Why the Holocaust Museum must denounce the Drug War
an open letter to the UHMM in Washington, DC
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
September 9, 2020
ear US Holocaust Memorial Museum:
I am writing today to encourage the Holocaust museum to take a stand against America's Drug War. Why? Because thanks to that war's anti-scientific effort to demonize psychoactive plant medicines, Americans have now gotten in the habit of referring to "drug dealers" as scumbags and vermin - scumbags and vermin because they dare to sell plant medicines of which our politicians disapprove. This hyperbolical language of the Drug War is chillingly reminiscent of the Nazi's characterization of Jews and, like that demonization, is based on lies, propaganda and half-truths. It is therefore, I believe, incumbent upon your institution to sound the alarm about this hysterical demonization and urge sensible Americans to cease and desist, especially since this atmosphere of demonization has now given Donald Trump the "moral cover" to call for the execution of said "dealers," revealing yet another insidious way in which the Drug War resembles the Nazi war on Jews. Trump, after all, seems to be advocating a "final solution" to deal with those Americans who dare to sell plant medicines of which politicians disapprove.
For those who would like further proof of this pernicious American mindset, we have only to watch those "Drug War" movies in which the heroes are DEA agents who cynically ignore the US Constitution in order to wipe out vermin drug dealers. In the 2019 movie "Running with the Devil," for instance, a DEA agent played by Leslie Bibb (the apparent "good guy" of the movie) tortures one drug suspect (hanging him from a meat hook in his speedos) and shoots another one in cold blood at point-blank range. Why? Because she's frustrated by her longstanding inability to quash the use of naturally occurring substances: she therefore concludes that the time has come to just plain start shooting the offenders without so much as a trial (this despite the fact that she herself is constantly puffing on a drug that kills far more than the substance that she's attempting to outlaw). Natalie's hypocritical fury reminds me of the frustration shown by Glenn Close's character in the TV movie "Four Good Days" (also from 2019) when she sees a young drug dealer and says, "That guy should be shot," and then rushes inside to calm down with a hastily gulped glass of wine. Such is the hysteria fanned by the Drug War that those who behave in this way are our new American heroes.
Millions of decent Americans will gladly say "Never again" in thinking of the Holocaust, but they forget that the road to evil begins with the unthinking demonization of "the other," and that is exactly what Drug War propaganda is all about: the unprecedented demonization of those who sell mother nature's psychoactive plant medicines. This despite the fact that Benjamin Franklin and Marcus Aurelius used opium to increase their creativity and affability. HG Wells and Jules Verne used the coca plant to write better stories. Francis Crick used psychedelics to think outside the box and thus envisioned the DNA helix. The psychedelic-fueled Eleusinian Mysteries inspired Plato's theory of the afterlife. If such "drugs" do fry the brain, as those highly mendacious Drug War ads have suggested, it is only because the Drug War has made it impossible for the user to be sure of obtaining a safe product. Of course, Reagan's DEA didn't help matters when it sprayed marijuana plants with Paraquat in the 1980s, a weed killer that has subsequently been shown to cause Parkinson's Disease, but which was already a known toxin at the time it was employed by DEA Chief John C. Lawn, who thus essentially used chemical weapons "against his own people."
Pardon my prolixity, but we can only understand the modern habit of demonizing drug dealers by examining the Drug War lies and propaganda that have inspired that demonization.
Conclusion: The Drug War must end because its hypocritical and politically motivated ideology leads to the demonization of certain Americans, especially minorities, as subhuman - leading, of course, to the biggest prison population in American history, composed mainly of minorities, minorities whom Trump is no longer satisfied with simply vilifying and imprisoning and removing from the voting rolls: now he wants to execute them as well.
I hope I have motivated you to denounce the Drug War practice of encouraging Americans to speak of their fellows as scumbags and vermin, simply because they choose to sell plant medicines of which politicians disapprove. Indeed, I hope I have motivated you to denounce the Drug War, period, full stop. Surely a scientific country needs a Drug Education Agency, not a Drug Enforcement Agency. For the current system is pure evil, and the proof is everywhere you look: in the civil wars in South America, the inner-city shooting fatalities (almost 800 in 2021 in Chicago alone), the government censorship of scientists when it comes to researching plants and fungi, and the extrajudicial removal of Americans from the nation's workforce by drug testing, not because they were impaired but merely because their urine revealed mere traces of those plant medicines of which botanically clueless politicians disapprove -- plant medicines that have been the inspiration for entire religions in non-western cultures.
Sincerely Yours,
Ballard Quass
Abolishthedea.com
June 13, 2022
PS The Drug War was responsible for almost 800 deaths in Chicago alone in 2021, due to the gun violence that substance prohibition has created out of whole cloth. For as Heather Ann Thompson wrote in The Atlantic in 2014: "Without the War on Drugs, the level of gun violence that plagues so many poor inner-city neighborhoods today simply would not exist."
Author's Follow-up: September 24, 2022
Well, it's been over two years since I gave the Holocaust Museum the heads-up about the Nazification of sentiment produced by the Drug War and they have not yet QUITE seen fit to respond to my concerns. Well, we'll give them a few more years before we start to worry. Meanwhile, for those of you who need more proof that the Drug War is Nazifying our attitudes toward our fellow humans, consider the recent movie "The Runner," in which a black teenager is dismissed by a white detective as "a scumbag, not worth another thought." Why? Because he was selling medicine from a plant that the Inca considered to be a divinity. The detective (aptly named Detective Wall, since he's clearly impervious to common sense and common compassion) expresses the wish that the teenager get 20 years at minimum in a federal pen.
