The Drug War as a Make-Work Program for Law Enforcement
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
April 5, 2020
was just watching an old episode of "In the Heat of the Night," in which drug runners feature prominently, of course. It made me wonder, what would TV have been like over the last 40 years without the Drug War? Script writers would have had to get inventive and picture their bad guys performing actual crimes - rather than hunting them down for the pre-crime of possessing politically ostracized substances.
The absurdity of the situation is clear when Chief Gillespie is asked how the officers should confront a newly arrived suspect at a drug dealer's house.
"How do you want to deal with him?" asks Virgil.
"I wanna know what he's got in that backpack," says the Chief.
That says it all about law enforcement during the Drug War: they're not interested in how anyone actually behaves: let the individual be as peaceful as a lamb, that means nothing. The police want to see what they have in the backpack, so that the full force of Drug War sharia may be brought down upon them if they dare to possess plants of which the government disapproves.
If the police go out onto a peaceful street, their job is to MAKE trouble by poking into other's business, rather than leaving well enough alone and letting peaceful citizens go about their peaceful business. And we wonder why guns proliferate and bullets fly.
In a sane world, it would be none of the Chief's damn business what anybody had in a backpack. The question would be how is the suspect behaving? What a waste of resources is thus employed in ruining Americans' lives based on what plant medicines they have chosen to use.
But the Drug Warrior never gets it. Their anti-scientific and draconian laws create a black market that results in crack houses popping up thanks to the profit motive. Then they point to those very crack houses as the reason why the Drug War must continue!!!
It's circular reasoning thanks to which the Drug War can never end - unless uprooted root and branch by folks who point out that it's all a power grab and a violation of natural law to outlaw naturally occurring substances in the first place.
Think of the cost of the Drug War: in terms of deaths and ruined lives and all the powerful psychoactive therapies for which even research is blocked, the soldiers going without powerful medicines for PTSD, the elderly going without powerful medicines for depression, the young minorities wasting away in overcrowded prisons for possessing natural substances that politicians have outlawed. Then ask yourself: would there be anything near this kind of drug-related suffering in the world had America NOT chosen to begin criminalizing plant medicines in 1914?
Obviously not. There was no drug problem prior to 1914. Why? Because back then people were still judged on how they actually behaved every day of their life and not on what natural substances they may or may not have in their digestive system.
But the power-hungry politicians saw an opening in 1914 and they ran through it.
Time to rewind and re-answer the question of how America intends to deal with substances: Let's try education this time instead of law enforcement. And let's not moralize about substance use, let's present the statistical facts on every substance known to humankind, without hypocritically leaving out alcohol and prescription drugs and tobacco, but definitely including every non-addictive psychedelic substance, substances which are now thought to promote the growth of new neurons in the brain - neurons that Drug Warriors could certainly use, judging by the illogical and circular reasoning that they continue to employ to this very day, over 100 years after Francis Burton Harrison succeeded in overturning natural law and criminalizing the use of a mere plant.
PS Not satisfied with arresting the perps, the Sheriff Bill Gillespie in the TV story gleefully confiscates the bad guy's property, under the tyrannical legal fiction that real estate may be held responsible for drug law violations. Of course, the property owner in the TV show is not a nice guy, so it's easy for American viewers to overlook the fact that the legal system is having a tyrannical heyday while cracking down on the mere substances that humans choose to ingest. Yet this passes as entertainment in America: watching law enforcement run roughshod over natural law and common sense, all in the name of combating a drug problem that the law itself has created out of whole cloth.
And then conservatives wring their hands, wondering, "Why do so many people fear, hate, and mistrust the police?" The answer: because the police aren't the police anymore: they are the enforcement arm of the ultra-strict Christian Science Sharia, AKA the war on plants, which tyrant politicians disingenuously refer to as the Drug War.
PPS Even in episodes that are not centered around drug dealing, the show gratuitously portrays cocaine use in the most lurid light possible, something of which only bad guy "trailer trash" partake, whereas Sigmund Freud used the stimulant liberally -- not in order to beat his wife and shortchange his business partners, but rather to goad himself on to a prolific vocational output that led to his self-actualization in life and his worldwide fame (but you will never see Hollywood portray cocaine used in THAT fashion, since that runs counter to their role in cranking out Drug War propaganda to keep the war on plants going strong until the end of time).
