Homepage of the Drug War Philosopher, Brian Quass
blog icon orange rss icon with stylized radio waves bird icon for twitter bird icon for twitter substack icon


back navigation arrow forward navigation arrow


The Drug War is One Big Branding Operation

to glorify liquor while demonizing all of its competitors

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

July 16, 2025



This morning I passed an 18-wheeler on I-81 that was painted red-white-and-blue and blaring the patriotic blurb that "Budweiser supports our military veterans." What hypocrisy! America's most dangerous drug, a drug that kills 178,000 a year, is able to wrap itself up in the flag and portray itself as lamb's milk in broad daylight, and this in a world in which we demonize all of liquor's competitors as evil dead-ends!

This absurd state of affairs tells us about more than just the problems with the Drug War: it tells us that there is a problem with America's dependence on propaganda -- which is to say public relations. After decades of television ads inspired and powered by the malevolent use of propaganda in World War II, Americans no longer know the facts about any subject -- instead, they know how they FEEL about those subjects. Take Coke, for instance. People do not prefer the soda because they prefer its taste to rivals: they prefer its taste to rivals because the endless Coca-Cola PR campaigns have associated the use of the substance with all things bright and beautiful -- with all positive human aspiration. Coke never tries to sell Coke: they try to sell a lifestyle, a mindset.

This manipulation of feelings might be considered innocent enough in the commercial realm, but America's use of PR is not limited to "pushing product." PR is also used to make us love or hate things according to the prejudices of racist politicians. American drug law is based on how we feel about substances based on the media-controlled flow of information on any given topic. In other words, democracy itself has gone awry thanks to the way that propaganda tactics have been embraced not just by Wall Street, but by demagogue politicians in Washington, D.C. Propaganda is the problem here -- from which it follows that we need to question the benefits of unbridled capitalism 1 to the extent that it relies on such feeling-mongering. Feelings now run the country, not principles.

The whole point of the Bill of Rights was to specify rights that could not be taken away on the grounds of expediency and fearmongering. And yet Americans have been so successfully indoctrinated to fear drugs that we have now abandoned a wide variety of constitutional freedoms (the freedom of religion 2, the freedom from unreasonable search, the freedom of free speech, etc.) thanks to the very fearmongering against which the Bill of Rights was supposed to protect us. America thus needs a new constitutional amendment, one which tells us that constitutional amendments must be taken seriously, that the American republic should be governed based on principles and not on demagogue-inspired hysteria.

I am not, of course, suggesting that liquor should be outlawed -- rather that all substances should be treated like liquor: that is, as being potentially dangerous but capable of being used wisely. The Drug Warrior on the other hand is determined to characterize all of liquor's competitors as "beyond the pale," and this should bother neo-Liberals and conservatives alike, for that is precisely the approach to "drug use" that the Spanish brought with them to the New World half a millennia ago. They had no problem outlawing religions back then -- and today's Drug Warriors are just as indifferent to the basic rights of others. They do not see the need for mental and emotional improvement with the help of godsend medicines: why should others? Plus ça change...









Notes:

1: What the drug war tells us about American capitalism DWP (up)
2: Freedom of Religion and the War on Drugs DWP (up)




read more essays here





Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




If opium and cocaine were legal again in America, the healthcare industry would suddenly have to undergo extensive downsizing, as Americans were once again put in charge of their own health.

America created a whole negative morality around "drugs" starting in 1914. "Users" became fiends and were as helpless as a Christian sinner -- in need of grace from a higher power. Before prohibition, these "fiends" were habitues, no worse than Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson.

"The Harrison [Narcotics] Act made the drug peddler, and the drug peddler makes drug addicts.” --Robert A. Schless, 1925.

Prohibitionists have nothing to say about all other dangerous activities: nothing about hunting, free climbing, hang-gliding, sword swallowing, free diving, skateboarding, sky-diving, chug-a-lug competitions, chain-smoking. Their "logic" is incoherent.

The media called out Trump for fearmongering about immigrants, but the media engages in fearmongering when it comes to drugs. The latest TV plot line: "white teenage girl forced to use fentanyl!" America loves to feel morally superior about "drugs."

SWAT raids have increased by 15,000 percent from the late 1970s to today, resulting in 50,000 to 80,000 SWAT raids annually in the US alone. --War On Us

Scientists hold holistically working drugs to reductionist standards, thereby practicing a sort of pharmacological colonialsm.

Today's war against drug users is like Elizabeth I's war against Catholics. Both are religious crackdowns. For today's oppressors, the true faith (i.e., the moral way to live) is according to the drug-hating religion of Christian Science.

This is the problem with trusting science to tell us about drugs. Science means reductive materialism, whereas psychoactive drug use is all about mind and the human being as a whole. We need pharmacologically savvy shaman to guide us, not scientists.

People say shrooms should not be used by those with a history of "mental illness." But that's one of the greatest potential benefits of shrooms! (They cured Stamets' teenage stuttering.) Some folks place safety first, but if I did that, I'd die long before using mother nature.


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






back navigation arrow forward navigation arrow
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..."

Purchase Your Copy
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.

Purchase Your Copy



No cookies, no ads paid for by amoral and immoral billionaires (or trillionaires).


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.

The Partnership for a Death Free America is a proud sponsor of The Drug War Philosopher website @ abolishthedea.com.


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

tombstone for American Democracy, 1776-2024, RIP (up)