I'm Rick, your museum guide. Can everybody hear me in the back? Today we will be viewing a collection of op-ed pictures designed to get Americans thinking critically about the downsides of drug prohibition and the War on Drugs. We've got a lot of ground to cover today given that the downsides are so numerous, so please try to keep up. This is all controversial stuff, of course, so feel free to ask questions as we go along.
WOMAN: In what sense is this art? My child could throw together montages like these.
RICK: Yes, but your child does NOT throw together montages like these, that is the point. The point is that nobody throws together montages like these and that is why this exhibition exists, to force Americans to face the facts about the deadly policy of drug prohibition.
WOMAN: But--
RICK: Now if I may direct your collective attentions to your left....
Americans have been taught to superstitiously believe that drugs are bad. Drugs are not bad or good. They are inanimate objects. Their widespread misuse tells us something about society, not about drugs.
Here we have "Fentanyl by the Media", which reminds me of a favorite apothegm of mine: namely, that saying things like "Fentanyl kills" is philosophically equivalent to saying "Fire bad." Both statements would have us fear dangerous substances rather than learning how to use them as wisely as possible for the benefit of humanity.1
MAN: And don't some of the drugs that we outlaw today actually help people get along with one another?
RICK: It's funny that you should mention that, because our very next picture concerns the use of just that kind of drug. That's it, folks, don't be shy, follow me over here to the right...
Ecstasy brought unprecedented peace to British dance floors, until British MPs cracked down and dancers switched to alcohol, making the concert venues incredibly violent.
RICK: Here's a work depicting the rave scene before and after the UK's moronic crack down on the use of Ecstasy, which could just as well have been called their attempts to increase alcohol use.
To answer your question then, sir, yes, indeed, there are drugs that can inspire compassion. They are called empathogens2. Most of the phenethylamines synthesized by Alexander Shulgin in the late 20th century were drugs of this kind34. The use of one empathogen in particular, namely the empathogen called Ecstasy, brought unprecedented peace, love and understanding to the dance floors of England in the 1990s5, and yet you know what? You're not going to believe this, people. Drug prohibitionists did not consider peace, love and understanding to be a benefit of that drug use. And so they cracked down on Ecstasy, and you know what happened then, folks, right? The ravers switched from "E" to alcohol and the dance floors erupted into such violence that concert organizers needed to hire special forces troops to keep the peace.6 Special forces! I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I would have thought that peace, love and understanding was a GOOD thing, especially in a world that was on the brink of nuclear annihilation thanks to humanity's hatred of "the other."
But what do I know, right, folks?
And now if you'll be so good as to accompany me into the adjoining chamber as I proceed with measured and stately step.
Masterpiece, here we come!
Americans have been taught to hate Mother Nature's plant medicines and to trust in Big Pharma 'meds' instead, many of which turn the depressed into patients for life with extreme chemical dependency.
Ta-da! Here's one with a straightforward message for you.
Of course, any drug can help the world get along to the extent that it helps a specific human being to thrive in life, thereby inoculating them against the strategically divisive fearmongering of the demagogues of the world. People who are living fulfilled lives do not shoot up grade schools, people. But Drug warriors actually want the world to be violent: that is how they conduct both foreign and domestic policy: by cracking down violently on their perceived enemies in the name of drug prohibition. On the domestic front, you can destroy your political enemies with drug prohibition. As Nixon's domestic advisor, John Ehrlichman, admitted in 1994:
"We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities."7
On the foreign front, you can attack and invade poor countries of your choice, merely by playing the "drugs" card.
Speaking of which, I draw your attention to the picture on the right...
See what the outlawing of the Inca's divine coca leaf has wrought.
I think this picture speaks for itself, folks -- or at least it cries out in the wilderness for itself.
Unfortunately, this is a timely picture, too. Even as we speak, the regime in Washington DC is invoking Drug War hysteria as an excuse for yet another crack down on the Mexican drug cartels, which always results in massive collateral deaths. Sixty-thousand Mexicans have been disappeared in the last two decades thanks to the Drug War violence in Mexico that has been incentivized by drug prohibition.8 And where did these drug cartels come from in the first place? These are the bad guys that America itself created out of whole cloth by setting the example of deadly drug prohibition for the rest of the world beginning with our outlawing of opium in 1914, a ban which was motivated by a blatantly racist hatred of the Chinese.910
When is America going to wake up? We have created a deadly game of whack-a-mole that is destroying democratic freedoms and denying godsend medicines to hundreds of millions, all in the name of outlawing substances that other cultures have not only used wisely but have considered to be divine! In specific, we are killing hundreds of thousands as part of a war to crack down on the divine plant of the Incas.11 It is the epitome of imperialist madness!
Sorry, folks, I went off-script there, but SOMEBODY's got to get pissed off about this stuff, and since the vast majority of Americans want to see no evil and hear no evil on this topic, the job of getting pissed off has devolved upon me.
Next picture over here to the right. What have we here...?
This is an actual photograph used for target practice by the Farmingham Police Department in Michigan.
