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One of these things is not like the other
One of these things is not like the other
Court Cam nonsense in the age of the drug war
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
October 22, 2022
The whole trial is out of order!
-Al Pacino in "And Justice for All"
One of my guilty pleasures is watching episodes of Court Cam to see what serial killers are up to these days in the courtrooms of America. The show reminds me that there are plenty of folks out there who could use a healthy dose of MDMA 1 combined with talk therapy to teach them how to love their fellow human beings, not just so that they could behave themselves in court but so that they could refrain from beheading their friends and loved ones in the first place. That's really not too much to ask, after all. And of course there is the occasional bailiff or judge who could benefit from the same no-brainer treatment as well, so that they too could comport themselves like actual Americans rather than as petty unchecked tyrants from South America. That said, I always fast-forward through the scenes in which the criminal protagonist has been charged with so-called "possession." Watching those segments makes me feel like a real voyeur, indeed, because the arrestee is appearing on charges that are more criminal than the "offense" itself. Little wonder then that the accused might "lose it" in the courtroom when the entire legal system has "lost it" with respect to common sense, not to mention the natural law upon which the republic was founded.
But there is always a silver lining. The mere presence of such "criminals" on Court Cam has inspired me with a new sketch for "Sesame Street," which I hope the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will consider running until such time as substance prohibition is consigned to the trash bin of history.
One of these things is not like the other, One of these things just doesn't belong, Can you tell which thing is not like the other By the time I finish this song?
Beheading one's mother and throwing her body in the Tennessee River
Killing a 4-year-old child and then mutilating her corpse
Possessing a plant medicine that was considered divine by the Incas
The Partnership for a Death Free America is launching a campaign to celebrate the 50th year of Richard Nixon's War on Drugs. We need to give credit where credit's due for the mass arrest of minorities, the inner city gun violence and the civil wars that it's generated overseas.
The "acceptable risk" for psychoactive drugs can only be decided by the user, based on what they prioritize in life. Science just assumes that all users should want to live forever, self-fulfilled or not.
If I want to use the kind of drugs that have inspired entire religions, fight depression, or follow up on the research of William James into altered states, I should not have to live in fear of the DEA crashing down my door and shouting: "GO! GO! GO!"
No wonder conservatives are terrified of drugs. It is not safety that worries them, else they would demand education. They are terrified of new ways of seeing life. The outlawing of drugs is the outlawing of whole mindsets. It is a meta injustice.
Freud found that cocaine CURED most people's depression and he "got off it" without trouble.
This hysterical reaction to rare negative events actually creates more rare negative events. This is why the DEA publicizes "drug problems," because by making them well known, they make the problems more prevalent and can thereby justify their huge budget.
Besides, why should I listen to the views of a microbe?
I passed a sign that says "Trust Trump." What does that mean? Trust him to crack down on his opposition using the U.S. Army? Or trust him not to do all the anti-American things that he's saying he's going to do.
Any self-respecting mycologist should denounce the criminalization of mushrooms.
Properly speaking, MDMA has killed no one at all. Prohibitionists were delighted when Leah Betts died because they were sure it was BECAUSE of MDMA/Ecstasy. Whereas it was because of the fact that prohibitionists refuse to teach safe use.
Unless otherwise indicated, no AI is used in the creation of site content. These essays represent the original ideas of their author and not the ideas that the author SHOULD have based on an algorithmic parsing of existing data. For more on this subject, consider the AI-related viewpoints to which the author subscribes as delineated in the New York Times opinion piece entitled "What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity" by Rebecca Winthrop of the Brookings Institution.
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