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Drug War: the Musical!

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

June 15, 2023



The horrible and omnipresent effects of the Drug War cry out to be pilloried onstage. And I mean that literally, as the budding playwright in me can already envision a hospice full of crying children singing the heartbreaking ballad "Make It Stop!" as their doctors, fearful of losing their jobs, refuse to give them sufficient morphine 1 to ease their pain.

Update: May 02, 2025


"Make It Stop" by the Hospice Kids



Then, of course, there would be the rousing patriotic number in which prospective employees of Home Depot proudly proclaim the fact that "We Pee to Get Employed!" (Now, work with me here. You see, you'd hear the urine streams jetting rhythmically off-stage as the job candidates emerge obediently from their respective restrooms in 2/4 time, holding that glistening beaker full of liquid evidence of their moral purity -- or lack thereof).


"We Pee to Get Employed" by the Drug War Generation



Another must-have ditty in such a show would be "We're Coming In!", featuring a phalanx of DEA agents in full battle regalia rhythmically kicking down American doors while half-singing and half-chanting the aggressive bass lines "We're Coming In!", as the impotent soprano cries of grandmothers and children alternately chide them and cry for mercy, not to mention for common sense and at least a modicum of simple humanity.


"We're Coming In" by Narco and the Doorkickers



In other words, I hereby call for the creation of "DRUG WAR: THE MUSICAL!"

Unfortunately, I have neither enough time nor enough phenethylamines, coca, Benzedrine and opium 2 available to create such a masterpiece.

But maybe you can help with the play? All I ask is a share of the residuals.

Oh, I forgot. In America, drugs like Benzedrine et al. are only associated with rehab groups and misuse. I forgot that you lot had been so thoroughly programmed like that. Suffice it to say that many people actually used drugs like Benzedrine wisely before it was demonized and outlawed. Imagine that!

Of course, historically speaking, these Quixotic appeals of mine usually go unanswered...

but that won't stop me from coming up with more musical numbers wherewith to stick it to the Drug Warriors and put them on the defensive at long last. So watch this space!

By the time David Mamet contacts me, he'll just have to tie the whole thing up in a pretty knot and throw it on stage! And then, hey presto, as the British say!

I'm thinking the DEA agents could be goose-stepping and busting handheld doors as they're marching down Main Street on Drug War Day!

NOTE: Scroll down to watch the YouTube video below for a sing-along version of "We Pee to Get Employed!" aka "We're the Drug War Generation."3

Watch this space for more admittedly exciting and no-doubt hilarious ideas for the eventually upcoming stage hit: "DRUG WAR: THE MUSICAL!"




Author's Follow-up:

May 02, 2025

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up




Here is the proposed discography for "Drug War: The Musical":

1) "Down on the Floor (NOW!)"
A musical SWAT team stomps through a terrified household, firing their guns rhythmically as they shove children and grandmothers to the floor. This song will be loosely based on "War" by Edwin Starr:


Down on the floor!
Now!
Whatcha' gonna do about it!
Nothin'!
Hah!

Down on the floor!
Now! (Good God, y'all!)
Whatcha' gonna do about it!
Nothin'!
Say it again, y'all!


2) "I Just Failed my Drug Test"
A once-perky American young person bemoans his failure to get a job at Lowe's hardware store after having been pegged as a Christian Science heretic by minimum-wage lab technicians.

3) "At Least He Died Drug-Free"
A bittersweet requiem reminiscent of Elton John's "Funeral for a Friend." Sung by black-draped mourners as they follow the casket of a friend who killed himself because we had outlawed everything that might have cheered him up.

4) "Don't Use Drugs, Fry Your Brain!"
A perky admonition to chronic depressives everywhere, reminding them that it is their moral duty to choose shock therapy over the use of drugs that inspire and elate.

5) "Mum's the Word!"
A chorus line of brainwashed American scientists "foot it" merrily about the stage, musically reminding the world that censorship is the order of the day in American academia, that all mention of beneficial drug use is worse than illegal, that it is morally wrong. The message is comically reinforced by the frequently interjected recitativo of a basso profundo tut-tutting the audience that "Mary Baker-Eddy knows best!"