Aha! The artist calls this one "Target Practice." Remember in viewing this piece that it was drug prohibition that brought guns to the streets in the first place.12
MAN: Isn't the artist being a bit inflammatory here? I mean, only some backwoods racist would use a target like this with a Black man on it.
RICK: Correction, please. This is an actual paper target which, until recently, was used by the Farmington Police Department in the state of Michigan.13
MAN: Whoa, dude.
RICK: This is a particularly important picture because the leaders of minority communities have yet to connect inner-city gun violence to drug prohibition. Amazing, right? Or is it that they know that there is a connection but they have been so bamboozled by Christian Science censorship and propaganda14 that they think that the destruction of entire communities and the deaths of thousands of minorities a year are acceptable prices to pay for quote-unquote 'fighting drugs'?
Speaking of which, it's no coincidence that as George Floyd was being killed, his police officer assailants were laughingly telling the crowd of onlookers to "just say no." It was as if the officers were admitting that the Drug War was just one big excuse to violate the rights of minorities. They knew it, and they loved it! And yet the penny refuses to drop for the leaders of minority communities, that drug prohibition is the problem, not drugs!
Okay, moving on. No dawdling in the back, there. We've got places to go and drug laws to scorn, people.
No biologist worthy of that name can be in favor of drug prohibition, which lets government decide what plants and fungi we can access and study.
On a lighter note, here is one that the artist calls "Mercy Me, the Mycology," a title that gives a nod to the 1971 protest song by Marvin Gaye entitled "Mercy Me (the Ecology)." We see here a scientist running away from a police officer who wants to arrest him for daring to study the bounty of Mother Nature. If this were the only effect of drug prohibition, that it censored academia, this alone should have stopped us from adopting the policy all by itself. But those who accept drug prohibition never consider basic principles like the freedom of academia. Their support of drug prohibition is literally "unprincipled," it's simply about staying safe and not arousing any unwanted attention as a troublemaker. Most Americans play duck-duck-goose with the reigning Weltanschauung. No one wants to be the only guy standing when the music stops. "Count me in," they say. "I believe whatever everyone else is saying on this topic! Don't look at me, folks, look at the Drug War Philosopher who refuses to spout the party line!"
I'm afraid I'm going off-script again.
But I really can't help it. I mean, the very idea of outlawing Mother Nature is pure caveman to me. I'm embarrassed for my species every time I think about it. Just imagine: we are governed by dunces in Washington DC who actually think that it should be illegal for us to access the bounty of Mother Nature, which, till now, has always been the birthright of human beings everywhere by dint of their merely having been born on Planet Earth! Besides, last time I checked the Christian Bible, it was God himself who said that his creation was good, both as to fauna AND flora, thank you very much. (If I remember correctly, God himself actually says "thank you very much" in the Book of Genesis in at least one translation of the Bible by way of underscoring his certainty on this point.)
Which brings us to the next picture to our immediate right...
If the dunce cap fits, wear it.
I think that picture speaks for itself... or rather it burps for itself.
Ordinarily, the museum does not sign off on stereotyping human beings, but we display this picture because the Drug War itself is all about stereotyping: it stereotypes both human beings and the substances that they use. In other words, turnabout is fair play, folks. If Drug Warriors are going to stereotype drug users as losers because they use time-honored and godsend medicines, then we are going to stereotype the Drug Warriors as closed-minded dunces because of their historical, anecdotal, psychological, pharmacological and philosophical ignorance. So there!
This picture raises important questions, by the way, such as: why is it okay to use substances like alcohol and tobacco which impair our health while it is wrong to use substances like coca and opium which can improve our mentation and creativity? Clearly, the prohibitionists who make our drug laws are not interested in using the legislative process to keep us safe: otherwise they would outlaw guns faster than you can say "over my dead body"! No, as this picture implies, they are really interested in privileging a certain kind of lifestyle -- namely, the lifestyle of the self-righteous beer-drinking Christian good-old boy -- and demonizing all other lifestyles, or what the philosopher Heidegger would call all other "ways of being in the world."
[pause]
Yes? No? Well, think about it as we shuffle across the hallway here to the next insightful masterpiece. And, shuffle!
The Double Slit Experiment demonstrated that light can behave either as a particle or a wave, depending on how we look at it. In America, a psychoactive substance can behave either as a blessing or a curse, depending on how we look at it.
And what have we here? Yet another picture featuring the museum's Dunce in Residence! The artist calls this one 'The Double Slit Experiment.'
If you are not familiar with the Double Slit experiment of physics, this picture might be a bit of an enigma to you. But not to worry, I'm here to explain. The Double Slit experiment of physics basically proved that light could be either a particle or a wave and that it depends on how you look at it. The artist here is suggesting that a psychoactive substance behaves in the same way: it can be either a blessing or a curse depending on how you look at it. If we look at the substance as a blessing, we call it a "med"; if we see it as a curse, we call it a "drug."
Speaking of which, let's sashay over into the corner here to see a related picture...
