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Spike Lee is Bamboozled by the Drug War



by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher







July 3, 2022

"Without the War on Drugs, the level of gun violence that plagues so many poor inner-city neighborhoods today simply would not exist- Heather Thompson, The Atlantic, 2014


How does the Drug War get away with killing thousands of black Americans every year? It does so thanks to the complicit silence of the black social and political leadership, which is blind to the fact that the Drug War is responsible for these deaths.

In 2021 alone, the Drug War killed almost 800 blacks in Chicago, almost 500 blacks in New York City, and almost 400 blacks in Los Angeles.

How did the Drug War accomplish this? By substance prohibition.

This is not rocket science, folks. Liquor prohibition created the American Mafia. Why is it so hard for black leaders to believe that substance prohibition created the armed gangs that continue to snuff out inner-city lives to this very day?

And yet Spike Lee doesn't get it. He seems to dimly grasp the fact that the Drug War is directed against blacks and minorities, which is a step in the right direction, but he misses the big takeaway message: that substance prohibition is the means by which the Drug War conducts its anti-minority campaign, for it allows the Drug Warrior to disenfranchise blacks while simultaneously promoting a genocidal civil war in the black community.

Why is Spike silent about the real cause for black-on-black violence, namely substance prohibition? Because Spike Lee is bamboozled by Drug War propaganda. He believes the Drug War lie that we should fear psychoactive substances rather than understand them and that we have to do everything we can to get these evil substances off the street, even if it means fomenting a genocidal civil war among minorities.

Wrong. Substances like coca and the poppy have inspired entire religions and been used by such Western luminaries as Marcus Aurelius, Benjamin Franklin, Edgar Allan Poe, HG Wells and Jules Verne. Plato himself used psychedelics at the Eleusinian Mysteries, which inspired his view of the afterlife. Mesoamerican shaman routinely employed psychedelic mushrooms to heal and prophesy. And the entire Vedic-Hindu religion was inspired by the psychoactive properties of a plant.

The answer to substance misuse is clearly education, Spike, not incarceration.




Yet the black leadership continues to believe in the politically created boogieman called "drugs," a category of substances that did not even exist in the 1800s, at a time when American worrywarts were stressing about the evils of alcohol instead.

Of course, alcohol was eventually shielded from criticism with a constitutional amendment, at which point the former temperance party worrywarts started to lavish their still-unsated moral concerns on the politically created boogieman called "drugs," a pejorative epithet for "botanical substances of which WASP Americans disapprove."

And black Americans were hoodwinked by this bait-and-switch tactic. Leaders like Jessie Jackson Sr. were soon referring to black "drug dealers" as vampires. And conservative politicians were laughing all the way to the voting booth, where the Drug War allowed them to elect more conservatives because it disfranchised millions of minority voters. How? By creating drug laws for that very purpose, laws that allowed them to crack black heads under the pretence of fighting the politically created boogieman called "drugs." (Joe Biden did his part by crafting the infamous drug laws that made black Americans easier to arrest than whites when it came to cocaine possession.)

So, please, wake up, Spike, before it's too late.

Because conservative Drug Warriors are no longer content with merely incarcerating as many blacks as possible, they now want to execute them as well, as Donald Trump himself has made all too clear.

If we must execute anyone, let's execute the racist politicians who support substance prohibition when they know full well that prohibition creates violence in poor and poorly educated communities - violence that will continue, alas, until black spokespeople like Spike Lee finally connect the dots between black genocide and substance prohibition.









Why does the author believe that Spike Lee is bamboozled? For two reasons: First, he has never known Spike to speak out against substance prohibition. Second, because of lines like this in Spike's movies:

"If you ever use drugs, I'll kill you." - Jungle Fever, 1991

(Really? What if the guy smokes? What if the guy drinks liquor? What if the guy uses one of those Big Pharma meds upon which 1 in 4 American women are chemically dependent for life? What if the guy drinks Red Bull?)

That quote makes it clear that Spike believes the drug-war lie that there are such things as "drugs" that are no good for anybody.

Wrong. Drugs are not good or bad except with regard to the reason for which they are used. The Drug Warrior wants us to fear and despise psychoactive substances, not to understand them and use them as wisely as possible for the benefit of humankind. (This is why thousands of dying children in hospices must go without godsend pain medicine, because we have turned drugs into such boogiemen that many countries will no longer allow morphine to be used for pain relief -- even for dying children!) With that anti-scientific excuse in their pocket, they seek to justify a substance prohibition that kills thousands of black Americans yearly, causes civil wars in Central and South America, empowers a Drug War Hitler in the Philippines, and blinds us to an endless list of godsend therapies for depression and anxiety thanks to our outlawing of Mother Nature's psychoactive pharmacy -- all this so that we can unconstitutionally outlaw the plant medicines that grow at our very feet, some of which have inspired entire religions.




