A laughable game show about a laughable drug policy
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
April 11, 2026
HOST: Welcome to What's My Line?! Today's guest is someone in the biomedical field. Someone in the biomedical field. Our contestants' duty is to identify the job that he holds. Okay, guys? Let's start with the star of Celebrity Lawn Darts, Talon West. Talon, your first question, please?
TALON: Do you work in a laboratory, my dear?
HOST: Oh, good question.
GUEST: Yes, I do.
HOST: Interesting. Let's go to Indigo Lane from CSI: Run-of-the-mill Victims Unit.
INDIGO: Do you test bodily fluids, by any chance?
GUEST: Yes, I do.
INDIGO: What can I say, I had a hunch.
HOST: A good hunch! Good for you. Let's move on to Cairo Reeves, host of Chutes & Ladders: Celebrity Edition.
CAIRO: Does your work affect people like me?
GUEST: It could.
HOST: Aha! It could affect you, Cairo! Watch out! Haha! Talon, next question, please?
TALON: You say it could affect Cairo. How so?
GUEST: It could cause him to lose his job.
HOST: Wow! How odd is THAT? This is a tough one, folks. Indigo?
Indigo: Does your job have anything to do with urine, by any chance?
HOST: Where does she GET these questions?
GUEST: Yes, actually it does.
HOST: Shut my mouth! Really?! How did you know that, Indigo? Cairo, you get to ask the final question.
CAIRO: Would you, by any chance, be one of those weasels who tests employee urine, not simply to check for impairment, but to "catch them out" for using any medicines that inspire and elate which are not produced by Big Pharma, thereby denying them their time-honored right to take care of their own health as they see fit and tossing them out of the work force for the crime of being a Christian Science heretic?
GUEST: You got it in one!
HOST: Well, he got it in two, actually, but he did get it! Congratulations.
CAIRO: You sneaky little weasel.
HOST: That's all for today, folks.
CAIRO: How does it feel, making money by running roughshod over my time-honored rights? Huh? Come back here!
It's a category error to say that scientists can tell us if psychoactive drugs "really work." It's like asking Dr. Spock of Star Trek if hugging "really works." ("Hugging is highly illogical, Captain.")
The drug war is a way for conservatives to keep America's eyes OFF the prize. The right-wing motto is, "Billions for law enforcement, but not one cent for social programs."
We need a Controlled Prohibitionists Act, to get psychiatric help for those who think that prohibition makes sense despite its appalling record of causing civil wars overseas and devastating inner cities.
Wanna show drug warriors the error of their ways? Legalize all less dangerous drugs than alcohol and then deny work to those who test positive for liquor and confiscate their property if beer cans are found on-site.
The drug war is the defeatist doctrine that we will never be able to use psychoactive drugs wisely. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy because the government does everything it can to make drug use dangerous.
We should hold the DEA criminally responsible for withholding spirit-lifting drugs from the depressed. Responsible for what, you ask? For suicides and lobotomies, for starters.
By reading "Drug Warriors and Their Prey," I begin to understand why I encounter a wall of silence when I write to authors and professors on the subject of "drugs." The mere fact that the drug war inspires such self-censorship should be grounds for its immediate termination.
Americans believe scientists when they say that drugs like MDMA are not proven effective. That's false. They are super effective and obviously so. It's just that science holds entheogenic medicines to the standards of reductive materialism. That's unfair and inappropriate.
Ketamine is like any other drug. It has good uses for certain people in certain situations. Nowadays, people insist that a drug be okay in every situation for everybody (especially American teens) before they will say that it's okay. That's crazy and anti-scientific.
In a free world, almost all depressed individuals could do WITHOUT doctors: these adult human beings could handle their own depression with the informed intermittent use of a wide variety of psychoactive substances.
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