How black comedies have become reality in Drug-War North America
What the case of Claire Brosseau tells us about the evils of drug prohibition
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
February 13, 2025
In the 1987 movie "Heathers," the school counselor at Westerburg High speaks the following deadpan advice to Veronica, a rich white student who is depressed because of the ups-and-downs of teenager politics:
"Whether to kill yourself," quoth Pauline, "is one of the most important decisions a teenager has to make."
This was a hilarious line in 1987, because it was understood by the viewer as a patently absurd line, something that a counselor would never say to a depressed student. Fast forward 40 years, however, and this line takes on a grim new meaning when we are now talking about providing medically assisted suicide for the depressed while yet refusing to let the depressed use the drugs that could make them want to live. How can it be that no one recognizes this monstrosity -- this height of Christian Science PERFIDY even.
In 'Heathers,' the counselor warns Veronica: "Whether to kill yourself is one of the most important decisions a teenager has to make.' This advice has gone mainstream now that we have legalized assisted suicide without re-legalizing drugs.
I used to be forgiving for psychiatrists who refrained from standing up for their patients' right to godsend medicine, but now we live in a world in which that failure to provide healing is leading DIRECTLY TO STATE-ASSISTED DEATH!!
This is the bizarre dystopia that we have come to by following the drug-war ideology of substance demonization to its logically absurd conclusion: namely, to the point that we think it is actually better to be dead than to use the substances that the western world has demonized as "drugs."
Why am I the only one in the world who is calling this to the attention of the pundits -- and the Stephanie Nolens of the world who write articles on this subject while completely ignoring what it tells us about America's deadly attitude toward drugs1 -- and yet Stephanie Nolen is the New York Times healthcare reporter? Since when has unnecessary suicide become healthy, Stephanie?
We were already well on the road to this path because our doctors have long advocated brain-damaging shock therapy for the depressed while refusing to fight for the right of their patients to use substances that improve mentation and actually create new neurons in the brain -- all without damaging that organ. I simply cannot believe that I am the only one who recognizes this problem, wherefore I am determined to create a new non-profit organization called Depressed Patients for the end of Drug Prohibition -- the policy that now invites us to kill ourselves with the help of the state - but not to use drugs that might make us want to live!
Psychiatrists discuss assisted suicide for the depressed without discussing drug prohibition which outlaws substances that could make suicide unnecessary.
The attitude that suicide was just another healthcare option used to be black comedy; now it is mainstream ideology.
Scientists hold holistically working drugs to reductionist standards, thereby practicing a sort of pharmacological colonialsm.
In 1886, coca enthusiast JJ Tschudi referred to prohibitionists as 'kickers.' He wrote: "If we were to listen to these kickers, most of us would die of hunger, for the reason that nearly everything we eat or drink has fallen under their ban."
Someday the world will realize that Freud's real achievement was his discovery of the depression-busting power of cocaine.
There's more than set and setting: there's fundamental beliefs about the meaning of life and about why mother nature herself is full of psychoactive substances. Tribal peoples associate some drugs with actual sentient entities -- that is far beyond "set and setting."
Drug prohibition is the perfect racist crime. It brought gunfire to inner cities, yet those who seek to end the gunfire pretend that drug prohibition has nothing to do with it.
Here is a sample drug-use report from the book "Pihkal":
"More than tranquil, I was completely at peace, in a beautiful, benign, and placid place."
Prohibition is a crime against humanity for withholding such drug experiences from the depressed (and from everybody else).
There are no merely recreational drugs. All drugs that elate have obvious potential uses for the depressed.
Amphetamines are "meds" when they help kids think more clearly but they are "drugs" when they help adults think more clearly. That shows you just how bewildered Americans are when it comes to drugs.
There is an absurd safety standard for "drugs." The cost/benefit analysis of the FDA & co. never takes into account the costs of NOT prescribing nor the benefits of a productive life well lived. The "users" are not considered stakeholders.
We drastically limit drug choices, we refuse to teach safe use, and then we discover there's a gene to explain why some people have trouble with drugs. Science loves to find simple solutions to complex problems.
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