How to end the war in Mexico, stop inner-city killings and cure depression in one easy step
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
October 5, 2022
merica could end inner-city killings and the war in Mexico overnight, meanwhile solving the so-called epidemic of depression in America, merely by re-legalizing the coca leaf. But instead, Drug Warriors demonize coca based on rare but well-documented cases of cocaine addiction, failing to realize that the coca leaf is not cocaine, any more than peach juice is prussic acid.
This is the typical Drug Warrior MO. , as when Drug Warriors demonize opium based on cases of heroin addiction, failing to mention that they are two different drugs. This is just guilt by association. But even if the coca leaf was the same as cocaine and opium was the same as heroin, it's not clear why the Drug Warriors want to trash such substances based on their addictive qualities in a world in which 1 in 4 American women are dependent for life on Big Pharma meds, nor why the supposedly health-conscious American Drug Warrior is silent about the half a million Stateside deaths attributed each year to tobacco and liquor combined.
This is especially odd for those of us who deny that government ever had the right to criminalize plant medicine in the first place, at least in America, a country founded on Natural Law. Indeed, a few of us wept for our country when the DEA stomped onto Monticello in broad daylight in 1987 and confiscated Thomas Jefferson's poppy plants, thereby giving the finger to Jeffersonian principles and our Lockean heritage. If you don't remember this outrage, that's probably because the media did not exactly treat it as earth-shattering news. But this was the mid-'80s, a time when the Drug War ideology of substance demonization was starting to be taught in grade schools and Ronald Reagan was exhorting god-fearing Americans to turn in their parents for using plant medicines of which botanically clueless politicians disapproved.
But then there's a lot of money on the line here. In the 1800s, some counties in England did pretty much without doctors because every household had laudanum on hand for sleepless nights, colds and bouts of depression (see Paul Johnson's 'The Birth of the Modern'). But that's a status quo that capitalism could never live with. Imagine, all those folks who could be insured and doctored and "billed up the wazoo" for conditions that they were currently treating with Mother Nature's medicine! Capitalism made a Drug War inevitable, because there was no way that the well-to-do were going to pass up their chance to earn billions, even at the cost of disempowering and indeed infantilizing Americans when it came to the subject of "drugs." From these considerations we can conclude two things: That capitalism requires a Drug War to exist, and that the Drug War naturally entails the creation of the modern healthcare state.
October 7, 2022
The coca leaf guided Peruvian Indian society like coffee guides ours. It gave them endurance and a cogenial spirit. At first, the Spanish saw the use of this substance as a threat to Christian social values, but they soon discovered that their slaves worked two or three times harder when free to chew the coca leaf and so stopped their own zealous efforts to wipe the plant from the surface of the Earth. To learn more:
When we outlaw drugs like cocaine, we are not just passing judgment on drugs: we are passing judgment on the value of mental concentration itself. Arthur Conan Doyle was clearly aware that cocaine could induce rapt mental states. The idea that such states are not worth adopting is not a medical opinion, it is a political one.
As for cocaine being addictive, so what? To outlaw it on that basis makes no more sense than outlawing fire because it can be used for bad reasons.
Drug Warriors should be legally banned from watching or reading Sherlock Holmes stories, since in their world, it is a crime for such people as Sherlock Holmes to exist, i.e., people who use godsend medicines to improve their mind and mood. It is moreover completely childish to outlaw drugs because they can be misused by some people in some circumstances. The fact that Americans do not see this is testament to the sorry state of modern education -- and the lack of a focus on common-sense philosophy -- for even Rhodes Scholars like Bill Clinton are completely bamboozled on such topics2.
Antidepressants
Suppose you lived in the Punjab in 1500 BCE and were told that Soma was illegal but that the mental health establishment had medicines which you could take every day of your life for your depression. Would it not be an enormous violation of your liberty to be told that you could not worship Soma and its attendant gods and incarnations? Would it not be an enormous violation of your liberty to be told that you cannot partake of the drink of the Gods themselves, the Soma juice?
