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.
Here are some political terms that are extremely problematic in the age of the drug war:
"clean," "junk," "dope," "recreational"... and most of all the word "drugs" itself, which is as biased and loaded as the word "scab."
My approach to withdrawal: incrementally reduce daily doses over 6 months, or even a year, meanwhile using all the legal entheogens and psychedelics that you can find in a way likely to boost your endurance and "sense of purpose" to make withdrawal successful.
It's depressing. I thought mycology clubs across the US would be protesting drug laws that make mushroom collecting illegal for psychoactive species. But in reality, almost no club even mentions such species. No wonder prohibition is going strong.
We would never have even heard of Freud except for cocaine. How many geniuses is America stifling even as we speak thanks to the war on mind improving medicines?
There are plenty of "prima facie" reasons for believing that we could eliminate most problems with drug and alcohol withdrawal by chemically aided sleep cures combined with using "drugs" to fight "drugs." But drug warriors don't want a fix, they WANT drug use to be a problem.
Only a pathological puritan would say that there's no place in the world for substances that lift your mood, give you endurance, and make you get along with your fellow human being. Drugs may not be everything, but it's masochistic madness to claim that they are nothing at all.
Drug warriors have harnessed the perfect storm. Prohibition caters to the interests of law enforcement, psychotherapy, Big Pharma, demagogues, puritans, and materialist scientists, who believe that consciousness is no big "whoop" and that spiritual states are just flukes.
"In consciousness dwells the wondrous, with it man attains the realm beyond the material, and the peyote tells us where to find it." --Antonin Arnaud
Classic prohibitionist gaslighting, telling me that "drugs" is a neutral term. What planet are they living on?
It's no wonder that folks blame drugs. Carl Hart is the first American scientist to openly say in a published book that even the so-called "hard" drugs can be used wisely. That's info that the drug warriors have always tried to keep from us.
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)