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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 for essay entitled The Drug War is One Big Branding Operation: to glorify liquor while demonizing all of its competitors:

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




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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




I thought mycology clubs across the US would be protesting drug laws that make mushroom collecting illegal for psychoactive species. But in reality, almost no club even mentions such species. No wonder prohibition is going strong.

It is actually illegal to be a Ben Franklin in 21st century America. To put this another way: we outlaw far more than drugs when we outlaw mind and mood medicine.

Drugs are not the enemy, ignorance is -- the ignorance that the Drug War encourages by teaching us to fear drugs rather than to understand them.

The line drawn between recreational and medical use is wishful thinking on the part of drug warriors. Recreation, according to Webster's, is "refreshment or diversion," and both have positive knock-on effects in the lives of real people.

Opium is a godsend, as folks like Galen, Avicenna and Paracelsus knew. The drug war has facilitated a nightmare by outlawing peaceable use at home and making safe use almost impossible.

I can think of no greater intrusion than to deny a person autonomy over how they think and feel in life. It is sort of a meta-intrusion, the mother of all anti-democratic intrusions.

Opium could be a godsend for talk therapy. It can help the user step outside themselves and view their problems from novel viewpoints.

I looked up the company: it's all about the damn stock market and money. The FDA outlaws LSD until we remove all the euphoria and the visions. That's ideology, not science. Just relegalize drugs and stop telling me how much ecstasy and insight I can have in my life!!

Freud had the right idea: He noticed that cocaine use actually ended depression in his patients. Unfortunately, he was ambitious and was more interested in making a name for himself than in pushing back against the statistically challenged fear mongering of prohibitionists.

Someday those books about weird state laws will be full of factoids like: "In Alabama, you could be jailed for 20 years for conspiring to eat a mushroom."


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