rug War prohibition is the perfect storm. It has something in it for everybody. That is why it has lasted for over 100 years now1. It is about power, it is about money, it is about materialism, it is about imperialism, it is about religion, it is about racism... and the list goes on. I mention this because every time I focus on one of these by itself, I get shot down by flamers who focus on another aspect, as if there was only one single factor involved in the success of the Drug War over the decades. "You say it's about A?" they scream. "Nonsense! It's about B!" But the fact is, it is about "all of the above."
Nor can we discuss this subject meaningfully without first identifying the demographic about which we are speaking.
Take drug producers like the MindMed company. It has produced a politically correct form of LSD for anxiety from which all visions and euphoria have been removed. Now the company has nothing against euphoria and visions per se2. Its motivation is clearly just financial. But how do we account for the fact that most Americans think that it makes sense in the first place to remove the visions and euphoria from LSD, the very ingredients for which the drug has been valued in the past? Money does not motivate that belief but rather some sort of metaphysical conviction that neither euphoria nor transcendent states are therapeutic. It's urgent that we recognize that unspoken assumption. Why? Because we are never going to get rid of greed, but we can expose and discredit the unacknowledged assumptions by which otherwise sane Americans continue to support the War on Drugs.
Another confusion arises whenever we talk about causes. The fact is there are more than one type of cause. The reason for which something is done is called its final cause. In the case of the Drug War, there are multiple final causes, the chief of which is racism. But there are also efficient causes. These are the beliefs that help justify and promote the Drug War but which are not the reason for the Drug War's existence. One such cause is scientific materialism, a way of conceiving the world which denies that psychoactive drugs have any benefits whatsoever3. The materialist is not a Drug Warrior per se, but the materialist's attitude toward drugs makes the Drug War plausible to society in general. Another efficient cause of the Drug War is puritanism, the west's preference for living by the Golden mean of Aristotle, to avoid excess in everything, including emotion. This helps explain our aversion to the ecstatic states produced by drugs. Nietzsche described this attitude as Apollonian, as distinguished from the tribal approach toward life, which he called Dionysian. But the point here is that literally all philosophers (save for diehard solipsists) agree that the general unspoken presuppositions of a society affect the way in which that society is governed.
This is why philosophy is important when it comes to the Drug War. If we merely blame the Drug War on greed and racism, we will get nowhere, since we will never get rid of such evils. But if we unmask and critique the unspoken assumptions behind the Drug War, we have a chance of deprogramming the millions of Americans who have never thought about such questions deeply and who are therefore being led by the nose by the racist pied pipers of prohibition.
Author's Follow-up: March 10, 2024
This is really the whole point of my website here at abolishthedea.com: I want to show that the Drug War "has to do" with almost every conceivable element of life. That's why I've published hundreds of essays in the last five years and am still nowhere near addressing all the problems that the Drug War causes in society. The Drug War is not a subject that we can or should ghettoize. It is not a niche subject. If you think that it lacks relevance to your life, I have two words for you: Donald Trump, the man who was elected only because the Drug War had thrown millions of minorities in jail and removed them from the voting rolls.
Oregon's drug policy is incoherent and cruel. The rich and healthy spend $4,000 a week on psilocybin. The poor and chemically dependent are thrown in jail, unless they're on SSRIs, in which case they're congratulated for "taking their meds."
When folks die in horse-related accidents, we need to be asking: who sold the victim the horse? We've got to crack down on folks who peddle this junk -- and ban books like Black Beauty that glamorize horse use.
Most people think that drugs like cocaine, MDMA, LSD and amphetamines can only be used recreationally. WRONG ! This represents a very naive understanding of human psychology. We deny common sense in order to cater to the drug war orthodoxy that "drugs have no benefits."
Most prohibitionists think that they merely have to use the word "drugs" to win an argument. Like: "Oh, so you're in favor of DRUGS then, are you?" You can just see them sneering as they type. That's because the word "drugs" is like the word "scab": it's a loaded political term.
ECT is like euthanasia. Neither make sense in the age of prohibition.
Imagine the Vedic people shortly after they have discovered soma. Everyone's ecstatic -- except for one oddball. "I'm not sure about these experiences," says he. "I think we need to start dissecting the brains of our departed adherents to see what's REALLY going on in there."
People magazine should be fighting for justice on behalf of the thousands of American young people who are dying on the streets because of the drug war.
The fact that some drugs can be addictive is no reason to outlaw drugs. It is a reason to teach safe use and to publicize all the ways that smart people have found to avoid unwanted pharmacological dependency -- and a reason to use drugs to fight drugs.
Proof that materialism is wrong is "in the pudding." It is why scientists are not calling for the use of laughing gas and MDMA by the suicidal. Because they refuse to recognize anything that's obvious. They want their cures to be demonstrated under a microscope.
In the 19th century, author Richard Middleton wrote how poets would get together to use opium "in a series of magnificent quarterly carouses."
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, The Drug War is the Perfect Storm published on March 10, 2024 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)
rug War prohibition is the perfect storm. It has something in it for everybody. That is why it has lasted for over 100 years now1. It is about power, it is about money, it is about materialism, it is about imperialism, it is about religion, it is about racism... and the list goes on. I mention this because every time I focus on one of these by itself, I get shot down by flamers who focus on another aspect, as if there was only one single factor involved in the success of the Drug War over the decades. "You say it's about A?" they scream. "Nonsense! It's about B!" But the fact is, it is about "all of the above." 
You have been reading an article entitled, The Drug War is the Perfect Storm published on March 10, 2024 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)