Drug Warriors and Their Prey: From Police Power to Police State

Homepage of the Drug War Philosopher, Brian Quass

Drug Warriors and Their Prey: From Police Power to Police State

must reading for the Holocaust Museum

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

August 28, 2023

"Drug Warriors and their Prey ¹" is a depressing read for folks who believe in American freedom. Author Richard Miller demonstrates spot-on parallels between Nazi Germany and Drug War America.

April 2025 Update

In Nazi Germany, the state identified an outlaw class that could be mistreated at will by the authorities, albeit usually with a thin veneer of ad hoc legal justifications for the abuse. Just so in Drug War America, the courts have worked with police to keep the Constitution and the Bill of Rights from interfering with the full-court harassment of the state's enemies, who are not Jews this time but "drug users" -- that is to say users of drugs that are considered immoral, since the use of drugs like alcohol and nicotine do not yet bring the wrath of the state down on one's head. Indeed, anti-drug ads for the shamelessly mendacious Partnership for a Drug Free America ² were historically financed by companies like Anheuser Busch and Phillip Morris. These were then not really nonprofit ads, of course, but rather ads promoting the strengthening of a monopoly on the sale of psychoactive substances. Inspired by the winks of politicians and judges, American police forces are now free to wreck houses and lives in the search for substances of which politicians disapprove.

The full evil of today's War on Drugs can only be seen, however, when we consider that psychoactive drugs have not just been used for hedonism in the past -- despite the attempts of fascists like William Bennett to rewrite history to that effect -- but drugs have inspired entire religions, as the use of psychedelic Soma inspired the Vedic-Hindu religion, the coca leaf was a sort of divinity for the Peruvian Indians, and shrooms were used in the religious practices of the Maya.

I'm learning a lot from Miller, especially thanks to the infuriating examples that he provides of how law enforcement takes civil rights and civil liberties with a huge grain of salt in the age of the Drug War, at least in those cases where they don't simply laugh off those quaint concepts altogether. He describes club-wielding swat team members who arrive on the scene already hyped up, as if coming from a nearby high-school pep rally, kick down, and/or axe, doors, quite unnecessarily and then proceed to destroy the suspect's family room, as the cowering occupants start murmuring what they're sure will be their final prayers. To add insult to this government-sanctioned injury, there is no compensation for a failed raid and the residents are often left with the bill for the wrongly inflicted damages. Sure, they might get a verbal apology, but then it's just as likely that the departing he-men will urinate on what's left of their house, like dogs marking their territory. Sometimes the cops leave behind triumphal graffiti such as "LAPD RULES!" (And yet I can't seem to convince BLM fans that the Drug War is the driving force behind police brutality against minorities!)

This is why I have written to both the Holocaust Museum and to various Black leaders, urging them to denounce the Drug War root and branch. My lengthy letters on this subject to the DC Holocaust Museum have been thus far ignored. In the 1980s, I wrote to the Black mayor of Richmond urging him to end the Drug War which was killing Blacks every day due to the inner-city gunfire brought about by prohibition. To his credit, Mayor Roy West responded to my suggestion -- and this in the age before email! -- but I was already too late: he had already swallowed the full-press drug-war propaganda of the 1980s and was convinced that any level of violence -- ANY LEVEL -- was preferable to renouncing the war on godsend medicines -- er, I mean the War on Drugs, of course.

Miller explains how the Nixon administration met with 48 television producers to shape a message about drugs in America's favorite shows, including "Dragnet," "Hawaii Five-O," "Room 222," "Mod Squad," and "The FBI." This strategy would have sounded familiar to Goebbels. As Miller observes, "In Germany, gratuitous anti-Semitic scenes were routine even in movies where the plot had nothing to do with that topic."

I see this Nazi-style propaganda today in modern movies ³ ⁴ . I'll be watching an engrossing suspense flick, only to suddenly get outraged by a throwaway line that slanders the drugs of which politicians disapprove. Like in the movie "Trader," which at first promised to be a damning social commentary on greed and self-absorption. The trader was an all-American... until, that is, she increased her mental focus with drugs prescribed for ADHD. So let me get this straight: it would have been fine for her kids to use the stuff to improve their reading skills, but it's a sin for her to use the drug in order to trade more accurately and quickly? How do ya figure that, exactly?

