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Americans have the right to pursue happiness but not to attain it

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

April 22, 2019



The following comment was posted in response to "Psychedelic therapy: The patients paying $2k to get high with their doctor," by Jesse Noakes, which appeared on April 22nd, 2019 on news.com.au.


Though the Drug War originally targeted hippies, its real victims have been patients suffering from PTSD, depression, and anxiety. It is this latter demographic that the Drug War has truly cracked down on by denying us access to powerful and time-honored psychoactive medicines over the last 50 years, thereby forcing us to rely on SSRIs: drugs that create dependence, turn the depressed person into a lifelong patient, and eventually produce the drowsy symptoms of anhedonia in the lifelong user 1 . At best, such legal treatments make one's life bearable, while drugs like LSD and psilocybin open the mind to possibilities to which a depressed mind was otherwise blinded. The latter drugs, in fact, empower the patient to start unlearning the damaging lessons of negative experiences by giving the user new ways to look at life: in other words such drugs are the Holy Grail of psychopharmacology - or they would be if skeptical materialists and political fascists would merely allow these drugs to do their job.

A good step in this direction would be for purportedly "free" peoples to reject the notion that government can rightfully declare Mother Nature's output to be "illegal" (a usurpation of power that Terence Mckenna rightfully called "ridiculous and obnoxious") 2 . For if I have a birthright to anything in a free country, it is surely to the bounty of Mother Nature that grows freely at my feet 3 . This is especially so in America, where the very constitution grants me "the pursuit of happiness" and then the government turns around and criminalizes precisely those plants that could bring me that very happiness. Moreover, the right to Mother Nature's bounty is specifically guaranteed in America by the Natural Law upon which Jefferson founded our country. That's why Jefferson was rolling in his grave when the DEA stomped onto Monticello 4 in 1987 and confiscated the garden-loving president's poppy plants 5 6 .

Imagine, that the one country founded upon Natural Law should end up being the one country to set the pernicious example of criminalizing plants around the entire globe!









Notes for essay entitled Americans have the right to pursue happiness but not to attain it:

1: How Drug Prohibition makes it impossible to get off of Effexor and other Big Pharma drugs DWP (up)
2: “Food of the Gods : The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge : A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution : McKenna, Terence K., 1946-2000 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.” 2022. Internet Archive. 2022. https:// (up)
3: John Locke on Drugs DWP (up)
4: The Dark Side of the Monticello Foundation DWP (up)
5: A Misguided Tour of Monticello DWP (up)
6: How the DEA Scrubbed Thomas Jefferson's Monticello Poppy Garden from Public Memory alternet.org, 2010 (up)




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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




I hated the show "The Apprentice," because it taught a cynical and hate-filled lesson about the proper way to "get ahead" in the world. I saw Trump as a menace back then, long before he started declaring that American elections were corrupt before the very first vote was cast!

The drug war is being used as a wrecking ball to destroy democratic freedoms. It has destroyed the 4th amendment and freedom of religion and given the police the right to confiscate the property of peaceful and productive citizens.

Katie MacBride's one-sided attack on MAPS reminds me of why I got into an argument with Vincent Rado. Yes, psychedelic hype can go too far, but let's solve the huge problem first by ending the drug war!!!

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.")

Even the worst forms of "abuse" can be combatted with a wise use of a wide range of psychoactive drugs, to combat both physical and psychological cravings. But drug warriors NEED addiction to be a HUGE problem. That's their golden goose.

Americans love to hate heroin. But there is no rational reason why folks should not use heroin daily in a world in which we consider it their medical duty to use antidepressants daily.

"Now, now, Sherlock, that coca preparation is not helping you a jot. Why can't you get 'high on sunshine,' like good old Watson here?" To which Sherlock replies: "But my good fellow, then I would no longer BE Sherlock Holmes."

We might as well fight for justice for Christopher Reeves: he was killed because someone was peddling that junk that we call horses. The question is: who sold Christopher that horse?! Who encouraged him to ride it?!

When scientists discuss suicide without mentioning the fact that their government has outlawed drugs, it is like scientists discussing deaths from bacterial infection without mentioning the fact that their government has outlawed antibiotics.

Hollywood presents cocaine as a drug of killers. In reality, strategic cocaine use by an educated person can lead to great mental power, especially as just one part of a pharmacologically balanced diet.


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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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