Six Reasons Why Americans Are Bamboozled by the Drug War
showing why philosophy still matters and why its absence empowers tyrants
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
May 22, 2020
The more I write and read about the war on plants (more disingenuously known as the Drug War), the more I understand why America has "gone there," by which I mean they've essentially signed off on the Christian Science notion that Mother Nature's medicines are bad for us, at least when it comes to psychological healing.
First, consider that 1 in 8 American males and 1 in 4 American females are addicted to modern antidepressants 1. They have their whole lives invested in the notion that these pills are miracle drugs, and they're generally not open to those who dare to say otherwise. There's a whole new social pastime in which patients gossip about their latest pill regimen and how it stacks up to the previously failed regimen that they had been following. In this sense, taking Big Pharma meds is fun. One is never at a loss for a discussion topic in our medicalized culture. When you add in the close friends of these addicts and the doctors who provide the meds in the first place, there are tens of millions out there who are biased in favor of the pill-pushing status quo.
Thus seeing Big Pharma pills as "the light and the way," we are blind to the vast rain forest of non-addictive (and or far-less-addictive) natural godsends that sit there, waiting for us to put them to use, rather than demonizing them, ostracizing them, and ultimately burning them in the name of an anti-nature Drug War.
Second, as noted above, the very use of the word "drugs" in "Drug War" is disingenuous and helps disguise the fact that what we're cracking down on are plant medicines, which, in the eyes of other cultures have been seen as medical and emotional godsends. Viewed in this way, one can clearly see a philosophical link between the witch hunts of the past, the colonialist outrages of the Conquistadores, and the modern Drug War: in each case, the powers that be had nothing but contempt for the plants that brought about consciousness raising - and felt free to marginalize, stigmatize, and even kill those who sought expanded consciousness through plant medicine.
Third, the substitution of the word "drugs" for "plants" also has helped Americans overlook the violation of natural law that is implicit in the outlawing of Mother Nature's plants, recognizing which the whole notion of a Drug War becomes both absurd and unconstitutional. The United States was founded on the notion that there are natural laws which must override common law, now and for all time, and surely one of the most obvious of rights under such law is the right of the human being to what Locke called "the use of the Earth and all that lies therein." In other words, the Drug War is a violation of natural law. Sure, the Drug War has been in effect since 1914, but as Thomas Paine wrote: "If the present generation or any other are disposed to be slaves, it does not lessen the right of the succeeding generation to be free. Wrongs cannot have a legal descent."
Fourth, Americans have a whole mythology built up around the idea of addiction and salvation. Gabor Mate epitomizes this viewpoint by incorrectly ascribing almost all addiction to inner pain, meanwhile ignoring the great addiction of our time, the one mentioned above whereby 1 in 8 American males and 1 in 4 American females are addicted to antidepressants. Mate's refusal to even call this addiction shows the hypocrisy of the use of that word. {^"Addiction," it turns out, is really a pejorative epithet which we apply only to the habitual use of those drugs that we love to hate.}{ That's why psychiatrists feel free to ignore the great addiction of our time, because their selective use of the word "addiction" blinds them to it. Meanwhile, they white-wash the psychiatric pill pushing practice by referring to it as "medication maintenance."
Fifth, Americans fail to understand that the impulse to self-medicate2 makes perfect sense, no matter how hard the psychiatrist tries to stigmatize 3 that practice. Consider what happens to those who FAIL to self-medicate when it comes to tweaking their own moods for the better. What happens? Under the current psychiatric paradigm, that person becomes addicted to Big Pharma 45 meds, turns into an eternal patient, and has to spend an enormous amount of time and money as a ward of the state. One can scarcely imagine a more disempowering process. No wonder that self-medication is considered a serious option by many, despite the self-serving moralizing of the psychiatrist on this topic.
Sixth, Americans have fallen for the notion that a drug dealer is, of necessity, a scumbag. This is an easy bias to maintain when we're talking about a "Drug War," but when we correctly describe the new prohibition as a "war on plants," that hateable drug dealer becomes a far less hateable "plant dealer." Still, it's no wonder why folks like Trump want to kill such people, and why calm and sober stakeholders like psychiatrists would cry "amen" were he to do so. Just think how much psychiatry has to lose by people self-medicating. Besides, those who self-medicate are implicitly telling us that the emperor is wearing no clothes, that the pill-pushing psychiatric paradigm is anti-patient - and that's a message that the shrinks must suppress at any cost.
The search for SSRIs has always been based on a flawed materialist premise that human consciousness is nothing but a mix of brain chemicals and so depression can be treated medically like any other physical condition.
"My faith votes and strives to outlaw religions that use substances of which politicians disapprove."
Drug use is judged by different standards than any other risky activity in the western world. One death can lead to outrage, even though that death might be statistically insignificant.
If we let "science" decide about drugs, i.e. base freedom on health concerns, then tea can be as easily outlawed as beer. The fact that horses are not illegal shows that prohibition is not about health. It's about the power to outlaw certain "ways of being in the world."
Drug warriors have taught us that honest about drugs encourages drug use. Nonsense! That's just their way of suppressing free speech about drugs. Americans are not babies, they can handle the truth -- or if they cannot, they need education, not prohibition.
Americans heap hypocritical praise on Walt Whitman. What they don't realize is that many of us could be "Walt Whitman for a Day" with the wise use of psychoactive drugs. To the properly predisposed, morphine gives a DEEP appreciation of Mother Nature.
Prohibition turned habituation into addiction by creating a wide variety of problems for users, including potential arrest, tainted or absent drug supply, and extreme stigmatization.
The Hindu religion was inspired by drug use.
For those who want to understand what's going on with the drug war from a philosophical point of view, I recommend chapter six of "Eugenics and Other Evils" by GK Chesterton.
If the depressed patient laughs, that means nothing. Materialists have to see results under a microscopic or they will never sign off on a therapy.
The search for SSRIs has always been based on a flawed materialist premise that human consciousness is nothing but a mix of brain chemicals and so depression can be treated medically like any other physical condition.
