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.
This is the problem with algorithms: they're only as good as the assumptions upon which they are based. And what are the assumptions that Google makes about psychoactive drug use? They assume that medical professionals are the experts, the same "pros" that do not see any valuable in medicines that past cultures considered to be panaceas, that do not see any benefit in laughing gas for the depressed, and that do not see any problem in turning the depressed into wards of the healthcare state by keeping them on dependence-causing meds, while yet failing to protest the drug prohibition that outlaws everything else!
By the way, the argument that Google is a private company rings hollow when they control the narrative by having the lion's share of search traffic. As such, they have tremendous control about what views get heard... which is why they should be broken up as the most obvious of monopolies, no matter how convenient they have made life for us. American democracy is dying in proportion as Big Data makes things easier and easier for us.
Key Takeaways:
Google favors consensus content.
Google algorithms favor prohibitionist mindset and bury new ideas.
Google keeps non-consensus views non-indexed, silenced, with absolutely no right of appeal.
Algorithms are only as good as the assumptions upon which they are based.
Google search algorithms are based on the idea that scientists are the experts on psychoactive medicine, the same scientists who do not see how laughing gas could help the depressed and who deny the power of time-honored panaceas.
All drugs have positive uses. It's absurd to prohibit them because one demographic might misuse them.
ECT is like euthanasia. Neither make sense in the age of prohibition.
The Drug Warriors say: "Don't tread on me! (That said, please continue to tell me what plants I can use, how much pain relief I can get, and whether my religion is true or not.)"
The drug war outlaws everything that could help both prevent addiction and treat it. And then they justify the war on drugs by scaring people with the specter of addiction. They NEED addiction to keep the drug war going.
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."
In his treatise on laws, Cicero reported that the psychedelic-fueled Eleusinian Mysteries gave the participants "not only the art of living agreeably, but of dying with a better hope."
Self-medication is not a dirty word. It has always been a fundamental right to take care of one's own health -- until the medical establishment demonized the practice for obvious financial reasons.
Properly speaking, MDMA has killed no one at all. Prohibitionists were delighted when Leah Betts died because they were sure it was BECAUSE of MDMA/Ecstasy. Whereas it was because of the fact that prohibitionists refuse to teach safe use.
All of our problems with opioids and opiates could have been avoided had the busybody Chicken Littles in America left well enough alone and let folks continue to smoke regulated opium peaceably in their own homes.
And we should not insist it's a problem if someone decides to use opium, for instance, daily. We certainly don't blame "patients" for using antidepressants daily. And getting off opium is easier than getting off many antidepressants -- see Julia Holland.
(up)