Essay date: April 12, 2023



Partnership for a Death Free America




OUR PUBLIC SERVICE ADS




"There is no argument which so touches the feeble reason of the madman as the argumentum ad absurdum." --'The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether' by Edgar Allan Poe.



Welcome from the Partnership for a Death Free America!




Here in America, we've managed to successfully criminalize almost all naturally occurring godsend medicines and thus save our dearest and whitest children from the consequences of their own folly. But our work is not yet done. The world is full of many OTHER dangers that call for prompt and drastic legal action as well. Young white children are dying every day from entirely preventable causes! And why? Because our lax laws continue to allow American citizens to flirt lasciviously with danger -- on the highways, in the kitchen, at the playground -- even in the grocery store. So while the Drug War may have succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of our Chicken Little ancestors, placing virtually the entire world under a kind of Christian Science Sharia (taking children away from heretics while confiscating their houses and denying them employment anywhere in America) there are hundreds of other threats that we must attack with equal ferocity if we're to achieve the Partnership's goal of a Death Free America by the year 2030.

Remember, if we can save just one young stateside suburban Caucasian from their own idiocy, then all of the drive-by shootings and the civil wars that our Draconian laws cause will be well worth it! (True, there may be a few hundred million people like the depressed who go without godsend medicines, but in Congress, no one can hear them scream!)







An average of six people die every week in the Grand Canyon, all so that they could take pictures that already exist by the millions online. Let's end this national nightmare. Write your representative and tell them to close the Grand Canyon to tourists NOW! This message brought to you by the Partnership for a Death Free America. Working to make America death free by 2030.

100,000 Americans are injured every year in horse-related accidents. In fact, horseback riding is more dangerous than both motorcycle riding and skiing. It's also the leading cause of sports-related traumatic brain injuries. So tell your kids to "just say whoa!" Because let's face it: horseback riding is not a pastime, folks, it's a suicide attempt. This message brought to you by the Partnership for a Death Free America.


Over 37,000 Americans die every year in traffic accidents, many of them young upstanding white kids like yours and mine. Stop the carnage now. Tell the DEA to outlaw cars and support House Bill 2026G to hold car dealers responsible for all car-related deaths. This message brought to you by the Partnership for a Death Free America.


Peanuts kill over 100 children a year, many of them white. Let's stop the madness. Tell the DEA to classify peanuts as Schedule I. This message brought to you by the Partnership for a Death Free America.

An average of 48 Americans are killed every year when they fall from a tree that they are climbing for so called "fun" (source: OSHA). Many of these victims are white suburban children, just like your own dear little angels. And yet tree climbing is still unregulated in most states. Don't let your children take the fall for America's lax tree climbing laws. Tell Congress to pass the Anti-Ascension bill, limiting tree climbing to licensed professionals. This message brought to you by the Partnership for a Death Free America.


1,800 people die each year in car accidents caused by ice. Many of them are young white teenagers. Tell Congress to vote no on the latest Climate Change bill. This message brought to you by the Partnership for a Death Free America.

24,000 people are injured by shopping carts every year. 85% of the victims are white kids. Call your representatives today and tell them that enough is enough. It's time to ban shopping carts in all grocery stores. This message brought to you by the Partnership for a Death Free America. [Editor's note: read "shopping trolley" in UK]

Think skateboarding is fun? Tell that to the parents of the 40 kids who are killed every year by this deadly pastime. This message brought to you by the Partnership for a Death Free America.

Champagne corks kill at least 20 people every year, many of them white American teenagers. Tell Congress to pass the Safe Carbonation Act of 2023. This message brought to you by the Partnership for a Death Free America.

People ask me, "How can you advocate the mass killing of sharks?" I look at my children and say, "How could I NOT?" Sharks kill at least 10 people every year, many of them innocent widdle white children. This message courtesy of the Partnership for a Death Free America.

More teens die from taking selfies than from shark attacks. Tell your congressman that it's time to outlaw mobile phones. (For 87 kids this year, it's already too late.) This message brought to you by the Partnership for a Death Free America.


If you see someone abusing a mobile phone, call your local authorities.




People ask how can I be in favor of the eradication of hippopotamuses? I look at my children and ask, "How can I NOT????" Hippos kill thousands of people every year, many of them children. This message brought to you by the Partnership for a Death Free America.


An average of two people die every year attempting to scale Longs Peak in Colorado. Just say no to mountain climbing. This message brought to you by the Partnership for a Death Free America.






































