Running with the torture loving DEA
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
November 7, 2019
Welcome back to the DEA Lounge!
I want to thank our public servants here for taking time out to join us. I know you've got a busy schedule, locking up liberals, so any time you can spare--
What did I say?
Hey, listen, I understand. By locking up liberals, you keep the Drug Warrior conservatives in power and thus maintain your crucial jobs of quashing dissent in America and limiting human consciousness.
No, seriously. I suppose the Drug War was bound to happen eventually on planet earth.
[gasp]
It had to happen at the precise moment in human history when capitalism and modern transportation coincided with a new awareness of the psychoactive power of plants.
[murmur]
PICTURE0020
We could either greet this alignment of forces rationally or not, and guess which choice we made?
[laughter]
Suddenly, Chicken Little politicians were screaming: "Oh, me gosh, we have to outlaw plants!"
Wrong.
AUDIO5
Earth to politicians: you should have outlawed the profit motive when it comes to those psychoactive plants, not the plants themselves.
[applaud]
I guess they had to scapegoat plants, though, since the alternative was to question the all-powerful god of capitalism 1 .
[laughter]
The result? They thereby created such a violent world that we had to invent a whole new movie genre to accommodate all the bullets and bodies: namely, the Drug War movie.
[laughter]
I hate to call such politicians morons, but if the dunce cap fits...
[drum]
[laughter]
"Gee, what happened? We outlawed plants and a bunch of violence ensued. Who would have thunk it?"
[laughter]
Answer: anyone with half a brain.
[drum]
[laughter]
Don't you love those Drug War movies 2 3 4 ? Those movies where the DEA "heroes" laugh at the US Constitution and willfully employ torture and murder to achieve their goal of outlawing Mother Nature? Ah, yes, good old American values: torture and murder.
[gasp]
Check out Running with the Devil, a DEA propaganda film starring Laurence Fishburne and Nicolas Cage.
[gasp]
Along with Leslie Bibb as the torture-loving DEA agent.
[gasp]
You know, if the Drug War is Christian, as many fundamentalists maintain, then I must have missed something in Sunday School.
[laughter]
I missed the part where Jesus told his followers to place suspects in bikini briefs, suspend them by a metal chain, and then threaten to drill holes in their abdomen with a power tool, as Leslie Bibb threatens to do to the so-called "Snitch" in Running with the Devil.
[gasp]
Oops, I forgot to mention: SPOILER ALERT!
[drum]
[laughter]
Speaking of spoilers, you ever notice that the Drug War spoils democracy!
[applaud]
I just looked up the movie, Running with the Devil, on so-called Common Sense Media.
[murmur]
Common Sense? More like Common Nonsense.
[laughter]
They pan the movie for its nudity and four-letter words...
[murmur]
...but they have absolutely NOTHING to say about the movie's glorification of governmental fascism5.
[laughter]
Common Sense Media is like: Watch out, parents. There are some very naughty words, indeed, in this movie! Land's sakes! Aside from that, though, it's just a good-natured romp extolling the wonders of fascism! So enjoy!
[laughter]
My name is Ballard Quass and I'll be here until they outlaw freedom of speech6, which won't be long considering that our government has already had the metaphysical chutzpah to outlaw mere plants!
Notes:
1: What the drug war tells us about American capitalism DWP (up)
2: Glenn Close but no cigar DWP (up)
3: Blast-off for Planet Hypocrisy! DWP (up)
4: Drug War Quotes in TV and Movies DWP (up)
5: Glorifying Beneficial Drug Use DWP (up)
6: Speak now or forever hold your peace about drug prohibition DWP (up)
read more essays here
Ten Tweets
against the hateful war on US
The Drug Warriors say: "Don't tread on me! (That said, please continue to tell me what plants I can use, how much pain relief I can get, and whether my religion is true or not.)"
Anytime you hear that a psychoactive drug has not been proven to be effective, it's a lie. People can make such claims only by dogmatically ignoring all the glaringly obvious signs of efficacy.
We need to start thinking of drug-related deaths like we do about car accidents: They're terrible, and yet they should move us to make driving safer, not to outlaw driving. To think otherwise is to swallow the drug war lie that "drugs" can have no positive uses.
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.
Materialist puritans do not want to create any drug that elates. So they go on a fool's errand to find reductionist cures for "depression itself," as if the vast array of human sadness could (or should) be treated with a one-size-fits-all readjustment of brain chemicals.
Imagine a world in which we were told about both the potential benefits AND the potential harms of drugs like cocaine and opium.
Katie MacBride's one-sided attack on MAPS reminds me of why I got into an argument with Vincent Rado. Yes, psychedelic hype can go too far, but let's solve the huge problem first by ending the drug war!!!
Americans have learned nothing but half-truths and lies about cocaine and opium thanks to the total censorship of drug benefits.
Q: Why are we never told about the potential benefits of drugs?
A: Follow the money.
Prohibition is wrong root and branch. It seeks to justify the colonial disdain for indigenous healing practices through fearmongering.
Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us
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Unless otherwise indicated, no AI is used in the creation of site content. These essays represent the original ideas of their author and not the ideas that the author SHOULD have based on an algorithmic parsing of existing data. For more on this subject, consider the AI-related viewpoints to which the author subscribes as delineated in the New York Times opinion piece entitled "What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity" by Rebecca Winthrop of the Brookings Institution.
Copyright 2026, Brian Ballard Quass
Contact: quass@quass.com
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