How drug prohibition destroys the lives of the depressed
meanwhile turning them into wards of the healthcare state
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
August 30, 2025
It is frustrating to deal with one's deeply depressed kinfolk in the age of drug prohibition. All the medicines that could help them are outlawed and so one is only able to comfort them with "words, words, words," which are meaningless, however, to a soul in despair. I know because I have been there myself. Such family members belong to a completely unrecognized class of drug-war victims: namely, those who are forced to suffer in silence thanks to the unprecedented outlawing of time-honored medicine. For the most part, however, these victims refuse to protest because they have been told that science has solved depression and that they just have to wait until they discover the right dependence-causing pill combination from Big Pharma and then all will be fine. Well, I know family members who have been playing that game for over forty years now, and they have been cycled through long periods of despair and hope as they are given one dependence-causing med after another to see "what works for them." In between each drug trial, they are unconscionably forced to go cold turkey for the benefit of the doctor, who prioritizes limiting variables over the "patient's" peace of mind. As much as we love to demonize them, a drug dealer would never insist on such an inhumane protocol.
I write therefore on behalf of the sufferers of the future -- in an effort to make America rethink its unprecedented wholesale demonization of psychoactive substances.
Of course, there are many reasons to re-legalize psychoactive medicine. By so doing, we would end the violence of turf wars and the militarization of police forces around the world. We would restore our basic rights which Americans have renounced in favor of fighting the politically created scapegoat called "drugs." We would get rid of our penal colonies for minorities. We would begin to atone for the fact that we have killed half a million Americans since 1971 in our paleolithic War on Drugs1. I focus on the rights of the depressed, however, partly because I have skin in this game and partly because no on else seems to be aware of the obvious way that drug prohibition keeps the depressed from enjoying life. I myself have been deprived of godsend medicines for a lifetime and so deprived of my most basic of rights: to take care of my own health. This is a crucial criticism of the Drug War that someone must finally make, but Americans have been bamboozled on this topic by the propaganda of Drug Warriors and Big Pharma 23 alike. Companies like Astra-Zeneca and Eli Lilly sponsor ads for "depression awareness," in an effort to have us all "take our meds," and these ads have worked4. Americans like to boast that they are on the same page as the pharmaceutical companies when it comes to their need to take dependence-causing meds on a daily basis.
And yet the depressed could be cheered up in a trice -- if we merely began using drugs for the benefit of humanity. And this could be done without addicting the user -- bearing in mind that even dependence is preferable to having that user commit suicide. As Carl Hart reminds us, the majority of drug users use wisely, this despite the fact that our government is doing everything it can to ensure that use is problematic, by refusing to teach safe use, refusing to regulate drugs as to quantity and quality, and refusing to provide would-be users with true choice. All risky activities have victims, however, from horseback riding to mountain climbing to alcohol drinking. Only when it comes to the hypocritically defined category of "drugs" do we insist that the concerns about one demographic -- namely white suburban young people -- must be prioritized over the healthcare needs of everybody else in the world. This is an imperialist and racist evil. It is a crime against humanity5 to deny peace of mind to the depressed -- especially when we do so merely because we refuse to educate young people about drugs, under the bizarre anti-democratic philosophy that ignorance is the best policy.
My uncle underwent brain-damaging shock therapy thanks to these Drug Warrior clowns. The doctors told the family that it was performed as a "last resort," but this was a lie. Shock therapy is never performed as a "last resort" in the age of drug prohibition, it is performed because we have outlawed all common-sense treatments for human sadness.
The world is full of substances that inspire and elate. Consider the following user reports from the book Pihkal by Alexander Shulgin6.
"More than tranquil, I was completely at peace, in a beautiful, benign, and placid place."
"A glimpse of what true heaven is supposed to feel like."
"This is total energy, and I am aware of my every membrane. This has been a marvelous experience, very beautiful, joyous, and sensuous."
Just imagine how frustrating it is to deal with a sorrowing loved one, knowing that America would rather demonize substances that produce such results rather than to learn how to use them as wisely as possible for the benefit of humanity.
We might as well fight for justice for Christopher Reeves: he was killed because someone was peddling that junk that we call horses. The question is: who sold Christopher that horse?! Who encouraged him to ride it?!
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.
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.
The best step we could take in harm reduction is re-legalizing everything and starting to teach safe use. Spend the DEA's billions on "go" teams that would descend on locations where drugs are being used stupidly -- not to arrest, but to educate.
The Drug War is a crime against humanity.
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.
They drive to their drug tests in pickup trucks with license plates that read "Don't tread on me." Yeah, right. "Don't tread on me: Just tell me how and how much I'm allowed to think and feel in this life. And please let me know what plants I can access."
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.
Wade Davis writes that cocaine was outlawed because 400 people consumed toxic doses worldwide. What about the 49,000 that commit suicide every year because we have outlawed drugs that could cheer them up!!!
A Pennsylvanian politician now wants the US Army to "fight fentanyl." The guy is anthropomorphizing a damn drug! No wonder pols don't want to spend money on education, because any educated country would laugh a superstitious guy like that right out of public office.
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