NOTE: In the 1990s, the Partnership for a Drug Free America ran the most mendacious ad in the history of public service announcements, the one in which they claimed that drugs fry the brain the moment that they're outlawed by botanically clueless politicians. (You remember the ad: the one featuring the sizzling egg with the ominous voiceover: "This is your brain on drugs.") Not only was that false, but it was almost the opposite of the truth. Most psychoactive drugs focus and expand the mind when taken under the right conditions. If any drugs "fry" the brain, they are the Big Pharma meds which 1 in 4 American women take every day of their lives.

I guess the Partnership finally figured out that a "drug free America" is too obviously a Christian Scientist goal and that most Americans do not want to give up on drugs entirely. So they've retrenched to target kids only by rebranding themselves as Partnership for Drug Free Kids. Of course, it's still not clear why even children should say no to psychoactive medicines that could help them. We certainly do not think that's true when it comes to Big Pharma "meds," more's the pity. No, we're happy to tranquilize our kids with supposedly scientifically created synthetics, but we're determined not to let them have any naturally occurring godsends that might sharpen their minds and let them rise above the psychological boundaries imposed by tyrannical parents, for instance.

Nor should we withhold morphine from children in hospice, unless we truly value a Drug War more than our children -- which, alas, seems to be the case in at least 150 countries around the world, in which morphine is not available for kids, thanks to the Christian Science sensibilities of our puritanical Drug Warriors. (For more on this hidden travesty of the Drug War, see the work of Damon Barrett.)

In short, the Partnership still doesn't get it: We should say "no" to unnecessary substance use, of course, but that doesn't make a good slogan. Besides, the Partnership wants to encourage fear, not understanding, otherwise they would never encourage kids to refrain from drugs per se. It's like telling kids that they should refrain from accepting anesthetics for any childhood surgery that they should undergo -- or that they should refrain from taking aspirin? Really? Why?

Hence, the Partnership for a Death Free America, to satirize the original Partnership's muddleheaded desire to protect our kids with fearmongering rather than common sense.

Earth to Partnership: Drugs aren't good or bad. If you think they're bad, then rebrand yourself as the Partnership for the Advancement of Christian Science. For it was the founder of that religion, Mary Baker Eddy, who first told us that drugs were bad. That is, it's a religious position, not a scientific or logical one.

As GK Chesterton points out in his book on Thomas Aquinas, God said that his creation was good, which means, according to the Catholic Church itself, that no "thing" is good or bad in itself, but rather the use of things is good or bad. The Partnership people should re-read the Book of Genesis.

In light of this latter consideration, it is a violation of religious liberty to hold DARE classes and other anti-drug programs for grade schoolers. Parents should be demanding a halt to such indoctrination of their offspring on behalf of Drug War sensibilities.

Author's Follow-up: April 19, 2023






It's informative to search the Web for "rare causes of death." In most cases, the site authors not only cite the "odd" statistics themselves, but they then go on to assure the reader that, statistically speaking, the death toll in question is very low indeed. For instance, one site about Mt. Everest tells us that 300 people have died so far in their effort to scale the historic peak. But the authors are then quick to point out that this represents only 1% of all climbers and that your chances of dying during the ascent are, in fact, "slim" -- as long as "you are properly prepared and climbing with a professional guide."

Wouldn't it be great if the reporters for the mainstream media provided the same context when writing about drug deaths? Instead of trying to make prohibitionist "hay" out of the fact that Leah Betts died using Ecstasy (only because we tried to scare her about drugs rather than educating her about them), reporters should be pointing out the inconvenient truth that the chances of dying from ecstasy use are extremely slim -- in fact, many times SLIMMER than the chances of dying from the aforementioned ascent, or even from aspirin for that matter. But the ghoulish mainstream always tries to parlay such "drug-related deaths" into scare stories about the modern boogieman called "drugs." Thus they confound the whole drug debate, meanwhile making the fat cats smile on their way to the bank to cash their dividend checks from one or more of the many drug-war beneficiaries: like Big Pharma, Law Enforcement, the Corrections Industry, Psychiatry, and the bribed politicians who shape the national narratives desired by today's agenda-setting plutocrats.

