How the Monticello Foundation betrayed Jefferson's Legacy in 1987
open letter to the 'Sites of Conscience' website
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
August 6, 2020
In 1987, the DEA stomped onto Monticello and confiscated Thomas Jefferson's poppy plants in violation of the Natural Law upon which that Founding Father helped establish America itself. This was at the same time that Ronald Reagan was outsourcing the drug testing of civilians to private companies to search for the slightest traces of the poppy plant and other godsend botanicals that beer-swilling and tobacco-smoking Drug Warriors disliked. The goal had nothing to do with public safety, since the search was not for inebriation but rather for the mere presence of naturally-occurring substances that racist politicians had outlawed.
Monticello Betrayed Thomas Jefferson By demonizing plant medicine, the Drug War overthrew the Natural Law upon which Jefferson founded America -- and brazenly confiscated the Founding Father's poppy plants in 1987, in a symbolic coup against Jeffersonian freedoms.
A Misguided Audio Tour of Monticello
Americans shrugged in 1987, while Jefferson rolled over in his grave. This page is a belated protest by one American, both of the raid itself and of the fact that the Monticello Foundation allowed it, that they failed to stand up for the legacy of the very man whom they purport to be honoring.
So much for the "hallowed ground" that the road signs near Monticello declare. Hallowed ground has been despoiled by a racist overthrow of Natural Law, by the Reagan administration's coup against Natural Law.
And the coup worked. Americans now meekly travel to the urinal, beaker in hand, under the watchful eye of the white-coated Igors of the Drug War Frankenstin, those Drug War collaborators known as lab technicians who make their living by helping to remove Christian Science heretics from the workforce. Like lambs to the slaughter, Americans go forth, humbled to the dust by the requirement to urinate for their betters, those trillionaire CEOs who, for all they know, are off in the Bahamas like Elon Musk flippantly experimenting with the very "drugs" that they are attempting to find in the bloodstream of their peons in order to keep them in their place and punish them on behalf of Drug War ideology... here in America, where one is judged, not by the color of their skin but by the contents of their digestive systems.
This page is my protest. What will your protest be?
How about writing to the Monticello Foundation and chastising them for trashing the garden-loving Jefferson's Legacy of Natural Law by allowing the government onto Monticello to confiscate... what? A MERE PLANT!!! For if Natural Law protects anything, it protects the citizen's rights to the plants and fungi that grow at their very feet!
If we don't fight back, then democracy will disappear as we continue to militarize the police force, as we continue to cause civil wars overseas, as we continue to empower a self-described Drug War Hitler in the Philippines, and as we continue to elect fascists in America, merely because we have disenfranchised millions of Americans with drug laws that were created for that very purpose.
SAMPLE PROTEST MESSAGE (the one the author posted in the Monticello Foundation's comment form on October 2, 2020)
For shame! The ghost of Thomas Jefferson was weeping when you guys let the DEA stomp onto Monticello in jackboots and confiscate his poppy plants. That was a coup against the natural law upon which Jefferson founded this country. The Drug War is a racially motivated Christian Science coup against Natural Law. You are no longer a "SITE OF CONSCIENCE" until you fight back on behalf of Jefferson's confiscated poppies!
NOTE: In 1987, the Monticello Foundation invited the DEA onto Jefferson's estate so that they could confiscate the ex-president's psychoactive poppy plants. This was a silent coup against the whole notion of Jeffersonian democracy, according to which human beings have basic freedoms that government cannot usurp on the basis of common law. If any body ever "turned over in its grave" it was the body of Thomas Jefferson in 1987 when his garden was invaded by jackbooted DEA agents, making a beeline for his poppy plants. Yet this shameful event is not even mentioned on the Monticello Foundation's website.
