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Taking the Drug War for Granted

by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

February 16, 2021



As I was adding my Drug War Comic Book to Kindle marketplace today, I was prompted for a category. Naturally, I looked for a category about the Drug War, since my book is all about that abominable Christian Science war on psychoactive medicine. Much to my surprise, however, there were no such categories proposed. There were categories about LGBT rights, pornography, and feminism, but nothing about the Drug War.

You do realize what this means, don't you? It means that America takes the Drug War status quo as a sort of natural baseline. Drug War assumptions have become so mainstream that their downsides are invisible to us. It's just life. We now consider it natural that we should have to urinate in order to qualify for a job and that we can be sentenced to life in prison for possessing plant medicines that were considered godsends by other cultures for thousands of years.

This is no surprise, however. Scientific authors have been doing the same thing for the past five decades. They write apparently authoritative articles on subjects like the supposed intractability of depression, never once mentioning the fact that outlawed plant medicines have the potential of working near miracles for the chronically depressed. Meanwhile self-help authors fell whole forests worth of trees to publish their five- six- or ten-step plans to happiness, remaining absolutely silent about the ability of properly administered plant medicine to help us work through the mental cobwebs and the vicious circular mental prisons that we build for ourselves.

Why? Because the western world has been duped by bigoted politicians into demonizing plant medicines instead of learning to live with them safely and benefit from their wise use.

Author's Follow-up: September 24, 2022



We could end depression in America overnight merely by legalizing a plant that we never had the right to outlaw in the first place: the coca plant. But the powers that be (From Gannett and Hearst to the White House) would rather continue creating civil wars out of whole cloth as an excuse to invade South America at will. W. Mortimer Golden. "Coca: Divine Plant of the Incas." Scribd.com. January 01, 2017. https://www.scribd.com/read/369871777/Coca-Divine-Plant-of-the-Incas.








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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




Countless millions suffer needlessly in silence because of America's fearmongering about drugs.

Pundits have been sniffing about the "smell" of Detroit lately. Sounds racist -- especially since such comments tend to come from drug warriors, the guys who ruined Detroit in the first place (you know, with drug laws that incentivized profit-seeking violence as a means of escaping poverty).

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.

Conservatives say they're against Big Government -- but they let bureaucrats decide what medicines they can use.

It's a category error to say that scientists can tell us if psychoactive drugs "really work." It's like asking Dr. Spock of Star Trek if hugging "really works." ("Hugging is highly illogical, Captain.")

Another problem with MindMed's LSD: every time I look it up on Google, I get a mess of links about the stock market. The drug is apparently a godsend for investors. They want to profit from LSD by neutering it and making it politically correct: no inspiration, no euphoria.

I thought mycology clubs across the US would be protesting drug laws that make mushroom collecting illegal for psychoactive species. But in reality, almost no club even mentions such species. No wonder prohibition is going strong.

Immanuel Kant wrote that scientists are scornful about metaphysics yet they rely on it themselves without realizing it. This is a case in point, for the idea that euphoria and visions are unhelpful in life is a metaphysical viewpoint, not a scientific one.

Like when Laura Sanders tells us in Science News that depression is an intractable problem, she should rather tell us: "Depression is an intractable problem... that is, in a world wherein we refuse to consider the benefits of 'drugs,' let alone to fight for their beneficial use."

The drug war is a meta-injustice. It does not just limit what you're allowed to think, it limits how and how much you are allowed to think.


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Copyright 2025, Brian Ballard Quass Contact: quass@quass.com

tombstone for American Democracy, 1776-2024, RIP (up)