Movie Warnings from Uncommon Sense
find out if your favorite movies contain drug-war propaganda
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
August 16, 2023
Here are some warning flags for moviegoers that Common Sense will never show you. They're perfectly happy for viewers to be indoctrinated by Drug War lies and propaganda -- their only concern is that the propagandists do not use a dirty word that might corrupt junior! Now, if the movie convinces them to condone torture and murder in the name of the Drug War, that's just fine. Those are all-American values these days, after all, in the age of Christian Science Sharia, aka the War on Drugs.
"RUNNING WITH THE DEVIL" -- WARNING: CONTAINS DRUG WAR AGITPROP:
Suspects are hung from meathooks and tortured, all in the name of prosecuting a war on time-honored plant medicine.
"TRADER" -- WARNING: CONTAINS DRUG WAR AGITPROP: Script toes the Drug War party line that outlawed substances are immoral, even though the substances thus demonized have endless positive uses and are infinitely less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco. (They actually badmouth LSD and even Ecstasy! Sounds like the writers received one too many teddy bears as kids for saying no to godsend medicines. It's interesting, though, the trader unabashedly swallows speed -- diverted from fake prescriptions for ADHD kids -- to improve her mind for trading. AND THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE! But when I saw that, I said to myself: the other shoe is about to fall: they'll have to let us know that this is evil of her: and sure enough, her mysterious male friend on the other side of the phone says (only half jokingly) that he's surprised this trader woman is so immoral as to use such substances. "There," I said to myself. "I knew it. They could not just let her use drugs to improve her game: they had to point out to the kiddies that such use is WRONG!" Propaganda and BS. The only question is, was the plot written by the White House as in Clinton's time.
"THE RUNNER" -- WARNING: CONTAINS RACIST DRUG WAR FANATICISM: Detective Wall calls a black teenager a 'waste of space' and blackmails a white teenager to narc on his schoolmate. Spoiler alert: The unarmed black teenager gets killed in a ridiculously irresponsible raid on a high-school dance, for which the detective nevertheless earns a medal!
"FOUR GOOD DAYS" -- WARNING: PROMOTES SUBSTANCE DEMONIZATION: Glenn Close is a wine-guzzling mother who lectures her daughter against her heroin 1 use, hypocritically sending her to an extremely expensive "treatment" facility whose bare-bones protocol consists of dumping the 'patient' on a cot and giving them a shot of Naltrexone, without so much as one godsend medicine to help them in their suffering. The movie reinforces the bogus notion that drugs are evil and that the answer to their use is a hypocritically defined sobriety. Of course, if Glenn Close wanted to experience MORE than four good days with her daughter, she would let the kid continue using heroin until such time as she's able to use any drug in the world to veer herself off that drug if and when she so desires (preferably with the help of a pharmacologically savvy empath). But the film promotes the superstitious idea that outlawed drugs are bad in and of themselves so drugs cannot be used to fix the young lady's problems. The result? Family spats drag on in the face of endless relapses and dubious promises to reform. The good news is, the prohibition that causes these problems generates no-doubt much-needed employment for addiction mongers, those whose workload depends on the outlawing of godsend medicines.
"COPS" -- WARNING: PROMOTES DRUG WAR RACISM: Glorifies2 the mistreatment of minorities in the name of the hateful Drug War. Parents, be sure to block junior's eyes and ears whenever the cops are hassling kids for using substances of which politicians disapprove, many of which grow at our feet and have inspired entire religions in the past.
Notes:
1: Hall, Wayne, and Megan Weier. 2016. “Lee Robins’ Studies of Heroin Use among US Vietnam Veterans.” Addiction 112 (1): 176–80. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.13584. (up)
2: Glorifying Beneficial Drug Use DWP (up)
Ten Tweets
against the hateful war on US
If America cannot exist without outlawing drugs, then there is something wrong with America, not with drugs.
Drug prohibition is superstitious idiocy.
It is based on the following crazy idea:
that a substance that can be misused by a white young person at one dose for one reason must not be used by anybody at any dose for any reason.
If I want to use the kind of drugs that have inspired entire religions, fight depression, or follow up on the research of William James into altered states, I should not have to live in fear of the DEA crashing down my door and shouting: "GO! GO! GO!"
The Drug War is the ultimate example of strategic fearmongering by self-interested politicians.
And where did politicians get the idea that irresponsible white American young people are the only stakeholders when it comes to the question of re-legalizing drugs??? There are hundreds of millions of other stakeholders: philosophers, pain patients, the depressed.
Drug testing should flag impairment only. Any other use is a flagrant violation of the Fourth Amendment.
It's interesting that Jamaicans call the police 'Babylon,' given that Babylon denotes a society seeking materialist pleasures. Drug use is about transcending the material world and seeking spiritual states: states that the materialist derides as meaningless.
Today's Washington Post reports that "opioid pills shipped" DROPPED 45% between 2011 and 2019..... while fatal overdoses ROSE TO RECORD LEVELS! Prohibition is PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE.
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.
Two of the biggest promoters of the psychedelic renaissance shuffle their feet when you ask them about substance prohibition. Michael Pollan and Rick Strassman just don't get it: prohibition kills.
Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us
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Copyright 2025, Brian Ballard Quass
Contact: quass@quass.com
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