The slander came when the dealer/friend teased the trader over the phone for using "immoral" drugs, among which substances he included not just speed, but LSD and Ecstasy as well. That's how low we've sunk in America: even drug dealers are convinced that it's immoral to use drugs that improve mentation and could bring real peace and even provide self-insight. Moreover, the use of drugs like speed is actually COMMON SENSE for day trading, wherein one has to be alert 24/7. Sure, such use has to be done advisedly, lest one become a hated "junkie" -- which the Drug Warrior would love, by the way, because it boosts the bottom line of the counselors and police -- but then one has to be careful performing any risky activity. Horseback riding injures 100,000 Americans a year and is responsible for more traumatic brain injury than any other sport, but that does not mean that we have to outlaw horseback riding. We have to promote education!

I'll have more to say about Miller's fantastic book soon on this page -- and there's a lot to say, since Miller is one of the few Americans who seems to grasp the true dystopian enormity of the status quo. But for now, I'd like to share my review of his book that I posted on Archive.org today, a book that should have a lot of praise there but which I appear to be the first to have even rated. (Spoiler alert: I gave it a 5 out of 5).

My review on Archive.org

of "Drug Warriors and their Prey: From Police Power to Police State," by Richard Lawrence Miller

This is the book that government does not want you to read: the same government that has been working hand-in-glove with TV and movie producers to convince you that drug users are scumbags. Miller draws eerie spot-on parallels between Nazi Germany and Drug War America. Yesterday the victims were the Jews, today the victims are drug users. They are victimized because of their status, not because of their behavior. Both must be stripped of rights, ostracized, thrown in prison, have their houses confiscated, and be denied the right to vote. Instead of ID'ing Jews with a star, today's social pariah is ID'd via drug testing ⁵ . Democracy might not survive the Drug War, which has already led to the election of Donald Trump thanks to the removal of millions of minorities from the voting rolls. So read this while the government will still let you. It's already dangerous to challenge Drug War propaganda, but we're not quite at the point where it's actually illegal.

Author's Follow-up:

April 10, 2025

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up

Such a rare book should be quoted at length, at least to the extent to which one can do so ethically without violating the doctrine of "fair use."

Quotes from "Drug Warriors and Their Prey ⁶"

"In the United States during the 1990s drug users were targeted for destruction. I believe the effort to be more than a mistake; I believe it to be a catastrophe."

"Rev. Accelyne Williams, a slender 75-year-old man, spent his final moments doubled over, vomiting, his hands bound behind his back with a tight strip of plastic, totally confused about what was happening to him. ... He had literally been scared to death by shouting, storming anti-drug troops." No drugs were found."

"Regarding a forfeiture against 80 Pennsylvania acres, "FBI and drug agents openly boasted that they 'couldn't wait to use the defendant's property for deer hunting and other social activities."

"If government can seize property having no link with drug use, why must seizures be limited to drug users? Why not take property from persons who abstain from illicit drug use? In fact, Drug Warriors have established legal principles allowing government to do exactly that."

"When seizing an automobile under civil forfeiture statutes, prosecutors need only demonstrate its use in transporting an illicit drug. The amount of drug is irrelevant, as is an innocent owner's lack of knowledge that the car was used in this way."

Beyond Miller

The shortcoming of Miller's book, in my view, is his failure to express the positive side of drug use. It could be argued that this topic was not part of Miller's "remit," and yet the full injustice of the legislative barbary illustrated by Miller can only be felt by those who appreciate that drugs are not simply tools for hedonistic enjoyment, but rather are the sorts of things that have inspired entire religions, as the drinking of the Soma juice inspired the Vedic and the Hindu religion -- from which it follows that the fierce outlawing of drugs is the fierce outlawing of religion, nay, of the religious impulse itself!