Of course, one death rate is alarming outside of all context, and that is the growing death rate by opioid use of young Americans. But these are deaths brought about by the Drug War itself which makes it impossible to know the quantity or quality of the substance that one is using. For while the media likes to associate opioids with overdose, the two are only connected because of prohibition -- but don't hold your breath waiting for the conglomerate media to point that out -- even in your "local" newspaper, which is probably owned by Gannett Corporation, Sinclair or Hearst. The fact is, we would have an overdose problem with any medicine that is outlawed and whose quality and quantity therefore cannot be accurately known by the user.

Related tweet: May 30, 2023


I can't believe that no one at UVA is bothered by the DEA's 1987 raid on Monticello. It was, after all, a sort of coup against the Natural Law upon which Jefferson had founded America, asserting as it did the government's right to outlaw Mother Nature.

Ad Campaign Fails





That's why I created the satirical Partnership for a Death Free America. It demonstrates clearly that drug warriors aren't worried about our health, otherwise they'd outlaw shopping carts, etc. The question then becomes: what are they REALLY afraid of? Answer: Free thinkers.
Next essay: Even Howard Zinn Reckons without the Drug War
Previous essay: Corner on Coca!

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...end the war on drugs. Shop today. And tomorrow.


Monticello Betrayed Thomas Jefferson


In 1987, the Monticello Foundation invited the DEA onto the property to confiscate Thomas Jeffersons poppy plants, in violation of the Natural Law upon which the gardening fan had founded America

The Drug War Censors Science - Bumper Sticker


Drive the point home that the Drug War censors scientists -- by outlawing and otherwise discouraging research into the kinds of drugs that have inspired entire religions.

Protest The Dea Bumper Sticker


Millions have needlessly suffered over the last 50 years because the DEA has lied about psychedelics, claiming that they are addictive and have no therapeutic value. Stop the lies, start the research.

Reincarnation is for Has-Beens


In a former life, I bought this bumper sticker myself. My friends got quite a kick out of it, as I recall!
5% of proceeds from the sale of the above product will go toward getting Brian a decent haircut for once. Honestly. 9% will go toward shoes. 50% will go toward miscellaneous. 9% of the remainder will go toward relaxation, which could encompass anything from a spin around town to an outdoor barbecue at Brian's brother's house in Stanardsville (both gas and the ice-cream cake that Brian usually supplies).

Nature Abhors a Vacuum - drink tile


Actually, Nature likes several of the latest Dyson models, but those are really the exception to the rule.

I Brake for Honeybees


Do your part to fight Colony Collapse Disorder: Show the honey bees your true feelings with this unBEElievable bumper sticker

Thinking of You


Face it, even your friends sometimes tick you off: Show them your true feelings with this novelty gift card -- and don't worry, the inside text reads: PSYCH! Just kidding.

What Would Socrates Do - bumper sticker


What would Socrates do if he drove a BMW? He'd sell it at once to show he wasn't tempted by luxury -- but he'd keep the kewl bumper sticker designed by Quass.com that came with it.



href="https://www.abolishthedea.com/">AbolishTheDEA.com

old time radio playing Drug War comedy sketches





You have been reading essays by the Drug War Philosopher, Brian Quass, at abolishthedea.com. Brian is the founder of The Drug War Gift Shop, where artists can feature and sell their protest artwork online. He has also written for Sociodelic and is the author of The Drug War Comic Book, which contains 150 political cartoons illustrating some of the seemingly endless problems with the war on drugs -- many of which only Brian seems to have noticed, by the way, judging by the recycled pieties that pass for analysis these days when it comes to "drugs." That's not surprising, considering the fact that the category of "drugs" is a political category, not a medical or scientific one.

A "drug," as the world defines the term today, is "a substance that has no good uses for anyone, ever, at any time, under any circumstances" -- and, of course, there are no substances of that kind: even cyanide and the deadly botox toxin have positive uses: a war on drugs is therefore unscientific at heart, to the point that it truly qualifies as a superstition, one in which we turn inanimate substances into boogie-men and scapegoats for all our social problems.

The Drug War is, in fact, the philosophical problem par excellence of our time, premised as it is on a raft of faulty assumptions (notwithstanding the fact that most philosophers today pretend as if the drug war does not exist). It is a war against the poor, against minorities, against religion, against science, against the elderly, against the depressed, against those in pain, against children in hospice care, and against philosophy itself. It outlaws substances that have inspired entire religions, Nazifies the English language and militarizes police forces nationwide.

It bans the substances that inspired William James' ideas about human consciousness and the nature of ultimate reality. In short, it causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, meanwhile violating the Natural Law upon which Thomas Jefferson founded America. (Surely, Jefferson was rolling over in his grave when Ronald Reagan's DEA stomped onto Monticello in 1987 and confiscated the founding father's poppy plants.)

