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The Dark Side of the Monticello Foundation

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

April 27, 2022



In response to "The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson," published October 2012 in Smithsonian Magazine.

What about the Dark Side of the Monticello Foundation (aka the Thomas Jefferson Foundation), which betrayed Thomas Jefferson's legacy of natural law in 1987 by inviting the DEA onto his estate to confiscate the founding father's poppy plants? Natural law didn't just give us life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It gave us what Locke called the right to 'the use of the land and all that lies therein.' If we're to judge Jefferson by modern standards, then the writers who ignore this act of betrayal on the part of Monticello should worry about how they'll be judged in the future, when Americans finally stop demonizing Mother Nature's plant medicines and start learning how to use them wisely for the benefit of humankind.















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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




Drug prohibition is not a victimless crime.

I passed a sign that says "Trust Trump." What does that mean? Trust him to crack down on his opposition using the U.S. Army? Or trust him not to do all the anti-American things that he's saying he's going to do.

Thomas Szasz was not an extremist when it comes to drugs. The extremists are those who feel that psychiatrists know more about our mind and mood than we do.

Orchestras will eventually use psychedelics to train conductors. When the successful candidate directs mood-fests like Mahler's 2nd, THEY will be the stars, channeling every known -- and some unknown -- human emotions. Think Simon Rattle on... well, on psychedelics.

The war on drugs has destroyed America's faith in the power of education. In fact, it has made us think of education as WRONG in and of itself. It has made us prefer censorship and fear-filled ignorance to education!

Properly speaking, MDMA has killed no one at all. Prohibitionists were delighted when Leah Betts died because they were sure it was BECAUSE of MDMA/Ecstasy. Whereas it was because of the fact that prohibitionists refuse to teach safe use.

It's disgusting that folks like Paul Stamets need a DEA license to work with mushrooms.

"Can I use poppies, coca, laughing gas, MDMA?" "NO," says the materialist, "We must be SCIENTIFIC! We must fry your brain and give you a lobotomy and make you a patient for life with the psychiatric pill mill! That's true SCIENCE!"

Prohibition never ended. Busybody Americans just gave alcohol a big Mulligan for killing 178,000 a year in America alone and then began fighting to outlaw everything else.

The New York Times gets it wrong again. Yes, kratom, like all drugs, has downsides. The problem is not kratom, it's drug prohibition which limits choice. Nor are young people the only stakeholders in the debate, as the Times always assumes.


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






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Book Cover

Break the ice with a sledgehammer: place this book on your coffee table.

This book features 150 annotated images, designed to force brainwashed Americans to confront the fact that drug prohibition is wrong. Here is what author Richard Parrish II says of the book's compiler: "The drug prohibition philosopher provides first-hand, principled, persuasive, and insightful arguments against the current drug prohibition regime..."

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Book Cover

Drama lovers: collect full-cast recordings of classic plays

In my spare time, when I am not shaming drug warriors for their heartless drug policies, I create full-cast recordings of classic plays using the latest in synthetic voices licensed by the Natural Reader company. Snag your copy of my production of Volpone, by Ben Jonson... and follow me on Payhip for more where that came from, including classics like The Post Office, The Double Dealer and The Inspector General. -- Yours in all-too-justified outrage, the Drug War Philosopher @ abolishthedea.com.

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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.

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Copyright 2026, Brian Ballard Quass Contact: quass@quass.com

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