Imagine
open letter to the 99.9% of Americans who have been completely bamboozled by anti-drug propaganda
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
March 11, 2026
Imagine if you lived in a world in which drug prohibition had given the psychiatric field a monopoly on prescribing mind and mood medicine. Imagine that the psychiatric field had used that monopoly to turn you into a ward of the healthcare state by putting you on medicines that could never be kicked, ever. Imagine that when you complained about this, you were ignored, not only by the healthcare industry but by every mainstream newspaper and magazine in the country. Imagine further that when you wrote to the movers and shakers on this subject, you were also completely ignored and that no one wanted your complaints to even be discussed. Imagine that after 40 years on these dependence-causing drugs, you are still not trusted to use them safely and that you have to see a psychiatrist half or even 1/3rd your age every three months for the privilege of getting another expensive prescription for your under-performing and dependence-causing "med."
Now imagine that you start reading stories about depressed people like Claire Brosseau1 who are demanding their right to assisted suicide from the same state that refuses to allow them the drugs that could make them want to live.
This is the mad world in which financial interests combine with philosophically challenged science and drug propaganda and drug prohibition to turn Americans into children with respect to their own health.
Notes:
1: 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)
Ten Tweets
against the hateful war on US
Prohibitionists have nothing to say about all other dangerous activities: nothing about hunting, free climbing, hang-gliding, sword swallowing, free diving, skateboarding, sky-diving, chug-a-lug competitions, chain-smoking. Their "logic" is incoherent.
This is why America is creeping toward authoritarianism -- because of the prohibitionists' ability to get away with everything by blaming "drugs."
It's interesting that Jamaicans call the police 'Babylon,' given that Babylon denotes a society seeking materialist pleasures. Drug use is about transcending the material world and seeking spiritual states: states that the materialist derides as meaningless.
Clearly a millennia's worth of positive use of coca by the Peruvian Indians means nothing to the FDA. Proof must show up under a microscope.
If any master's candidates are looking for a thesis topic, consider the following: "The Drug War versus Religion: how the policy of substance prohibition outlaws the attainment of spiritual states described by William James in 'The Varieties of Religious Experience.'"
Just saw a People's magazine article with the headline: "JUSTICE FOR MATTHEW PERRY."
If there was true justice, their editorial staff would be in jail for promoting user ignorance and a contaminated drug supply.
It's the prohibition, stupid!!!
In a free future, newspapers will have philosophers on their staffs to ensure that said papers are not inciting consequence-riddled hysteria through a biased coverage of drug-related mishaps.
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.
That's how antidepressants came about: the idea that sadness was a simple problem that science could solve. Instead of being caused by a myriad of interrelated issues, we decided it was all brain chemistry that could be treated with precision. Result? Mass chemical dependency.
Drug prohibition is not a victimless crime.
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Copyright 2025, Brian Ballard Quass
Contact: quass@quass.com
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