If you believe in freedom and democracy, in America and around the world, please stay tuned for more philosophically oriented broadsides against the outrageous war on godsend medicines, AKA the war on drugs.

Brian Quass
The Drug War Philosopher
abolishthedea.com

PS The drug war has not failed: to the contrary, it has succeeded, insofar as its ultimate goal was to militarize police forces around the world and help authorities to ruthlessly eliminate those who stand in the way of global capitalism. For more, see Drug War Capitalism by Dawn Paley. Oh, and did I mention that most Drug Warriors these days would never get elected were it not for the Drug War itself, which threw hundreds of thousands of their political opposition in jail? Trump was right for the wrong reasons: elections are being stolen in America, but the number-one example of that fact is his own narrow victory in 2016, which could never have happened without the existence of laws that were specifically written to keep Blacks and minorities from voting. The Drug War, in short, is a cancer on the body politic.

Rather than apologetically decriminalizing selected plants, we should be demanding the immediate restoration of Natural Law, according to which "The earth, and all that is therein, is given to men for the support and comfort of their being." (John Locke)

Selected Bibliography

  • Andrew, Christopher "The Secret World: A History of Intelligence" 2019 Yale University Press
  • Aurelius, Marcus "Meditations" 2021 East India Publishing Company
  • Bandow, Doug "From Fighting The Drug War To Protecting The Right To Use Drugs"2018
  • Barrett, Damon "Children of the Drug War: Perspectives on the Impact of Drug Polices on Young People"2011 IDEBATE Press
  • Bilton, Anton "DMT Entity Encounters: Dialogues on the Spirit Molecule"2021 Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
    • Blum, Richard "Society and Drugs" 1970 Jossey-Bass
  • Boullosa , Carmen "A Narco History: How the United States and Mexico Jointly Created the 'Mexican Drug War'"2016 OR Books
  • Brereton, William "The Truth about Opium / Being a Refutation of the Fallacies of the Anti-Opium Society and a Defence of the Indo-China Opium Trade"2017 Anna Ruggieri
  • Burns, Eric "1920: The year that made the decade roar"2015 Pegasus Books
  • Carpenter, Ted Galen "The Fire Next Door: Mexico's Drug Violence and the Danger to America"2012 Cato Institute
    • Carroll, Lewis "Alice in Wonderland: The Original 1865 Edition With Complete Illustrations By Sir John Tenniel" 2021 Amazon
  • Chesterton, GK "Saint Thomas Acquinas"2014 BookBaby
    • Cohen, Jay S. "For Your Own Good: The Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health" 2011 Tarcher/Putnam
    • De Quincey, Thomas "Confessions of an English Opium Eater" 1995 Dover
    • Ellsberg, Daniel "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner " 2018 Bloomsbury Publishing
    • Fadiman, James "The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys " 2011 Park Street Press
  • Filan, Kenaz "The Power of the Poppy: Harnessing Nature's Most Dangerous Plant Ally"2011 Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
    • Fleming, Thomas "A Disease in the Public Mind: Why We Fought the Civil War" 2014 Da Capo Press
    • Friedman, Milton "Wall Street Journal" 1989 WSJ
    • Fukuyama, Francis "Liberalism and Its Discontents" 2022 Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  • Gianluca, Toro "Drugs of the Dreaming: Oneirogens"2007 Simon and Schuster
    • Gootenberg, Paul "Cocaine: Global Histories" 1999 Routledge
    • Gottleib, Anthony "The Dream of Enlightenment: the Rise of Modern Philosophy" 2016 Liveright Publishing Corporation
  • Griffiths, William "Psilocybin: A Trip into the World of Magic Mushrooms"2021 William Griffiths
  • Hofmann, Albert "The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants: Ethnopharmacology and Its Applications"2005 Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
    • Holland, Julie "Good Chemistry: The Science of Connection, from Soul to Psychedelics" 2020 HarperWave
    • Huxley, Aldous "The Doors of Perception / Heaven and Hell" 1970 Penguin Books
  • Irwin-Rogers, Keir "Illicit Drug Markets, Consumer Capitalism and the Rise of Social Media: A Toxic Trap for Young People"2019
  • James, William "The Varieties of Religious Experience"1902 Philosophical Library
    • Jenkins, Philip "Synthetic Panics: The Symbolic Politics of Designer Drugs" 1999 New York University Press
