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Nietzsche and the Drug War by the Drug War Philospher at AbolishTheDEA.com
Nietzsche and the Drug War
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
May 28, 2021
ietzsche brought the western world's attention to its unrecognized and unacknowledged reliance on Christian moral precepts. It's time now for someone to bring the western world's attention to the fact that the Drug War is premised on the exact same religious attitudes. More specifically, the Drug War is premised on the Christian Science precept that it is immoral to use "drugs." Why? According to Christian Science, it is wrong because Jesus is the answer.
Of course, the Drug Warriors cannot rely on that argument in a country that at least gives lip service to the freedom of religion. That's why the Drug War is all about the demonization of plant medicine, a demonization that is practiced by outright lies (like the highly mendacious "frying pan" ad, which claims that a substance fries the brain the moment it is criminalized by a politician) and the censorship of all history and biography that tends to illustrate the responsible use of substances that the Drug Warrior desires us to hate. Thus we suppress Poe's short stories which dare tell us of the perceptual and creative powers of morphine and opium. We hide the fact that Marcus Aurelius and Ben Franklin enjoyed opium. We never -- but never -- mention Freud's conviction that cocaine was a godsend for depression or the fact that HG Wells and Jules Verne both swore by the invigorating power of Coca Wine when writing their stories. And we're completely hush-hush when it comes to politically incorrect histories such as the psychedelic-fueled Eleusinian Mysteries, the Vedic religion's link to the worship of psychoactive plant(s) known as soma, and the widespread Mesoamerican use of mushrooms for religious enlightenment and ritual.
American philosophers have long since "grokked" the general principle that the west is founded and continues to act (subconsciously, as it were) according to Christian precepts... but they have yet to recognize that the Drug War is the prime example of that fact and that it therefore represents the establishment of a state religion, namely the state religion called Christian Science, albeit a hypocritical version that is applied exclusively to psychoactive medicines and makes exceptions for the Drug Warrior's own favorite drugs of alcohol and tobacco. That's why, when in a mischievous mood, I like to imagine a Drug War that cracks down exclusively on those two biggest killers in the drug world, depriving jobs to any American who has so much as sipped alcohol in the last month or who is found to have a crushed cigarette butt in their car. I envision THOSE "drug fiends" tossed into overcrowded jails and removed from the voting rolls, denied public housing, and forced to attend government re-education camps known as "12 step groups." Now that's a Drug War that I could support, if only to give America's Christian Science Drug Warriors a taste of their own violence-spawning and racist medicine.
Author's Follow-up: August 18, 2022
How powerful words can be. The whole Drug War depends on the use of the word "drugs," which is not a subjective or scientific term in the modern world, but rather a political one. To use the word "drugs" without realizing this fact (as almost every writer does today, including Michael Pollan) is like using the word "scabs" to describe workers who fail to take part in a strike. There's nothing objective about such writing. No matter what the conclusions of the author who uses the word "scab," they are making an argument against strike breaking merely by employing said term. In the exact same way, today's authors are advancing an argument in favor of Drug War ideology every time they uncritically use the word "drugs," even if they imagine they are doing otherwise.
Why? Because "drugs" as defined today means:
"Psychoactive medicine for which there is no positive or legitimate use whatsoever: not now, not ever, not here in the United States or in the remotest corners of the globe." Presumably this definition will be broadened to include other planets should life be found in outer space.
Of course, there is no such substance in the world. Even the deadly botox has valid uses. Moreover, valid uses will never be discovered if we determine, a priori, via fiat as it were, that they do not exist.
How do we account for such a palpably false and anti-nature premise? Easy. For Drug War ideology existed over half a century before Congress first criminalized plant medicine. But back then it was honestly acknowledged as the religion that it was, namely Christian Science.
And so the Drug War is a religion, given its faith-driven belief in a dangerous mother nature from which human beings must be protected -- a religion that runs riot over the rights of those of us who consider Mother Nature to be a loving provider rather than a drug kingpin.
