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.
Drug Prohibition Downside #1,529:
aviation accidents caused by pilots who failed to use mind-sharpening drugs to improve their situational awareness. (See, for instance, Comair flight 5191)
There are definitely good scientists out there. Unfortunately, they are either limited by their materialist orthodoxy into showing only specific microscopic evidence or they abandon materialism for the nonce and talk the common psychological sense that we all understand.
People magazine should be fighting for justice on behalf of the thousands of American young people who are dying on the streets because of the drug war.
Outlawing drugs is outlawing obvious therapies for Alzheimer's and autism patients, therapies based on common sense and not on the passion-free behaviorism of modern scientists.
Thomas Szasz was not an extremist when it comes to drugs. The extremists are those who feel that psychiatrists know more about our mind and mood than we do.
Prohibition is a crime against humanity. It forces us to use shock therapy on the severely depressed since we've outlawed all viable alternatives. It denies medicines that could combat Alzheimer's and/or render it psychologically bearable.
Kids should be taught beginning in grade school that drug prohibition is wrong.
"Like Christians burning mosques and temples to spread the word of Jesus, modem drugabuseologists burn crops to spread the use of alcohol." -- Ceremonial Chemistry, p. 48
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 DEA is still saying that psilocybin has no medical uses and is addictive. They should be put on trial for crimes against humanity for using such lies to keep people from using the gifts of Mother Nature.
Unless otherwise indicated, no AI is used in the creation of site content. These essays represent the original ideas of their author and not the ideas that the author SHOULD have based on an algorithmic parsing of existing data. For more on this subject, consider the AI-related viewpoints to which the author subscribes as delineated in the New York Times opinion piece entitled "What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity" by Rebecca Winthrop of the Brookings Institution.
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."
(up)