Before I present the fourth and final essay in this series describing the nature of the ideal post-prohibition world, let me enumerate some of the points I have made thus far about that world.
1) In such a world, we would study literally ALL psychoactive drugs (for the first time in history) from the standpoint of how they affect actual users, according to those users themselves, rather than studying such drugs under a microscope as scientists do today in fealty to the passion-scorning tenets of the psychological doctrine of behaviorism.
2) We would consider ignorance and unwanted dependency to be the enemies, not drugs.
3) We would teach children from childhood that prohibition is wrong, not drugs.
4) We would acknowledge that there is no greater tyranny than to create laws that limit how and how much one is allowed to think and feel in life.
5) We would realize that it was always a category error to place materialist scientists in charge of mind and mood medicine. The proof is in the absurdum to which that approach has led, namely, the fact that our scientists are dogmatically blind to the obvious glaring benefits of the kinds of drugs that have inspired entire religions.
6) We would ostracize people for rude and aggressive personalities, insofar as it would be well-known that near-miraculous substances exist that can readily modify such pathologies. In other words, we would not just criticize those who misused drugs, but also those who failed to use them wisely when called for.
7) We would recognize that health is created by the balance of a wide variety of factors, and that therefore no drug is bad in and of itself. A substance that poses a problem for a young white American at one dose when used for one reason in one circumstance may yet be a godsend for a member of another demographic when used for another reason in another circumstance.
8) We would recognize that drug prohibition censors free speech1 - if only by encouraging individuals to self-censor, usually, indeed, so successfully that they are not even aware of their own self-censorship.
9) We would realize that psychology matters - common sense psychology, that is, as opposed to the passion-scorning psychology of behaviorism.
10) We would punish people for bad behavior, not for the supposititious pre-crime of substance possession.
^1567^Unfortunately, such an holistic and peace-loving world is anathema to a variety of American demographics, including materialist cynics, Chicken Little prohibitionists, and demagogue politicians. This is not surprising, however, since drug prohibition campaigns have always been a sort of a proxy battle for imposing a certain weltanschauung on the American people, a capitalist world view in which one lives a nervous life, mistrustful of their fellows and always desiring more and more - even when the planet upon which they are living has already been exploited to the point where its future habitability is now in question. Demagogues simply do not want a world wherein people are reasonable and can get along with one another. They want a world of finger-pointing in which we blame our own problems on others. Besides, when we re-legalize medicine, we deny the police their number-one weapon in cracking down on minorities, since drug prohibition incentivizes violence in poor and disadvantaged neighborhoods. This is so obvious and yet somehow completely invisible to the Drug Warriors. They seem to have learned nothing from the fact that liquor prohibition brought machine-gun-fire to American streets. Or is it that they know these things and are perfectly happy with using that knowledge to destroy America's cities - not to mention poor inner cities around the world?
I hope that these essays have given the reader an idea of the kind of weltanschauung that would be required for Americans to begin living peaceably with drugs, like actual grown-ups, rather than superstitiously outlawing plants and fungi, an approach to risk that will surely go down in history as the most idiotic attitude since the first cave people shouted "Fire bad!" I should probably answer one final objection that I can hear even now popping up in the "minds" of the opposition, however: namely, the idea that I am obsessed with drugs. My answer is: to the contrary, America is obsessed with drugs right now, even as we speak. I am not just referring to the fact that 1 in 4 American women take a Big Pharma med every day of their life, but the fact that we have saddled law enforcement with the 24/7 job of tracking down plants and fungi, meanwhile teaching our kids that "drugs" are bad in and of themselves without regard to context. Drugs, drugs, drugs! And make no mistake, this publicity leads to uninformed drug use, as it is supposed to do. See "Synthetic Panics" by Philip Jenkins to see how the DEA "bigs up" drug abuse for the purpose of keeping itself relevant by ensuring that drug problems always exist. They need a constant drug problem in order to justify their multi-billion-dollar budget . Drugs have to be constantly on our minds as Americans - otherwise we would find time to focus on the social problems for which drugs are a scapegoat.
^1440^In my alternative world, drugs would be viewed as mere tools to attain psychological outcomes - to increase relaxation, mental focus, improve mood, decrease anxiety, increase religiosity, or to investigate the nature of ultimate realities a la William James, who counseled us to use psychoactive substances for that very purpose. And while no one need use any drugs at all, they should surely not decide against them before we have even bothered to find out of what they are capable. There are drugs that can drastically improve our appreciation of Mother Nature and our appreciation of music - of course, no one specific person need ever use them, but to scorn them on principle seems masochistic unless one holds the metaphysical beliefs of a Christian Scientist, namely, that drugs are bad. Also, before we get on a groundless high-horse about our own abstention from drugs, let us remember that sugar is a drug, as is chocolate, as is caffeine, as is alcohol, as is nicotine. If you do not think so, then you can thank the drug-war propaganda to which you have been subjected ever since grade school when you first said no to the kinds of drugs that have inspired entire religions.