To belatedly protest this situation, the author sent the following e-mail to a non-profit coalition that currently lists Monticello as a "Site of Conscience," a place where visitors are invited to "make connections between the past and related contemporary human rights issues." He pointed out that Monticello is no longer worthy of the label "Site of Conscience" since it has violated the principles that it is meant to be safeguarding and then covered up that violation by failing to even mention it on their Monticello-related websites.
Dear Sir or Madam:
If Thomas Jefferson's life had any significance, it was because he championed a government under which individuals had certain rights that government could not take away. Yet, in 1987, America's DEA stomped onto Monticello and confiscated Thomas Jefferson's poppy plants -- and the Monticello Foundation said nothing about it. To this very day, they completely ignore that outrage on their website.
And yet Monticello is a SITE OF CONSCIENCE???
The Drug War outlaws the scientific investigation of hundreds (if not thousands) of plants and arrests people for merely touching plants of which politicians disapprove. This is a clear violation of Natural Law, or what Cicero called "what is right according to nature." For how can it be right "according to nature" that we cannot access the plants and fungi of nature that grow at our very feet? This is a twofold violation of natural law: first, it takes away our property rights as defined by John Locke, and second it actually forbids the advancement of science, which Thomas Jefferson so vehemently promoted, being Isaac Newton's number-one fan.
What irony that the organization charged with safeguarding Jefferson's legacy should "sell out" the man that they are supposed to be honoring by allowing the DEA onto Monticello to steal Jefferson's poppies in violation of natural law, natural right, and common sense. What a disgrace that the same organization would then rewrite history so that no one even READS about the action in question. For there is no mention of this "sell-out" on the Monticello Foundation's website. They've erased the 1987 incident from American history.
The psychoactive poppy plant has been used responsibly by non-Western cultures for millennia. But in the 1980s, the Reagan-Bush Drug War was in full bloom, and the Monticello Foundation silently yielded to the immense pressure to have Jefferson's poppy plants removed from the ex-president's estate. This was a silent coup against the principles on which America was founded. Please remind the Monticello Foundation of this fact and require them to acknowledge their 1987 actions, both on their website and at Monticello itself, as a condition of their continued listing as a "site of conscience."
You say that a Site of Conscience is "a place of memory." Why then would you support a site like Monticello whose guardians have rewritten history in order to make us forget - to forget how the foundation itself "sold out" the principles of the very man that they are supposed to be honoring?
EDITOR'S NOTE: NOVEMBER 29, '21:
The author sent a lengthy letter via snail mail to Monticello over a year ago with the hope of getting them to acknowledge their mistake in signing off on the DEA raid in 1987. For that raid was nothing less than a coup by the Reagan administration against the Natural Law upon which Jefferson himself founded America. No government has a natural right to decide which plant medicines may be grown and used by human beings. John Locke said that in his second treatise on government when referring to a citizen's natural right to the use of the earth "and all that lies therein." Needless to say that the Foundation never bothered to reply.
The next time you visit Monticello, be sure to ask your tour guide about this 1987 coup against Natural Law -- that's right, make them squirm -- and ask them why the Monticello Foundation allowed the DEA onto hallowed ground to enforce a law that violated everything that Jefferson stood for. It pains me to drive by road signs near Monticello that read "hallowed ground," when I know that the Monticello Foundation willfully allowed the desecration of that land by DEA thugs who are in the business of telling Americans which plant medicines they can use. How? By lying about plant medicine and creating a violence-causing prohibition which has resulted in the greatest drug-caused dystopia in human history: the fact that 1 in 4 American women are dependent for life on Big Pharma meds -- to which, of course, America is blind, since said dystopia helps make the top 3% incredibly wealthy.
Oh, What a Horrible Morning
There's a grim-looking narc on the meadow
There's a grim-looking narc on the meadow,
His gun is raised high as an elephant's jaw
And it looks like he's aiming at natural law...
