Join Drug War Jack as he protests America's disgraceful war on drugs
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
December 20, 2025
Hi, gang! This is your old buddy Drug War Jack spinning the platters that make you want to end the hateful war on godsend medicine, even as the regime in Washington D.C. is planning to invade Venezuela under the pretext of fighting drugs. It's funny how drugs is the answer to everything for our modern oligarchs, am I right? But then it's no wonder, I suppose. It makes foreign policy easy for them. It gives them a pretext for invading the sovereign countries of their choice. And as far as domestic policy is concerned, they can ignore that entirely. Of course, the downsides of their neglect will soon become apparent -- but that is no problem for these oligarchs. They can then simply blame all such downsides on drugs themselves, and brainwashed puritanical Americans will be all too happy to believe them. It's easier than thinking, after all. Speaking of which, here's a big'un everybody's kinda diggin', it's a little thing from Danny and the Drug Testers. They call it, 'O Say Can You See'...
Did you know that the Drug War Philosopher is actually the lead singer for Danny and the Drug Warriors? Here's their first Billboard Top 1000 hit!
It's 9:00 A.M. Drug War Music Time, buddies! Looks like it's going to be sunny today with a high in the '70s for much of the globe. But DO check with your local sources for minor differences thanks to local geography! Meanwhile, it's your old pal Drug War Jack here, spinning the music with a message: namely, that we have to end the patently counterproductive policy of drug prohibition on account of it has destroyed inner cities around the globe and placed so many minorities in jail as to lead to the election of tyrants -- not to mention the fact that drug prohibition outlaws our right to take care of our own health as we see fit and has thus shunted the depressed off onto Big Pharma meds that are far harder to kick than heroin. And did I mention the fact that Americans are no longer safe in their own homes? You remember how clang-clang-clang goes the trolley? Well, guess what, buddies. CRASH-CRASH-CRASH goes the front door when the DEA decides that you've chosen to use the wrong medicines for psychological and spiritual healing. Here's Johnny and the Jackboots to tell us more. Talk to me, Johnny!
There's no place like home -- not after the drugs SWAT team gets through with it.
Ba-bing! That was Johnny and the Jackboots with 'No Place Like Home.' Oh, you best believe it, folks: there is no place like home, not after Drug Warriors get through trashing the joint. That's a truth that Reverend Accelyne Williams learned to his cost in 1994, as Richard Lawrence Miller describes in his 1996 classic "Drug Warriors and Their Prey":
"Rev. Accelyne Williams, a slender 75-year-old man, spent his final moments doubled over, vomiting, his hands bound behind his back with a tight strip of plastic, totally confused about what was happening to him. ... He had literally been scared to death by shouting, storming anti-drug troops. No drugs were found."1
Of course, the politically correct spin for that story was that so-called "no-knock" warrants were a bad idea. The reality, however, is that it was always a bad idea to give law enforcement carte blanche to wreck American homes in order to punish people for using the medicines of their choice -- especially those that have been considered divine by less childish nations than America. Whether or not the jackbooted thugs in question knock before wrecking the joint is irrelevant! Either way, they are going to give the grandparents inside a coronary and scar their kids psychologically for life -- while, of course, turning America into a police state.
Careful, buddies. I'm sure that our massively overfunded DEA is taking note of anyone who claps for that latter statement.
You know, it's strange, buddies. Americans claim to have hated the Nazi Gestapo -- and yet they approve of Gestapo tactics when they think that they will thereby be punishing minorities and the poor.
And let's remember what kind of knocking we're talking about here! The whole goal is to inspire dread! As in, BAM-BAM-BAM! They're not rapping apologetically on the door with a couple of fingertips and asking politely if they could come in. To the contrary, they are banging on the door with their glove-covered fists and shouting at the top of their lungs: POLICE!!! POLICE!!! It's right out of a translated Gestapo sequence on a History Channel documentary about World War II. That sudden LOUD knocking will be just as frightening to the inhabitants as the raid as a whole -- so who cares if they knock or not?
Sigh! Americans are rendered so childish thanks to their devotion to Drug War orthodoxy. They'll bend and twist logic into a pretzel in order to avoid the otherwise obvious conclusion that drug prohibition is evil in and of itself. And there's really no excuse, buddies, since they know full well that liquor prohibition created the American Mafia as we know it today. We can only conclude that they love the violence -- as long as it is not directed toward themselves.
[ding-ding-ding]
That's the Drug War Truth Bell, buddies. Time for another philosophical fact about drugs from everybody's favorite dry-as-dust, the man with the greatest single collection of tweed suits in Shenandoah County, Virginia, Professor Had-Enough himself. Take it away, you old Greybeard, you!
PROFESSOR: Ahem. Thank you very much, Mr. Jack. I would simply venture the following observation. Namely, that saying things like "Crack kills! and "Fentanyl kills!" is philosophically equivalent to saying "Fire bad!" All such statements would have us fear dangerous substances rather than learn how to use them as wisely as possible for the benefit of humanity. Now back to you, Jack.
[ding-ding-ding]
Thank you, as always, Professor. That was Professor Had-Enough, buddies, direct from the Ivory Tower! Listen for another philosophical home truth, every hour on the sixes and eights -- whatever that means, right, buddies? Ha ha!
Time for your old buddy Drug War Jack to make like a hockey puck. Before I sign off, however, I am unfortunately required to read you the following disclaimer. Ahem, ahem. (Oh, I hate to have to read such things!) And I quote.
"All the DJs here on Drug War Radio are required to take a drug test before taking to the air. This is to certify that Drug War Jack has been given such a test and has been found to be using only the best possible drugs for the best possible reasons. Signed, Management."
