How the Drug War Makes Americans Stupid
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
March 20, 2022
he Drug War makes otherwise great thinkers stupid because they take the idea of substance prohibition as a natural baseline when they write about subjects ranging from religion to euthanasia, from war to suicide.
Take suicide, for example. That topic cannot be meaningfully discussed without at least acknowledging that America has knowingly outlawed the use of naturally occurring substances which can make life feel worth living.
So just as there are two very different ways to talk about American economics -- one that takes into account the role of China and one that does not -- there are two very different ways to talk about a subject like suicide -- one that takes into account the Drug War and one that does not.
Coca leaf could almost single-handedly end depression in America, but the know-nothing Drug Warrior conflates it with the alkaloid cocaine, which is a different drug altogether. (Even cocaine could be used safely if we educated folks rather than terrifying them about psychoactive meds.) MDMA could make psychotherapy actually work!
Sadly, this is too great a truth for America to understand. I pray that the world will survive long enough for human beings to wrap their minds around the fact that the Drug War warps our ability to deal with and understand almost every button-pushing issue under the sun.
But the ideology of substance demonization has convinced the vast majority of smart and dumb alike that banned substances cannot be used for good reasons. That's a lie, of course, but also a self-fulfilling prophecy. We only look at the bad and analyze the bad and promote the bad -- and so we reap no benefits. But that's what the Drug War is all about: demonization and criminalization over education and a search for safe and psychosocially beneficial uses -- of the plant medicines that we have outlawed in violation of the natural law upon which Thomas Jefferson founded America (the same Jefferson whose estate at Monticello was raided by the feds in 1987 during Reagan's unchallenged daylight coup against natural law).
Extra Credit
September 22, 2022
Browse through the titles of the non-fiction books you own and count how many authors have reckoned without the Drug War. Examples: a book about the problem of war and violence that fails to mention that America has outlawed all the medicines (like MDMA, the coca leaf and psilocybin) that could convince folks to actually care about their neighbors; or a book about depression that fails to mention that we've outlawed all the medical godsends that could actually eliminate sadness without rendering millions chemically dependent on big pharma meds; or a book about optimism that fails to mention how the use and anticipation of use of godsend meds can cheer folks up.
For American authors are in denial: they pretend that the Drug War does not exist. So, like the wolf of fable who couldn't reach the sour grapes, we diss what we are not allowed to access, pretending that it's not important in life. Guess it's just too hard for Americans to admit that they live in an age of censorship, in which the government is free to tell us what plant medicines we can use.
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The front page of every mycology club page should feature a protest of drug laws that make the study of mycology illegal in the case of certain shrooms. But no one protests. Their silence makes them drug war collaborators because it serves to normalize prohibition.
Addiction was not a big thing until the drug war. It's now the boogie-man with which drug warriors scare us into giving up our freedoms. But getting obsessed on one single drug is natural in the age of choice-limiting prohibition.
Timothy Leary's wife wrote: "We went to Puerto Rico and all we did was take cocaine and read Faust to one another." And there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with that!!! The drug war is all about scaring us and making illegal drug use as dangerous as possible.
AI is inherently plagiaristic technology. It tells us: "Hey, guys, look what I can do!" -- when it should really be saying, "Hey, guys, look how I stole all your data and repackaged it in such a way as to make it appear that I am the genius, not you!"
Scientists cannot tell us if psychoactive drugs are worth the risk any more than they can tell us if free climbing is worth the risk, or horseback riding or target practice or parkour.
So much harm could be reduced by shunting people off onto safer alternative drugs -- but they're all outlawed! Reducing harm should ultimately mean ending this prohibition that denies us endless godsends, like the phenethylamines of Alexander Shulgin.
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.
The Drug War is the legally enforced triumph of human idiocy. We have rigged the deck so that our dunces can be right. The Drug War is a superstition. Indeed, it is THE modern superstition.
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.
Some fat cat should treat the entire Supreme Court to a vacation at San Jose del Pacifico in Mexico, where they can partake of the magic mushroom in a ceremony led by a Zapotec guide.
More Tweets
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, How the Drug War Makes Americans Stupid published on March 20, 2022 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
