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One of these things is not like the other

Court Cam nonsense in the age of the drug war

by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher


October 22, 2022

The whole trial is out of order!

-Al Pacino in "And Justice for All"


One of my guilty pleasures is watching episodes of Court Cam to see what serial killers are up to these days in the courtrooms of America. The show reminds me that there are plenty of folks out there who could use a healthy dose of MDMA combined with talk therapy to teach them how to love their fellow human beings, not just so that they could behave themselves in court but so that they could refrain from beheading their friends and loved ones in the first place. That's really not too much to ask, after all. And of course there is the occasional bailiff or judge who could benefit from the same no-brainer treatment as well, so that they too could comport themselves like actual Americans rather than as petty unchecked tyrants from South America. That said, I always fast-forward through the scenes in which the criminal protagonist has been charged with so-called "possession." Watching those segments makes me feel like a real voyeur, indeed, because the arrestee is appearing on charges that are more criminal than the "offense" itself. Little wonder then that the accused might "lose it" in the courtroom when the entire legal system has "lost it" with respect to common sense, not to mention the natural law upon which the republic was founded.

But there is always a silver lining. The mere presence of such "criminals" on Court Cam has inspired me with a new sketch for "Sesame Street," which I hope the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will consider running until such time as substance prohibition is consigned to the trash bin of history.




One of these things is not like the other,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the other
By the time I finish this song?




Comedy







The drug war is laughable -- or it would be if the drug warriors hadn't deprived us of laughing gas, the substance that William James himself used to study alternate realities. (Gee, thanks, folks, for censoring academia. Don't worry, though, I'm not going to call you prohibitionists 'fascist bastards' on THAT account. Mom just didn't raise me like that.)_

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    Some Tweets against the hateful war on drugs

    The sad fact is that America regularly arrests people whose only crime is that they are keeping performance anxiety at bay... in such a way that psychiatrists are not getting THEIR cut.
    It's funny to hear fans of sacred plants indignantly insisting that their meds are not "drugs." They're right in a way, but actually NO substances are "drugs." Calling substances "drugs" is like referring to striking workers as "scabs." It's biased terminology.
    I have dissed MindMed's new LSD "breakthrough drug" for philosophical reasons. But we can at least hope that the approval of such a "de-fanged" LSD will prove to be a step in the slow, zigzag path toward re-legalization.
    Alcohol is a drug in liquid form. If drug warriors want to punish people who use drugs, they should start punishing themselves.
    If we let "science" decide about drugs, i.e. base freedom on health concerns, then tea can be as easily outlawed as beer. The fact that horses are not illegal shows that prohibition is not about health. It's about the power to outlaw certain "ways of being in the world."
    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.
    I could tell my psychiatrist EXACTLY what would "cure" my depression, even without getting addicted, but everything involved is illegal. It has to be. Otherwise I would have no need of the psychiatrist.
    The proof that psychedelics work has always been extant. We are hoodwinked by scientists who convince us that efficacy has not been "proven." This is materialist denial of the obvious.
    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!"
    Doc to Franklin: "I'm sorry, Ben, but I see no benefits of opium use under my microscope. The idea that you are living a fulfilled life is clearly a mistake on your part. If you want to be scientific, stop using opium and be scientifically depressed like the rest of us."
    More Tweets






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    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, One of these things is not like the other: Court Cam nonsense in the age of the drug war, published on October 22, 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)