    • Johnson, Paul "The Birth of the Modern" 1991 Harper Collins
    • Leary, Timothy Ralph Metzner "The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead " 1964 University Books
    • Lovecraft, HP "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" 1970 Del Rey Books
  • Mariani, Angelo "Coca and its Therapeutic Application, Third Edition"1896 Gutenberg.org
    • Mate, Gabriel "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction" 2009 Vintage Canada
    • Maupassant, Guy de "Le Horla et autres contes fantastiques - Guy de Maupassant: Les classiques du fantastique " 2019
    • McKenna, Terence "Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution " 1992 Bantam
  • Miller, Richard Lawrence "Drug Warriors and Their Prey: From Police Power to Police State"1966 Bloomsbury Academic
    • Miller, Richard Louis "Psychedelic Medicine: The Healing Powers of LSD, MDMA, Psilocybin, and Ayahuasca Kindle " 2017 Park Street Press
  • Mortimer MD, W. Golden "Coca: Divine Plant of the Incas"2017 Ronin Publishing
  • Newcombe, Russell "Intoxiphobia: discrimination toward people who use drugs"2014 academia.edu
    • Noe, Alvin "Out of our Heads" 2010 HiII&Wang,
    • Paley, Dawn "Drug War Capitalism" 2014 AK Press
  • Partridge, Chiristopher "Alistair Crowley on Drugs"2021 uploaded by Misael Hernandez
    • Pinchbeck, Daniel "When Plants Dream" 2019 Watkins Publishing
    • Poe, Edgar Allan "The Essential Poe" 2020 Warbler Classics
    • Pollan, Michael "How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence " 2018 Penguin Books
    • Reynolds, David S. "Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville " 1988 Oxford University Press
    • Richards, William "Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences Hardcover" 2015 Columbia University Press
    • Rosenfeld, Harvey "Diary of a Dirty Little War: The Spanish-American War of 1898 " 2000 Praeger
  • Rudgley, Richard "The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Substances"2014 Macmillan Publishers
    • Russell, Kirk "Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered" 1967 Arlington House
    • Schlosser, Erich "Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety" 2014 Penguin
    • Sewell, Kenneth Clint Richmond "Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S. " 2006 Pocket Star
    • Shirer, William "The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler" 2011 RosettaBooks
  • Shulgin, Alexander "PIHKAL: A Chemical Love Story"1991 Transform Press
  • Shulgin, Alexander "The Nature of Drugs Vol. 1: History, Pharmacology, and Social Impact"2021 Transform Press
    • Slater, Lauren "Blue Dreams: The Science and the Story of the Drugs that Changed Our Minds" 2019 Boston
  • Smith, Wolfgang "Cosmos and Transcendence: Breaking Through the Barrier of Scientistic Belief"0
  • Smith, Wolfgang "Physics: A Science in Quest of an Ontology"2022
  • St John, Graham "Mystery School in Hyperspace: A Cultural History of DMT"2021
    • Straussman, Rick "DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences " 2001 Park Street Press
    • Streatfield, Dominic "Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography" 2003 Picador USA
    • Swartzwelder, Scott "Buzzed: The Straight Facts About the Most Used and Abused Drugs from Alcohol to Ecstasy" 1998 W.W. Norton
    • Szasz, Thomas "Ceremonial Chemistry: the ritual persecution of drugs, addicts, and pushers" 1974 Anchor Press/Doubleday
  • Szasz, Thomas "Interview With Thomas Szasz: by Randall C. Wyatt"0
    • Szasz, Thomas "Our Right to Drugs: The case for a free market" 1992 Praeger
    • Tyler, George R. "Billionaire Democracy: The Hijacking of the American Political System" 2016 Pegasus Books
    • Watts, Alan "The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness" 1965 Vintage
  • Wedel, Janine "Unaccountable: How the Establishment Corrupted Our Finances, Freedom and Politics and Created an Outsider Class"2014 Pegasus Books
  • Weil, Andrew "From Chocolate to Morphine: Everything You Need to Know About Mind-Altering Drugs"2004 Open Road Integrated Media
    • Whitaker, Robert "Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America " 2010 Crown
    • Zinn, Howard "A People's History of the United States: 1492 - present" 2009
    • Zuboff , Shoshana "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power" 2019 Public Affairs
    Site and its contents copyright 2023, by Brian B. Quass, the drug war philosopher at abolishthedea.com. For more information, contact Brian at quass@quass.com.