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Kevin Sabet and other Philosophically Challenged Prohibitionists

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

January 29, 2022



Kevin Sabet is at it again, plucking my last and final nerve. Today, he's promoting a post on Twitter that encourages us to panic over the fact that a vast minority of pot users use the drug daily.

Now then, why does Kevin think that a body might use marijuana every single day of their life? Gee, that's a real poser. Hmm. Could it have anything to do with the fact that their government has outlawed ALMOST EVERY OTHER PSYCHOACTIVE MEDICINE ON THE PLANET???

People seek self-transcendence, Kevin, get over it.

And until we outlaw prohibition, would you prefer that such users were drinking alcohol every day of their life, or taking Big Pharma meds every day of their life like 1 in 4 American women, thereby turning themselves into socially acceptable zombies? But Kevin has no problem with socially acceptable zombies.

Speaking of which, one has to wonder if Kevin is on the take from Big Pharma . All I can say is that if he's not, the Big Pharma companies are missing a great opportunity.

Kevin's knee-jerk prohibitionist policies have killed hundreds of thousands of Mexicans over the last decade and resulted in the election of insurrectionists by throwing millions of black voters in jail. Meanwhile these policies have outlawed substances that have inspired entire religions -- and stolen Thomas Jefferson's poppy plants. Gee, thanks, Kevin for your "enlightened" policies that have overthrown natural law and militarized police forces around the world.

And this is the guy whom Atlantic editor David Frum calls "The most important new voice in the American drug policy debate"? There's nothing new about Kevin's voice: it's Drug War 101: demonize and criminalize substances rather than teach about them. This has been official government policy for half a century now, as reflected in the ONDCP guidelines which forbids the discussion of any potential benefits to be realized by the substances that we call "drugs." But it's no wonder that Kevin gets the Atlantic's endorsement. That's the magazine that keeps publishing feel-good pieces about new depression treatments without ever mentioning the fact that our government has outlawed almost all the substances that could treat depression effectively. The Atlantic is thereby ignoring the fact that the Drug War is censoring scientific research, something that supposedly freedom-loving Americans should be ashamed of.

I'm glad Kevin is not an exterminator. If he noticed a single solitary bug in a house, he would treat the problem by gassing the whole neighborhood. Then when children and pets lay dying on the pavement, Kevin would point to the bug-free condition of the house in question and cry: "Success! We have won the war on bugs!"

That's why Drug Warriors are like Mrs. Grose in "The Turn of the Screw." They cause the very problems that they seek to solve.

As I've said before, I agree with Kevin: folks should not use weed -- or any other substance -- excessively*. But like every other drug-related problem these days, the problem is caused by the Drug War, Kevin, not by drugs themselves!

Teach, don't demonize. Divert the billions we're spending on law enforcement to teaching safe use in the relevant communities, meanwhile recognizing the so far unacknowledged fact that nothing we can do (neither prohibition nor legalization 1 ) is going to "save" everybody, and that when we try to do so with a Drug War, the "victories" that we achieve will always be Pyrrhic ones.



Related tweet: June 10, 2023

Check out these prohibitionists who whine about the popularity of weed. It's like they outlawed steak and pork and then they complained about the popularity of chicken. I'd be more than happy to diversify my medicine cabinet once these clowns stop outlawing Mother Nature.




Author's Follow-up: July 3, 2023


Of course, the definition of "excessive" use is not determined scientifically. It has everything to do with the desires and goals of the "user." Folks like Sabet would have told Ben Franklin to cut out the opium 2 smoking -- but Ben's use would have been considered "excessive" only by those onlooking prudes, not by Benjamin Franklin himself. Again, the determination of what's excessive is a personal matter, for which supposedly objective facts about a drug are only one of the many considerations that come into play. But just as Drug Warriors prefer one-size-fits-all pills from Big Pharma 3 4 over holistic remedies, so they prefer a list of one-size-fits-all binary judgments about "drugs" (good/bad) over the highly nuanced cost-benefit analyses that must come into play in any REAL life of a would-be user, an analysis that takes into account the crucial dreams and aspirations of that user. What kind of world do THEY want to live in? What are their goals in life? Do they want to follow up on the research of William James? Do they want to give up alcohol? Do they want to be less angry?

