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Chomsky is Right

how the drug war shattered my rose-colored glasses

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

July 25, 2022



I used to be a good American citizen in the 20th century, one who dutifully ignored the campaign of terror that was being waged by Ronald Reagan in South America against Marxists. Don't bother me with the details, I thought, just keep the price of gas low while quietly taking care of those heretics to the south who do not believe in capitalism . The idea of even reading a book by Noam Chomsky never occurred to me. Surely, he was just an anti-American radical making a reputation for himself out of nay-saying.

But drug-war research is like a kind of gateway drug*. The more one learns about America's dislike for free thought overseas, especially when it questions the eternal march forward of worldwide capitalism , the more one can understand why the powers-that-be would favor a Drug War, for it immediately limits the thoughts and feelings that one's enemy is allowed to entertain thanks to its seamless and worldwide persecution of naturally invigorating medicine -- while meanwhile giving America carte blanche to interfere at will in the politics of its southern neighbors, invading if necessary to install dictators who share America's dim view of true freedom of thought.

When one reads about the bloody real politik of the Reagan administration in South America, subcontracting murder from the White House, (see, for instance, "Noam Chomsky: Ronald Reagan's Secret, Genocidal Wars"), it's easy to understand the staying power of the Drug War: it's a state tool of terror. If a plausible case cannot be made against a recalcitrant former friend of the States, no problem: just call him a "narco-terrorist" and the American people will give you a free pass to intervene militarily to accomplish your goals. But the Drug War is also a spiteful expression of victory on the part of capitalists over workers. Under Reagan, workers would have to go through the humiliation of urinating for their employers -- as a symbolic act whereby these peons acknowledge their lowly position in the new world order and give their humble obeisance to the powers that be, those 1% for whom stealth despots like Reagan were trying to pave the way for new riches in South America, whatever the locals might think of that plan.






The concept of a "gateway drug" is, of course, bogus. Why are gateway drugs bad, after all? Because they might lead to the use of "hard" drugs? But what are these hard drugs? They are the same kinds of psychoactive substances that have inspired entire religions. Coca was considered to be an Incan god and the Vedic-Hindu religion was inspired by the use of psychoactive Soma. Plato got his views of the afterliife from the psychedelic-fueled Eleusinian mysteries1. So why do folks like Biden want us to say no to drugs? Because, apparently, capitalism 2 is the new religion and the world can have no other gods before it.

Therefore drugs that can inspire new religions must be harshly outlawed in a "free" capitalist country -- and not just in the US, either, of course, but worldwide. For the US is in such deep denial about the evils of its own Drug War that it eagerly encourages the world to look at Mother Nature's medicinal bounty with its own Christian Science disdain. And so drug-war America is like a hypochondriac who's not content to pester his own family about his imaginary aches and pains but who wants to teach the entire world that it too should, by rights, feel just as sick as he does. It's a fool's errand, yet the proselytizing works. For if a country founded on natural law does not protect the rights of its citizens to Mother Nature's bounty, less principled countries will be more than happy to run armed interference between their own people and the godsends that grow at their feet. When the US said it was fighting a Drug War, Singapore quickly joined the #metoo movement, thanks to which you can now be executed in Singapore for merely using naturally occurring medicines of which western politicians disapprove.

You'd think Singapore would have at least selected its own set of approved medicines before cracking down -- but they just trusted to the clueless medicinal prejudices of us Yanks. They clicked on all the default options of the Drug War, and then added their own twist by killing the users of medicines that in the past had inspired entire religions.

Finally, something that tyrants and democracies can agree upon: the Drug War is a useful tool for cracking down on free thought.


Author's Follow-up: July 25, 2022





By reading "Who Rules the World?" by Noam Chomsky, one learns of a default core American political belief that is never openly acknowledged: namely, that anti-capitalistic thought and behavior must be punished, if necessary by proxy murders committed on America's behalf.

Is this really the only way America thinks it can survive, is to be a tyrant? I don't believe it. But if politicians think it is, they should admit this and get on with the dirty work of squashing dissent, rather than shamefully pretending to value freedom of speech3 when what they really want is obedience -- obedience to all the relevant capitalist norms and regulations by which the American 1% are constantly enriching themselves at the expense of the underpaid and eternally drug-tested poor.


The Links Police



That's it, pull over to the side of the Web page. No, put your driver's license back in your wallet. I just stopped you to remind you that Brian is not a Chomsky head. Brian's only now rummaging through the octogenarian pundit's musings and he (Brian) will let you know when he finds something that doesn't comport with reason. That said, let's remember why Brian "went there" in the first place, why he started reading Chomsky after a lifetime of assuming that the guy was beyond the pale. He did so because the Drug War has convinced him that the entire world can be profoundly wrong on major issues -- and if the mainstream American view is so deeply flawed when it comes to "drugs," Brian had to ask himself, "what other seemingly common sense views in America do not actually stand up to rigorous philosophical analysis?"

Oh, and your left rear tail light is out as well.
















Notes:

1: The Eleusinian Mysteries: A Gateway to the Afterlife in Greek Beliefs (up)
2: What the drug war tells us about American capitalism DWP (up)
3: Speak now or forever hold your peace about drug prohibition DWP (up)




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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




The December Scientific American features a story called "The New Nuclear Age," about a trillion-dollar plan to add 100s of ICBM's to 5 states, which an SA editorial calls "kick me" signs. This Neanderthal plan comes from pols who think that compassion-boosting drugs are evil!

The UN of today is in an odd position regarding drugs: they want to praise indigenous societies while yet outlawing the drugs that helped create them.

Drug Prohibition is a crime against humanity. It outlaws our right to take care of our own health.

And where did politicians get the idea that irresponsible white American young people are the only stakeholders when it comes to the question of re-legalizing drugs??? There are hundreds of millions of other stakeholders: philosophers, pain patients, the depressed.

Opium is a godsend, as folks like Galen, Avicenna and Paracelsus knew. The drug war has facilitated a nightmare by outlawing peaceable use at home and making safe use almost impossible.

All drugs have positive uses at some dose, for some reason, at some time -- but prohibitionists have the absurd idea that drugs can be voted up or down. This anti-scientific notion deprives the modern world of countless godsends.

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.

Well, today's Oregon vote scuttles any ideas I might have entertained about retiring in Oregon.

In the 19th century, author Richard Middleton wrote how poets would get together to use opium "in a series of magnificent quarterly carouses."

New article in Scientific American: "New hope for pain relief," that ignores the fact that we have outlawed the time-honored panacea. Scientists want a drug that won't run the risk of inspiring us.


Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us






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Book Cover

Break the ice with a sledgehammer: place this book on your coffee table.

This book features 150 annotated images, designed to force brainwashed Americans to confront the fact that drug prohibition is wrong. Here is what author Richard Parrish II says of the book's compiler: "The drug prohibition philosopher provides first-hand, principled, persuasive, and insightful arguments against the current drug prohibition regime..."

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Book Cover

Drama lovers: collect full-cast recordings of classic plays

In my spare time, when I am not shaming drug warriors for their heartless drug policies, I create full-cast recordings of classic plays using the latest in synthetic voices licensed by the Natural Reader company. Snag your copy of my production of Volpone, by Ben Jonson... and follow me on Payhip for more where that came from, including classics like The Post Office, The Double Dealer and The Inspector General. -- Yours in all-too-justified outrage, the Drug War Philosopher @ abolishthedea.com.

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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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Copyright 2026, Brian Ballard Quass Contact: quass@quass.com

tombstone for American Democracy, 1776-2024, RIP (up)