The Drug War Philosopher of the United States of America -- session 4
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
August 15, 2025
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and Gentlemen, the Drug War Philosopher of the United States of America, Brian Ballard Quass.
PHILOSOPHER: I will make a brief statement and then I will open up the floor to termites. As I noted in my latest essay, the Drug Warrior is an enemy of education itself1. Yes, Drug Warriors actually believe that it is wrong to educate kids about drugs. Can you imagine? This fact alone should convince freedom-loving westerners that the prohibitionist mindset is wrong root and branch -- and completely incompatible with the values of democracy and freedom. Indeed, drug prohibition would be wrong based on this one fact alone, even if we did not know from hard-earned experience that prohibition also destroys inner cities, creates civil wars and cartels out of whole cloth, and hands elections to racists by throwing millions of minorities into jail, thanks to drug laws which were written for that very purpose.
First question now.
REPORTER: Gretchen Butterby from the Sun Herald Dispatch and News Ledger, Evening Star Edition.
PHILOSOPHER: Please proceed... assuming that you've completely enunciated the perhaps somewhat cumbersome moniker of your paymaster.
REPORTER: Do what?
PHILOSOPEHR: Your question, please.
REPORTER: Oh, right. What about your critics, my good sir?
PHILOSOPHER: What about them, my even better madam?
REPORTER: They say that you would not oppose the Drug War if your friends and loved ones had been killed by drugs.
PHILOSOPHER: Oh, yes. Prohibitionists just love to mount that moral high horse. Well, let me tell you something: my critics would not be in favor of drug prohibition if THEIR loved ones had been forced to undergo brain-damaging shock therapy because we had superstitiously outlawed all the inspirational drugs that could have rendered that barbaric treatment unnecessary.
REPORTER: Well--
PHILOSOPHER: Do you know that over 49,000 Americans commit suicide every year2 -- in large part because we have outlawed all drugs that inspire and elate?
REPORTER: Well--
PHILOSOPHER: What's more, I bet those critics of yours are in favor of driving cars. Well, guess what? I personally know friends and loved ones whose entire lives were utterly destroyed by traffic accidents! Utterly destroyed! And yet you don't find me trying to outlaw the national transportation grid.
REPORTER: Um...
PHILOSOPHER: You see? Drug Warriors are not the only guys who can ride a moral high horse.
REPORTER: Uh...
PHILOSOPHER: In fact, do you know what? Saying things like "Crack kills" and "Fentanyl kills" is philosophically equivalent to shouting "Fire bad!" as did our paleolithic ancestors. All such statements are attempts to make us fear and demonize dangerous substances rather than to learn how to use them as wisely as possible for the benefit of humanity! Next question.
REPORTER: Reginald Dody from the Podunk Recorder and Times Register Gazette Informer: Drug-Bashing Edition.
PHILOSOPHER: At last, a newspaper with an honest name!
REPORTER: What makes you different from other enemies of the War on Drugs?
PHILOSOPHER: Good question. The main difference is that I approach the subject with skin in the game. Unlike almost every other Drug War critic in the world, I have been directly affected by drug prohibition insofar as it has kept me from using a vast pharmacopoeia of godsends for my chronic depression.
REPORTER: Oh.
PHILOSOPHER:As if that were not bad enough, this drug prohibition has given Big Pharma a monopoly on mind and mood medicine, thanks to which I have been turned into a ward of the healthcare state by being shunted off onto Big Pharma drugs that cause lifetime dependency!
REPORTER: Oh?
PHILOSOPHER: If I am going to take a drug every day of my life, surely I should be able to select the identity of that drug -- and not have it foisted off on me by default by the outlawing of all common-sense treatments for depression: including laughing gas, phenethylamines, coca, opium, beta-carbolines, etc. etc. etc. One final question.
REPORTER: Schlomo Outerbridge from the Hadley Drug Hater: indiscriminately slamming drugs since 1972.
PHILOSOPHER: Welcome!
REPORTER: Speaking of those highly dependence-causing antidepressants, I hear that you finally got off of that Effexor you were on.
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, but only after hiring a compounding pharmacist to make the drug available in small doses so that I could taper the medicine. Strange: the Big Pharma companies call the shots when it comes to getting off the drug. Unless you hire your own pharmacist, there is no way to slowly get off drugs like Effexor. The obvious question is: cui bono? Who profits from this enormous disempowerment of the antidepressant user?
REPORTER: You say that laughing gas and coca and opium and so forth could help you with your depression. On what do you base that claim? Such drugs have not yet been found to fight depression according to modern science.
PHILOSOPHER: That is the whole problem, Schlomo! It is just common sense that such drug use could help people like myself -- we need no scientific studies whatsoever! Such drugs provide a health-providing break from the negative voices of pathological sobriety. That is common sense. Everybody knows this -- until they go to school and are taught to think otherwise.
Unfortunately, scientists are materialists, which means they are dogmatically blind to all common-sense benefits of drug use. The first step they take in evaluating such drugs is to dogmatically ignore all glaringly positive effects demonstrated by anecdote, history and common sense. Scientists are on a metaphysical quest to see if such drugs "really" work. The fact that a drug cheers me up -- and hence creates a virtuous circle in my life -- means nothing to materialists. These metaphysical clowns will actually tell me that laughing gas could not help me, this despite the fact that many users claim to have encountered heaven itself during their laughing gas experience. Heaven itself! Everybody knows that laughter is the best medicine -- or at least they used to know until America decided that only materialist doctors could determine if and when folks like myself are "really" happy, whatever THAT is supposed to mean.