Like everyone else, Miller fails to make the connection between reductive materialism and the Drug War, thanks to which scientists can claim, as it were, with a straight face that substances like laughing gas have no positive uses for the depressed. Even I will admit that this "angle" to the topic chosen by Miller is not obvious at first glance. My only point here is that the treacherous nature of modern drug laws, which Miller so admirably illustrates, can be "felt" only to the extent that the reader understands the madness of our society's approach to drug use overall. The book can stand as is, of course. I merely would advocate the inclusion of a short introductory section or appendix in which the mad algorithm of drug policy is clearly outed, to wit: that a drug that can have negative consequences for one demographic when used at one dose for one reason must not be used by any demographic at any dose for any reason. Surely, nothing could be more anti-progress and anti-scientific than such a belief, that amounts to nothing less than the modern iteration of the caveman philosophy of "Fire bad!" in which we opt to fear dangerous substances rather than to learn how to use them wisely for the benefit of humanity.

"It is a grievous mistake to conceptualize certain drugs as a "dangerous enemy" we must attack and eliminate, instead of accepting them as potentially helpful as well as harmful substances, and learning to cope with them competently." Page xv --Thomas Szasz ⁷

This absurd outlook is in turn a result of the failure of Drug Warriors to realize that human health (that health which they are presumably attempting to champion via drug prohibition) is the result of a balance of factors, from which it follows that no one input -- be it a drug or anything else -- creates or destroys health. Health is a result of the happy confluence of a world full of factors of a psychological, biochemical, and/or genetic nature. This is why it was the original sin of the Drug Warrior to put the government in charge of personal health -- because absent an understanding of what health actually is, the decision about what is healthy becomes completely subjective -- as is clear in a world in which liquor, which kills 178,000 a year in America alone, is legal, while MDMA ⁸ , a drug which, strictly speaking, has killed no one at all is demonized and criminalized. This is also why each country has its own list of "good" and "bad" drugs, because such lists are created from subjective ideas based on personal experience -- in total ignorance of what health truly is: namely, the ideal balance of vast array of interacting inputs.

This is why philosophers have to step up to the plate in combatting the insane principles presupposed by the modern Drug Warrior. Historians and reporters are of enormous help -- but their impact will be modest until they are aware of the principles that render drug prohibition odious. Again, this is not rocket science. All an historian really has to do is point out the origins of the Hindu religion. Hinduism was inspired by the use of a drug that elated and inspired, from which it clearly follows that it is an outlawing of religion when we outlaw drugs that elate and inspire -- and make no mistake, those are precisely the kinds of drugs that politicians go after in drafting drug laws. That is why antidepressants ⁹ are legal, precisely because they do NOT inspire and elate! That is why I could eat a deadly berry and there will be no thought of outlawing the fruit. Only were it to make me feel good would the berry be unwelcome in the censored garden of the Drug War.

Another constructive criticism for drug historians:

No author can fully understand the evil of the Drug War without understanding how it privileges the Weltanschauung of materialism, thereby seeming to justify the mendacious claim of the DEA that drugs have no positive uses. The fact is, all substances have potential positive uses, even cyanide! The anti-scientific and know-nothing world view of the Drug Warrior has the result of barring billions from using godsend medicine, some of which grow at their very feet. Meanwhile drug prohibition prevents philosophers from investigating the "mind-body" problem in the way suggested by William James himself, for it outlaws just those substances whose use informs us about the nature and the limits of human thought and consciousness, when it comes to healing and when it comes to glimpsing -- or perhaps intuiting -- the otherwise unknowable world of the Kantian noumena. Such visions are impossible you say? Okay, well, then legalize the drugs that would help us prove that case one way or the other! Stop relying on the Drug War to outlaw research that might embarrass a materialist!

