f you want evidence that the American people have been bamboozled by the Drug War, just search the Web for "famous drug users." Almost all of the "hits" will feature the judgmental term "addiction" (rather than "habituation" or "use") and almost none of the "hits" will refer to addiction to LEGAL drugs, thereby ignoring the astounding fact that 1 in 4 American women are chemically dependent on SSRI antidepressants even as I type this.
This evidence is proof of at least two things: 1) that the Drug War has scrambled our brains when it comes to logical thinking, and 2) that the Drug War is not about America's health: it's about disempowering Americans when it comes to controlling their own mental state, meanwhile turning that power over to "health care professionals" and their arsenal of addictive synthetic medications supplied to them by Big Pharma.
In short, it's all about keeping the DEA, psychiatrists, and drug companies in business for many years to come (and patients be damned, addicted and charged high prices), by continuing the American government's immoral and unconstitutional criminalization of the plants of Mother Nature, the birthright of every human being. It's all about what Thomas Szasz called the infantilization of Americans when it comes to psychoactive substances.
It must warm the heart of any DEA hardliner to scan these links which describe Mother Nature as a drug kingpin and describe us human beings as mere babies when it comes to psychoactive substances, as if we're all totally unable to advisedly use the plants of Mother Nature to sharpen our mental acumen and see behind the veil.
The facts show otherwise - as if in a sane and free world we should even need to justify our prima facie human right to the plants and fungi that grow at our very feet.
Bill Gates used "drugs," Richard Feynman used "drugs," Sigmund Freud used "drugs," Thomas Edison used "drugs," Benjamin Franklin used "drugs," Omar Khayyam used "drugs," Marcus Aurelius used "drugs," even Plato himself used what we'd call "drugs" at the Eleusinian mysteries - but you won't see the beaming faces of any of these highly successful people splattered over the front-pages of these moralizing anti-drug websites. Instead, look for the deathly pale head shots of John Belushi, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin, the holy trinity of anti-heroes which the Christian Scientists of the Drug War want to keep before our eyes, lest we humans take it into our head that we have the power and the right to decide what plants we'll eat and which we will avoid.
The Drug Warriors (which is to say 95% of the American public, judging by the plethora of moralizing pages returned in the above-mentioned Web search) want the whole "drug" story to be about the John Belushis of the world, the irresponsible drug users, and those who make bad choices. Why? Because they need to keep distracting our attention from the unprecedented injustice that they perpetrated on humanity in the 20th century when they criminalized plants, of all things, thereby denying human beings free access to the therapeutic output of Mother Nature that grows at their very feet. They want the whole narrative to be about 12-step programs and fallen humanity, with nothing about those luminaries who have chosen wisely from Mother Nature's psychoactive bounty and come away better for the experience, with more focus, energy and empathy for humankind.
Americans will play along with the maudlin Drug Warrior narrative (of a weak humanity, ever threatened by nature's far-too-powerful substances) until we finally notice that the Drug War is a religion: namely, Christian Science as applied to psychoactive substances: i.e., the metaphysical notion that we "should not be" using nature's substances to improve our minds.
The latest research on psychedelic therapies shows that this creed is not only wrong, but that it has resulted in untold suffering over the last 50 years, thanks to the fact that the Drug War mindset has strongly discouraged research and clinical trials of these promising new treatments.
We'll know we're finally on the right track when a Web search for "famous drug users" turns up unbiased Web pages that unapologetically reveal how famous Americans have improved their minds with the help of the psychoactive bounty of Mother Nature. What a welcome change that will be from the usual party-line Websites delivering the usual maudlin narrative according to which every so-called "drug" user is a latent John Belushi.
Until then, the Drug War remains a violation of natural law and a political pretext to invade other countries on behalf of securing the monopoly interests of Big Liquor against all comers, including those substances that America loves to hate (such as coca, opium and entheogenic plants) that have been used responsibly by non-western cultures for millennia.
Author's Follow-up: April 1, 2025
Psst! Don't tell anyone, but the Hindu religion was inspired by a drug. They called it soma. To learn more, please see my essay entitled: How the Drug War Outlaws Religion.
I don't have a problem with CBD. But I find that many people like it for the wrong reasons: they assume there is something slightly "dirty" about getting high and that all "cures" should be effected via direct materialist causes, not holistically a la time-honored tribal use.
Folks like Sabet accuse folks like myself of ignoring the "facts." No, it is Sabet who is ignoring the facts -- facts about dangerous horses and free climbing. He's also ignoring all the downsides of prohibition, whose laws lead to the election of tyrants.
I wonder if Nixon knew what a favor he was doing medical capitalism when he outlawed psychedelics. Those drugs can actually cure things, and there's no money in that.
That's why we damage the brains of the depressed with shock therapy rather than let them use coca or opium. That's why many regions allow folks to kill themselves but not to take drugs that would make them want to live. The Drug War is a perversion of social priorities.
Some fat cat should treat the entire Supreme Court to a vacation at San Jose del Pacifico in Mexico, where they can partake of the magic mushroom in a ceremony led by a Zapotec guide.
Until we legalize ALL psychoactive drugs, there will be no such thing as an addiction expert. In the meantime, it's insulting to be told by neuroscience that I'm an addictive type. It's pathologizing my just indignation at psychiatry's niggardly pharmacopoeia.
That's my real problem with SSRIs: If daily drug use and dependency are okay, then there's no logical or truly scientific reason why I can't smoke a nightly opium pipe.
Reagan paid a personal price for his idiocy however. He fell victim to memory loss from Alzheimer's, after making a career out of demonizing substances that can grow new neurons in the brain!
Anyone who has read Pihkal by Alexander Shulgin knows that the drug warriors have it exactly backwards. Drugs are our friends. We need to find safe ways to use them to improve ourselves psychologically, spiritually and mentally.
When people tell us there's nothing to be gained from using mind-improving drugs, they are embarrassing themselves. Users benefit from such drugs precisely to the extent that they are educated and open-minded. Loudmouth abstainers are telling us that they lack these traits.
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, This is your brain on Drug War propaganda published on July 9, 2019 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)
f you want evidence that the American people have been bamboozled by the Drug War, just search the Web for "famous drug users." Almost all of the "hits" will feature the judgmental term "addiction" (rather than "habituation" or "use") and almost none of the "hits" will refer to addiction to LEGAL drugs, thereby ignoring the astounding fact that 1 in 4 American women are chemically dependent on SSRI antidepressants even as I type this.
You have been reading an article entitled, This is your brain on Drug War propaganda published on July 9, 2019 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)
