In 1980, the Air Force almost blew up 1/3 of the country with a thermonuclear weapon, a weapon created because the US and Russia were committed to hating each other. Today, the US nuclear weapon stockpile still contains 7,000 warheads, many of them insufficiently monitored according to Eric Schlosser, author of "Command and Control 1 ." Yet this same country outlaws all entheogenic medicines, psychoactive substances such as MDMA and psilocybin, that could bring the world together in universal love.
Something is wrong with this picture.
Will it take a thermonuclear bomb blast in America, accidental or otherwise, to teach us that psychoactive medicine should not be feared but rather used to take the world off its one-way trip to armageddon 2 ? In a sane world, we would not be outlawing drugs like MDMA 3 but rather prescribing them for leaders of countries in advance of summit meetings -- and using them as therapy to treat all the crazed hot-heads of the world who might otherwise shoot up a grade-school.
The Links Police
Do you know why I pulled you over? That's right, because the Drug War gives me carte blanche to be a noxious busybody. That, and I wanted to apprise you of another link adverting to the power of empathogens to prevent Armageddon:
When scientists refuse to report positive uses for drugs, they are not motivated by power lust, they are motivated by philosophical (non-empirical) notions about what counts as "the good life." This is why it's wrong to say that the drug war is JUST about power.
Folks like Sabet accuse folks like myself of ignoring the "facts." No, it is Sabet who is ignoring the facts -- facts about dangerous horses and free climbing. He's also ignoring all the downsides of prohibition, whose laws lead to the election of tyrants.
The outlawing of coca and opium is a crime against humanity.
If there is an epidemic of "self-harm," prohibitionists never think of outlawing razor blades. They ask: "Why the self-harm?" But if there is an epidemic of drug use which they CLAIM is self-harm, they never ask "Why the self-harm?" They say: "Let's prohibit and punish!"
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.
In his book "Salvia Divinorum: The Sage of the Seers," Ross Heaven explains how "salvinorin A" is the strongest hallucinogen in the world and could treat Alzheimer's, AIDS, and various addictions. But America would prefer to demonize and outlaw the drug.
Drugs like opium and cocaine should come with the following warning: "Outlawing of this product may result in inner-city gunfire, civil wars overseas, and rigged elections in which drug warriors win office by throwing minorities in jail."
We need a few brave folk to "act up" by shouting "It's the drug war!" whenever folks are discussing Mexican violence or inner city shootings. The media treat both topics as if the violence is inexplicable! We can't learn from mistakes if we're in denial.
America never ended prohibition. It just redirected prohibition from alcohol to all of alcohol's competitors.
The drug war is a slow-motion coup against democracy.