Homepage of the Drug War Philosopher, Brian Quass
blog icon orange rss icon with stylized radio waves bird icon for twitter bird icon for twitter substack icon


back navigation arrow forward navigation arrow


Cocaine: the most demonized drug in the world (for obvious financial and political reasons)

in response to 'Legalizing Cocaine Is the Only Way to End the Drug War' by Mattha Busby in The Intercept in November 2025

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

March 9, 2026



Hi, Mattha.

Regarding your article in Intercept about cocaine1, you say that: "I perhaps shouldn’t have glorified the use of a moreish drug that typically leaves a trail of violent destruction in its wake."

I would suggest that the violent destruction is a product of American drug laws and attitudes and not the drug itself. As far as glorifying drugs, just look at all the "hydration" games on the shelves in Wal-Mart2. America not only glorifies drinking, but it glorifies abusing alcohol! And yet if anyone dares to say that cocaine is not pure evil, they are sidelined. And so chronic depressives like myself have to go lifetimes without a godsend medicine No one considers us stakeholders in America's demonization campaigns over psychoactive medicines.

Cocaine is the most demonized drug in the world -- and no wonder: Its criminal status is central to American foreign and domestic policy: it lets us invade countries at will overseas and infringe liberties in the States.

I have been on Big Pharma drugs for 40+ years that are far harder to kick than heroin 3!!! My Effexor has a 95% recidivism rate 4 for long-term users -- and it never "cured" my depression. And yet the drug is still touted on the Mayo Clinic website as an apple-pie cure for depression!

Meanwhile, I am denied cocaine which has been used safely by millions! I have been denied my right to heal by the outlawing of this alkaloid from the divine plant of the Inca.

The demonization of this drug makes perfect sense from a business perspective: the medical industry would be cut in half if we re-legalized just two drugs: cocaine and opium.

I have been unable to take care of my own health because of drug law and so I invite you to consider that the next time you feel guilty for "glorifying" the drug.

49,000 kill themselves yearly in America. How many might have lived if we did not deny them the medicines that could cheer them up in a trice.

Best,
Brian

PS America accepts the dangers of all sorts of risky activities in the name of freedom. Only with drugs do we see no upsides to freedom. And why? Because people like myself are never considered stakeholders in the drugs debate.

And now depressed people like Claire Brosseau are demanding their right to assisted suicide!

Why? Because they actually believe that it is better to die than to use drugs!!!

Assisted suicide for the depressed cannot be discussed without also discussing drug prohibition -- and yet I am the only one who has pointed this out in this case -- and the NYT reporters and Claire herself and her psychiatrists have ignored me5.











Notes for essay entitled Cocaine: the most demonized drug in the world (for obvious financial and political reasons): in response to 'Legalizing Cocaine Is the Only Way to End the Drug War' by Mattha Busby in The Intercept in November 2025:

1: Legalizing Cocaine Is the Only Way to End the Drug War Busby, Mattha, The Intercept, 2025 (up)
2: Drug Prohibition is for the Birds DWP (up)
3: Heroin versus Antidepressants DWP (up)
4: I have been unable to confirm this stat. But the WHO notes clinical recidivism rates for depression ranging from 50% to 85%. Do we count that as a recidivism rate of Effexor? Not when Biopharma is paying 75% of The FDA’s Drug Division Budget, as reported by John LaMattina in the Sep 22, 2022 edition of Forbes magazine. (up)
5: No one would need assisted suicide if we ended drug prohibition: what Claire Brosseau's case tells us about the warped mindset of the west when it comes to drugs DWP (up)




read more essays here





Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




The Drug War is a religion. The "addict" is a sinner who has to come home to the true faith of Christian Science. In reality, neither physical nor psychological addiction need be a problem if all drugs were legal and we used them creatively to counter problematic use.

Here are some political terms that are extremely problematic in the age of the drug war: "clean," "junk," "dope," "recreational"... and most of all the word "drugs" itself, which is as biased and loaded as the word "scab."

"Just ONE HORSE took the life of my daughter." This message brought to you by the Partnership for a Death Free America.

My impression has been that the use of cocaine over a long time can bring about lasting improvement..." --Sigmund Freud, On Cocaine, 1884

Peyote advocates should be drug legalization advocates. Otherwise, they're involved in special pleading which is bound to result in absurd laws, such as "Plant A can be used in a religion but not plant B," or "Person A can belong to such a religion but person B cannot."

I'm told that science is completely unbiased today. I guess I'll have to go back and reassess my doubts about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.

Drug prohibition represents the biggest power grab by government in human history. It is the state control of pain relief and mental states.

The line drawn between recreational and medical use is wishful thinking on the part of drug warriors. Recreation, according to Webster's, is "refreshment or diversion," and both have positive knock-on effects in the lives of real people.

There's a run of addiction movies out there, like "Craving!" wherein they actually personify addiction as a screaming skeleton. Funny, drug warriors never call for a Manhattan Project to end addiction. Addiction is their golden goose.

Governor Kotek is "dealing" with the homelessness problem in Oregon by arresting her way out of it, in fealty to fearmongering drug warriors.


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






back navigation arrow forward navigation arrow
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..."

Purchase Your Copy
Book Cover

Diary of a Drug Fiend

This is the only full-cast recording of Aleister Crowley's 1922 classic paeon to common sense. It is the first book -- and so far almost the only book -- to stake out a philosophy of drug use that is compatible with human freedom, one in which we learn to use drugs as wisely as possible for the benefit of humanity. This recording was produced by the Drug War Philosopher and your purchases help support his effort to push back against the tragically counterproductive policy of drug prohibition, in the name of human freedom and of humanity's right to heal.

Purchase Your Copy



No cookies, no ads paid for by amoral and immoral billionaires (or trillionaires).


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.

The Partnership for a Death Free America is a proud sponsor of The Drug War Philosopher website @ abolishthedea.com.


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

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