It does not just deny me my religious freedom (the freedom to value and rely on Mother Nature), but it does everything it can to convert me to the hypocritically-defined sobriety of mainstream Christian churches. How? First, by arresting me for using plant medicine that has inspired entire religions; then by forcing me into treatment centers where I'm forced to acknowledge my own powerlessness along with my need for a thinly disguised Christian god known as a 'higher power.' The fact is, however, that to the extent that I really feel powerless, it is because the state has denied me access to godsend medicines that could help me feel otherwise.
How many 'good Christians' would feel powerless if we took away their alcohol, their coffee, their tobacco and their anti-depressants cocktails, which 1 in 8 of them take daily?
People
about whom and to whom I've written over the years...
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Why the Drug War is Worse than you can Imagine
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Open Letter to Roy Benaroch MD
Bloom, Josh
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Buchanan, Julian
Finally, a drug war opponent who checks all my boxes
Chalmers, David
David Chalmers and the Drug War
Chelmow MD, David
How the US Preventive Services Task Force Drums Up Business for Big Pharma
Chomsky, Noam
Chomsky is Right
Chomsky's Revenge
Noam Chomsky on Drugs
Cline, Ben
Open Letter to Congressman Ben Cline, asking him to abolish the criminal DEA
Close, Glenn
Glenn Close but no cigar
De Quincey, Thomas
The Therapeutic Value of Anticipation
Dick, Philip K.
Drug Laws as the Punishment of 'Pre-Crime'
Doblin, Rick
Constructive criticism of the MAPS strategy for re-legalizing MDMA
Is Rick Doblin Running with the Devil?
Why Rick Doblin is Ghosting Me
Ellsberg, Daniel
Drug Warriors Fiddle while Rome Gets Nuked
Floyd, George
The Racist Drug War killed George Floyd
Fort, Charles
The Book of the Damned
Fox, James Alan
The Invisible Mass Shootings
Friedman, Milton
How Milton Friedman Completely Misunderstood the War on Drugs
Fukuyama, Francis
Open Letter to Francis Fukuyama
Gibb, Andy
How The Drug War Killed Andy Gibb
Gimbel, Steven
Heroin versus Alcohol
Glaser, Gabrielle
Open Letter to Gabrielle Glaser
Glieberman, Owen
Open Letter to Variety Critic Owen Glieberman
Glover, Troy
Open letter to Professor Troy Glover at Waterloo University
Goswami, Amit
Alternative Medicine as a Drug War Creation
Gottlieb, Anthony
Open Letter to Anthony Gottlieb
Grandmaster Flash, musician
Grandmaster Flash: Drug War Collaborator
Griffiths, Roland
Depressed? Here's why you can't get the medicines that you need
Open Letter to Rick Doblin and Roland Griffiths
Gupta, Sujata
The Mother of all Western Biases
Hammersley, Richard
Open Letter to Richard Hammersley
Handwerk, Brian
How National Geographic slanders the Inca people and their use of coca
Harris, Kamala
Why I Support Kamala Harris
Harrison, Francis Burton
Screw You, Francis Burton Harrison
Hart, Carl
Open Letter to Dr. Carl L. Hart
What Carl Hart Missed
Harvey, Dennis
How Variety and its film critics support drug war fascism
Heidegger, Martin
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Hogshire, Jim
I've got a bone to pick with Jim Hogshire
Opium for the Masses by Jim Hogshire
What Jim Hogshire Got Wrong about Drugs
Hurley, Vincent
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Hutton, Ronald
Drug Dealers as Modern Witches
James, William
How the Drug War is Threatening Intellectual Freedom in England
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The Criminalization of Nitrous Oxide is No Laughing Matter
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Jefferson, Thomas
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Jefferson
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Jenkins, Philip
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Jenkins DA, Brooke
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Kant, Immanuel
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How the Drug War Outlaws Criticism of Immanuel Kant
Kastrup, Bernardo
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Kenny, Gino
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Kirsch, Irving
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Klang, Jessica
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Kotek, Tina
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Koterski, Jospeh
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Kurtz, Matthew M.