Whew! I'm glad that I passed that drug test. The buddy in the shift before me actually failed, by the way. Turns out he was using a Big Pharma drug for his depression, one that had a 95% recidivism rate 2 and that he had to take every day of his life, will he or nil he. When the station manager found THAT out, he went through the roof. He was like: "Bad choice, buddy! You have turned yourself into a ward of the healthcare state with your drug choices!"
But the station manager finally decided to cut him some slack. After all, once you're on such drugs, you're on them for life. What can the guy do NOW, right? He is just another victim of drug prohibition. Had this mindless policy not have been in effect, he could have easily cured his depression with the symptomatic use of cocaine -- as Sigmund Freud himself suggested34 -- until the doctors of his time decided to judge the drug only by looking at the rare cases of misuse, exactly as if they were to judge alcohol by only looking at alcoholics. Needless to say, no one ever asked the hundreds of millions of depressed people around the globe what THEY thought of cocaine. Cui bono, right, buddies? The massive healthcare industry would be cut in half if drugs like opium and cocaine were re-legalized in America.
Speaking of which, did you know that the Big Pharma antidepressant called Venlafaxine has a 95% recidivism rate for long-term users? Compare that to the fact that only 5% of the American soldiers who used heroin in Vietnam needed help getting off the drug when they returned to the States. 5%! Ah, yes, Drug War hypocrisy! The weird thing is that, however blatant such hypocrisy becomes, it never seems to register on the fried brainpans of our modern Drug Warriors. Their brains have been fried to a crispy golden brown by a lifetime of propaganda, above all in the form of the total censorship of all positive reports about drug use. The government has succeeded in turning them into children with respect to drugs -- and it is an infantilization that Americans are disgracefully willing to accept. It's easier than thinking, I guess, right, buddies?
But talk about a buzz kill!
I'll tell you what, buddies, let's change the subject and the mood, shall we? Let me take you guys out of here with a new hit from Peter and the Pill Mill: they call this one Requiem for the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Now, quiet, please, everybody. And if you happen to be sporting a hat at the moment, please be so kind as to remove the same during the course of this poignant ditty. I don't want to say that this song is heart-wrenching, but... Let's put it this way: Our station secretary is still blubbering from the last time we played this tune a full HOUR ago!
So handkerchiefs in the full upright position, as I deliver the pro-forma denouement to these spirited asseverations of mine: to wit, that this is your buddy Drug War Jack signing off in the name of protesting America's hateful war on common sense, AKA the War on Drugs. Till next time, buddies, keep up the good fight -- or maybe I should say START the good fight, insofar as there has been precious little principled pushback so far against this self-evidently evil policy of drug prohibition. Everybody seems to be taking drug prohibition in stride, even though it has handed the U.S. presidency to a would-be fascist. And I seem to be the only one in the world who notices that drug prohibition is the outlawing of our right to heal and hence a crime against humanity.
What, I'm just sayin', buddies!
The 4th Amendment is just one of the many victims of the Drug War
And so, by ignoring all "up" sides to drugs, the DEA points to potential addiction as a knock-down argument for their prohibition. This is the logic of children (and uneducated children at that). It is a cost-benefit analysis that ignores all benefits.
This is why it's wrong to dismiss drugs as "good" or "bad." There are endless potential positive uses to psychoactive drugs. That's all that we should ask of them.
Cop and detective shows are loaded with subtle drug war propaganda, including lines like, "She had a history of drug use, so..." The implication being that anyone who uses substances that politicians hate cannot be trusted.
Researchers insult our intelligence when they tell us that drugs like MDMA and opium and laughing gas have not been proven to work. Everyone knows they work. That's precisely why drug warriors hate them.
That's another problem with "following the science." Science downplays personal testimony as subjective. But psychoactive experiences are all ABOUT subjectivity. With such drugs, users are not widgets susceptible to the one-size-fits-all pills of reductionism.
Cocaine use is a blessing for some, just a little fun for most, and a curse for a few. Just like any other risky activity. We need to educate people about drugs rather than endlessly arresting them for attempting to improve their mental power!
Most substance withdrawal would be EASY if drugs were re-legalized and we could use any substance we wanted to mitigate negative psychological effects.
Malcolm X sensed an important truth about drugs: the fact that it was always a self-interested category error for Americans to place medical doctors in charge of mind and mood medicine.
Q: Where can you find almost-verbatim copies of the descriptions of religious experiences described by William James? A: In descriptions of user reports of "trips" on drugs ranging from coca to opium, from MDMA to laughing gas.
In "How to Change Your Mind," Michael Pollan says psychedelic legalization would endanger young people. What? Prohibition forces users to decide for themselves which mushrooms are toxic, or to risk buying contaminated product. And that's safe, Michael?
Hi, gang! This is your old buddy Drug War Jack spinning the platters that make you want to end the hateful war on godsend medicine, even as the regime in Washington D.C. is planning to invade Venezuela under the pretext of fighting drugs. It's funny how drugs is the answer to everything for our modern oligarchs, am I right? But then it's no wonder, I suppose. It makes foreign policy easy for them. It gives them a pretext for invading the sovereign countries of their choice. And as far as domestic policy is concerned, they can ignore that entirely. Of course, the downsides of their neglect will soon become apparent -- but that is no problem for these oligarchs. They can then simply blame all such downsides on drugs themselves, and brainwashed puritanical Americans will be all too happy to believe them. It's easier than thinking, after all. Speaking of which, here's a big'un everybody's kinda diggin', it's a little thing from Danny and the Drug Testers. They call it, 'O Say Can You See'...
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