Well, guess what? Your liberty is suppressed in that very fashion by modern drug prohibition: you are denied access to all medicines that inspire and elate. Seen in this light, antidepressants are a slap in the face to a freedom-loving people. They are a prohibitionist replacement for a host of obvious treatments, none of which need turn the user into a patient for life, and some of which could even inspire new religions.
The Hindu religion would not exist today had the DEA been active in the Punjab in 1500 BCE.
So do antidepressants make sense?
This question has two very different answers, depending on whether you recognize that prohibition exists or not. Of course, most Americans pretend that drug war prohibition does not exist, or at least that it has no effect on their lives -- and so they happily become Big Pharma patients for life. They flatter themselves that they are thereby treating their problems "scientifically." What they fail to realize, of course, is that it is a category error for materialist scientists to treat mind and mood conditions in the first place.
Why? Because scientists are behaviorists when it comes to drugs, which means that they ignore all obvious positive effects of drugs: all anecdote, all history and all psychological common sense -- and instead try to cure you biochemically. And what has been the result of this purblind approach to mind and moods, this search for the Holy Grail of materialist cures for depression? The result has been the greatest mass pharmacological dystopia of all time, thanks to which 1 in 4 American women are dependent on Big Pharma pills for life.
Addiction was not a big thing until the drug war. It's now the boogie-man with which drug warriors scare us into giving up our freedoms. But getting obsessed on one single drug is natural in the age of choice-limiting prohibition.
The Drug War is based on a huge number of misconceptions and prejudices. Obviously it's about power and racism too. It's all of the above. But every time I don't mention one specifically, someone makes out that I'm a moron. Gotta love Twitter.
It's because of such reductive pseudoscience that America will allow us to shock the brains of the depressed but won't allow us to let them use the plant medicines that grow at their feet.
Your drug war has caused the disappearance of over 60,000 Mexicans over the last 20 years. It has turned inner cities into shooting galleries. It has turned America into a penal colony. It has destroyed the 4th amendment and put bureaucrats in charge of deciding if our religions are "sincere."
There are endless drugs that could help with depression. Any drug that inspires and elates is an antidepressant, partly by the effect itself and partly by the mood-elevation caused by anticipation of use (facts which are far too obvious for drug warriors to understand).
In fact, that's what we need when we finally return to legalization: educational documentaries showing how folks manage to safely incorporate today's hated substances into their life and lifestyle.
We need a scheduling system for psychoactive drugs as much as we need a scheduling system for sports activities: i.e. NOT AT ALL. Some sports are VERY dangerous, but we do not outlaw them because we know that there are benefits both to sports and to freedom in general.
Outlawing opium wOutlawing opium was the ultimate government power grab. It put the government in charge of pain relief.
as the ultimate government power grab. It put the government in charge of pain relief.
I looked up the company: it's all about the damn stock market and money. The FDA outlaws LSD until we remove all the euphoria and the visions. That's ideology, not science. Just relegalize drugs and stop telling me how much ecstasy and insight I can have in my life!!
I might as well say that no one can ever be taught to ride a horse safely. I would argue as follows: "Look at Christopher Reeves. He was a responsible and knowledgeable equestrian. But he couldn't handle horses. The fact is, NO ONE can handle horses!"
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, How to end the war in Mexico, stop inner-city killings and cure depression in one easy step published on October 5, 2022 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
merica could end inner-city killings and the war in Mexico overnight, meanwhile solving the so-called epidemic of depression in America, merely by re-legalizing the coca leaf. But instead, Drug Warriors demonize coca based on rare but well-documented cases of cocaine addiction, failing to realize that the coca leaf is not cocaine, any more than peach juice is prussic acid. 
You have been reading an article entitled, How to end the war in Mexico, stop inner-city killings and cure depression in one easy step published on October 5, 2022 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
