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Fentanyl does not kill! Prohibition does!

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

January 10, 2024



So I'm at Quality Inn in Harrisonburg, Virginia, right? I'm recovering from this morning's dental surgery for which I was 'knocked out', no doubt grudgingly by the otherwise drug-hating staff, with a narcotic (after having been lectured like a grade-schooler, of course about the detailed protocol that the recipient of such pharmaceutical magnanimity is expected to follow in the age of the Drug War).

So I'm poking about websites, looking to locate some escapist flick on the streaming platform of my choice, when I stumble across this seven-year-old YouTube video by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation with the highly irritating title, 'How Fentanyl kills, a CBC explainer.' What? how Fentanyl kills1? I never thought about that. I guess the capsules suddenly sprout arms and legs and come at you with a dagger, screaming:

"I'm going to get you!"

Worse yet, the video has received over 350,000 pairs of brainwashed eyeballs, 3500 likes, and 355 comments, all of which appeared to be positive -- although I dared not read them too closely less they prove too much for my weak post-operative tummy.

"Arggh!" I think to myself. "So much for relaxing."

"I simply HAVE to submit comment number 356 for the film on YouTube, will I or NILL I!"

So thinking, I pecked out the following dissenting opinion.

This is more Drug War propaganda. Drugs do not kill. Bad social policy kills. End the Drug War! Teach safe use. Stop demonizing medicines. Hundreds of hospitals in India have stopped using morphine 2 and other pain meds because of the red tape caused by your fearmongering. Kids go without pain relief so that you can blame "drugs". The Partnership for a Drug Free America 3 told us that drugs fry your brain. That was the biggest lie in the history of public service announcements. Prohibition kills4 5. It's lasted for 100 years and it's handed elections to fascists by jailing millions of minorities after luring the poor into an incredibly profitable drug trade. It's destroyed the rule of law in Latin America6. It's turned inner-cities into shooting galleries. It's censored academia. It was responsible for the election of Donald Trump7. END PROHIBITION. STOP YOUR ANTI-SCIENTIFIC DEMONIZATION OF SUBSTANCES


There. I hope I've got that out of my system, at least for tonight. Now on to that relaxing movie that I mentioned. looks like it's going to be 'mission, impossible - dead reckoning part one' with you-know-whom. As far as I can tell, it has nothing to do with drugs. I just hope that the producers have resisted the temptation to insert any throwaway lines or subplots designed to conform with the Christian Science mindset of the current inhabitant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Oh, and in case you're wondering, I'm feeling fine after surgery, or rather I was, until this braindead Canadian flick made me despair about the sorry state of North American newscasters when it comes to common-damn-sense in the age of the hateful war on godsend medicines, aka the War on Drugs.



Author's Follow-up: January 11, 2024

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up



I am not trying to hate on my dentist, by the way. In fact, he was great. I feel surprisingly fine after the apparently gnarly procedure. I say "apparently" because I was "knocked out" at the time, but the mere description of the procedure would turn a stronger stomach than mine. I am only picking on the practice of modern dentistry as one of endless extant examples that illustrate the hypocrisy of the fearmongers who continue to destroy an ever-widening range of democratic principles with their superstitious ideology of substance demonization.

I did, however, have one slightly frightening experience, upon leaving the building after my surgery (I should perhaps say "theoretically frightening experience," because I was in a state wherein things were much more likely to appear curious to me than frightening). I had just awoken from my deep sleep when I was wheeled to the front door by one of the two personable dental assistants. She stopped in the hallway and turned me to face the dentist office parking lot through a transparent glass side door, assuring me in the process that "the truck will be here shortly to pick you up." At least that's what I heard her say.

And I was thinking to myself: "The truck? What truck? Were they so disgusted with my lack of dental hygiene that they decided to bump me off? Or is this some chop shop where they rob the patient blind and then haul them off to the New Jersey Pine Barrens to be done away with by the Mob?"

After about 15 seconds' worth of such bemused speculations, it occurred to me that my brother-in-law had driven me to the dentist that morning in his truck, and that his vehicle was probably even now approaching the side door in order to "collect me" (as the Brits would have it) in such a way as to minimize my need for unnecessary exertions.

