Common Nonsense from Common Sense Media
So-called media watchdog scorns dirty words only, not dirty wars
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
November 7, 2019
Message sent to Common Sense Media in response to their review of the 2019 drug-war movie Running with the Devil, starring Leslie Bibb, Laurence Fishburne and Nicolas Cage
Update: May 04, 2025
Your review of Running with the Devil1 misses the point. The movie sends a HORRIBLE message to kids, not because of four-letter words but because the government agent in the film willfully tortures a suspect and then shoots and kills another suspect in cold blood. A government agent does this! The film is thus educating children to embrace fascism!!! Why? To stop the bad guy from dealing in plants that should never have been criminalized in the first place. In other words, the Drug War creates all the violence that the DEA is fighting in the movie!
And the hypocritical DEA agent is smoking a cigarette when she cold-bloodedly kills an unarmed man!!! Tobacco is one of the worst drugs on the planet in terms of addiction and health costs2. And yet this hypocritical DEA agent is smoking the stuff while she self-righteously kills a man who's marketing plants -- a plant that is used to this day for spiritual purposes in South America3. Please, tell your reviewers to wake up and start considering the true message of these movies . Stop focusing just on curse words and think what these movies are saying about American democracy.
This movie is saying: "to hell with democracy: we need fascism to fight the War on Drugs!" In other words, the war on plants, the war on minorities, the war on patients - as the DEA "heroes" are the ones who lie about psychoactive plants in their scheduling system and thus leave millions of Americans - including my 92-year-old mother - without much needed medicine that could ease their minds and even help them make their peace with death4.
If you really want to help kids, help them to steer clear of movies like this that glorify fascist police tactics and the Draconian enforcement of immoral laws5.
The Common Sense website reviews movies for crude language and violence, but it fails to warn parents when a movie promotes murder and torture in the name of the Drug War. Reviews on Variety are just the same. They may warn viewers about the scene in which the DEA agent tortures a suspect, but only because the torture victim was wearing only Speedos, not because his torture represents a flagrant violation of American law and a repudiation of everything that the US supposedly stands for.
May 11, 2022
Common Sense should not even be flagging movies for "drugs," since drugs is a political term: namely, "psychoactive medicine of which politicians disapprove." Do we flag movies in which a character takes a drug for a physical condition? No? Then why are we flagging movies in which characters take a drug for a mental condition (such as anxiety or foggy thinking)? When Common Sense flags such drug use, they are simply warning readers that the movie runs afoul of the religion of Christian Science as it pertains to medicines: for it is not a scientific fact that mind medicine is bad -- but rather an article of faith among westerners that such substances are bad, just as Mary Baker Eddy basically said that ALL drugs were bad, since perfection of spirit and body was to be achieved, or so she believed, not through medicine but by praying to Jesus Christ6.
If they insist on flagging "drug" use, they should flag drug use without hypocritical exceptions: they should flag "drug" use when a movie character takes anti-depressants7 (on which 1 in 4 women are chemically dependent) and alcohol (which causes 95,000 death a year in the US alone), and tobacco (which kills 450,000 in the states yearly), and coffee, and Monster Energy Drinks, etc. Instead, Common Sense is aiding and abetting the brain-dead Drug War ideology which tells us we should fear certain demonized substances rather than understand them, and that it is therefore wrong to even talk about the safe use of those substances of which politicians disapprove.
If they were honest, Common Sense would replace the flag titled "MOVIE CONTAINS DRUG USE" with a flag titled "MOVIE RUNS AFOUL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE ORTHODOXY.8"
Author's Follow-up: April 11, 2023
There should be a "flag" for the countless movies 9 10 that promote the anti-scientific ideology of substance demonization. "Warning: this movie promotes the false idea that some substances are bad in and of themselves, without regard for how they are used." Or, "Warning: this movie promotes prohibition policies that have killed millions in the last 50 years and militarized police forces around the globe." Or, "Warning: this movie promotes an ideology that has forced the depressed and anxious to go without godsend medicines for the last 50+ years.11"
UNCOMMON SENSE MOVIE WARNINGS
"RUNNING WITH THE DEVIL" -- WARNING: CONTAINS DRUG WAR AGITPROP: SUSPECTS ARE HUNG FROM MEAT HOOKS AND TORTURED, ALL IN THE NAME OF PROSCUTING A WAR ON TIME-HONORED MEDICINE.
"TRADER" -- WARNING: CONTAINS DRUG WAR AGITPROP: SCRIPT TOES THE DRUG WAR PARTY LINE THAT OUTLAWED SUBSTANCES ARE IMMORAL WITHOUT REGARD TO FACTS OR LOGIC.
"THE RUNNER" -- WARNING: CONTAINS RACIST DRUG WAR FANATICISM: DETECTIVE IN FILM CALLS A BLACK TEENAGER A 'WASTE OF SPACE' AND BLACKMAILS ANOTHER TEEANGER TO NARC ON HIM. SPOILER ALERT: UNARMED BLACK TEENAGER KILLED IN RIDICULOUSLY IRRESPONSIBLE RAID ON HIGH-SCHOOL DANCE, FOR WHICH THE DETECTIVE ACTUALLY EARNS A MEDAL!
Author's Follow-up:
May 04, 2025
I brought these concerns to the folks at Common Sense some years ago, but as is always the case, my criticism was ignored. It is considered bad manners these days to bring up the subject of drugs in mainstream society. America has its make-believe world based on drug demonization and they refuse to admit that it is a dystopia of their own making.
Notes:
1: Running with the Devil (up)
2: 8 Million Tobacco Deaths Could Be Avoided by Slashing Nicotine Edney, Anna, 2017 (up)
3: The Imperial Incas of Peru (from 'Travels in Peru') JJ, Tschudi (up)
4: Elderly Victims of Drug War Ideology DWP (up)
5: Glorifying Beneficial Drug Use DWP (up)
6: Why the Drug War is Christian Science Sharia DWP (up)
7: Why SSRIs are Crap DWP (up)
8: The Drug War = Christian Science DWP (up)
9: Glenn Close but no cigar DWP (up)
10: Running with the torture loving DEA DWP (up)
11: Depressed? Here's why you can't get the medicines that you need DWP (up)
Ten Tweets
against the hateful war on US
I just can't believe... [image]
Addiction thrives BECAUSE of prohibition, which limits drug choice and discourages education about psychoactive substances and how to use them wisely.
An Englishman's home is his castle.
An American's home is a bouncy castle for the DEA.
It's really an insurance concern, however, disguised as a concern for public health. Because of America's distrust of "drugs," a company will be put out of business if someone happens to die while using "drugs," even if the drug was not really responsible for the death.
Drug warriors are full of hate for "users." Many of them make it clear that they want users to die (like Gates and Bennett...). The drug war has weaponized inhumanity.
That's so "drug war" of Rick: If a psychoactive substance has a bad use at some dose, for somebody, then it must not be used at any dose by anybody. It's hard to imagine a less scientific proposition, or one more likely to lead to unnecessary suffering.
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?
The DEA stomped onto Thomas Jefferson's estate in 1987 and confiscated the founding father's poppy plants in violation of everything he stood for, politically speaking. And the TJ Foundation helped them! They sold out Jefferson.
"If England [were to] revert to pre-war conditions, when any responsible person, by signing his name in a book, could buy drugs at a fair profit on cost price... the whole underground traffic would disappear like a bad dream." -- Aleister Crowley
Capitalism naturally results in disease-mongering by a self-interested medically establishment -- and disease-mongering requires the suppression of medicines that work holistically.
Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us
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Copyright 2025, Brian Ballard Quass
Contact: quass@quass.com
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