The Drug Warrior ignores all such real-life considerations and tells us ex cathedra that the drugs in question are somehow bad in and of themselves (a claim that can be properly made only of the Devil himself, in which the vast majority of Drug Warriors will tell you they do not believe). In that case, surely liquor too is bad in and of itself and should not be excused on the grounds of making the drinker more relaxed and sociable, as hypocritical Drug Warriors are apt to do.



Author's Follow-up:

May 01, 2025

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up


Until recently, I had struggled to make it clear to my readers why Kevin Sabet's prohibitionist mindset is so frustrating to me. Then I noticed the following lines by Alfred North Whitehead that said it all.

In the presentation of a novel outlook with wide ramifications, a single line of communications from premises to conclusions is not sufficient for intelligibility. Your audience will construe whatever you say into conformity with their pre-existing outlook.


In Whitehead's case, his audience lived and breathed a bifurcated view of nature, as consisting of perceptions on the one hand an molecular causes on the other. In my case, my audience lives and breathes a bifurcated view of psychoactive substances, as consisting of "meds" on the one hand and "drugs" on the other. The former can, generally speaking do no wrong, while the latter are considered prima facie bad and to be judged only by their misuse and abuse, the assumption being that positive, beneficial and worthy uses simply do not exist.

"The evolution of modern medicine gave us our current, bifurcated view of drugs: the good ones that treat illness and the bad ones that people use to change their minds and moods." --Jacob Sullum, from Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, p. 2515










Notes for essay entitled Kevin Sabet and other Philosophically Challenged Prohibitionists:

1: “National Coalition for Drug Legalization.” n.d. National Coalition for Drug Legalization. https://www.nationalcoalitionfordruglegalization.org/. (up)
2: The Truth About Opium by William H. Brereton DWP (up)
3: Seife, Charles. 2012. “Is Drug Research Trustworthy?” Scientific American 307 (6): 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1212-56. (up)
4: 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)
5: Sullum, Jacob. 2025. “Saying Yes by Jacob Sullum: 9781585423187 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books.” PenguinRandomhouse.com. 2025. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/288705/saying-yes-by-jacob-sullum/. (up)




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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




I'm interested in CBD myself, because I want to gain benefits at times without experiencing intoxication. So I think it's great. But I like it as part of an overall strategy toward mental health. I do not think of CBD, as some do, as a way to avoid using naughty drugs.

Champions of indigenous medicines claim that their medicines are not "drugs." But they miss the bigger point: that there are NO drugs in the sense that drug warriors use that term. There are no drugs that have no positive uses whatsoever.

Hollywood presents cocaine as a drug of killers. In reality, strategic cocaine use by an educated person can lead to great mental power, especially as just one part of a pharmacologically balanced diet.

When the FDA tells us in effect that MDMA is too dangerous to be used to prevent school shootings and to help bring about world peace, they are making political judgments, not scientific ones.

The so-called opiate crisis is really a drug prohibition crisis.

Almost all of today's magazine articles about human psychology should come with the following disclaimer: "This article was written from the standpoint of Drug War ideology, which holds that outlawed substances can have no beneficial uses whatsoever."

The media called out Trump for fearmongering about immigrants, but the media engages in fearmongering when it comes to drugs. The latest TV plot line: "white teenage girl forced to use fentanyl!" America loves to feel morally superior about "drugs."

If anyone manages to die during an ayahuasca ceremony, it is considered a knockdown argument against "drugs." If anyone dies during a hunting club get-together, it is considered the victim's own damn fault.

"The Oprah Winfrey Fallacy": the idea that a statistically insignificant number of cases constitutes a crisis, provided ONLY that the villain of the piece is something that racist politicians have demonized as a "drug."

I have nothing against science, BTW (altho' I might feel differently after a nuclear war!) I just want scientists to "stay in their lane" and stop pretending to be experts on my own personal mood and consciousness.


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