introduction to the Drug War Philosopher website at abolishthedea.com orange rss icon with stylized radio waves orange rss icon with stylized radio waves label reading 'add as a preferred source on Google' bird icon for twitter bird icon for twitter


back navigation arrow forward navigation arrow


Vice and The 'One Strike You're Out' Fallacy

by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

March 7, 2021



Written in response to Drugs Reddit post entitled Does anyone else just hate how Vice writes about Drugs, posted March 6, 2021

Vice writers are like all Drug Warriors: they write as if a natural psychoactive substance can be justifiably condemned provided only that it causes one single solitary problem for one single solitary person (even if the person in question was massively irresponsible when using said substance). What anti-scientific idiocy! A 2017 study shows that aspirin kills 3,000 people a year, and yet Vice is not writing horror stories to illustrate that fact. Why not? Because Vice authors have an agenda. They're not out to demonize drugs in general, but only those substances that threaten Big Business and the scientistic status quo.

Vice is guilty of what we should henceforth call the "ONE STRIKE YOU'RE OUT" fallacy, which says that a criminalized substance can be dismissed as evil merely because of its association with one single solitary instance of misuse. The fact that adult writers can glibly accept such an idiotic assumption shows how far the Drug War has melted the brains of America's so-called intellectual class.

The British Parliament was guilty of the "One Strike You're Out" fallacy when they broke up the peaceful rave scene in 1995 by cracking down on Ecstasy, merely because the drug had resulted in one single solitary death -- a death which was caused by the Drug War itself because it outlawed objective research into the drug in question, thereby denying safe-use information to the ravers who used it.







Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




"Those gentlemen who adopt the anti-opium doctrine... are only comparable to the monomaniac, who, sane upon every subject but one, is thoroughly daft upon that." --William Brereton

Endless drugs could help with depression. Any drug that inspires and elates is an antidepressant, partly by the effect itself and partly by the mood-elevation caused by anticipation of use (facts which are far too obvious for materialists and drug warriors to understand -- let alone materialist drug warriors!).

There is more hope in dope than there is in the psychiatric pill mill.

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.

AI is inherently plagiaristic technology. It tells us: "Hey, guys, look what I can do!" -- when it should really be saying, "Hey, guys, look how I stole all your data and repackaged it in such a way as to make it appear that I am the genius, not you!"

As such, "we" are important. The sun is just a chaos of particles that "we" have selected out of the rest of the raw data and declared "This we shall call the sun!" "We" make this universe. Consciousness is fundamental.

According to Donald Trump's view of life, Jesus Christ was a chump. We should hate our enemies, not love them.

There are endless creative ways to ward off addiction if all psychoactive medicines were at our disposal. The use of the drugs synthesized by Alexander Shulgin could combat the psychological downsides of withdrawal by providing strategic "as-needed" relief.

Immanuel Kant wrote that scientists are scornful about metaphysics yet they rely on it themselves without realizing it. This is a case in point, for the idea that euphoria and visions are unhelpful in life is a metaphysical viewpoint, not a scientific one.

If there is an epidemic of "self-harm," prohibitionists never think of outlawing razor blades. They ask: "Why the self-harm?" But if there is an epidemic of drug use which they CLAIM is self-harm, they never ask "Why the self-harm?" They say: "Let's prohibit and punish!"


Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us






Next essay:
Previous essay:


No cookies, no ads.


Attention, Teachers and Students: Read an essay a day by the Drug War Philosopher and then discuss... while it's still legal to do so!

The Partnership for a Death Free America is a proud sponsor of The Drug War Philosopher website @ abolishthedea.com. Updated daily.

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

tombstone for American Democracy, 1776-2024, RIP (up)