REPORTER: I am not sure I follow.
PHILOSOPHER:I am not sure that you will ever follow. You reporters are always getting the wrong end of the stick. You are always holding drug use to safety standards that you never apply to any other risky activity on the planet.
But to put this another way, Schlomo: it was always a category error to place materialist scientists in charge of mind and mood medicine to begin with. They have no expertise when it comes to human motivation and what people actually think and feel about the world around them -- their only expertise is in finding downsides to drug use -- for the simple reason that they are dogmatically unable to even SEE the upsides of use, let alone to opine upon such upsides advisedly.
Speaking of which, Rick Strassman3 praises reporters (like Katie MacBride) who point out that organizations like MAPS are "cheerleaders" when it comes to psychedelic drugs. But such reporters are still as blind as a bat, Rick! Blind as a bat! They fail to see the much more obvious bias at work in the drug approval game: namely, the fact that the entire U.S. government -- and our conglomerate media -- are JEERLEADERS when it comes to drugs. Jeerleaders, Rick! This is why we have a National Institute on Drug Abuse rather than a National Institute on Drug Use. Our government-funded scientists are in the business of proving that drug use is dangerous and pointless. That is their mission!
Let me make one final point. As much as I criticize pharmaceutical companies for the dependence-causing nature of their antidepressant nostrums, the fact is that it would be easy to get off of antidepressants if Americans were allowed to use any substances whatsoever in order to accomplish that goal. What is recidivism after all? It is the backsliding that occurs thanks to a few hours of existential angst experienced during the withdrawal process. I have direct experience with such angst. I sat on my stairs at 2:00 in the morning feeling like hell because I was experiencing one such attack when I prematurely attempted to end Effexor use a year ago. As a result of the psychological attack, I finally gave up and went back to using Effexor at a high dose. And yet guess what? I would never have "backslid" a year ago had I been able to make intermittent use of substances like laughing gas, phenethylamines, coca and/or opium. In such a free world, I WOULD NOT HAVE BACKSLID!
This is why I am a better philosopher than most when it comes to drugs: because I do not approach the subject dispassionately from an armchair -- and so I never make the mistake that Milton Friedman made back in 1972 when he stated that there were good people on both sides of the drugs debate. WHAT?! No one would ever say such a thing if they themselves had been on the receiving end of the hell that drug prohibitionists crank out when they deny me the use of godsend medicines that inspire and elate. I relapsed on Effexor THANKS TO THE WAR ON DRUGS! To repeat: I relapsed on Effexor THANKS TO THE WAR ON DRUGS! And yet most drug-war pundits have no skin in the game, so such obvious downsides to prohibition are invisible to them. Besides, I am a depressed patient, right? Isn't my job just to shut up and take my meds?!
In summary: Drug warriors are responsible for suicides, relapses, and the use of brain-damaging shock therapy -- not to mention the utter destruction of minority hometowns (which we now glibly refer to as "no-go zones," typically without even bothering to notice that the Drug War created them that devastation out of whole cloth!). You Drug Warriors are also responsible for the end of the rule of law in Latin America and the election of Donald Trump, twice, thanks to the unprecedented mass incarceration of minorities for selling medicines that America had no right to outlaw in the first place!
But I'd better let you reporters go now. I am sure you've got more biased articles to write on these subjects. Drugs are not going to bash THEMSELVES, you know!
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and Gentlemen, the Drug War Philosopher of the United States of America, Brian Ballard Quass.
Press Conference
Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting the Drug War Philosopher of the United States of America. All rise!
Outlawing substances like laughing gas and MDMA makes no more sense than outlawing fire.
The drug war is the defeatist doctrine that we will never be able to use psychoactive drugs wisely. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy because the government does everything it can to make drug use dangerous.
The war on drugs is has destroyed America's faith in the power of education. In fact, it has made us think of education as WRONG in and of itself. It has made us prefer censorship and fear-filled ignorance to education!
"Users" can be kept out of the workforce by the extrajudicial process of drug testing; they can have their baby taken from them, their house, their property -- all because they do not share the intoxiphobic attitude of America.
Drug Warriors should be legally banned from watching or reading Sherlock Holmes stories, since in their world, it is a crime for such people as Sherlock Holmes to exist, i.e., people who use medicines to improve their mind and mood.
In "How to Change Your Mind," Michael Pollan says psychedelic legalization would endanger young people. What? Prohibition forces users to decide for themselves which mushrooms are toxic, or to risk buying contaminated product. And that's safe, Michael?
Someone needs to create a group called Drug Warriors Anonymous, a place where Americans can go to discuss their right to mind and mood medicine and to discuss the many ways in which our society trashes godsend medicines.
We have to deny the FDA the right to judge psychoactive medicines in the first place. Their materialist outlook obliges them to ignore all obvious benefits. When they nix drugs like MDMA, they nix compassion and love.
The book "Plants of the Gods" is full of plants and fungi that could help addicts and alcoholics, sometimes in the plant's existing form, sometimes in combinations, sometimes via extracting alkaloids, etc. But drug warriors need addiction to sell their prohibition ideology.
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.
Outlawing substances like laughing gas and MDMA makes no more sense than outlawing fire.