6) "Drugs Kill, Fire Bad!"
A phalanx of grouchy cavepeople ominously approach the footlights in sync to martial drumbeats, bringing with them a time-honored message from the paleolithic past: namely, that it is always better to fear potentially dangerous things than to understand them. (Possibly to the tune of "West Bound Number 9"?)


CHORUS: Drugs Kill, Fire Bad!

It's the dumbest mindset we've ever had.

Like a caveman or brainless undergrad

We say Drugs Kill, Fire Bad


VERSE 1: Had a job at the local hardware
Till they told me I had to pee
To reveal if ever I had
Used a substance that could have helped me
Could have helped me
Could have helped me


CHORUS: Drugs Kill, Fire Bad!

It's the dumbest mindset we've ever had,

Like a caveman or brainless undergrad,

We say Drugs Kill, Fire Bad!

(Fools keep tellin' me that)

Drugs Kill, Fire Bad!

It's the dumbest mindset we've ever had,

Like a caveman or brainless undergrad,

We say Drugs Kill, Fire Bad!

VERSE 2: Had a job at the local food store,
Till they told me I had to piss,
To find out if ever I had
Used a substance that racists diss,
That racists diss,
That our racist politicians diss!


CHORUS: Drugs Kill, Fire Bad!

It's the dumbest mindset we've ever had,

Like a caveman or brainless undergrad,

We say Drugs Kill, Fire Bad!

(Fools keep tellin' me that)

Drugs Kill, Fire Bad!

It's the dumbest mindset we've ever had,

Like a caveman or brainless undergrad,

We say Drugs Kill, Fire Bad!

(Keep on tellin' me that)

Drugs Kill, Fire Bad!

It's the dumbest mindset we've ever had,

Like a caveman or brainless undergrad,

We say Drugs Kill, Fire Bad!

(repeat chorus while fading out)











7) "Oh, What a Horrible Morning!"


There's a gun-toting narc in the meadow,
There's a gun-toting narc in the meadow,
Our crushed Constitution lies under his boot
And it looks like the G-man is ready to shoot
Oh, what a god-awful morning,
Oh, what a hideous day,
When Monticello was raided
By the corrupt DEA


Now the agents are swarming like hornets
Now the agents are swarming like hornets
Their stinger-like guns are raised high as my jaw
And it looks like they're aiming at Natural Law
Oh, what a suck-worthy morning,
Oh, what a




Now the SWAT team is storming in jackboots
Now the SWAT team is storming in jackboots
They've stolen the poppies with help from the staff
Which the papers report in a subparagraph
Oh, what a god-awful morning,
I think I'm ready to spew,
When Jefferson freedom
Died in a posthumous coup


Since that day, no one's said much about it
Since that day, no one's said much about it
But the bodies of Jefferson as well as Locke
Continue to spin in residual shock
Oh, what a horrible morning,
Oh, what a horrible day
When Monticello was raided
By the corrupt DEA 4


8) "We're Coming In!"
Another light-hearted ditty by our musical SWAT team, sung to the tune of "I'm Coming Out" by Diana Ross:


We're coming in,
We want the world to know,
We see that bag of Blow

We're coming!

We're coming in,
Let's check the hearth and rugs
You best say no to drugs!

There's a Drug War going on
And we've just got to diss
All the drugs that give you bliss

We're coming!

And if you like to use
You're gonna blow our fuse
We'll even check your shoes

We're coming in,
We want the world to know,
We see that bag of Blow

We're coming!

We're coming in,
Let's check the hearth and rugs
You best say no to drugs!

We'll stomp right through your door
And throw you to the floor
May I remind you we're at war?

We're coming!

And if we see a kid
He'll do just as we bid
Or else we'll blow our lid

We're coming!

And if the kid gets smart
Or starts to fall apart
We'll shoot him in the heart

We're coming!

