How Google censors pushback against drug prohibition
What happens when a profit-driven monopoly controls the public narrative on controversial social issues
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
April 30, 2026
I have been consoling myself lately over my online invisibility by thinking of my essays as so many manuscripts in a bottle, so many instalments in a diary written initially for myself, but with the hope that it might someday inspire others. This perspective not only helps me to cope with my online ostracization, but it helps me to live like a saint as well, insofar as the transcendent viewpoint has historically counseled human beings to speak truth without expectation of either gain or praise, but rather merely because it was the truth. Of course, I have never fully lived up to that lofty goal. I often get the feeling of "why bother" when I see zero statistical progress in my attempts at online proselytization. I have to keep reminding myself that I am writing a sort of diary and that I can only have faith that it will someday make a difference to somebody but myself. "Yeah, that's it," I tell myself, mentally mimicking the whining voice of Rico, the petty hoodlum played by Edgar G. Robinson in his 1931 breakthrough hit called Little Caesar. "It's a diary, see? Yeeeeah."
That is a noble attempt at stoicism on my part, and yet I am only human. When I looked at my Google stats three days ago and found that there were none -- actually zero -- hits -- indeed, zero pages indexed for my site... well, let's just say that I found my philosophical attitude truly put to the test. My site has been around for eight years, after all, and it now seems that it has disappeared entirely from Google. The good news is: I quickly submitted a new sitemap in response to this so-far unexplained catastrophe. The bad news is that Google has already processed 47 of those 800 essays on that sitemap, apparently determining that they are not even worth listing. It seems, upon investigation, that Google favors "consensus" content written by acknowledged "experts" in their field and dislikes controversy, especially on the subject of drugs. To make matters worse, Google's algorithm writers, like most Americans, do not know the difference between philosophical arguments and rants.
I was suddenly getting a much better idea of the true size of the Goliath I was battling. Google algorithms dislike everything I am trying to do: they don't like philosophy, except when it comes from published professors; they don't like views about drugs, except when they come from politically correct academics; and they don't like new ideas and approaches, for the simple reason that, by definition, such ideas are not popular with -- or even known by -- the general public. The system, in short, was rigged to favor the drug prohibitionist mindset and to silence new ideas that do not come from board-certified "experts." And so my essays are really being treated as simple diaries, in good earnest, and I am forced to either accept that humbling reality with good grace or to despair. It is not just movers-and-shakers who deny me any standing in the drugs debate, the very infrastructure of the Web is against me. It is not just my imagination, I truly am being marginalized.
When I queried AI about this biased status quo, I got a lecture on the free-market system. I was told that Google was a private business, thank me very much, and that they can set whatever rules they please. So there!
And so we see the problem with the Google monopoly. Because they have a lion's share of the search market, they can control the dialogue in America and censor at will, with absolutely zero accountability.
This is yet another reason why the drug demonization ideology is evil: it has changed the ground rules about what one is even allowed to say in America. Drug prohibition is the philosophical problem par excellence of our times, and yet I am almost alone in holding it responsible for the problems that it causes. Then again, I would scarcely know if others share my views, since the pages of those who do so are also subject to non-indexing on Google.
AFTERWORD
Yet hope springs eternal. There are still over 700 essays of mine out there that Google has so far neither rejected nor accepted for indexing. Who knows? Maybe they will ultimately deign to bring at least some of them to the attention of the public. (Gee, wouldn't that be swell?!) Nor am I really completely alone in any case. (Gosh, no.) My ideas do seem to have resonated somewhat with a group of free thinkers on the Discord platform. (Fortunately, they found me before I had disappeared from the Web.) Suppose I tried to leverage that ideological sympathy for mutual benefit? Suppose I read what they were saying and responded? Suppose I... "Yeah, that's it: I'll visit the Discord website, see? Yeeeeah."
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against the hateful war on US
There are plenty of "prima facie" reasons for believing that we could eliminate most problems with drug and alcohol withdrawal by chemically aided sleep cures combined with using "drugs" to fight "drugs." But drug warriors don't want a fix, they WANT drug use to be a problem.
I might as well say that no one can ever be taught to ride a horse safely. I would argue as follows: "Look at Christopher Reeves. He was a responsible and knowledgeable equestrian. But he couldn't handle horses. The fact is, NO ONE can handle horses!"
Americans are starting to think that psychedelics may be an exception to the rule that drugs are evil -- but drugs have never been evil. The evil resides in how we think, talk and legislate about drugs.
Many psychedelic fans are still drug warriors at heart. They just think that a nice big exception should be carved out for the drugs that they're suddenly finding useful.
"Chemical means of peering into the contents of the inner mind have been universally prized as divine exordia in man’s quest for the beyond... before the coarseness of utilitarian minds reduced them to the status of 'dope'." -- Eric Hendrickson
Cocaine is not evil. Opium is not evil. Drug prohibition is evil.
This is why it's wrong to dismiss drugs as "good" or "bad." There are endless potential positive uses to psychoactive drugs. That's all that we should ask of them.
Opium and cocaine have a vast host of potential rational uses -- yet we all have to pretend otherwise in the age of the Drug War.
Anyone who has read Pihkal by Alexander Shulgin knows that the drug warriors have it exactly backwards. Drugs are our friends. We need to find safe ways to use them to improve ourselves psychologically, spiritually and mentally.
Drug Warriors should be legally banned from watching or reading Sherlock Holmes stories, since in their world, it is a crime for such people as Sherlock Holmes to exist, i.e., people who use medicines to improve their mind and mood.
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