How drug prohibition destroys the lives of the depressed

Homepage of the Drug War Philosopher, Brian Quass

How drug prohibition destroys the lives of the depressed

meanwhile turning them into wards of the healthcare state

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

August 30, 2025

It is frustrating to deal with one's deeply depressed kinfolk in the age of drug prohibition. All the medicines that could help them are outlawed and so one is only able to comfort them with "words, words, words," which are meaningless, however, to a soul in despair. I know because I have been there myself. Such family members belong to a completely unrecognized class of drug-war victims: namely, those who are forced to suffer in silence thanks to the unprecedented outlawing of time-honored medicine. For the most part, however, these victims refuse to protest because they have been told that science has solved depression and that they just have to wait until they discover the right dependence-causing pill combination from Big Pharma and then all will be fine. Well, I know family members who have been playing that game for over forty years now, and they have been cycled through long periods of despair and hope as they are given one dependence-causing med after another to see "what works for them." In between each drug trial, they are unconscionably forced to go cold turkey for the benefit of the doctor, who prioritizes limiting variables over the "patient's" peace of mind. As much as we love to demonize them, a drug dealer would never insist on such an inhumane protocol.

I write therefore on behalf of the sufferers of the future -- in an effort to make America rethink its unprecedented wholesale demonization of psychoactive substances.

Of course, there are many reasons to re-legalize psychoactive medicine. By so doing, we would end the violence of turf wars and the militarization of police forces around the world. We would restore our basic rights which Americans have renounced in favor of fighting the politically created scapegoat called "drugs." We would get rid of our penal colonies for minorities. We would begin to atone for the fact that we have killed half a million Americans since 1971 in our paleolithic War on Drugs ¹. I focus on the rights of the depressed, however, partly because I have skin in this game and partly because no on else seems to be aware of the obvious way that drug prohibition keeps the depressed from enjoying life. I myself have been deprived of godsend medicines for a lifetime and so deprived of my most basic of rights: to take care of my own health. This is a crucial criticism of the Drug War that someone must finally make, but Americans have been bamboozled on this topic by the propaganda of Drug Warriors and Big Pharma ² ³ alike. Companies like Astra-Zeneca and Eli Lilly sponsor ads for "depression awareness," in an effort to have us all "take our meds," and these ads have worked ⁴. Americans like to boast that they are on the same page as the pharmaceutical companies when it comes to their need to take dependence-causing meds on a daily basis.

And yet the depressed could be cheered up in a trice -- if we merely began using drugs for the benefit of humanity. And this could be done without addicting the user -- bearing in mind that even dependence is preferable to having that user commit suicide. As Carl Hart reminds us, the majority of drug users use wisely, this despite the fact that our government is doing everything it can to ensure that use is problematic, by refusing to teach safe use, refusing to regulate drugs as to quantity and quality, and refusing to provide would-be users with true choice. All risky activities have victims, however, from horseback riding to mountain climbing to alcohol drinking. Only when it comes to the hypocritically defined category of "drugs" do we insist that the concerns about one demographic -- namely white suburban young people -- must be prioritized over the healthcare needs of everybody else in the world. This is an imperialist and racist evil. It is a crime against humanity ⁵ to deny peace of mind to the depressed -- especially when we do so merely because we refuse to educate young people about drugs, under the bizarre anti-democratic philosophy that ignorance is the best policy.

My uncle underwent brain-damaging shock therapy thanks to these Drug Warrior clowns. The doctors told the family that it was performed as a "last resort," but this was a lie. Shock therapy is never performed as a "last resort" in the age of drug prohibition, it is performed because we have outlawed all common-sense treatments for human sadness.

The world is full of substances that inspire and elate. Consider the following user reports from the book Pihkal by Alexander Shulgin ⁶.

"More than tranquil, I was completely at peace, in a beautiful, benign, and placid place."

"A glimpse of what true heaven is supposed to feel like."

"This is total energy, and I am aware of my every membrane. This has been a marvelous experience, very beautiful, joyous, and sensuous."

Just imagine how frustrating it is to deal with a sorrowing loved one, knowing that America would rather demonize substances that produce such results rather than to learn how to use them as wisely as possible for the benefit of humanity.

Pharmacologically Savvy Empaths

Notes:

1: Prohibition Blunder (up)
2: Seife, Charles. 2012. “Is Drug Research Trustworthy?” Scientific American 307 (6): 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1212-56. (up)
3: LaMattina, John. n.d. “Why Is Biopharma Paying 75% of the FDA’s Drug Division Budget?” Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2022/09/22/why-is-biopharma-paying-75-of-the-fdas-drug-division-budget/. (up)
4: “Medicalization of Everyday Life, the – Syracuse University Press.” 2026. Syr.edu. 2026. https://press.syr.edu/supressbooks/953/medicalization-of-everyday-life/. (up)
5: Drug Prohibition is a crime against humantiy DWP (up)
6: Shulgin, Alexander T, and Ann Shulgin. 2019. Pihkal : A Chemical Love Story. Berkeley, Ca: Transform Press. (up)

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There is something wrong with a country that thinks it can decide what human beings around the world are allowed to ingest.

We need a few brave folk to "act up" by shouting "It's the drug war!" whenever folks are discussing Mexican violence or inner city shootings. The media treat both topics as if the violence is inexplicable! We can't learn from mistakes if we're in denial.

Who would have thought back in 1776 that Americans would eventually have to petition their government for the right to even possess a damn mushroom. The Drug War has destroyed America.

Every time I see a psychiatrist, I feel like I'm playing a game of make-believe. We're both pretending that hundreds of demonized medicines do not exist and could be of no use whatsoever.

The DEA has done everything it can to keep Americans clueless about opium and poppies. The agency is a disgrace to a country that claims to value knowledge and freedom of information.

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.

We drastically limit drug choices, we refuse to teach safe use, and then we discover there's a gene to explain why some people have trouble with drugs. Science loves to find simple solutions to complex problems.

The problem for alcoholics is that alcohol decreases rationality in proportion as it provides the desired self-transcendence. Outlawed drugs can provide self-transcendence with INCREASED rationality and be far more likely to keep the problem drinker off booze than abstinence.

In 2017 alone, 1,632,921 drug arrests were made with 85.5 percent of those solely for possession. -- War On Us

The goal of rehab should not be to get people off of all drugs, it should be to teach them to be in control of their drug use and to use drugs wisely for beneficial purposes.

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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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tombstone for American Democracy, 1776-2024, RIP

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How drug prohibition destroys the lives of the depressed

meanwhile turning them into wards of the healthcare state

Pharmacologically Savvy Empaths

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against the hateful war on US

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