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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




Until prohibition ends, rehab is all about enforcing a Christian Science attitude toward psychoactive medicines (with the occasional hypocritical exception of Big Pharma meds).

A company will be put out of business if someone happens to die while using "drugs," even if the drug was not really responsible for the death.

Judging from research articles, they do not even teach the many obvious benefits of drugs in med school.

In the age of the Drug War, the Hippocratic Oath has become "First, do no good."

Americans heap hypocritical praise on Walt Whitman. What they don't realize is that many of us could be "Walt Whitman for a Day" with the wise use of psychoactive drugs. To the properly predisposed, morphine gives a DEEP appreciation of Mother Nature.

I've been told by many that I should have seen "my doctor" before withdrawing from Effexor. But, A) My doctor got me hooked on the junk in the first place, and, B) That doctor completely ignores the OBVIOUS benefits of indigenous meds and focuses only on theoretical downsides.

The New York Times gets it wrong again. Yes, kratom, like all drugs, has downsides. The problem is not kratom, it's drug prohibition which limits choice. Nor are young people the only stakeholders in the debate, as the Times always assumes.

America takes away the citizen's right to manage their own depression by making opium and cocaine illegal. Then psychiatrists treat the resulting epidemic of depression and anxiety by damaging the patient's brain with shock therapy.

Any self-respecting mycologist should denounce the criminalization of mushrooms.

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.


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