fight back against the extrajudicial enforcement of Christian Science Sharia
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
September 18, 2020
Attention Job Applicants!
Mad about having to submit to drug tests in order to make a living?
Fight back!
Submit the following protest letter to your current or prospective employer along with that urine sample that you provide them.
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING LETTER SHOULD BE USED ONLY BY THOSE WHO ARE READY TO TAKE A STAND AGAINST THE DEVASTATINGLY MISGUIDED DRUG WAR, IN THE FULL KNOWLEDGE THAT DOING SO IS RISKY IN TODAY'S DRUG WARRIOR CLIMATE. NO ONE, LEAST OF ALL MYSELF, CAN GUARANTEE YOU THAT THE COMPANY YOU ARE DEALING WITH WILL RESPECT YOU FOR PROTESTING IN THIS WAY. ONLY SUBMIT THE FOLLOWING LETTER TO YOUR DRUG-TESTING EMPLOYER IF YOU FEEL STRONGLY ENOUGH ABOUT THE INJUSTICES IN QUESTION HERE THAT YOU ARE WILLING TO LOSE A JOB OPPORTUNITY IF NECESSARY TO MAKE YOUR VIEWPOINT KNOWN.
DRUG TESTING PROTEST LETTER
Dear Employer:
Although I have complied with your company's drug test, I feel a moral duty to inform you that I have done so under duress. I believe that such drug-testing without cause is a fundamental violation of my rights as an American citizen, and that such testing represents the enforcement of a Christian Science viewpoint about drugs, which is one that I do not share. Christian Scientists, as I'm sure you know, believe that human beings have a moral duty to go without using drugs for healing purposes, whether physical or psychological. I do not practice that religion, and I therefore do not believe that I should be subject to its requirements when it comes to the plant medicines around me. For I believe that Mother Nature is a healing goddess, not a drug kingpin, and that no plants are bad in and of themselves, despite the Drug Warrior's constant attempts to demonize them, largely by failing to acknowledge the positive role that today's demonized plant substances have played in various cultures for literally thousands of years.
I am taking this stand in support of Thomas Jefferson, who I believe was rolling over in his grave when the DEA stomped onto Monticello 1 in 1987 and confiscated his poppy plants, in clear and ungrateful violation of the natural law upon which Jefferson had founded this country. Jefferson believed that there were basic rights that the government could not take from us, and few could be more basic, especially to a garden-lover like Jefferson, than our right to the plants and fungi that grow at our very feet. For as Natural Law proponent John Locke wrote in his Second Treatise on Government, human beings have a right to the use of the land "and all that lies therein." To arrest me for accessing and using mere plant medicine is therefore, in my view, a violation of my basic rights as an American citizen, for it represents the unconstitutional triumph of common law over Jefferson's natural law, which was the one thing that was unique and special about America, until the Drug War took it away, beginning in 1914, when racist politicians first outlawed a plant in order to marginalize the minorities that they feared and despised.
I do not seek to convince you of my viewpoint in this short letter. I merely wish to state for the record that I have taken your drug test under duress for a variety of philosophical reasons, including the ones that I've mentioned above. I trust that you will accept this statement of conscience for the earnest political protest that it represents and that it will not bias you against me in considering my suitability for employment, for, putting this one issue aside, I believe I would make a valuable addition to your workforce.
Sincerely Yours,
Name, Date, on behalf of the wronged Thomas Jefferson and the Natural Law upon which he founded this country
WATCH THIS PAGE FOR MORE IDEAS ABOUT PROTESTING CHRISTIAN SCIENCE DRUG TESTING AND ITS VIOLATION OF NATURAL LAW UPON WHICH AMERICA WAS FOUNDED
#DrugTestingSucks
Author's Follow-up: August 17, 2022
There's nothing wrong with checking folks like pilots to see if they're impaired by a substance -- but let's be clear here: drug testing in the vast majority of cases is not about finding impairment: it's rather an extrajudicial fishing expedition in the human body to find signs of previous use of banned substances. Worse yet, the punishment for infraction is cruel and unusual, insofar as it involves barring the 'user' from obtaining gainful employment in the United States of America (or Britain, or Australia, etc.). That is a kind of punishment that is not even meted out to axe murderers.
Moreover, Congress is thus essentially subcontracting drug testing 2 to businesses to enforce Christian Science Sharia, for the kinds of substances that the drug test searches for are those which have inspired entire religions in the past. Coca was an Incan God. The Vedic religion was inspired by a psychoactive plant. Plato's view of the afterlife was inspired by the psychedelic kykeon at Eleusis. And the "Meditations" of Marcus Aurelius were inspired by his free use of opium 3 . Yet the use of these substances in America today will bar you from feeding your family. Drug testing is therefore an attack on religious freedom, an attack upon the wellspring and fountainhead of the religious impulse itself: namely, psychoactive plants and fungi.
Author's Follow-up: April 12, 2023
If I follow up on the philosophical investigations of William James and use nitrous oxide, I will no longer be allowed to have a job in America. Ah, the land of the home and the free!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Most psychoactive substance use can be judged as recreational OR medicinal OR both. The judgements are not just determined by the circumstances of use, either, but also by the biases of those doing the judging.
If opium were legal, then most of the nostrums peddled by drug stores today would be irrelevant. (No wonder the drug war has staying power!)
If we can go overseas to burn poppy plants, then Islamic countries should be free to come to the United States to burn our grape vines.
Champions of indigenous medicines claim that their medicines are not "drugs." But they miss the bigger point: that there are NO drugs in the sense that drug warriors use that term. There are no drugs that have no positive uses whatsoever.
Problem 2,643 of the war on drugs:
It puts the government in charge of deciding what counts as a true religion.
I can't imagine Allen Ginsberg writing "Howl!" while under the influence of mood-damping drugs like Inderal and Prozac -- but then maybe that's the point: the powers-that-be do not want poets writing poems like "Howl!"
They drive to their drug tests in pickup trucks with license plates that read "Don't tread on me." Yeah, right. "Don't tread on me: Just tell me how and how much I'm allowed to think and feel in this life. And please let me know what plants I can access."
Now drug warriors have nitrous oxide in their sights, the substance that inspired the philosophy of William James. They're using the same tired MO: focusing exclusively on potential downsides and never mentioning the benefits of use, and/or denying that any exist.
There are neither "drugs" nor "meds" as those terms are used today. All substances have potential good uses and bad uses. The terms as used today carry value judgements, as in meds good, drugs bad.
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!
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