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The Drug War as Religion



by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher




April 24, 2019

hose who support the Drug War do so based on a kind of materialist version of Christian Science. The Drug Warrior does not discount medical cures entirely, as does the Christian Scientist, but he or she insists that the medical pharmacy of Mother Nature "should not" be used to bring about psychological happiness and that such usage is somehow tawdry and unbecoming of a sane and sober American.

As a dissenter to this doctrine, I believe that there is no reason why Mother Nature's bounty cannot be justly used to improve my mind in the same way that I use Mother Nature's bounty to improve my physical health. In other words, I disagree with both the classic theology of Christian Science and its modern-day interpretation that is presupposed by the Drug Warrior. It is therefore a violation of my religious liberty to deny me access to Mother Nature's bounty on the theory that I should not require that bounty to live a happy and fulfilled life, for that is an unprovable and hence theological assumption and one that I do not share.



We talk about an aborigine's religious right to use time-honored natural substances such as peyote and ayahuasca, but this is beside the point. Indeed, to frame the issues in this way is to tacitly acknowledge the Drug Warrior's right to deny the rest of us our God-given right to access Mother Nature's bounty for the benefit of our own psyches. And how is this justified by the Drug Warrior? As stated above, it's justified based on a theological notion, a religious assumption, an article of faith: namely, that it is morally wrong to expand one's mind through the use of certain psychoactive substances.

To repeat, this is one possible way to look at life (namely the Christian Science way), but it is not MY way, and to insist otherwise is to force me to adopt the religious practices and taboos of Christian Science.



June 7, 2022




12-Step Programs are religions, which require their devotees to confess their powerlessness in the face of problems like addiction. Why is this religion? Because the powerlessness is a necessary result of the substance criminalization upon which the 12-Step church is based. It is powerlessness by design, not by necessity. The generally WASP proponents of the 12-step group first render the "user" powerless in a practical sense by denying them access to all pharmacological godsends. Then they urge the former "user" to consider themselves powerless in a fundamental ontological sense, in a religious sense that is, a sense which is almost made explicit by the 12-step requirement that the user place their fate in the hands of a thinly disguised Christian God called a higher power. "We are all powerless sinners in need of higher help," rings the puritanical refrain. Yes, but would this be true had you not criminalized almost all the godsend psychoactive medicine in the universe?!

This proposition that we are powerless when faced with problems like habituation is by no means a logical truth that is self-evident to a rational mind. It is rather an article of faith of the modern Drug Warrior and a self-fulfilling prophecy thanks to Drug Warrior legerdemain in the civic and legal realms. The fact that this dour prognosis rings true statistically is meaningless in a world that has dogmatically shunned many hundreds of godsend psychoactive medicines that might have changed outcomes for the better. And so the Drug Warrior rigs the therapeutic deck in favor of failure when they deprive a human being of all psychoactive medicine that might actually empower them to thrive in the world, habituation or no habituation. It's as if the Drug Warrior takes away my Tylenol and then tells me, "We all must rely on God for headache relief," to which the sane response would be: "Well, yes, I guess so, but only because you've confiscated all the flippin' medicine that might otherwise have fixed my headache!"







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Some Tweets against the hateful war on drugs

Laughing gas is the substance that gave William James his philosophy of reality. He concluded from its use that what we perceive is just a fraction of reality writ large. Yet his alma mater (Harvard) does not even MENTION laughing gas in their bio of the man.
This is why the foes of suicide are doing absolutely nothing to get laughing gas into the hands of those who could benefit from it. Laughing is subjective after all. In the western tradition, we need a "REAL" cure to depression.
The whole drug war is based on the anti-American idea that the way to avoid problems is to lie and prevaricate and persuade people not to ask questions.
The proof that psychedelics work has always been extant. We are hoodwinked by scientists who convince us that efficacy has not been "proven." This is materialist denial of the obvious.
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.
The DEA should be tried for crimes against humanity. They have been lying about drugs for 50 years and running interference between human beings and Mother Nature in violation of natural law, depriving us of countless potential and known godsends in order to create more DEA jobs.
UNESCO celebrates the healing practices of the Kallawaya people of South America. What hypocrisy! UNESCO supports a drug war that makes some of those practices illegal!
A law proposed in Colorado in February 2024 would have criminalized positive talk about drugs online. What? The world is on the brink of nuclear war because of hate-driven politics, and I can be arrested for singing the praises of empathogens?
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.
To understand why the western world is blind to the benefits of "drugs," read "The Concept of Nature" by Whitehead. He unveils the scientific schizophrenia of the west, according to which the "real" world is invisible to us while our perceptions are mere "secondary" qualities.
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You have been reading an article entitled, The Drug War as Religion published on April 24, 2019 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)