The author continues his mission of writing movie reviews on the IMDB for all films that exploit the Drug War without pointing out that it is just plain wrong. This review was posted for the 2012 film entitled Drug War, aka Du zhan.
Drug War movies 123 are just modern Gladiator Shows for American Drug Warriors. Producers of such films exploit the violence created by the absurd Drug War for personal gain. Americans, used to urinating for employment, fail to realize that the Drug War is simply the enforcement of Christian Science Sharia -- Christian Science: the religion that says we have a moral obligation to renounce the medicines of Mother Nature. The Drug War is corrupt. No other society has ever scapegoated substances like this to turn ordinary people into criminals. Producers should stop exploiting it. And movie reviewers should stop treating these movies as if the Drug War that prompted the action was somehow moral and common sense. Thomas Jefferson didn't think so -- and he was rolling in his grave when the DEA confiscated his poppy plants, the same DEA that has been lying about psychoactive plant medicine for the last 50 years. Enough Drug War propaganda movies , already.
August 23, 2022
Charming as this broadside no doubt was, it failed to get down to brass tacks viz. specific movie titles, no doubt because the hypersensitive author was so pissed by the tyrannical principle at play here that he pettishly recoiled from even contemplating such irritating specifics, let alone enumerating them, in the same way that the hypochondriacal Roderick Usher recoiled from hearing anything but the "peculiar sounds" of certain stringed instruments. So to demonstrate that Brian knew whereof he spoke (whereof he positively raved), we adduce the following recent feature titles which promote the drug-war ideology of substance demonization: Crisis, Running with the Devil, The Runner, and Four Good Days. These titles are the most obvious offenders that come to mind, but let's face it: almost any modern movie that mentions "drugs" (as that term is hypocritically defined by Drug Warriors) tends to promote drug-war ideology, if only by associating substance use with scoundrels and/or by otherwise enforcing the standard drug-war narrative that the use of demonized substances can only result in heartbreak and sorrow.
SPOILER ALERT: Warning! Pretty much any movie that involves arguments over a huge amount of cash is going to end up being a Drug War propaganda film at some point, if only by tacitly associating violence and hedonism with "drugs" (never mind the fact that the association is a product of the drug-war itself). I'm a bit of a horror buff myself, but I'm turned off when flicks gratuitously bring "drugs" into play, as in otherwise promising flicks like "Don't Say Its Name" and "When Darkness Falls." Take the latter Scottish-based title, for instance: The suspenseful and scenic caper had snagged my undivided attention for at least 80 of its 105-minute run time, but when that bag full of money was discovered in the abandoned house toward which the two hapless female hikers had been journeying, I said to myself, "Oh, here we go. All the evil of the movie will be tacitly ascribed to 'drugs.'" In fact, I actually turned the movie off at that point. But then, reflecting that I may have been rash, I continued to watch, after which I was relieved to find that the term "drugs" was never even mentioned in the film (although there was a post-it note in the money bag which made it clear that the booty therein came from a dirty evil rotten (and bad) drug deal. As for "Don't Say Its Name," it supposedly had to do with a Native American curse, but I flicked it off in less than 25 minutes when one of the apparent stars started ranting about the opioid crisis, in such a way, of course, as to imply that it was caused by dirty evil "drugs" rather than by a dirty evil Drug War -- a war that outlawed all safer means of self-transcendence which had been legal since caveman days.
For more on "drugs" in the movies 4 , one could do worse than click on the following:
No imaginable downside could persuade westerners that guns and alcohol were too dangerous. Yet the DEA lies about almost all psychoactive drugs, saying there are no good uses. That's a lie! Then they pass laws that keep us from disproving their puritanical conclusion.
The war on drugs has destroyed America's faith in the power of education. In fact, it has made us think of education as WRONG in and of itself. It has made us prefer censorship and fear-filled ignorance to education!
This is why we would rather have a depressed person commit suicide than to use "drugs" -- because drugs, after all, are not dealing with the "real" problem. The patient may SAY that drugs make them feel good, but we need microscopes to find out if they REALLY feel good.
Morphine can provide a vivid appreciation of mother nature in properly disposed minds. That should be seen as a benefit. Instead, dogma tells us that we must hate morphine for any use.
There will always be people who don't use drugs wisely, just as there are car drivers who don't drive wisely, and rock climbers who fall to their death. America needs to grow up and accept this, while ending prohibition and teaching safe use.
"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.
The 1932 movie "Scarface" starts with on-screen text calling for a crackdown on armed gangs in America. There is no mention of the fact that a decade's worth of Prohibition had created those gangs in the first place.
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
By reading "Drug Warriors and Their Prey," I begin to understand why I encounter a wall of silence when I write to authors and professors on the subject of "drugs." The mere fact that the drug war inspires such self-censorship should be grounds for its immediate termination.
Antidepressants might be fine in a world where drugs were legal. Then it would actually be possible to get off them by using drugs that have inspired entire religions. In the age of prohibition, however, an antidepressant prescription is usually a life sentence.
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