SPOILER ALERT: The black kid does not get thrown in the pen, but that's only because his chest is riddled with bullets in a criminally irresponsible DEA raid on a teenage drinking party. I know what you're thinking, Detective Wall was fired for that atrocious outcome, right? Wrong. You see, in the hail of gunfire, the feds also managed to kill the Latino mastermind of the botanical-selling operation, so Detective Wall receives a special award for his efforts, which he humbly accepts with the proviso that he's just happy to do his job: which, based on the film, is nothing less than killing minorities and keeping human beings from using natural medicines that have inspired entire religions.
Author's Follow-up: October 1, 2022
What? You've read this far and you're still not sure why the Holocaust Museum should denounce the Drug War? Check out the anti-American message of the 2021 movie "The Runner," in which an unarmed black teenager is riddled with SWAT-team bullets at a high-school party -- and 'Detective Wall' gets an award for the raid!!!
All right, buddy, do you know why I stopped you? That's right, because the Drug War gives me carte blanche to be a noxious busybody. But I also thought you might be interested in the following additional essays touching on fascism -- and also the need for the Holocaust Museum to speak out against the same -- at long last, be it said!!!
Check out the conversations that I have had so far with the movers and shakers in the drug-war game -- or rather that I have TRIED to have. Actually, most of these people have failed to respond to my calls to parlay, but that need not stop you from reading MY side of these would-be chats.
I used to be surprised at this reticence on the part of modern drug-war pundits, until I realized that most of them are materialists. That is, most of them believe in (or claim to believe in) the psychiatric pill mill. If they happen to praise psychedelic drugs as a godsend for the depressed, they will yet tell us that such substances are only for those whose finicky body chemistries fail to respond appropriately to SSRIs and SNRIs. The fact is, however, there are thousands of medicines out there that can help with psychological issues -- and this is based on simple psychological common sense. But materialist scientists ignore common sense. That's why Dr. Robert Glatter wrote an article in Forbes magazine wondering if laughing gas could help the depressed.
As a lifelong depressive, I am embarrassed for Robert, that he has to even ask such a question. Of course laughing gas could help. Not only is laughter "the best medicine," as Readers Digest has told us for years, but looking forward to laughing is beneficial too. But materialist scientists ignore anecdote and history and tell us that THEY will be the judge of psychoactive medicines, thank you very much. And they will NOT judge such medicines by asking folks like myself if they work but rather by looking under a microscope to see if they work in the biochemical way that materialists expect.
Almost all addiction services assume that the goal should be to get off all drugs. That is not science, it is Christian Science.
This is why we would rather have a depressed person commit suicide than to use "drugs" -- because drugs, after all, are not dealing with the "real" problem. The patient may SAY that drugs make them feel good, but we need microscopes to find out if they REALLY feel good.
Both physical and psychological addiction can be successfully fought when we relegalize the pharmacopoeia and start to fight drugs with drugs. But prohibitionists do not want to end addiction, they want to scare us with it.
We need a Controlled Prohibitionists Act, to get psychiatric help for the losers who think that prohibition makes sense despite its appalling record of causing civil wars overseas and devastating inner cities.
Prohibition is wrong root and branch. It seeks to justify the colonial disdain for indigenous healing practices through fearmongering.
It's depressing. I thought mycology clubs across the US would be protesting drug laws that make mushroom collecting illegal for psychoactive species. But in reality, almost no club even mentions such species. No wonder prohibition is going strong.
It's no wonder that folks blame drugs. Carl Hart is the first American scientist to openly say in a published book that even the so-called "hard" drugs can be used wisely. That's info that the drug warriors have always tried to keep from us.
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.
Meanwhile, no imaginable downside could persuade westerners that guns and alcohol were too dangerous. Yet the DEA lies about almost all psychoactive drugs, saying there are no good uses. That's a lie! Then they pass laws that keep us from disproving their puritanical conclusion.
The FDA approves of shock therapy and the psychiatric pill mill, but they cannot see the benefits in MDMA, a drug that brought peace, love and understanding to the dance floor in 1990s Britain.
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, Why the Holocaust Museum must denounce the Drug War: an open letter to the UHMM in Washington, DC, published on September 9, 2020 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)
ear US Holocaust Memorial Museum:
Well, it's been over two years since I gave the Holocaust Museum the heads-up about the Nazification of sentiment produced by the Drug War and they have not yet QUITE seen fit to respond to my concerns. Well, we'll give them a few more years before we start to worry. Meanwhile, for those of you who need more proof that the Drug War is Nazifying our attitudes toward our fellow humans, consider the recent movie "The Runner," in which a black teenager is dismissed by a white detective as "a scumbag, not worth another thought." Why? Because he was selling medicine from a plant that the Inca considered to be a divinity. The detective (aptly named Detective Wall, since he's clearly impervious to common sense and common compassion) expresses the wish that the teenager get 20 years at minimum in a federal pen.
You have been reading an article entitled, Why the Holocaust Museum must denounce the Drug War: an open letter to the UHMM in Washington, DC, published on September 9, 2020 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)