The DEA Scheduling System is Based on Lies

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The DEA Scheduling System is Based on Lies

by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

December 27, 2022

The entire drug scheduling system is based on lies. And for at least two reasons:

1) The system tells us that the substances it "rates" have no medical uses whatsoever. But there are no substances of that kind on planet Earth. Virtually every substance in the world has positive uses at some dose, in some circumstance, for some person, at some time. Even cyanide and botox have recognized uses in the medical world. To say otherwise is not simply false, but it's also anti-scientific and anti-patient, since it prevents us from finding positive uses for the drugs in question. That's why America continues to struggle with Alzheimer's, because we outlaw medicines that grow new neurons in the brain, deeming them, a priori, of no medical value. In the age of the Drug War, our medical system is thus based on superstition, not science.

BUMPER STICKER: The DEA: Blocking therapeutic drug research since 1973
Millions have needlessly suffered over the last 50 years because the DEA has lied about psychedelics, claiming that they are addictive and have no therapeutic value. Stop the lies, start the research.

2) What's more, some of the positive uses are extant. They are right before our eyes. Coca puts a spring in one's step and sharpens the mind, as everyone knows, including HG Wells and Jules Verne, who were big fans of Coca Wine. When the DEA tells us there are no good uses for coca, it is therefore making a moral judgment, not a scientific one. It is declaring, along with folks like Mary Baker Eddy, that the best life is one led without "drugs." The scheduling system is thus just a harsh moral code based not on science, but on Christian Science, the religion that tells us that we should say "no" to drugs.

Author's Follow-up: January 4, 2023

follow-up on essay by the Drug War Philosopher

And so what if substances have no medical uses? Psychoactive substances have religious uses. Did Soma have a medical use? Probably not if you were to ask a materialist. But it inspired the creation of the Vedic religion. Should government have outlawed it? A more pertinent question might be: what new religions is the DEA outlawing in advance by criminalizing the substances that might have otherwise inspired new religions today?

This is why writers like Michael Pollan -- and even Andrew Weil -- are missing the point about "drugs." Both are concerned about the juvenile's potential misuse of substances, as if that's the only concern whatsoever in determining whether drugs should be re-legalized. Drugs should be legalized in order for religious liberty and free science to flourish. If a free world puts white American kids in danger, that's no reason to give up on freedom -- especially since the war that we propose to save them will kill thousands of Mexican children and militarize police forces around the globe, while denying freedom of thought, and hence religious liberty, to billions.

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against the hateful war on US

Drug warriors abuse the English language.

National Geo published an article entitled "Coca: a Blessing and a Curse." Coca was never a curse. Most people used it wisely, just as most people drink wisely. Doctors demonized it because it really worked and it could put them out of business. https://abolishthedea.com/sigmund_freuds_real_breakthrough_was_not_psychoanalysis.php

Outlawing substances like laughing gas and MDMA makes no more sense than outlawing fire.

Drug-designing chemists have no expertise in deciding what constitutes a cure for depression. As Schopenhauer wrote: "The mere study of chemistry qualifies a man to become an apothecary, but not a philosopher."

The Cabinet of Caligari ('62) ends with a shameless display of psychiatric triumphalism. Happy shock therapy patients waltz freely about a mansion in which the "sick" protagonist has just been "cured" by tranquilizers and psychoanalysis. Did Robert Bloch believe his own script?

Psychiatrists prescribe drugs that muck about with a patient's biochemical baseline, making them chemically dependent and turning them into patients for life.

Why does no one talk about empathogens for preventing atrocities? Because they'd rather hate drugs than use them for the benefit of humanity. They don't want to solve problems, they prefer hatred.

Drug Prohibition Downside #1,529: aviation accidents caused by pilots who failed to use mind-sharpening drugs to improve their situational awareness. (See, for instance, Comair flight 5191)

The Drug War is a religion. The "addict" is a sinner who has to come home to the true faith of Christian Science. In reality, neither physical nor psychological addiction need be a problem if all drugs were legal and we used them creatively to counter problematic use.

Timothy Leary's wife wrote: "We went to Puerto Rico and all we did was take cocaine and read Faust to one another." And there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with that!!! The drug war is all about scaring us and making illegal drug use as dangerous as possible.

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Copyright 2025, Brian Ballard Quass Contact: quass@quass.com

tombstone for American Democracy, 1776-2024, RIP

tombstone for American Democracy, 1776-2024, RIP

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