Finally, my world of the future would have no DEA. In fact, the DEA leaders would be rotting in jail after having been tried and found guilty for crimes against humanity for having lied about godsend medicines2. The Drug Enforcement Agency would be replaced with the Drug Education Agency - to be staffed by what I call "pharmacologically savvy empaths." These would be caring people who have used a wide variety of drugs and are versed not just in pharmacology, but in ethnobotany as well, and are also kept up-to-date on the upsides and downsides of all drugs, used either alone or in various combinations. Their job would be to identify best use practices for avoiding unwanted dependencies based on "actual use" cases. They would also develop drug-aided strategies to help users overcome any unwanted dependencies that may develop in their lives. Likewise, the National Institute on Drug Abuse would be replaced with the National Institute on Drug Use, and would replace its microscopes with common sense: namely, the testimony of actual drug users. The agency would launch public service campaigns designed to convince Americans that unwanted dependency is the problem, not mere drug use. Of course, this will be a hard sell, because Big Pharma thrives on rendering drug users dependent for life - which is no doubt why it is so hard to end the Drug War and re-legalize the many far-less-addictive nostrums available for the conditions for which Big Pharma 34 has a monopoly when it comes to treatment.
Author's Follow-up:
April 25, 2025
_4_One major aspect of this utopian (and yet common-sense) world is that it would be peaceful. It is worth noting how Drug Warriors have always hated peace. They used the excuse of "drugs" to crack down on the Summers of Love on both sides of the Atlantic, the one in America in the 1960s and the one in the UK in the 1990s. In neither case did the Drug Warriors see any benefit in the fact that the drug users were compassionate and friendly with each other and that violence was discouraged and even frowned upon. The U.S. hippies and the UK ravers got along in totally unprecedented harmony -- and this in a world that is loaded with nukes thanks to the penchant for hate and mistrust in the human species.
The mood of the British rave scene in particular is nicely captured by a handful of quotes from the documentary "United Nation" by promoter Terry Stone:
"It was the first time that black-and-white people had integrated on a level... and everybody was one." -- DJ Ray Keith.
"It was black and white, Asian, Chinese, all up in one building," -- MC GQ.
"Everyone's loving each other, man, they're not hating." - DJ Mampi Swift.5
But the powers-that-be refused to recognize any benefits whatsoever from such unprecedented harmony and focused instead on the fact that the peace was being amplified and facilitated with the help of an officially demonized substance.
I mention these "Summers of Love" in order to emphasize the fact that the drug-war status quo is full of perverse values. The Drug Warrior would rather crack down on drugs than have world peace, they would rather crack down on drugs than end suicide, they would rather crack down on drugs than end shock therapy, they would rather crack down on drugs than end police brutality.
In the world of MY vision, we would have actually PRAISED the hippies and ravers for getting along with one another in spite of religious and ethnic differences and we would work with them to help them continue to do so as safely as possible and to encourage haters around the world to join them in the love fest.
And what about risks? We would stop focusing exclusively on the theoretical risks of drug use and start looking also at the very real risks of NOT using drugs -- at the risks of nuclear annihilation, and of suicide, and of shock therapy, and of police brutality.
In the re-legalized world that I am advocating here, we would consider peace, love and understanding to be a good thing. Imagine that!
I just recently listened to a webinar entitled "A Darkening Horizon: Nuclear Dangers Around the World" with Matthew Bunn from October 10, 20236. I need hardly tell the reader that the foreign policy expert never mentioned entheogenic drugs nor any other psychoactive substances whose wise use could keep Homo sapiens from wishing to harm supposed enemies. In the sane world of which I write, no such webinar would be considered complete without a discussion of how the wise use of drugs could help us fight nuclear threats in the most direct way possible: by ending the hate and fear of "the other" that inspires the creation of nuclear arsenals in the first place. We just have to decide, though, do we want to survive as a species, or do we want to superstitiously hate drugs. We cannot do both.
The media called out Trump for fearmongering about immigrants, but the media engages in fearmongering when it comes to drugs. The latest TV plot line: "white teenage girl forced to use fentanyl!" America loves to feel morally superior about "drugs."
The drug war normalizes the disdainful and self-righteous attitude that Columbus and Pizarro had about drug use in the New World.
How else will they scare us enough to convince us to give up all our freedoms for the purpose of fighting horrible awful evil DRUGS? DRUGS is the sledgehammer with which they are destroying American democracy.
Science knows nothing of the human spirit and of the hopes and dreams of humankind. Science cannot tell us whether a given drug risk is worthwhile given the human need for creativity and passion in their life. Science has no expertise in making such philosophical judgements.
The scheduling system is a huge lie designed to give an aura of "science" to America's colonialist disdain for indigenous medicines, from opium, to coca, to shrooms.
The formula is easy: pick a substance that folks are predisposed to hate anyway, then keep hounding the public with stories about tragedies somehow related to that substance. Show it ruining lives in movies and on TV. Don't lie. Just keep showing all the negatives.
Outlawing drugs is outlawing obvious therapies for Alzheimer's and autism patients, therapies based on common sense and not on the passion-free behaviorism of modern scientists.
There would be little or no profiling of blacks if the Drug War did not exist.
No wonder the "Justice" Department relies on plea deals; otherwise juries could use nullification to free those charged with mere drug possession.
Psychedelics and entheogens should be freely available to all dementia patients. These medicines can increase neuronal plasticity and even grow new neurons. Besides, they can inspire and elate -- or do we puritans feel that our loved ones have no right to peace of mind?
Unless otherwise indicated, no AI is used in the creation of site content. These essays represent the original ideas of their author and not the ideas that the author SHOULD have based on an algorithmic parsing of existing data. For more on this subject, consider the AI-related viewpoints to which the author subscribes as delineated in the New York Times opinion piece entitled "What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity" by Rebecca Winthrop of the Brookings Institution.
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