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Langlitz, Nicolas
Why the FDA is not qualified to judge psychoactive medicine
Lee, Spike
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Leshner, Alan I.
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Lewis, Edward
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Ling, Lisa
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Locke, John
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Margaritoff, Margo
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Marinacci, Mike
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Martinez, Liz
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Mate, Gabor
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Sherlock Holmes versus Gabor Maté
McAllister, Sean
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Mithoefer, MD, Michael
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Mohler, George
Predictive Policing in the Age of the Drug War
Morgan, Cory
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Naz, Arab
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Newcombe, Russell
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Noakes, Jesse
Americans have the right to pursue happiness but not to attain it
Nobis, Nathan
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Nutt, David
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O'Leary, Diane
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Obama, Barack
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Offenhartz, Jake
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Pearson, Snoop
Snoop Pearson's muddle-headed take on drugs
Perry, Matthew
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Matthew Perry and the Drug War Ghouls
Pinchbeck, Daniel
Review of When Plants Dream
Polk, Thad
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Pollan, Michael
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The Michael Pollan Fallacy
Rado, Vincent
Open Letter to Vincent Rado
Reuter , Peter
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Rovelli, Carlo
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Rudgeley, Richard
Richard Rudgley condemns 'drugs' with faint praise
Sabet, Kevin
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Sanders, Laura
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Schopenhauer, Arthur
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Schultes, Richard Evans
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Segall PhD, Matthew D.
Why Philosophers Need to Stop Dogmatically Ignoring Drugs
Sewell, Kenneth
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Shapiro, Arthur
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Smith, Wolfgang
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Unscientific American
Smyth, Bobby
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Sotillos, Samuel Bendeck
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Stea, Jonathan
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Strassman, Rick
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What Rick Strassman Got Wrong
Szasz, Thomas
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Tulfo, Ramon T.
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Urquhart, Steven
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Vance, Laurence
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Walker, Lynn
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Walsh, Bryan
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Wininger, Charley
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Zelfand, Erica
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Some Tweets against the hateful war on drugs
Was looking for natural sleeping aids online. Everyone ignores the fact that all the stuff that REALLY works has been outlawed! We live in a pretend world wherein the outlawed stuff no longer even exists in our minds! We are blind to our lost legacy regarding plant medicines!
It also bothers me that gun fanatics support the drug war. If I have no rights to mother nature, then they have no rights to guns. If the Fourth Amendment can be ignored based on lies and ignorance, then so can the Second.
If we cared about the elderly in 'homes', we would be bringing in shamanic empaths and curanderos from Latin America to help cheer them up and expand their mental abilities. We would also immediately decriminalize the many drugs that could help safely when used wisely.
I'm told that science is completely unbiased today. I guess I'll have to go back and reassess my doubts about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
According to Donald Trump's view of life, Jesus Christ was a chump. We should hate our enemies, not love them.
The Drug War treats doctors like potential criminals and it treats the rest of us like children. Prohibition does not end drug risks: it just outsources them to minorities and other vulnerable populations.
Being less than a month away from an election that, in my view, could end American democracy, I don't like to credit Musk for much. But I absolutely love it every time he does or says something that pushes back against the drug-war narrative.
There are endless creative ways to ward off addiction if all psychoactive medicines were at our disposal. The use of the drugs synthesized by Alexander Shulgin could combat the psychological downsides of withdrawal by providing strategic "as-needed" relief.
As such, "we" are important. The sun is just a chaos of particles that "we" have selected out of the rest of the raw data and declared "This we shall call the sun!" "We" make this universe. Consciousness is fundamental.
Ann Lemke's case studies make the usual assumptions: getting free from addiction is a morality tale. No reference to how the drug war promotes addiction and how banned drugs could solve such problems. She does not say why daily SSRI use is acceptable while daily opium use is not. Etc.
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, Nietzsche and the Drug War published on May 28, 2021 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)