How the Drug War has turned the entire world into one big Christian Science theocracy
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
September 12, 2022
Some of us believe with the fictional Sherlock Holmes (and the very real HG Wells, Marcus Aurelius, and Benjamin Franklin) that improving and expanding the mind is a categorical imperative rather than a mortal sin. For us, the real sin is to fail to maximize one's potential in life. So where can we go to practice our religion, to be all that we can be, to "know ourselves" in the Platonic acceptation of that phrase? Surely we can vote with our feet and simply leave the Christian Science theocracies, wherein all the empowering substances from coca to opium 1 are demonized rather than safely leveraged for the good of human beings and of humanity.
But not so. For so powerful is the propaganda of Drug War America, combined with the hidden biases of reductive materialism 2 which scorn all non-quantifiable healing, that the vast majority of powerful psychoactive substances are illegal EVERYWHERE ON THE PLANET, from the North Pole to the South Pole, from Bogata to Beijing, this despite the fact that many of them grow at our very feet.
Surely, this status quo represents a crime against humanity3, especially as it outlaws substances that could tame humanity's violence-prone heart and thus help us avoid the eventual nuclear annihilation toward which our species seems inevitably headed.
Then, for God's sake, speak up! If not on behalf of human potential and world peace, then on behalf of the many silent and unrecognized victims of Drug War ideology: the thousands of black Americans who die in inner cities every year thanks to drug-war prohibition, the dying children who go without godsend medicine in hospices, the victims of the ongoing civil war in Mexico that America creates and profits from in an unconscionable effort to keep boots on the ground south of the border -- or your own parents, who die in agony (by being "taken off of life support") because our Christian Science drug-war sensibilities will not allow us to give them morphine 4 even on their death beds.
Brian Quass
You may ask, what is this Drug War propaganda that is so effective as to turn the entire planet into Christian Scientists with respect to psychoactive medicine?
Answers:
1) The propaganda of omission in the media, 5 in which positive uses of criminalized substances are never mentioned in movies 67 , TV shows 8 or print.
2) The propaganda of omission in academia, in which positive uses of criminalized substances are never mentioned in drug-related research papers, with all such studies dealing only with abuse and misuse.
3) The propaganda of amnesia, in which we ignore historical incidents that clash with Drug War sensibilities, such as the psychedelic-fueled Eleusinian mysteries9 and the fact that the Vedic-Hindu religion was inspired by psychoactive plant medicine.
4) The propaganda of lies, in which groups like the Partnership for a Drug Free America 10 tell us that the drugs which have inspired entire religions will actually "fry the brain11" (whereas if any drugs fry the brain, they are the Big Pharma 1213 meds upon which 1 in 4 American women are chemically dependent for life!) The lies of the DEA, which, since 1973, has been telling us that drugs that have inspired entire religions somehow have no positive uses whatsoever (a blatant lie, insomuch as every drug on the planet has some positive use for someone, somewhere, at some time, as even the deadly Botox has positive uses, both in cosmetic surgery and in the treatment of spastic diseases like dysphonia).
The main form of drug war propaganda is censorship. That's why most Americans cannot imagine any positive uses for psychoactive substances, because the media and the government won't allow that.
William James knew that there were substances that could elate. However, it never occurred to him that we should use such substances to prevent suicide. It seems James was blinded to this possibility by his puritanical assumptions.
Scientists cannot tell us if using drugs is worth the risk any more than they can tell us if free climbing is worth the risk, or horseback riding or parkour.
National Geo published an article entitled "Coca: a Blessing and a Curse." Coca was never a curse. Most people used it wisely, just as most people drink wisely. Doctors demonized it because it really worked and it could put them out of business. https://abolishthedea.com/sigmund_freuds_real_breakthrough_was_not_psychoanalysis.php
MDMA legalization has suffered a setback by the FDA. These are the people who think Electro Shock Therapy is not used often enough! What sick priorities.
The reasons that people use drugs are psychologically obvious. Academics gaslight us on this topic and invent new diseases to explain away our desire to live large.
Scientists hold holistically working drugs to reductionist standards, thereby practicing a sort of pharmacological colonialsm.
In the 19th century, poets got together to use opium "in a series of magnificent quarterly carouses" (as per author Richard Middleton). When we outlaw drugs, we outlaw free expression.
My consciousness, my choice.
The drug war is a scare campaign to teach us to distrust mother nature and to rely on pharmaceuticals instead.
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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