such usage implies a certain political (and biological) point of view about the meaning and importance of gender and sex in modern life and how perceived historical and literary wrongs should be remedied. And that's a problem, because when I read a book about horses, or cooking, or building rockets, I want to learn about horses, or cooking, or building rockets: I do not want to be distracted from the subject at hand by a question-begging choice of pronouns, as if I'm being tacitly lectured on a philosophical question about which I do not even have the ability to reply. Surely my sensitivities have not been consulted by the publishers of such books. And yet I cannot see a modern publisher hiring me to find out if the pronouns being used in a non-fiction book are going to piss off a white American male. I guess they feel that my demographic is adult enough to "take it," but in that case, they are surely being condescending toward other demographics, assuming that they aren't smart enough to simply put down a book whose text simply does not "ring true" for them, whether on the subject of their own particular identity or on any other topic whatsoever.

There is another connection between "sensitivity reading" and drug prohibition, by the way. In "sensitivity reading," we judge a person based on something other than what they actually write or mean; in drug prohibition, we judge a person based on something other than how they actually behave in life. In both cases, we set up a litmus test as a kind of newfangled shortcut for determining whether a person is worth our time or not. In one case, we prejudge a person based on their identity; in the other, we prejudge them based on the contents of their digestive system.

Finally, a word about Dr. Szetela's book in particular (which I'm assuming was not vetted for sensitivity concerns by its publisher, MIT Press). Although I have yet to even read the work, I would already like to suggest a revised title for what I hope will be the second edition of this all-too-timely tome:

"That Book is Dangerous!: How Moral Panic, Social Media, and the Culture Wars are destroying American Freedom -- with the help of drug prohibition, that is."

Notes:

1: Szetela, Adam. 2025. That Book Is Dangerous! The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/15844.001.0001. (up)
2: Robbins, Denise S. 2025. “‘That Book Is Dangerous’ Takes on Left-Leaning Censorship.” The Cap Times. September 15, 2025. https://captimes.com/entertainment/books/that-book-is-dangerous-takes-on-left-leaning-censorship/article_cf04a886-59c9-4a1b-8847-0a8fd (up)
3: John Locke was Jefferson's go-to man when it came to Natural Law. Locke insisted that we have a natural right to the use of nature 'and all that lies therein.' (up)
4: 'Democracy in America'. 1835. Wikisource.org. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. March 22, 2018. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Democracy_in_America. (up)
5: “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” 1852. Goodreads.com. 2012. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46787.Uncle_Tom_s_Cabin. (up)
6: I have written actual snail mail to publishers to complain about the disproportionate and/or exclusive use of the pronoun 'she' as meaning 'any given person' in their non-fiction books. They care so much about my sensitivities that they do not even bother to respond to my letters! (up)

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Even when laudanum was legal in the UK, pharmacists were serving as moral adjudicators, deciding for whom they should fill such prescriptions. That's not a pharmacist's role. We need an ABC-like set-up in which the cashier does not pry into my motives for buying a substance.

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?

Freud thought cocaine was a great antidepressant. His contemporaries demonized the drug by focusing only on the rare misusers. That's like judging alcohol by focusing on alcoholics.

Now the folks who helped Matthew get Ketamine must be sacrificed on the altar of the Drug War, lest people start thinking that the Drug War itself was at fault.y

The Drug War treats doctors like potential criminals and it treats the rest of us like children. Prohibition does not end drug risks: it just outsources them to minorities and other vulnerable populations.

If there was free speech in America, we would see billboards demanding freedom to use psychoactive substances for religious purposes, or to heal, or to follow-up on the research of William James regarding the nature of human consciousness.

Why does no one talk about empathogens for preventing atrocities? Because they'd rather hate drugs than use them for the benefit of humanity. They don't want to solve problems, they prefer hatred.

I'm grateful to the folks who are coming out of the woodwork at the last minute to deface their own properties with "Trump 2024" signs. Now I'll know who to thank should Trump get elected and sell us out to Putin.

Drugs are not the enemy, ignorance is -- the ignorance that the Drug War encourages by teaching us to fear drugs rather than to understand them.

Addiction thrives BECAUSE of prohibition, which limits drug choice and discourages education about psychoactive substances and how to use them wisely.

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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.

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Freedom has become too dangerous for Americans

The disturbing connection between drug prohibition and the new phenomenon of 'sensitivity reading' in the publishing industry

Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US

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

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