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Screw You, Francis Burton Harrison

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

January 13, 2019



Before the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, American citizens could manage their own pain. They could make life livable with the occasional use of opium during their "down time." (Imagine that: no geriatric wards need be full of moaning seniors!) This allowed the user to make their peace with life by occasionally seeing past their own limiting mental constructs (what we today call the "default mode network") and then come back to "life" mentally refreshed and with the will and perspective to carry on. Nor did opium require increased doses over time to maintain this invigorating effect, nor were there negative physiological effects associated with the daily use of these drugs. At worst, the drug created habituation in daily users (what we now moralistically call "addiction"), but even this addiction could be conquered in one agonizing week -- one week -- whereas it is almost impossible to withdraw from many popular SSRIs (as can be clearly seen by reading addict testimony after searching the words "withdrawal" and Effexor 1 " on Google).

After the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, American citizens could no longer manage their own pain. Instead, they had to make regular expensive pilgrimages to the doctors, where they were prescribed far more dangerous drugs than opium , drugs that were more addictive and brought no pleasant dreams by way of compensation, but rather worked to essentially tranquilize the patient into blandly accepting the status quo. Typically these drugs had to be increased over time to maintain efficacy. Nor have they ever been studied for long-term negative effects, meaning today's patients are essentially guinea pigs: guinea pigs in a test trial that is failing, given the fact that many veteran users of these "silver bullets" are reporting increased depression over time as well as an increasing unhappiness with the emotional flat-lining that is associated with daily use of SSRIs.

PICTURE0017

There is ample evidence that the Harrison Narcotics Act was a racist political stratagem directed at Asians. But even if we assume that the act was a high-minded attempt to fight addiction, consider the actual outcome:

There are more addicts in America than ever after 1914: it's just that now the addiction is being managed by the American Psychiatric Association and the pharmaceutical industry.

Patients are now worse off than ever -- not only have we deprived them of blissful occasional relief from their pain and sorrows, but we have made them wards of the state, forcing them to visit health-care clinics for a lifetime to ask permission for the relief that was theirs by right just over a hundred years ago -- to pay through the nose for medications that are less effective and far more addictive than opium 2 ever was.

Speaking of which, if anyone manages to conjure Francis Burton Harrison via Ouija board, give him a message for me, would you? Tell him I said, "Thanks for nothing!!!"

PS But even these powerful arguments are beside the point. The fact is that the 1914 Harrison Narcotics Act was a violation of natural law because it deprived Americans of their birth right as mere human beings, namely their free access to the plants and medicines that grow at their very feet. It was a power grab by government and the therapeutic industry, both of which would hitherto decide, from their lofty and well-remunerated bureaucratic thrones, of which plants and fungi the will deign to let us partake and precisely at what exorbitant price and in precisely what strictly limited amount. The Drug War is thus anti-American in the extreme, as it elevates common law over natural law. Little wonder then that the architect of American independence should himself become a posthumous victim of the Drug War several decades ago when the jackbooted DEA trespassed on Monticello to confiscate their benefactor's poppy plants.

Rather than being appalled, Americans aid and abet the outrage to this very day by cheering on the DEA in those Drug War movies 3 4 5 6 in which that cowardly agency, runs roughshod over rights that were taken for granted, not only in Jefferson's times but a mere 100 years ago.

{^Jefferson was rolling over in his grave in the 1980s when the DEA stomped onto Monticello to steal the founding father's poppy plants. It's a wonder they didn't seize Monticello 7 itself under the legal fiction that it was a public nuisance. Lord knows police departments have earned millions by such ploys in the past. Big Liquor must be thrilled at this war on the poppy, especially when America goes overseas and burns the plants in countries where it has been used responsibly for millennia.}{










Notes for essay entitled Screw You, Francis Burton Harrison:

1: How Drug Prohibition makes it impossible to get off of Effexor and other Big Pharma drugs DWP (up)
2: The Truth About Opium by William H. Brereton DWP (up)
3: Glenn Close but no cigar DWP (up)
4: Running with the torture loving DEA DWP (up)
5: Blast-off for Planet Hypocrisy! DWP (up)
6: Drug War Quotes in TV and Movies DWP (up)
7: The Dark Side of the Monticello Foundation DWP (up)




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Drug prohibition began as a racist attempt to prevent so-called "miscegenation." The racist's fear was not that a white woman would use opium or marijuana or cocaine, but that she might actually fall in love with a Chinese, Hispanic or Black person respectively.

Self-medication is not a dirty word. It has always been a fundamental right to take care of one's own health -- until the medical establishment demonized the practice for obvious financial reasons.

The best step we could take in harm reduction is re-legalizing everything and starting to teach safe use. Spend the DEA's billions on "go" teams that would descend on locations where drugs are being used stupidly -- not to arrest, but to educate.

Prohibitionists are responsible for the 200,000-plus killed in the US-inspired Mexican drug war in the 21st century.

If you're looking for an anti-Christ, just look for an American presidential politician who has taught us to hate our enemies. Gee, now, who could that be, huh? According to Trump, Jesus was just a chump. Winning comes before anything at all in his sick view of life.

UNESCO celebrates the healing practices of the Kallawaya people of South America. What hypocrisy! UNESCO supports a drug war that makes some of those practices illegal!

Just saw a People's magazine article with the headline: "JUSTICE FOR MATTHEW PERRY." If there was true justice, their editorial staff would be in jail for promoting user ignorance and a contaminated drug supply. It's the prohibition, stupid!!!

I wonder if Nixon knew what a favor he was doing medical capitalism when he outlawed psychedelics. Those drugs can actually cure things, and there's no money in that.

The Drug War is the ultimate example of strategic fearmongering by self-interested politicians.

We know that anticipation and mental focus and relaxation have positive benefits -- but if these traits ae facilitated by "drugs," then we pretend that these same benefits somehow are no longer "real." This is a metaphysical bias, not a logical deduction.


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