How Google censors pushback against drug prohibition
What happens when a profit-driven monopoly controls the public narrative on controversial social issues
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
April 30, 2026
I have been consoling myself lately over my online invisibility by thinking of my essays as so many manuscripts in a bottle, so many instalments in a diary written initially for myself, but with the hope that it might someday inspire others. This perspective not only helps me to cope with my online ostracization, but it helps me to live like a saint as well, insofar as the transcendent viewpoint has historically counseled human beings to speak truth without expectation of either gain or praise, but rather merely because it was the truth. Of course, I have never fully lived up to that lofty goal. I often get the feeling of "why bother" when I see zero statistical progress in my attempts at online proselytization. I have to keep reminding myself that I am writing a sort of diary and that I can only have faith that it will someday make a difference to somebody but myself. "Yeah, that's it," I tell myself, mentally mimicking the whining voice of Rico, the petty hoodlum played by Edgar G. Robinson in his 1931 breakthrough hit called Little Caesar. "It's a diary, see? Yeeeeah."
That is a noble attempt at stoicism on my part, and yet I am only human. When I looked at my Google stats three days ago and found that there were none -- actually zero -- hits -- indeed, zero pages indexed for my site... well, let's just say that I found my philosophical attitude truly put to the test. My site has been around for eight years, after all, and it now seems that it has disappeared entirely from Google. The good news is: I quickly submitted a new sitemap in response to this so-far unexplained catastrophe. The bad news is that Google has already processed 47 of those 800 essays on that sitemap, apparently determining that they are not even worth listing. It seems, upon investigation, that Google favors "consensus" content written by acknowledged "experts" in their field and dislikes controversy, especially on the subject of drugs. To make matters worse, Google's algorithm writers, like most Americans, do not know the difference between philosophical arguments and rants.
I was suddenly getting a much better idea of the true size of the Goliath I was battling. Google algorithms dislike everything I am trying to do: they don't like philosophy, except when it comes from published professors; they don't like views about drugs, except when they come from politically correct academics; and they don't like new ideas and approaches, for the simple reason that, by definition, such ideas are not popular with -- or even known by -- the general public. The system, in short, was rigged to favor the drug prohibitionist mindset and to silence new ideas that do not come from board-certified "experts." And so my essays are really being treated as simple diaries, in good earnest, and I am forced to either accept that humbling reality with good grace or to despair. It is not just movers-and-shakers who deny me any standing in the drugs debate, the very infrastructure of the Web is against me. It is not just my imagination, I truly am being marginalized.
When I queried AI about this biased status quo, I got a lecture on the free-market system. I was told that Google was a private business, thank me very much, and that they can set whatever rules they please. So there!
And so we see the problem with the Google monopoly. Because they have a lion's share of the search market, they can control the dialogue in America and censor at will, with absolutely zero accountability.
This is yet another reason why the drug demonization ideology is evil: it has changed the ground rules about what one is even allowed to say in America. Drug prohibition is the philosophical problem par excellence of our times, and yet I am almost alone in holding it responsible for the problems that it causes. Then again, I would scarcely know if others share my views, since the pages of those who do so are also subject to non-indexing on Google.
This is the problem with algorithms: they're only as good as the assumptions upon which they are based. And what are the assumptions that Google makes about psychoactive drug use? They assume that medical professionals are the experts, the same "pros" that do not see any valuable in medicines that past cultures considered to be panaceas, that do not see any benefit in laughing gas for the depressed, and that do not see any problem in turning the depressed into wards of the healthcare state by keeping them on dependence-causing meds, while yet failing to protest the drug prohibition that outlaws everything else!
By the way, the argument that Google is a private company rings hollow when they control the narrative by having the lion's share of search traffic. As such, they have tremendous control about what views get heard... which is why they should be broken up as the most obvious of monopolies, no matter how convenient they have made life for us. American democracy is dying in proportion as Big Data makes things easier and easier for us.
Key Takeaways:
Google favors consensus content.
Google algorithms favor prohibitionist mindset and bury new ideas.
Google keeps non-consensus views non-indexed, silenced, with absolutely no right of appeal.
Algorithms are only as good as the assumptions upon which they are based.
Google search algorithms are based on the idea that scientists are the experts on psychoactive medicine, the same scientists who do not see how laughing gas could help the depressed and who deny the power of time-honored panaceas.
How else will they scare us enough to convince us to give up all our freedoms for the purpose of fighting horrible awful evil DRUGS? DRUGS is the sledgehammer with which they are destroying American democracy.
The FDA uses reductive materialism to justify and normalize the views of Cortes and Pizarro with respect to entheogenic medicine.
Here is a sample drug-use report from the book "Pihkal":
"More than tranquil, I was completely at peace, in a beautiful, benign, and placid place."
Prohibition is a crime against humanity for withholding such drug experiences from the depressed (and from everybody else).
Most people think that drugs like cocaine, MDMA, LSD and amphetamines can only be used recreationally. WRONG ! This represents a very naive understanding of human psychology. We deny common sense in order to cater to the drug war orthodoxy that "drugs have no benefits."
If opium and cocaine were legal again in America, the healthcare industry would suddenly have to undergo extensive downsizing, as Americans were once again put in charge of their own health.
There is more hope in dope than there is in the psychiatric pill mill.
If I should die of some unusual concatenation of circumstances, I want my survivors to pass "Brian's Law," a law stating that we will no longer pass laws based on hard cases and so needlessly fill our prisons by taking common-sense discretion out of the hands of judges.
Many psychedelic fans are still drug warriors at heart. They just think that a nice big exception should be carved out for the drugs that they're suddenly finding useful.
That's another problem with "following the science." Science downplays personal testimony as subjective. But psychoactive experiences are all ABOUT subjectivity. With such drugs, users are not widgets susceptible to the one-size-fits-all pills of reductionism.
If we encourage folks to use antidepressants daily, there is nothing wrong with them using heroin daily. A founder of Johns Hopkins used morphine daily and he not only survived, but he thrived.
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