Author's Follow-up: March 25, 2025
I would be glad to respect the police -- but that's hard to do when they have been given the role of the Gestapo by politicians. The Drug War is obviously just a way to harass blacks -- although it has a lot of collateral downsides among whites. I loved my mother, but when she had a problem with prescribed oxy, she was compassionated and helped -- albeit she was not given any common-sense substances that could help her kick oxy without the gnashing of teeth. Meanwhile, racist pols in Washington passed laws to kick Black women out of their government housing were they found to be using meds like oxy. Yes, meds. No substance is a monster in and of itself. The idea that such evil drugs exist has forced millions to go without godsends all because a minority misuse -- and then only because we refuse to teach safe use, nor have we offered them less problematic and inherently less non-addictive alternatives, like the blatantly obvious godsend phenethylamines whose use has been described in Pihkal by chemist Alexander Shulgin -- with such user reports as:
"I acknowledged a rapture in the very act of breathing."
"Excellent feelings, tremendous opening of insight and understanding, a real awakening."
"Tremendous feeling of confidence in life and the life process. Complete sense of resolution."
There is no doubt that non-addictive bliss like this could have helped my mom get off her prescribed oxy without enormous trauma -- and yet our Drug Warriors wanted her to suffer instead. And so they promoted fear and irrationality about drugs. DEA leaders in particular should be put on trial for crimes against humanity, for they are the ones who have lied with impunity for decades about godsend medicines.
Meanwhile, we need to relieve America's police force of Gestapo duties -- and then they will have my complete respect and honor. Of course, they will then have to learn to exist on a budget -- they will no longer be able to confiscate mansions and dormitories at will because they found a plant medicine of which racist politicians disapproved.
It's interesting that the only public buildings you find these days that are ornate and large are hospitals and police headquarters. Just re-visited my hometown in Seaford, Virginia, and saw a new police headquarters that far outstripped the modest local library in magnificence and was by far the largest public building in the county. We cannot educate folks or save them from overdoses in America -- but boy can we arrest 'em! What a disgrace!
Even if the FDA approved MDMA today, it would only be available for folks specifically pronounced to have PTSD by materialist doctors, as if all other emotional issues are different problems and have to be studied separately. That's just ideological foot-dragging.
Who would have thought back in 1776 that Americans would eventually have to petition their government for the right to even possess a damn mushroom. The Drug War has destroyed America.
Even when laudanum was legal in the UK, pharmacists were serving as moral adjudicators, deciding for whom they should fill such prescriptions. That's not a pharmacist's role. We need an ABC-like set-up in which the cashier does not pry into my motives for buying a substance.
Folks who believe in the drug war should consider that it is a multi-billion-dollar campaign to enforce the attitude of the Pizarro's of the world when it comes to non-western medicines. It is the apotheosis of the colonialism that most people claim to hate.
"Is cocaine use good or bad?" The question does not even make sense. Cocaine use is a blessing for some, just a little fun for most, and a curse for a few. Just like any other risky activity.
One merely has to look at any issue of Psychology Today to see articles in which the author reckons without the Drug War, in which they pretend that banned substances do not exist and so fail to incorporate any topic-related insights that might otherwise come from user reports.
Shakespeare said that "the course of true love never went smoothly." In my experience, it is the course of drug refills that never goes smoothly. Doctors always find a way to drag their feet.
Two weeks ago, a guy told me that most psychiatrists believe ECT is great. I thought he was joking! I've since come to realize that he was telling the truth: that is just how screwed up the healthcare system is today thanks to drug war ideology and purblind materialism.
We need a few brave folk to "act up" by shouting "It's the drug war!" whenever folks are discussing Mexican violence or inner city shootings. The media treat both topics as if the violence is inexplicable! We can't learn from mistakes if we're in denial.
Americans are far more fearful of psychoactive drugs than is warranted by either anecdote or history. We require 100% safety before we will re-legalize any "drug" -- which is a safety standard that we do not enforce for any other risky activity on earth.
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 Drug War as a Make-Work Program for Law Enforcement published on April 5, 2020 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)
was just watching an old episode of "In the Heat of the Night," in which drug runners feature prominently, of course. It made me wonder, what would TV have been like over the last 40 years without the Drug War? Script writers would have had to get inventive and picture their bad guys performing actual crimes - rather than hunting them down for the pre-crime of possessing politically ostracized substances.
You have been reading an article entitled, The Drug War as a Make-Work Program for Law Enforcement published on April 5, 2020 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)