Yes, facts, figures and anecdote are hugely important -- but they must be accompanied by clear statements about the philosophical absurdity of the drug-war itself. Otherwise, the reader of Miller's book might come away thinking, "Yeah, but why worry about cracking down on stuff that has no value in the first place?" For the fact is that psychoactive drugs are NOT evil -- any more than a drug for high blood pressure is evil merely because it could, in theory, be taken at a fatal dose. And we need to point this out: it is clear that prohibition is the evil, not drugs -- and not just because of police injustice but for philosophical reasons that anyone should be able to understand -- were anyone up to the task of pointing them out. Until we get it through the thick skull of American Drug Warriors that drugs have huge benefits, the mainstream will remain flippant about the downsides of prohibition. After all, these downsides (at least as far as THEY can see) do not affect godly people such as themselves who refrain from using evil horrible terrible drugs -- and so the only way to wake up these dogmatic clodhoppers is to make it clear to them why drugs are NOT evil and horrible in the first place -- that they have inspired entire RELIGIONS! -- and that takes more than anecdotes about drug-war downsides, it takes the clear utterance of the kinds of philosophical home truths with which my essays are full.

(for more thoughts on Miller's book: see Why Drug Warriors are Nazis)

Notes for essay entitled Drug Warriors and Their Prey: From Police Power to Police State: must reading for the Holocaust Museum:

1: Miller, Richard L. 1996. Drug Warriors and Their Prey. Praeger. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/594749.Drug_Warriors_and_Their_Prey. (up)
2: Horses Kill The Partnership for a Death Free America (up)
3: Glenn Close but no cigar DWP (up)
4: Running with the torture loving DEA DWP (up)
5: Drug Testing and the Christian Science Inquisition DWP (up)
6: Miller, Richard L. 1996. Drug Warriors and Their Prey. Praeger. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/594749.Drug_Warriors_and_Their_Prey. (up)
7: Szasz, Thomas. 1992. Our Right to Drugs. Praeger. (up)
8: How the Drug War killed Leah Betts DWP (up)
9: Antidepressants and the War on Drugs DWP (up)

read more essays here

Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US

The U.S. government created violence out of whole cloth in America's inner cities with drug prohibition -- and now it is using that violence as an excuse to kick the people that they themselves have knocked down.

Despite the 50 year-long war on drugs, the global cocaine supply has grown by 400%. --Elma Mrkonjic

Over 45% of traumatic brain injuries are caused by horseback riding (ABC News). Tell your representatives to outlaw horseback riding and make it a federal offence to teach a child how to ride! Brought to you by the Partnership for a Death Free America.

Being a lifetime patient is not the issue: that could make perfect sense in certain cases. But if I am to be "using" for life, I demand the drug of MY CHOICE, not that of Big Pharma and mainstream psychiatry, who are dogmatically deaf to the benefits of hated substances.

Doc to Franklin: "I'm sorry, Ben, but I see no benefits of opium use under my microscope. The idea that you are living a fulfilled life is clearly a mistake on your part. If you want to be scientific, stop using opium and be scientifically depressed like the rest of us."

Guess who's in charge of protecting us from AI? Chuck Schumer! The same guy who protected us from drugs -- by turning America into a prison camp full of minorities and so handing two presidential elections to Donald Trump.

What prohibitionists forget is that every popular but dangerous activity, from horseback riding to drug use, will have its victims. You cannot save everybody, and when you try to do so by law, you kill far more than you save, meanwhile destroying democracy in the process.

"I can take this drug that inspires me and makes me compassionate and teaches me to love nature in its byzantine complexity, or I can take Prozac which makes me unable to cry at my parents' funeral. Hmm. Which shall it be?" Only a mad person in a mad world would choose SSRIs.

Two weeks ago, a guy told me that most psychiatrists believe ECT is great. I thought he was joking! I've since come to realize that he was telling the truth: that is just how screwed up the healthcare system is today thanks to drug war ideology and purblind materialism.

In an article about Mazatec mushroom use, the author says: "Mushrooms should not be considered a drug." True. But then NOTHING should be considered a drug: every substance has potential good uses.

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

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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.

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

tombstone for American Democracy, 1776-2024, RIP

(up)

Drug Warriors and Their Prey: From Police Power to Police State

must reading for the Holocaust Museum

My review on Archive.org

Author's Follow-up:

April 10, 2025

Quotes from "Drug Warriors and Their Prey6"

Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US

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

Diary of a Drug Fiend

Quotes from "Drug Warriors and Their Prey ⁶"