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The DEA Scheduling System is Based on Lies

by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

December 27, 2022



The entire drug scheduling system is based on lies. And for at least two reasons:

1) The system tells us that the substances it "rates" have no medical uses whatsoever. But there are no substances of that kind on planet Earth. Virtually every substance in the world has positive uses at some dose, in some circumstance, for some person, at some time. Even cyanide and botox have recognized uses in the medical world. To say otherwise is not simply false, but it's also anti-scientific and anti-patient, since it prevents us from finding positive uses for the drugs in question. That's why America continues to struggle with Alzheimer's, because we outlaw medicines that grow new neurons in the brain, deeming them, a priori, of no medical value. In the age of the Drug War, our medical system is thus based on superstition, not science.


BUMPER STICKER: The DEA: Blocking therapeutic drug research since 1973
Millions have needlessly suffered over the last 50 years because the DEA has lied about psychedelics, claiming that they are addictive and have no therapeutic value. Stop the lies, start the research.


2) What's more, some of the positive uses are extant. They are right before our eyes. Coca puts a spring in one's step and sharpens the mind, as everyone knows, including HG Wells and Jules Verne, who were big fans of Coca Wine. When the DEA tells us there are no good uses for coca, it is therefore making a moral judgment, not a scientific one. It is declaring, along with folks like Mary Baker Eddy, that the best life is one led without "drugs." The scheduling system is thus just a harsh moral code based not on science, but on Christian Science, the religion that tells us that we should say "no" to drugs.


Author's Follow-up: January 4, 2023


And so what if substances have no medical uses? Psychoactive substances have religious uses. Did Soma have a medical use? Probably not if you were to ask a materialist. But it inspired the creation of the Vedic religion. Should government have outlawed it? A more pertinent question might be: what new religions is the DEA outlawing in advance by criminalizing the substances that might have otherwise inspired new religions today?

This is why writers like Michael Pollan -- and even Andrew Weil -- are missing the point about "drugs." Both are concerned about the juvenile's potential misuse of substances, as if that's the only concern whatsoever in determining whether drugs should be re-legalized. Drugs should be legalized in order for religious liberty and free science to flourish. If a free world puts white American kids in danger, that's no reason to give up on freedom -- especially since the war that we propose to save them will kill thousands of Mexican children and militarize police forces around the globe, while denying freedom of thought, and hence religious liberty, to billions.







Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




The Drug War is based on a huge number of misconceptions and prejudices. Obviously it's about power and racism too. It's all of the above. But every time I don't mention one specifically, someone makes out that I'm a moron. Gotta love Twitter.

Timothy Leary's wife wrote: "We went to Puerto Rico and all we did was take cocaine and read Faust to one another." And there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with that!!! The drug war is all about scaring us and making illegal drug use as dangerous as possible.

Prohibitionists have blood on their hands. People do not naturally die in the tens of thousands from opioid use, notwithstanding the lies of 19th-century missionaries in China. It takes bad drug policy to accomplish that.

Imagine the Vedic people shortly after they have discovered soma. Everyone's ecstatic -- except for one oddball. "I'm not sure about these experiences," says he. "I think we need to start dissecting the brains of our departed adherents to see what's REALLY going on in there."

The worst form of government is not communism, socialism or even unbridled capitalism. The worst form of government is a Christian Science Theocracy, in which the government controls how much you are allowed to think and feel in life.

There are endless creative ways to ward off addiction if all psychoactive medicines were at our disposal. The use of the drugs synthesized by Alexander Shulgin could combat the psychological downsides of withdrawal by providing strategic "as-needed" relief.

If we can go overseas to burn poppy plants, then Islamic countries should be free to come to the United States to burn our grape vines.

This is why America is creeping toward authoritarianism -- because of the prohibitionists' ability to get away with everything by blaming "drugs."

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.

When scientists refuse to report positive uses for drugs, they are not motivated by power lust, they are motivated by philosophical (non-empirical) notions about what counts as "the good life." This is why it's wrong to say that the drug war is JUST about power.


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