what the first episode of Rod Serling's 'Night Gallery' tells us about drugs
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
February 14, 2025
he first episode of Rod Serling's "Night Gallery" aired on December 16, 1970, and began with a Fritz Leiber story called "Dead Man." The plot concerned a young man who was able to "will" his body to manifest all sorts of diseases on a cue provided by the tapping pen of his hypnotist/doctor. The youth quickly manifested first "endopulmonosis" and then "Verblen's disease" to the astonishment of the doctor's medical colleague who had been summoned to witness a demonstration. Eventually, the young man even manifested death itself, only to return from that state in response to another cue. Fortunately for the young man, he was also able to manifest good health and a final cue returned him to normal -- or rather to better than normal, as his default condition was one of ridiculously good health. That was how things were supposed to be. The young man was only meant to manifest illnesses for occasional demonstration purposes while otherwise enjoying robust health. Unfortunately, a love triangle was to intervene, after which all bets were off, but that's not important as far as this essay is concerned.
The point is that the doctor describes his protocol to a medical colleague as just an extreme example of a long-recognized phenomenon: namely, the correlation between mindset and health. If a person feels happy and has something to look forward to, they tend to resist illnesses altogether, or else to get over them more quickly than those without such happiness.
If Americans were not blinded by the inhumane philosophy of behaviorism, they would see that this correlation implies that outlawed drugs have a huge potential benefit that no one ever mentions: namely, the power to improve one's physical health simply by cheering a body up and giving it something to look forward to. This drug-inspired attitude improvement can help one fight real bodily illnesses, even if it cannot always totally conquer them as in the Leiber story. Attitude improvements have enormous potential for keeping patients out of clinics and hospitals, which is a blessing in and of itself, given the shameful proliferation of iatrogenic illnesses in such places. But American psychologists are blind to the power of strategic drug use to improve attitude. Why? Because behaviorism tells them to ignore anything psychologically obvious when it comes to drug use, like patient happiness and laughter, and to look under a microscope instead to determine what is "really" going on with a patient.
This reminds me of the weird phenomenon of fearmongering to which an American is subjected as soon as they reach the age at which they're eligible to receive Medicare. Take me, for instance. After recently attaining that age, I was bombarded by my official Medicare provider, United Health Care, with phone calls about my health. They actually wanted to send a nurse to talk to me about my health needs and to get me scheduled for all sorts of procedures, according to a schedule reminiscent of one that might be followed by an anal-retentive car lover for their 2025 Toyota Rav 4.
They seem to believe that I have a goal of living forever.
This is not a sudden interest in my health, however, but rather a sudden interest in my Medicare dollars. Certainly, none of these folks were worried about my health before I qualified for Medicare. Besides, if they were really interested in my health, they would be pushing endlessly for the re-legalization of drugs so that I could keep my mind positive and so avoid illnesses altogether. The fact that such health companies fail to do this shows that they know where the money is. They have a vested interest in denying the holistic lessons of drug use and toeing the drug-war line instead: the one that inhumanely insists that a substance that can be misused by an American young person for one reason, must not be used by anyone, anywhere, for any reason.
A more inhumane and hateful policy cannot be imagined. It leads to endless suffering, but fortunately for the Drug Warriors, this suffering occurs behind closed doors, and those who are thereby rendered hopeless and/or suicidal are not considered stakeholders in America's racist and imperialist Drug War1. Modern psychologists connive with this anti-scientific approach to drugs by embracing the long obsolete philosophy of behaviorism, one which is completely out of keeping with the latest findings in quantum physics and relativity. They behave as if only the parts matter and completely ignore the big picture. David Bohm criticized this modern penchant for fragmentation in academia in his 1980 essay collection entitled "Wholeness and the Implicate Order":
"A similar trend has already begun to dominate in psychology. Thus we arrive at the very odd result that in the study of life and mind, which are just the fields in which formative cause acting in undivided and unbroken flowing movement is most evident to experience and observation, there is now the strongest belief in the fragmentary atomistic approach to reality.2"
1 Of course, this suffering is but one downside of prohibition. When one outlaws desired substances, one creates cartels and drug gangs and hence civil wars and drive-by shootings, which leads to crackdowns on civil liberties and soaring incarceration rates for minorities, etc., ad nauseam. (up) 2 Bohm, David, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, 1980 (up)
This is why I call the drug war 'fanatical Christian Science.' People would rather have grandpa die than to let him use laughing gas or coca or opium or MDMA, etc. etc.
Doc to Franklin: "I'm sorry, Ben, but I see no benefits of opium use under my microscope. The idea that you are living a fulfilled life is clearly a mistake on your part. If you want to be scientific, stop using opium and be scientifically depressed like the rest of us."
It's already risky to engage in free and honest speech about drugs online: Colorado politicians tried to make it absolutely illegal in February 2024. The DRUG WAR IS ALL ABOUT DESTROYING DEMOCRACY THRU IGNORANT AND INTOLERANT FEARMONGERING.
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.
After over a hundred years of prohibition, America has developed a kind of faux science in which despised substances are completely ignored. This is why Sci Am is making a new argument for shock therapy in 2023, because they ignore all the stuff that OBVIOUSLY cheers one up.
Of course, prohibitionists will immediately remind me that we're all children when it comes to drugs, and can never -- but never -- use them wisely. That's like saying that we could never ride horses wisely. Or mountain climb. Or skateboard.
Meanwhile, no imaginable downside could persuade westerners that guns and alcohol were too dangerous. Yet the DEA lies about almost all psychoactive drugs, saying there are no good uses. That's a lie! Then they pass laws that keep us from disproving their puritanical conclusion.
Talking about being in denial: drug warriors blame all of the problems that they cause on "drugs" and then insist that the entire WORLD accept their jaundiced view of the natural bounty that God himself told us was good.
Almost all addiction services assume that the goal should be to get off all drugs. That is not science, it is Christian Science.
"Drugs" is imperialist terminology. In the smug self-righteousness of those who use it, I hear Columbus's disdain for the shroom use of the Taino people and the Spanish disdain for the coca use of the Peruvian Indians.
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, The Dead Man: what the first episode of Rod Serling's 'Night Gallery' tells us about drugs, published on February 14, 2025 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
he first episode of Rod Serling's "Night Gallery" aired on December 16, 1970, and began with a Fritz Leiber story called "Dead Man." The plot concerned a young man who was able to "will" his body to manifest all sorts of diseases on a cue provided by the tapping pen of his hypnotist/doctor. The youth quickly manifested first "endopulmonosis" and then "Verblen's disease" to the astonishment of the doctor's medical colleague who had been summoned to witness a demonstration. Eventually, the young man even manifested death itself, only to return from that state in response to another cue. Fortunately for the young man, he was also able to manifest good health and a final cue returned him to normal -- or rather to better than normal, as his default condition was one of ridiculously good health. That was how things were supposed to be. The young man was only meant to manifest illnesses for occasional demonstration purposes while otherwise enjoying robust health. Unfortunately, a love triangle was to intervene, after which all bets were off, but that's not important as far as this essay is concerned. 
You have been reading an article entitled, The Dead Man: what the first episode of Rod Serling's 'Night Gallery' tells us about drugs, published on February 14, 2025 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