The Links Police



All right, pull over to the side of the website. Do you know why I stopped you? That's right, because there are other essays that you should read that have to do with the black genocide being brought about by substance prohibition, such as Grandmaster Flash: Drug War Collaborator: Revealing the drug War propaganda in the lyrics for 'White Line', Open Letter to Lisa Ling: Lisa Ling created a documentary about Chicago gun violence in which she never once mentioned the drug war, the policy that caused the violence just as surely as liquor prohibition created the Mafia., Cop shows as drug war propaganda: How the TV cop show genre promulgates drug warrior lies about mother nature's plant medicines, President Calls for Executing Drug Dealers: Ayatollah Trump declares fatwah against Mother Nature and all who deal therein. He will henceforth execute those who dare sell godsend plant medicines, while allowing psychiatrists to continue addicting 25% of the nation at will to mind-fogging SSRIs., Why the Drug War is a Godsend for Conservatives: , and The Racist Drug War killed George Floyd: The Drug War taught cops to treat suspects like scumbags. No wonder that one of the accomplices in George Floyd's murder taunted the crowd by saying: 'just say no to drugs'.. Fair enough? On, yeah, and your rear left tail light is out.


Author's Follow-up: July 15, 2022



My letter to Lisa Ling of CNN, sent May 11, 2022: Dear Lisa, I was disappointed and puzzled to see that your show about Chicago violence did not even mention the Drug War! For as Heather Ann Thompson wrote in The Atlantic in 2014: "Without the War on Drugs, the level of gun violence that plagues so many poor inner-city neighborhoods today simply would not exist." I hope you'll rectify this oversight in a future documentary.


I keep asking myself why city leaders do not recognize the Drug War for what it is: a violence-causing attempt to demonize substances rather than be honest about them -- an attempt to marginalize users of substances of which WASPS disapprove. And this is why: Reporters like Lisa Ling give the Drug War a huge mulligan by completely ignoring its role in causing violence. The prohibition of psychoactive plant medicine leads to HUGE profits for dealers -- and in poor communities with inadequate education, this is a recipe for disaster.

Think back to the many crime shows you've watched over the years. How much would cops have had to do if plant medicine was actually legal? Answer: very little indeed. They could sit back like Andy Griffith and chat to the locals. The war on plant medicine has made the world enormously violent, and until Americans realize this fact, that "it's the Drug War, stupid," they'll keep generating the very violence that they scream bloody murder about in town hall meetings and on talk shows. Hello, Chicken Little Drug Warrior: it's you yourself who is causing the sky to fall when it comes to inner-city violence. Let's start arresting the real culprits: let's arrest the anti-American fascists who criminalized plant medicine in the first place, thus violating the natural law upon which Thomas Jefferson founded America.

And yet black community leaders egg on the Drug War while denoucing "drugs" more vehemently than most WASP Drug Warriors would even dare. Jesse Jackson decries drug dealers as vampires -- more language of demonization which is the product of the Drug War itself. These leaders have been duped by the Drug War into playing along with the game that is meant to marginalize them and remove them from the voting rolls. The black drug dealers that Jesse demonizes (in lockstep with Drug War ideology) have been incentivized by the white man's substance prohibition, which allows for sky-high profits for dealing. Over 800 blacks died in Chicago alone last year because of the guns that prohibition brought into Chicago -- not because of "drugs," Jesse, but because of prohibition, which makes it fantastically tempting to sell desired substances, especially in a community full of poverty and insufficient education for the young.

The black community professes to be "woke" when it comes to police brutality these days, but many of its leaders are still snoring tranquilly when it comes to the great con that the Drug War is perpetrating on them -- on them and on their community -- in the name of outlawing and demonizing the plant medicines that grow at our very feet -- in the name of prioritizing fear over fact when it comes to psychoactive substances and incarceration over education. This great con has disfranchised millions of black voters, thereby giving elections first to conservatives (like Reagan) and now even to fascists (like Trump) -- and yet the response of leaders like Jackson is to say, "Let's pursue this anti-constitutional practice of substance demonization even further! Let's not only arrest drug dealers but let's kill them!!!" The racist WASP Drug Warriors who started the Drug War in the first place must be laughing all the way to the voting booth.