Drug warriors denounce chemical dependency and yet drug prohibition has rendered 1 in 4 American women chemically dependent for life by shunting them off onto Big Pharma drugs that are FAR harder to kick than heroin.
Now, this picture speaks for itself. Indeed, it hollers! It's shouting: "Wake up, people! Psychoactive substances are psychoactive substances, for Pete's sake! Stop supercharging them with hypocritical and self-righteous moral judgments!"
That kid's over there like, "Mommy, I don't hear anything."
But we're running out of time, folks. I'll let you guys imagine a relevant commentary for the remaining half-dozen pictures in the gallery. Just ask yourself, what does this picture tell me about sheer counterproductive idiocy of drug prohibition? Fair enough? And we'll meet back here in front of the Dunce Cap in ten minutes, okay? Enjoy!
Substance use, as William James well knew, tells us things about the nature of human consciousness and of reality writ large, crucial info for evaluating Hume, Kant, etc. Yet Drug Warriors have outlawed philosophical progress.
Here's hoping you have a Drug-War Free Valentine's Day!
You would see signs like this throughout the country if America was truly free. But the media, both locally and nationally, is controlled by conglomerates like Gannett, Hearst and Sinclair, who toe the Drug War party line.
The government is spending billions of dollars to encourage Americans to fear drugs rather than to understand them and use them as wisely as possible for human benefit.
Don't think your life has been censored? Go into the local library and see how many books there are on the BENEFITS of drug use!
Drug prohibition has destroyed minority communities around the world by introducing guns and violence to poor neighborhoods.
If the dunce cap fits, wear it.
What do you think? Wouldn't this be a great place to take your brainwashed friends? You can be like, "Hey, guys, there's this great new museum that I want to take you to." Don't even tell them that the collection has anything to do with drugs. And then once they're in here, you can take them from picture to picture, slowly but surely reprogramming their brains to think for themselves when it comes to drugs. You'd be doing them a favor. Like everyone in the west, they've been indoctrinated since childhood with Drug War propaganda, largely in the form of the censorship of all positive depictions of drug use. By showing them these pictures, you can make them realize that drug prohibition does not pass the laugh test when subjected to even the slightest logical scrutiny, and that it is a racist, xenophobic and anti-democratic policy into the bargain.
I must warn you, however, that your friends will come out of the museum staggering, so much so that you may actually have to physically hold them up. They'll be like: "Are you kidding me? All of my life I assumed that the fearmongering politicians knew what they were yammering about. Are you telling me that they were sending me into a partisan tizzy over NOTHING!?! Are you telling me that they were actually LYING to me all this time about drugs?! Are you telling me that I have trodden the stony path of life in lockstep with fearmongering choplogic!"
Tut, don't say a word to them, just support them at this point. This is a phase that they have to go through as they learn to accept the truth that, yes, politicians can indeed lead people by the nose by appealing to their inner fears and insecurities -- to say nothing of their inner racial and social prejudices. No need to say anything at this point except maybe an occasional, "I know, I know! There, there!" Just BE THERE FOR THEM!
They'll be like, "But who am I going to blame for all the world's ills now that I can no longer blame drugs?!!"
And you'll be like, "Oh, I don't know: maybe you can start blaming those ills on the REAL causes of problems in the world: like greed, racism, xenophobia, violence, a refusal to educate... and the fearmongering of demagogue politicians!"
Most psychoactive substance use can be judged as recreational OR medicinal OR both. The judgements are not just determined by the circumstances of use, either, but also by the biases of those doing the judging.
Imagine a world in which we were told about both the potential benefits AND the potential harms of drugs like cocaine and opium.
Laughing gas inspired the philosophy of William James. Outlawing N20 is outlawing academic freedom. Laughing gas should be available for the suicidal. Drug prohibition is not a victimless crime.
The fact that drugs have positive uses for human beings is a psychological corollary of Husserl's phenomenology and Whitehead's philosophy of organism.
In "How to Change Your Mind," Michael Pollan says psychedelic legalization would endanger young people. What? Prohibition forces users to decide for themselves which mushrooms are toxic, or to risk buying contaminated product. And that's safe, Michael?
We should place prohibitionists on trial for destroying inner cities.
That's so "drug war" of Rick: If a psychoactive substance has a bad use at some dose, for somebody, then it must not be used at any dose by anybody. It's hard to imagine a less scientific proposition, or one more likely to lead to unnecessary suffering.
Alexander Shulgin is a typical westerner when he speaks about cocaine. He moralizes about the drug, telling us that it does not give him "real" power. But so what? Does coffee give him "real" power? Coke helps some, others not. Stop holding it to this weird metaphysical standard.
"In consciousness dwells the wondrous, with it man attains the realm beyond the material, and the peyote tells us where to find it." --Antonin Arnaud
Before anyone receives shock therapy -- or the right to assisted suicide -- they should have the option to start using opium or cocaine daily -- in fact, any drug that makes them feel that life is worth living again.
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