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Euthanasia in the Age of the Drug War

doctors can now kill patients but they can't make them feel better

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

December 2, 2019



If you want proof that the Drug War is insane, think about the increasing popularity of euthanasia in the west, which is already the law of the land in Holland. Think about what euthanasia means in a country that has banned plant medicines.

It means that I can ask my doctor to give me plant medicines that will make me happy and he will indignantly say "no." But if I ask that same doctor for a drug that will kill me, he will say, "Your wish is my command."


Cartoon titled Euthanasia Meets the Drug War. Doctor talks to patient: The bad news is we can't give you drugs for your depression. The good news is, we can kill you if your depression gets too bad.
Americans have been taught to superstitiously believe that drugs are bad. Drugs are not bad or good. They are inanimate objects. Their widespread misuse tells us something about society, not about drugs.




What more proof do we need that the Drug War is a nature-hating sadomasochistic incarnation of Christian Science? It is the triumph of extreme puritanism that says that death itself is preferable to feeling good with the help of Mother Nature's psychoactive plants.

Would a sane society allow doctors to kill their patients BEFORE first giving those doctors free rein to prescribe the naturally occurring medicines of their choice, many of which have been proven to help the elderly (and the rest of us, for that matter) make their peace both with life and death?

Only a society that had a pathological distrust of Mother Nature's pharmacy could take such a heartless stance and then seek to enforce it by draconian laws.

{^Doctor to depressed elderly patient: "The bad news is, we can't give you psilocybin for your depression. The good news is, we can kill you if the depression gets too bad."}{

Author's Follow-up: August 31, 2022



This site is all about proving via reductio ad absurdum that the Drug War represents a wrong way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve and then some. This can be clearly seen here in the fact that we are willing to prescribe death in the age of the Drug War, generally by "removing life support," but we are not allowed to prescribe godsend medicines like morphine 1 that would make our patient actually want to live. That shows the pathological fanaticism of our Christian Science stand on psychoactive medicines, that we would prefer that our fellow country persons die -- a potentially very painful death, in fact -- rather than let them experience happiness with the help of a demonized substance.

Author's Follow-up: September 30, 2022


The drugs that we demonize today have inspired entire religions. And yet we'd rather kill patients than have them use such medicines. Western society is insane on the topic of the politically created boogieman called "drugs."











Notes for essay entitled Euthanasia in the Age of the Drug War: doctors can now kill patients but they can't make them feel better:

1: Three takeaway lessons from the use of morphine by William Halsted, co-founder of Johns Hopkins Medical School DWP (up)




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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




Getting off antidepressants can make things worse for only one reason: because we have outlawed all the drugs that could help with the transition. Right now, getting off any drug basically means becoming a drug-free Christian Scientist. No wonder withdrawal is hard.

Americans believe scientists when they say that drugs like MDMA are not proven effective. That's false. They are super effective and obviously so. It's just that science holds entheogenic medicines to the standards of reductive materialism. That's unfair and inappropriate.

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.

Everyone's biggest concern is the economy? Is nobody concerned that Trump has promised to pardon insurrectionists and get revenge on critics? Is no one concerned that Trump taught Americans to doubt democracy by questioning our election fairness before one single vote was cast?

Being less than a month away from an election that, in my view, could end American democracy, I don't like to credit Musk for much. But I absolutely love it every time he does or says something that pushes back against the drug-war narrative.

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.

Many people take antidepressants believing their depression has a biochemical cause. Research does not support this belief. --Dr. Noam Shpancer, Psychology Today

His answer to political opposition is: "Lock them up!" That's Nazi speak, not American democracy.

I can think of no greater intrusion than to deny a person autonomy over how they think and feel in life. It is sort of a meta-intrusion, the mother of all anti-democratic intrusions.

Opium could be a godsend for talk therapy. It can help the user step outside themselves and view their problems from novel viewpoints.


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.

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