People






Many of my essays are about and/or directed to specific individuals, some well-known, others not so well known, and some flat-out nobodies like myself. Here is a growing list of names of people with links to my essays that in some way concern them.

  • Chomsky is Right
  • Chomsky's Revenge
  • David Chalmers and the Drug War
  • Finally, a drug war opponent who checks all my boxes
  • Glenn Close but no cigar
  • Heroin versus Alcohol
  • How the US Preventive Services Task Force Drums Up Business for Big Pharma
  • Letter to Lamar Alexander
  • Noam Chomsky on Drugs
  • Open Letter to Anthony Gottlieb
  • Open Letter to Congressman Ben Cline, asking him to abolish the criminal DEA
  • Open Letter to Gabrielle Glaser
  • Open letter to Professor Troy Glover at Waterloo University
  • Open Letter to Roy Benaroch MD
  • Science is not free in the age of the drug war
  • Spike Lee is Bamboozled by the Drug War
  • The common sense way to get off of antidepressants
  • The Invisible Mass Shootings
  • Top 10 Problems with the Drug War
  • Tweet to Alex Adams
  • Why the Drug War is far worse than a failure
  • Why the Drug War is Worse than you can Imagine




  • Next essay: The Invisible Mass Shootings
    Previous essay: Attention American Screenwriters: please stop spreading Drug War propaganda
    More Essays Here


    People

    about whom and to whom I've written over the years...

    Alexander, Lamar
    Letter to Lamar Alexander
    Barrett, Frederick S.
    The common sense way to get off of antidepressants
    Why the Drug War is Worse than you can Imagine
    Benaroch MD, Roy
    Open Letter to Roy Benaroch MD
    Bloom, Josh
    Science is not free in the age of the drug war
    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
    Falcon, Joshua
    Drugs are not the enemy, hatred is the enemy
    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
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    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
    Heidegger on Drugs
    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
    Open Letter to Vincent Hurley, Lecturer
    Hutton, Ronald
    Drug Dealers as Modern Witches
    James, William
    How the Drug War is Threatening Intellectual Freedom in England
    Keep Laughing Gas Legal
    The Criminalization of Nitrous Oxide is No Laughing Matter
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    Jefferson, Thomas
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    How the Jefferson Foundation Betrayed Thomas Jefferson
    How the Monticello Foundation betrayed Jefferson's Legacy in 1987
    Jefferson
    The Dark Side of the Monticello Foundation
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    Jenkins DA, Brooke
    Prohibitionists Never Learn
    Kant, Immanuel
    How the Drug War limits our understanding of Immanuel Kant
    How the Drug War Outlaws Criticism of Immanuel Kant
    Kastrup, Bernardo
    How Bernardo Kastrup reckons without the drug war
    Kenny, Gino
    The Right to LIVE FULLY is more important than the Right to DIE
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    Brahms is NOT the best antidepressant
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    All these Sons
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    America's Blind Spot
    Kurtz, Matthew M.
    How Scientific American reckons without the drug war
    Langlitz, Nicolas
    Why the FDA is not qualified to judge psychoactive medicine
    Lee, Spike
    Spike Lee is Bamboozled by the Drug War
    Leshner, Alan I.
    How the Drug War Screws the Depressed
    Lewis, Edward
    Psilocybin Mushrooms by Edward Lewis
    Ling, Lisa
    Open Letter to Lisa Ling
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    John Locke on Drugs
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    Margaritoff, Marco
    In Defense of Opium
    Open Letter to Margo Margaritoff
    Marinacci, Mike
    Psychedelic Cults and Outlaw Churches: LSD, Cannabis, and Spiritual Sacraments in Underground America
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    In the Realm of Hungry Drug Warriors
    Open Letter to Addiction Specialist Gabor Mate
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    Rado, Vincent
    Open Letter to Vincent Rado
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    Sabet, Kevin
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    Segall PhD, Matthew D.
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    Open letter to Wolfgang Smith
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    Wuthnow, Robert
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    Open Letter to Erica Zelfand
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    Even Howard Zinn Reckons without the Drug War
    Zuboff, Shoshana
    Tune In, Turn On, Opt Out



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    You have been reading an article entitled, Spike Lee is Bamboozled by the Drug War published on July 3, 2022 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)