Oh, what a horrible morning,
Oh, what a horrible day
When Monticello was raided
By the corrupt DEA
Now the agents are storming in jackboots
Now the agents are storming in jackboots
They've stolen the poppies with help from the staff
Which the papers report in a subparagraph
Oh, what a horrible morning,
Oh, what a horrible day
When Monticello was raided
By the corrupt DEA
Since that day, no one's said much about it
Since that day, no one's said much about it
But the bodies of Jefferson as well as Locke
Continue to spin in residual shock
Oh, what a horrible morning,
Oh, what a horrible day
When Monticello was raided
By the corrupt DEA
Lyrics notes: Natural Law, according to John Locke and Thomas Jefferson, tells us that no government can rightfully deprive its citizens of certain inalienable rights, among which are the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. John Locke was Jefferson's go-to man when it came to Natural Law, and Locke himself tells us in his 2nd Treatise on Government that Natural Law also gives us the right to "the use of the land and all that lies therein." This is why the garden-loving Jefferson and Locke were both rolling in their graves when Reagan's DEA stormed onto Monticello in 1987 and confiscated the founding father's poppy plants -- for no government has a legitimate right to deprive humanity of the freely given bounty of Mother Nature.
Sadly, almost every opponent of the Drug War argues from a defensive position, trying to prove that the world will be a safe place if plants indeed are legal. This misses the point entirely. No one has the right to criminalize plants in the first place. That's the original sin of the Drug War, to criminalize the unbidden bounty of Mother Nature. We need to restore the very basis of our republic, which is the natural law argument that gives us life, liberty, the freedom to pursue happiness... and yes, the right to the plant medicine that grows unbidden all around us.
It took many hundreds of years for these self-evident freedoms to be effectively asserted against tyrant kings and now America has been persuaded by racist politicians to throw it all away to fight the boogieman called "drugs."
The lyrics call the DEA "corrupt" advisedly, for they have been lying about and demonizing psychoactive medicine ever since their founding in 1973, thanks to which they have deprived untold millions of godsend mental peace and mental improvement. In 1985, the DEA went against the advice of their own counsel and criminalized MDMA, and so for the last 38 years, America's soldiers (never mind the depressed and anxious) have had to do without godsend medicine for PTSD. The DEA also did everything they could to persecute the UDV church for its ritual use of ayahuasca and their anti-church operation was only relaxed after the Supreme Court told them (9-0) to knock it off. In other words, the DEA is out to keep its jobs at any cost, not to help or protect Americans.
Still not convinced that the DEA is corrupt? In the '80s, they laced marijuana plants with Paraquat, a highly toxic weed killer that has since been found to cause Parkinson's Disease. (And you thought only Vladimir Putin poisoned his political opponents.) The weed-friendly Robin Williams had Parkinson's disease, but Drug Warriors are never going to connect THOSE dots.
The Links Police
Do you know why I stopped you? That's right, because the Drug War gives me the right to be a noxious busybody. That said, you struck me as the sort who might be interested in these additional essays concerning Thomas Jefferson and the outlawing of plants, which would have driven that garden-loving president nuts, I assure you:
Check out the conversations that I have had so far with the movers and shakers in the drug-war game -- or rather that I have TRIED to have. Actually, most of these people have failed to respond to my calls to parlay, but that need not stop you from reading MY side of these would-be chats.
I used to be surprised at this reticence on the part of modern drug-war pundits, until I realized that most of them are materialists. That is, most of them believe in (or claim to believe in) the psychiatric pill mill. If they happen to praise psychedelic drugs as a godsend for the depressed, they will yet tell us that such substances are only for those whose finicky body chemistries fail to respond appropriately to SSRIs and SNRIs. The fact is, however, there are thousands of medicines out there that can help with psychological issues -- and this is based on simple psychological common sense. But materialist scientists ignore common sense. That's why Dr. Robert Glatter wrote an article in Forbes magazine wondering if laughing gas could help the depressed.
