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Plants Divine, All Plants Excelling

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

November 14, 2019



Live from the Second Church of the Eleusinian Mysteries1 -- at a location that the DEA has been torturing suspects to discover for the last ten years...



Let's all turn to hymn #355, "Plants Divine, All Plants Excelling." And a one, and a two, and a one, two, three, four...




Verse 1


Plants divine, all plants excelling
Not a gift for man to shun
Psychoactively restoring
Weary souls a sense of fun

But the prudish claim this bounty's
From a source we should not tap
So they outlaw Mother Nature
What a pile of bovine crap


Verse 2


Age-ed souls in homes of sadness
Shorn of meaning and of hope
Find in psilocybin's madness
Ways to prosper and to cope

Yet the narc with IQ zero
Seeks to keep the status quo
Forcing sick and dying patients
To encounter needless woe



Verse 3


Thank we now the forest shaman
Who dispenses sacred balm
Plants and fungi from the jungle
Sure to teach us as they calm

Yet the despots slander nature
Curse the plants that ease the brain
Check our urine at the job site
To ensure we all refrain


Verse 4


Bursting with ungrateful chutzpah
Tyrants outlaw healing plants
Drugs that when provided rightly
Make the suicidal dance

Yet, the heartless politician
Claims that "drugs" are just the pits
Yet they never give up liquor
What amazing hypocrites


Verse 5


Ayahuasca's non-addictive
Grows new neurons in the brain
Makes the most besotted drinker
From his poison to refrain

Yet, the shrinks from here to Parma
Make it clearly understood
We must buy pills from Big Pharma 2 3
Till we're hooked upon them good



Okay, you may all be seated. Thanks for that rousing performance of hymn #355, "Plants Divine, All Plants Excelling," a paeon of praise to the therapeutic power of rain forest plants, both known and yet to be discovered. Let's all take one complete silent minute to thank God for providing us with such. And... begin!

[one minute transpires]

Good thing that we don't outlaw those plants and try to burn them almost any chance we get, right, folks? I mean, wouldn't that be stupid? The work of a real jackass, in fact!

Oh, wait a minute, I forgot: that's exactly what we "do do," isn't it, Ben, in this so-called scientific country of ours? We confiscate and burn those psychologically therapeutic plants. And then we monitor the country's piss to make sure that no one dares apply to nature for psychological healing and perfection. Am I right or am I right?

Ben Stupidson, ladies and gentlemen, DEA agent, third pew from the back. Oh, sorry, apparently that's STUARTSON.

I don't wanna call Ben on the carpet, but he's so seldom in church, I can't pass up this opportunity to make him squirm.

No, just kidding, Ben. Just kidding. All do offend. I say all.

Mind you, we don't all go out of our way to burn and confiscate plants that improve consciousness, give us an inkling of divinity, and even have the potential to cure Alzheimer's 4 by growing new neurons.

Where are you going, Ben? I repeat: we're all sinners. It's just that your sin of choice happens to align with the subject of today's sermon.

OK, well, if you have to go. I trust we're still going to see you at tonight's pot luck.

Ben's like: "Right. I'm gonna be there, if only to make sure that you're not using actual pot!"

Just kidding, Ben, come back here.

Let's pause for a moment and pray for Ben's soul. That's right: let's forgive him for permitting over 40 years of needless suffering by outlawing plants, especially those non-addictive psychedelics that can pack the benefits of five years of psychotherapy into one afternoon.

God, we come before you today, saddened that Ben Stupidson - sorry, God, I mean STUARTSON - is determined to block mere research, let alone actual use, of your mind-improving natural plants. Please don't be too harsh on him. Remember that he lives in a country that has scapegoated plants for many decades, thus giving dirty politics and lame social policies a free pass. Amen.

We've forgiven you, Ben, if that helps any. No, I think he's gone now. Fiddlesticks. Well, I guess you can't save everybody, especially on MY salary.

No, seriously, folks.

And now my sermon, based on the hymn of the same name: "Plants Divine, All Plants Excelling."

As always, if there are any penitent Drug Warriors in the room, feel free to come up during the sermon, kneel here at the altar, and receive forgiveness for your role in preventing the therapeutic use of Mother Nature's godsend plants.

We've got a two-fer going on today, by the way, folks: I will forgive you not simply for blocking valuable drug research, but also for callously locking up millions of Americans for the mere possession of.... horror of horrors... NATURALLY GROWING PLANTS!!!











Notes for essay entitled Plants Divine, All Plants Excelling:

1: The Eleusinian Mysteries: A Gateway to the Afterlife in Greek Beliefs (up)
2: Seife, Charles. 2012. “Is Drug Research Trustworthy?” Scientific American 307 (6): 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1212-56. (up)
3: 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)
4: What the Honey Trick Tells us about Drug Prohibition DWP (up)




read more essays here





Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




The Drug War brought guns to the "hoods," thereby incentivizing violence in the name of enormous profits. Any site featuring victims of gun violence should therefore be rebranded as a site featuring victims of the drug war.

To treat opioid use disorder, we should re-normalize the peaceable smoking of opium at home as an alternative to drinking alcohol.

I've found that no one thinks I "have standing" when I comment about drugs. I'm just a guy who's been turned into a patient for life thanks to drug prohibition. People think that the real experts are the doctors and scientists who profit from the status quo.

Most psychoactive substance use can be judged as recreational OR medicinal OR both. The judgements are not just determined by the circumstances of use, either, but also by the biases of those doing the judging.

We should start taking names. All politicians and government officials who work to keep godsends like psilocybin from the public should be held to account for crimes against humanity when the drug war finally ends.

In a free world, almost all depressed individuals could do WITHOUT doctors: these adult human beings could handle their own depression with the informed intermittent use of a wide variety of psychoactive substances.

The Drug War is the legally enforced triumph of human idiocy. We have rigged the deck so that our dunces can be right. The Drug War is a superstition. Indeed, it is THE modern superstition.

Cocaine use is a blessing for some, just a little fun for most, and a curse for a few. Just like any other risky activity. We need to educate people about drugs rather than endlessly arresting them for attempting to improve their mental power!

Researchers insult our intelligence when they tell us that drugs like MDMA and opium and laughing gas have not been proven to work. Everyone knows they work. That's precisely why drug warriors hate them.

The healthcare industry turns all the emotional downsides of drug prohibition into "illnesses."


Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us






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