Of course, the title says it all: just as the Drug War demonizes plant medicines, it must also demonize those who dare to sell them. Now, I wouldn't be surprised if El Chapo himself was morally challenged (to put it mildly), but that is beside the point. The US CREATED the El Chapo's of the world by its colonialist war on plant medicines that are not popular in the west. Think of it: you criminalize plants worldwide that have been used responsibly by other cultures for millennia, and then you are shocked that there's violent pushback? The real villains are Richard Nixon and every racist US politician who insists that it makes sense to demonize plant medicine instead of studying it to learn how to ensure the safest possible use.
At any rate: here is the comment that I posted beneath Malcolm Beth's review of "El Chapo":
The Real Villain is the United States of America and its racist Drug War, which dictates to the world what plant medicines it can use -- thus establishing Christian Science as a world religion and violating natural law. The US is the colonialist bad guy who tells other countries to outlaw plant medicines that have been used responsibly by other cultures for millennia, so that the world can be safe for the two most deadly drugs of all: alcohol and tobacco. And when Drug Warriors aren't busy invading other countries on the pretext of enforcing these colonialist drug laws, they're reading books like "El Chapo" to get a thrill out of all the guns and violence that the Drug War itself brings into the world. Someday the world will wake up and realize that the Drug War itself is causing all the problems it purports to solve. Then we will exchange the Drug Enforcement Agency for the Drug Education Agency and start learning how to use plant medicines safely rather than to demonize them like so many fanatical Christian Scientists.
Author's Follow-up: July 11, 2022
I came close to dissing Anthony Blair of The Sun this morning for his sensational article on the "Golden Age of Cocaine," which struck me at first sight as drug-war agitprop. In fact, I even sent an angry Tweet (which I soon deleted) -- before I read the final paragraph or so, in which the comments by journalist and author Toby Muse somewhat appeased my angst about the article in question. Still, the overall effect of the article was to turn the Drug War into tabloid entertainment, thereby obscuring the fact that the "clans" about which we are reading were created out of whole cloth by substance prohibition. And why? So that the west could outlaw a substance that the Incas considered to be a god and that authors like HG Wells and Jules Verne considered to be indispensable to their success as authors.
To my relief (and embarrassment), Toby does admit at the end of this article that prohibition has been a colossal failure, with far more cocaine use going on today than Richard Nixon ever dreamt of 50 years ago. But Toby is still biased by Drug War ideology, for he suggests that countries need to do a better job in reducing the demand for such substances as cocaine. But that is wrong, for there is a real reason why folks want to use substances like the coca plant and other psychoactive meds: they want to transcend the limitations of the "sober" self, so to speak. Humanity has always sought to do that. Indeed, the psychoactive substances that we demonize today (like coca) have inspired entire religions. So it is a fool's task (not to mention the task of a despot) to try to get humanity to give up on the desire for self-transcendence and personal improvement.
The answer to the supposed "drug problem" (which the drug-war itself has created and turned into a scapegoat for all social problems) is to educate people about psychoactive medicines, not to demonize those medicines and incarcerate those who dare to use them in their search for personal or spiritual transcendence. For let's remember that the caveman strategy of America's Office of National Drug Control Policy is to REFUSE TO EVEN CONSIDER any positive uses for criminalized substances. In other words, the ONDCP is a state instrument of Drug War propaganda, one dedicated to keeping the world ignorant about meds that have inspired entire religions.
Time for education, not criminalization; facts, not fear.
Author's Follow-up: April 1, 2023
Americans would not have much entertainment if it were not for drug prohibition. Most cops shows would not exist, because the police would run out of heads to crack. We need prohibition to incentivize exciting violence. It's kind of funny, when you think how Drug Warriors say it's wrong to glorify drugs, but they have no problem in glorifying the violence that drug prohibition creates. In fact, most movies and cops shows make it seem like you're a nobody if you do not pack heat.
Both physical and psychological addiction can be successfully fought when we relegalize the pharmacopoeia and start to fight drugs with drugs. But prohibitionists do not want to end addiction, they want to scare us with it.
Well, today's Oregon vote scuttles any ideas I might have entertained about retiring in Oregon.
I don't have a problem with CBD. But I find that many people like it for the wrong reasons: they assume there is something slightly "dirty" about getting high and that all "cures" should be effected via direct materialist causes, not holistically a la time-honored tribal use.
Cop and detective shows are loaded with subtle drug war propaganda, including lines like, "She had a history of drug use, so..." The implication being that anyone who uses substances that politicians hate cannot be trusted.
"Judging" psychoactive drugs is hard. Dosage counts. Expectations count. Setting counts. In Harvey Rosenfeld's book about the Spanish-American War, a volunteer wrote of his visit to an "opium den": "I took about four puffs and that was enough. All of us were sick for a week."
To understand why the western world is blind to the benefits of "drugs," read "The Concept of Nature" by Whitehead. He unveils the scientific schizophrenia of the west, according to which the "real" world is invisible to us while our perceptions are mere "secondary" qualities.
"The Legislature deliberately determines to distrust the very people who are legally responsible for the physical well-being of the nation, and puts them under the thumb of the police, as if they were potential criminals."
-- Aleister Crowley on drug laws
Until prohibition ends, rehab is all about enforcing a Christian Science attitude toward psychoactive medicines (with the occasional hypocritical exception of Big Pharma meds).
It also bothers me that gun fanatics support the drug war. If I have no rights to mother nature, then they have no rights to guns. If the Fourth Amendment can be ignored based on lies and ignorance, then so can the Second.
We live in a make-believe world in the US. We created it by outlawing all potentially helpful psychological meds, after which the number-one cause of arrest soon became "drugs." We then made movies to enjoy our crackdown on TV... after a tough day of being drug tested at work.
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, El Chapo Crappo published on July 7, 2021 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
ust found a review of the book "El Chapo: The Untold Story of the World's Most Notorious Drug Lord" on the Small Wars Journal Website, reviewer Malcolm Beith.
You have been reading an article entitled, El Chapo Crappo published on July 7, 2021 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