That's it. Most of you can probably leave now. But I invite the "philosophy heads" in the audience to stay tuned for some nuanced elaboration on the above essay -- nuance being an unknown concept in the all-too-self-assured "mind" of the modern Drug Warrior.

With regard to drugs like Fentanyl and oxy, it will be argued that Sackler and folks played a role in the opiate dystopia that has ensued. But these are what the philosopher would call "accidental" facts. They do not affect the points that I am trying to make. That is to say, we grant that many people will be tempted to take advantage of substance prohibition to make money in a highly questionable manner, but that should not distract us from the fact that prohibition created those opportunities in the first place. That is the overriding lesson here, because if Sackler was not the bad guy, there would be ten others to take his place. So while there is certainly a role for unveiling such details, it is not my job as a philosopher.

Mind you, there's nothing wrong with discussing the roles of such people. The problem is that most of the folks who do so are silent about the policy that enabled them: namely prohibition.

One way they're thrown off the trail is by clueless headlines that refer to Fentanyl as a killer8. Such a headline is a big YES vote for more of the same prohibition attitude that has already led to countless deaths in North and South America, to the abandonment of Fourth Amendment protections, to the unnecessary suffering of hospice patients for lack of the proper pain medicine, etc. etc. etc.

Someone has to stand up and remind newscasters of the obvious: that inanimate objects are not killers, Drug War superstition to the contrary. The killers are the prohibitionists who first outlawed Mother Nature in violation of the natural law upon which America was founded.














Notes for essay entitled Fentanyl does not kill! Prohibition does!:

1: How Fentanyl Kills: a CBC Explainer (up)
2: Three takeaway lessons from the use of morphine by William Halsted, co-founder of Johns Hopkins Medical School DWP (up)
3: Horses Kill The Partnership for a Death Free America (up)
4: Prohibitionists Never Learn DWP (up)
5: Prohibition's Death Toll: Alcohol's Deadly Legacy (up)
6: ThriftBooks. 2026. “Drug War Capitalism.” ThriftBooks. 2026. https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/drug-war-capitalism/9217021/?resultid=e8667266-257a-41bf-83e3-78200e3527f3#edition=8539401&idiq=10283063. (up)
7: How the Drug War gave the 2016 election to Donald Trump DWP (up)
8: Time for News Outlets to stop promoting drug war lies DWP (up)




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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




Opium and cocaine have a vast host of potential rational uses -- yet we all have to pretend otherwise in the age of the Drug War.

The WHO says that depression will be the number-one cause of disability by 2030. What they don't say is that this is only because drug prohibition has outlawed all obvious treatments for depression.

It wasn't until western prudery and racism came along that we started to judge people by the substances that they chose to ingest, rather than by their actual behavior in the world.

Drug War propaganda is all about convincing us that we will never be able to use drugs wisely. But the drug warriors are not taking any chances: they're doing all they can to make that a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That's why I created the satirical Partnership for a Death Free America. It demonstrates clearly that drug warriors aren't worried about our health, otherwise they'd outlaw shopping carts, etc. The question then becomes: what are they REALLY afraid of? Answer: Free thinkers.

"Users" can be kept out of the workforce by the extrajudicial process of drug testing; they can have their baby taken from them, their house, their property -- all because they do not share the intoxiphobic attitude of America.

In a free world, almost all depressed individuals could do WITHOUT doctors: these adult human beings could handle their own depression with the informed intermittent use of a wide variety of psychoactive substances.

This hysterical reaction to rare negative events actually creates more rare negative events. This is why the DEA publicizes "drug problems," because by making them well known, they make the problems more prevalent and can thereby justify their huge budget.

After over a hundred years of prohibition, America has developed a kind of faux science in which despised substances are completely ignored. This is why Sci Am is making a new argument for shock therapy in 2023, because they ignore all the stuff that OBVIOUSLY cheers one up.

Folks like Sabet accuse folks like myself of ignoring the "facts." No, it is Sabet who is ignoring the facts -- facts about dangerous horses and free climbing. He's also ignoring all the downsides of prohibition, whose laws lead to the election of tyrants.


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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