As a lifelong depressive, I am embarrassed for Robert, that he has to even ask such a question. Of course laughing gas could help. Not only is laughter "the best medicine," as Readers Digest has told us for years, but looking forward to laughing is beneficial too. But materialist scientists ignore anecdote and history and tell us that THEY will be the judge of psychoactive medicines, thank you very much. And they will NOT judge such medicines by asking folks like myself if they work but rather by looking under a microscope to see if they work in the biochemical way that materialists expect.
In 1987, the jackbooted DEA stomped onto Thomas Jefferson's estate of Monticello and confiscated the founding father's poppy plants in violation of everything that he stood for politically speaking. And yet the Thomas Jefferson Foundation pretends to this day that the raid never took place. They give no explanation to their visitors as to why the Foundation sold out the man whom they were meant to be honoring. And so all their visitors get a sanitized version of history, designed to let Americans feel that everything's fine, that there is no drug war, and life goes on. What an absolute disgrace, this so-called Thomas Jefferson Foundation. They should remove all the signs in Albemarle County that read "Hallowed Ground" -- because those grounds have been dishonored by the Foundation itself. THEY SOLD OUT THOMAS JEFFERSON -- and are now so pusillanimous and cowardly that they will not even admit that the raid ever took place -- a raid to confiscate flowers, for god's sake.
I wrote a letter to the head of Guest Services at Monticello and he responded: "I'm sorry you do not think that we are doing enough to explain the DEA raid." I responded in turn: "But you are doing NOTHING to explain the raid! You are pretending it never happened!" I then asked the director of guest services to correct me if I was wrong -- and he had nothing further to say. What absolute schmucks! Jefferson is spinning right now in his thoroughly dishonored grave.
Google founders used to enthuse about the power of free speech, but Google is actively shutting down videos that tell us how to grow mushrooms -- MUSHROOMS, for God's sake. End the drug war and this hateful censorship of a free people.
At best, antidepressants make depression bearable. We need not settle for such drugs, especially when they are notorious for causing dependence. There are many drugs that elate and inspire. It is both cruel and criminal to outlaw them.
I looked up the company: it's all about the damn stock market and money. The FDA outlaws LSD until we remove all the euphoria and the visions. That's ideology, not science. Just relegalize drugs and stop telling me how much ecstasy and insight I can have in my life!!
The problem with blaming things on addiction genes is that it whitewashes the role of society and its laws. It's easy to imagine an enlightened country wherein drug availability, education and attitudes make addiction highly unlikely, addiction genes or no addiction genes.
If fearmongering drug warriors were right about the weakness of humankind, there would be no social drinkers, only drunkards.
Health is not a quality, it's a balance. To decide legality based on 'health' grounds thus opens a Pandora's box of different points of view.
Psychiatrists keep flipping the script. When it became clear that SSRIs caused dependence, instead of apologizing, they told us we need to keep taking our meds. Now they even claim that criticizing SSRIs is wrong. This is anti-intellectual madness.
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.
Immanuel Kant wrote that scientists are scornful about metaphysics yet they rely on it themselves without realizing it. This is a case in point, for the idea that euphoria and visions are unhelpful in life is a metaphysical viewpoint, not a scientific one.
The drug war is being used as a wrecking ball to destroy democratic freedoms. It has destroyed the 4th amendment and freedom of religion and given the police the right to confiscate the property of peaceful and productive citizens.
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 Monticello Foundation betrayed Jefferson's Legacy in 1987: open letter to the 'Sites of Conscience' website, published on August 6, 2020 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)
Do you know why I stopped you? That's right, because the Drug War gives me the right to be a noxious busybody. That said, you struck me as the sort who might be interested in these additional essays concerning Thomas Jefferson and the outlawing of plants, which would have driven that garden-loving president nuts, I assure you:
You have been reading an article entitled, How the Monticello Foundation betrayed Jefferson's Legacy in 1987: open letter to the 'Sites of Conscience' website, published on August 6, 2020 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)