Hey, You, Get Off Of My Creed! by the Drug War Philospher at AbolishTheDEA.com

Oh, thank you, old boy. I just got back from the "just say no" rally, don't you know. It was a jolly good show, what?

Oh, really? And you have no problem just saying no to medicines that have inspired entire religions?

The Vedic-Hindu religion was inspired by soma. Coca inspired the Inca religion. Psychedelics gave Plato his view of the afterlife.

Oh, that. I thought you were talking about board certified religions, old boy, like Christianity.

No, he's got a point there. In light of the facts thus enumerated, one might say that the Drug War outlaws the very impulse of religion.

Well, that's rather ripe coming from you, Michael, my dear boy.

Didn't you just write a book in which you claimed that it was too dangerous to legalize the use of mushrooms and other psychedelics, what what?

He's got you there, Michael.

It seems that some things are more important to you than religious liberty, old man.

And you want to do that at the expense of denying me my religion?

Nay, worse: you've denied me the religious impulse that such substances create, thereby preventing me from even conceptualizing new religions, let alone joining them.

That's just like you, Brian: you're always interested in abstract principles, while I'm worried about real lives.

Yes. Real WHITE lives in the American suburbs.

How about the 'real lives' of the thousands of Mexican kids who have lost their parents to the war on drugs that America exported to the world beginning in the early 20th century?

How about the thousands of black Americans who are killed every year by the heavily armed gang violence that prohibition has caused in inner cities?

Besides, if you're worried about the negative effects of drugs, why aren't you fretting about the psychoactive drug called sugar, which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of diabetes deaths in Mexico over the last decade, thanks to that country's massive imports of Coca-Cola and American processed foods?

Well, that always happens to me: whenever I spout an incontrovertible truth, my critics always clam up on me, and henceforth cut me entirely, I might add.

Not to worry, Brian, old boy, for I'm here, and I can grill Michael on your behalf, even if he stiffs you, dialectically speaking, that is.

But I thought you were in favor of the Drug War.

I am, old boy. But I have good religious reasons for just saying no.

Yes, really. What's more, I want to save junior from more than just psychedelics. I want to save him from the scourge of excessive marijuana use as well.

Yes, here we go old man: See what your legalization talk has led to? Toke City, baby! (er, I mean, 'old man').

Yes, and do you know why it's Toke City, today, baby?

Because you Drug Warriors have outlawed almost every other psychoactive substance on the frickin' planet!

And you've thereby outlawed my religion, which holds that the unexamined life is not worth living.

Oh, I see old man. So you have to be 'stoned,' I suppose, in order to examine life?

"Stoned" is your prejudiced and derisive terminology. I have to be inspired by medicines to reach states that help me see outside my own limited understanding of the world in which I dwell, both psychologically and physically speaking.

Why is a state of sobriety the ultimate goal in your life? Gunmen shoot up schools when they're sober; they commit suicide when they're sober; they launch nuclear weapons when they're sober.

I wish there were some undiscovered country that I could set sail for in emulation of my Mayflower ancestors, so that I could found a country based on the idea that psychoactive medicine should be used for the benefit of humanity without being stigmatized either by politicians or the sensation-seeking tabloid press.

What's more, I would be setting sail for the same reason my ancestors did: to found a country wherein they could exercise religious freedom and freedom of conscience.

I'm sorry Michael, but "kind of" doesn't cut it. In fact, with friends like you, we opponents of the Drug War don't need enemies.

Hey, in case you hadn't noticed, I represent the consensus view on these topics!

That's true, unfortunately, and the consensus view is very confused indeed.

The average American senses that the Drug War is full of crap, but they can never really grasp the full evil at work here because they have been programmed from birth to hate and fear psychoactive medicines rather than to understand them.

The propaganda of omission has kept them from learning about the positive uses of mind medicine because TV, films and academia only ever talk about misuse and abuse, never about positive use, whether theoretical or historical.

This keeps us from grasping an obvious truth: that the Drug War is wrong through and through. Why? Because it tells us there are substances that have no positive uses for anyone, ever, at any time, in any place, for any reason, at any dose.

There are no substances of that kind. Moreover, to insist otherwise, is anti-scientific because it keeps us from finding the very uses that could disprove the theory.

In other words, the Drug War is just a superstition.

A superstition that keeps me from practicing my religion and following the Platonic imperative of knowing myself and the world around me.

Well, all I can say is that I'll pray for you, old man, in the name of the drug free Father, and the drug Free Son, and the drug free Holy Spirit. Amen.

And I'll write some more books, explaining why we have to continue going slow on approving the use of dangerous botanicals like mushrooms. I think I'll call my new book, "How to Change Your Mind with Shock Therapy: why it's better to fry your brain with electricity than to partake of evil plants and fungus."

Gee, that's swell, fellas. NOT! As for me, I'll keep writing articles on the Internet in an attempt to waken America to the obvious: that the Drug War is wrong root and branch...

Yes, and that it is a violation of my religious liberty.

And you, with your quaint 19th-century British tropes: don't you realize that the Drug War is the enforcement of the drug-hating religion of Christian Science with respect to psychoactive medicine?

Oh, Brian, can I get the spelling of your complete name, please?

Oh, yes, Michael, I'd be flattered.

Don't be. I just want to search the text of my latest manuscript to make sure that I did not inadvertently mention your name therein!

According to Donald Trump's view of life, Jesus Christ was a chump. We should hate our enemies, not love them.

Exactly. The line drawn between recreational and medical use is wishful thinking on the part of drug warriors. Recreation, according to Webster's, is "refreshment or diversion," and both have positive knock-on effects in the lives of real people.

There are hundreds of things that we should outlaw before drugs (like horseback riding) if, as claimed, we are targeting dangerous activities. Besides, drugs are only dangerous BECAUSE of prohibition, which compromises product purity and refuses to teach safe use.

If there is an epidemic of "self-harm," prohibitionists never think of outlawing razor blades. They ask: "Why the self-harm?" But if there is an epidemic of drug use which they CLAIM is self-harm, they never ask "Why the self-harm?" They say: "Let's prohibit and punish!"

I never said that getting off SSRIs should be done without supervision. If you're on Twitter for medical advice, you're in the wrong place.

What attracts me about "drug dealers" is that they are NOT interested in prying into my private life. What a relief! With psychiatry, you are probed for pathological behavior on every office visit. You are a child. To the "drug dealer," I am an adult at least.

Michael Pollan is the Leona Helmsley of the Drug War. He uses outlawed drugs freely while failing to support the re-legalization of Mother Nature. Drug laws are apparently for the little people.

I don't believe in the materialist paradigm upon which SSRIs were created, according to which humans are interchangeable chemical robots amenable to the same treatment for human sadness. Let me use laughing gas and MDMA and coca and let the materialists use SSRIs.

There are neither "drugs" nor "meds" as those terms are used today. All substances have potential good uses and bad uses. The terms as used today carry value judgements, as in meds good, drugs bad.

M. Pollan says "not so fast" when it comes to drug re-legalization. I say FAST? I've gone a whole lifetime w/o access to Mother Nature's plants. How can a botanist approve of that? Answer: By ignoring all legalization stakeholders except for the kids whom we refuse to educate.

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