How organizations like Mad in America normalize drug prohibition

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How organizations like Mad in America normalize drug prohibition

An open Letter to Robert Whitaker

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

April 27, 2026

Any regular reader of this site -- all two of them, in fact -- will know that I am constantly complaining about the failure of movers-and-shakers in the mainstream world to engage with the endless philosophical issues that I raise in my essays. But I have recently discovered that there are at least two things worse than being ghosted on this subject, and that is being told, 1, that one has no standing on these issues, that board-certified healthcare professionals and academics are the real experts, and 2, that one is not raising particularly compelling arguments in the first place.

This is the reception that my article ¹ about assisted suicide for the depressed met with at Mad In America ², a website and organization devoted to helping the depressed to push back against the psychiatric pill mill. They (i.e., Robert Whitaker and staff) claim that I am not an objective source. Apparently Claire Brosseau ³ must die because I do not sound objective when I point out that there are drugs that could make her want to live. It's like I have just run into the fire brigade and warned them of a fire down the street and been ignored because I was shouting and therefore not viewing the world rationally. Sometimes there are reasons to shout; sometimes there is no time to wait for a disinterested party to view the situation godlike from some ivory tower or other.

Besides, I wasn't shouting in said article, though I was certainly writing passionately, partly because I care about the Claire Brosseaus of the world, and partly because, if state-assisted suicide is right for Claire, then it's right for myself as well, since we are both chronic depressives for which the "miracle" drugs of Big Pharma did not work. When psychiatrists and pundits sign off on Claire's right to assisted suicide, they are essentially inviting me to "end it all" as well. But unlike Claire, I am not so willing to normalize drug prohibition that I will go to my grave rather than hold it accountable for its role in depressing me in the first place. I will hold drug prohibition responsible for the evils that it causes, even if no one else will.

But I should not be surprised that Robert Whitaker would not immediately grasp the relevance of drug prohibition to the debate over assisted suicide for the depressed. He does not even recognize the relevance of drug prohibition to his own organization. Mad in America is all about the shortcomings of the psychiatric pill mill, and yet the pill mill owes its very existence to drug prohibition, which gave a monopoly to Big Pharma on the creation and sale of mind and mood medicine. If Robert's goal is to get people off of Big Pharma meds, his organization should be all about ending drug prohibition in the name of healthcare freedom. Instead, he seems to consider drug prohibition as a niche issue, meriting, perhaps, an occasional post by a cautious and well-respected academic suggesting that we should maybe no longer arrest people for sourcing drugs from a non-doctor but rather send them to re-education camps where they can learn the error of their ways. And so, like the organizer of almost every other social justice organization in the country, Robert refuses to hold drug prohibition publicly responsible for the evil that it causes.

This is how Robert -- like almost everybody else in the social justice movement -- helps to normalize drug prohibition. Their silence on the topic leaves the impression that there are no downsides to drug prohibition, from which it follows in the public mind that there need not be any particular hurry to end it.

Key Takeaways:

The psychiatric pill mill would not exist but for drug prohibition.
Mad in America refuses to hold drug prohibition responsible for the problems that it causes.
Any organization that really had the interests of the depressed at heart would be fighting first and foremost for our right to use Mother Nature's medicines. Everything else is a side show.

Notes for essay entitled How organizations like Mad in America normalize drug prohibition: An open Letter to Robert Whitaker:

1: Why the Mad in America website is dead wrong about assisted suicide for the depressed DWP (up)
2: “Mad in America - Science, Psychiatry and Social Justice.” 2016. Mad in America. October 2, 2016. https://www.madinamerica.com/. (up)
3: No one would need assisted suicide if we ended drug prohibition: what Claire Brosseau's case tells us about the warped mindset of the west when it comes to drugs DWP (up)

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against the hateful war on US

Health is not a quality, it's a balance. To decide drug legality based on 'health' grounds thus opens a Pandora's box of different points of view.

Drug prohibition is superstitious idiocy. It is based on the following crazy idea: that a substance that can be misused by a white young person at one dose for one reason must not be used by anybody at any dose for any reason.

I don't have a problem with CBD. But I find that many people like it for the wrong reasons: they assume there is something slightly "dirty" about getting high and that all "cures" should be effected via direct materialist causes, not holistically a la time-honored tribal use.

Drug prohibition is the biggest tyranny imaginable. It is the government control of pain relief. It is government telling us how and how much we are allowed to think and feel in this life.

Saying "Fentanyl kills" is philosophically equivalent to saying "Fire bad!" Both statements are attempts to make us fear dangerous substances rather than to learn how to use them as safely as possible for human benefit.

In the 2015 movie "No Escape," the only place that was safe from anti-American hysteria was an opium den. How ironic that the U.S. forced Iran to outlaw opium.

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!"

The government causes problems for those who are habituated to certain drugs. Then they claim that these problems are symptoms of an illness. Then folks like Gabriel Mate come forth to find the "hidden pain" in "addicts." It's one big morality play created by drug laws.

"They have called thee Soma-lover: here is the pressed juice. Drink thereof for rapture." -Rig Veda (There would be no Hindu religion today had the drug war been in effect in the Punjab 3,500 years ago.)

I'd like to become a guinea pig for researchers to test the ability of psychoactive drugs to make aging as psychologically healthy as possible. If such drugs cannot completely ward off decrepitude, they can surely make it more palatable. The catch? Researchers have to be free.

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How organizations like Mad in America normalize drug prohibition

An open Letter to Robert Whitaker

Key Takeaways:

Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US

Break the ice with a sledgehammer: place this book on your coffee table.

Diary of a Drug Fiend