And we must further stress
That if we've got the wrong address
We couldn't care much less


9) "Then I saw that drug, now I'm an abuser!"
A riff on the pop hit "I'm a Believer." The tune parodies the Drug Warrior notion that demonized drugs can only be abused, not used. To the extent that this idea is true, it is because of the self-fulfilling prophecy created by drug laws that render use as dangerous as possible, by refusing to teach safe use, refusing to regulate product, and refusing to re-legalize a vast array of options for those who desire to relax, improve, or transcend self with psychoactive medicines -- or who wish to philosophically investigate a la William James the nature of mind and matter and of Reality writ large.


10) "Make It Stop"
A real tearjerker! Kids in an Indian hospice singing plaintively as they toddle about the ICU, pushing their IVs before them, begging for the pain relief that they cannot receive thanks to the pernicious effects of the fearmongering of racist and xenophobic Drug Warriors in the States.

Of course, there will be one stubborn character in the Drug War Musical who has not been successfully brainwashed by Drug War propaganda. She will defiantly sing the following heretical lyrics, in a telling parody of the Drug Warrior's own classic tune of Christendom:

11) "Give Me that Old-time Vedic Religion! (Soma 5 and all!)"

It was good for the Punjab rishis
It was good for the Punjab rishis
It was good for the Punjab rishis
And it's good enough for me!


12) "We Pee to Get Employed"

(to the tune of "Yellow Rose of Texas")

We're the Drug War Generation
We Pee to Get Employed
We gave up all the freedoms
Our forebears once enjoyed































Notes for essay entitled Drug War: the Musical!:

1: Three takeaway lessons from the use of morphine by William Halsted, co-founder of Johns Hopkins Medical School DWP (up)
2: The Truth About Opium by William H. Brereton DWP (up)
3: The video entitled "We Pee to Get Employed" is the a/v equivalent of "out of print." But it's actually on a YouTube website somewhere. The fact is, it's so unvisited that even I myself have lost track of it. But if you're committed enough to reading thus far in a mere footnote on this topic, I'm sure you can dish up that content without a silver platter from ME. (up)
4: The Dark Side of the Monticello Foundation DWP (up)
5: Blue Tide: The Search for Soma: a philosophical review of the book by Mike Jay DWP (up)




read more essays here





Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




Prohibitionists have blood on their hands. People do not naturally die in the tens of thousands from opioid use, notwithstanding the lies of 19th-century missionaries in China. It takes bad drug policy to accomplish that.

Even when laudanum was legal in the UK, pharmacists were serving as moral adjudicators, deciding for whom they should fill such prescriptions. That's not a pharmacist's role. We need an ABC-like set-up in which the cashier does not pry into my motives for buying a substance.

Richard Evans Schultes seems to have originated the harebrained idea (since used by the US Supreme Court to suppress new religions) that you have no right to use drugs in a religious ritual if you did not grow up in a society that had such practices. What tyrannical idiocy!

Wanna show drug warriors the error of their ways? Legalize all less dangerous drugs than alcohol and then deny work to those who test positive for liquor and confiscate their property if beer cans are found on-site.

The addiction gene should be called the prohibition gene: it renders one vulnerable to prohibition lies and limitations: like the lack of safe supply, the lack of choices, and the lack of information. We should pathologize the prohibitionists, not their victims.

"Can I use poppies, coca, laughing gas, MDMA?" "NO," says the materialist, "We must be SCIENTIFIC! We must fry your brain and give you a lobotomy and make you a patient for life with the psychiatric pill mill! That's true SCIENCE!"

People talk about how dangerous Jamaica is -- but no one reminds us that it is all due to America's Drug War. Yes, cannabis and psilocybin are legal there, but plenty of drugs are not, and even if they were, their illegality elsewhere would lead to fierce dealer rivalry.

You can get a Ph.D. in healthcare, and not learn a thing about the glaringly obvious benefits of drugs, as demonstrated by history, anecdote and common sense.

A generally educated person meets new ideas with curiosity and fascination. An illiberally educated person meets new ideas with fear. --James B. Stockade.

Imagine if we held sports to the same safety standard as drugs. There would be no sports at all. And yet even free climbing is legal. Why? Because with sports, we recognize the benefits and not just the downsides.


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






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