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...
It's "convenient" for scientists that their "REAL" cures happen to be the ones that racist politicians will allow. Scientists thus normalize prohibition by pretending that outlawed substances have no therapeutic value. It's materialism collaborating with the drug war.
The best harm reduction strategy would be to re-legalize opium and cocaine. We would thereby end depression in America and free Americans from their abject reliance on the healthcare industry.
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.
Even the worst forms of "abuse" can be combatted with a wise use of a wide range of psychoactive drugs, to combat both physical and psychological cravings. But drug warriors NEED addiction to be a HUGE problem. That's their golden goose.
Drugs that sharpen the mind should be thoroughly investigated for their potential to help dementia victims. Instead, we prefer to demonize these drugs as useless. That's anti-scientific and anti-patient.
All mycologists should denounce the criminalization of mushrooms. Those who don't should be drummed out of the field.
"The Harrison [Narcotics] Act made the drug peddler, and the drug peddler makes drug addicts.” --Robert A. Schless, 1925.
Americans won't be true grown-ups until they learn to react to drug deaths the same way that they react to deaths from horseback riding and mountain climbing. They don't blame such deaths on horses and mountains; neither should they blame drug-related deaths on drugs.
Mariani Wine is the real McCoy, with Bolivian coca leaves (tho' not with cocaine, as Wikipedia says). I'll be writing more about my experience with it soon. I was impressed. It's the same drink "on which" HG Wells and Jules Verne wrote their stories.
Did the Vedic People have a substance disorder because they wanted to drink enough soma to see religious realities?
It's "convenient" for scientists that their "REAL" cures happen to be the ones that racist politicians will allow. Scientists thus normalize prohibition by pretending that outlawed substances have no therapeutic value. It's materialism collaborating with the drug war.
