The Drug War Philosopher of the United States of America -- session 3
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
June 2, 2025
Ladies and gentlemen, the Drug War Philosopher of the United States of America.
I will make a brief statement and then I will open up the floor to termites. As you know, I have been reading and reviewing the excellent drug histories of Mike Jay1 with an eye toward the philosophical insights that his books either contain or imply. The conclusions that I have drawn to date may be found in the following three essays: End Drug Prohibition Now, The Kangaroo Courts of Modern Science and most recently, How the West turned the world into a police state.
Mr. Philosopher! Mr. Philosopher! Telvar Pipkin from the Tennessee Teapot.
Not THE Telvar Pipkin?
That's right.
From THE Tennessee Teapot?
The same.
Well, I have not officially opened the floor to termites yet, but go ahead, Telvar.
Sorry, but I just have to know: which of Mike Jay's books have you read so far?
Well, I began with Emperors of Dreams2, which I discussed in two essays: namely, the one entitled End Prohibition Now3 and the other entitled The Kangaroo Courts of Modern Drug Science4.
Gotcha.
I have also read Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind5, which I discuss in the essay entitled How the West Turned the World into a Police State6.
Vespar Latigan from the Daily World Telegraph and Community Ledger Star, weekend edition.
Cor blimey.
What is your chief takeaway thus far from reading Mike's historical tomes about drugs and drug use?
The biggest takeaway message is that the Drug War mindset was firmly entrenched in the 19th century.
Oh, really? How so?
There was already a knee-jerk belief that the only answer to drug-related problems was criminalization.
I see.
Nobody stopped to think that the world was full of psychoactive substances -- and that the number of such substances would only increase over time as we westerners slowly open our eyes to the psychoactive powers of flowers, trees, plants, animals and fungi -- not to mention the endless drugs that can be synthesized based on the biochemical clues that we garner from Mother Nature.
I hear ya.
It never occurred to anyone that the world would become a police state if we decided to have the police and military playing "whack-a-mole" with this potentially endless supply of psychoactive medicines.
So you're saying, then, that no one talked about educating people rather than arresting them?
Bingo. And that's crazy, right? Already in the 19th century, there was this crazy idea that we should judge the value of drugs "up" or "down," based on how we personally felt about their effects in specific, often notorious cases.. There was already this crazy idea that a substance that could be misused by white young people at one dose when used for one reason, must not be used by anyone at any dose for any reason. It is impossible to think of a more anti-scientific approach to drugs. It is an approach which mindlessly rules out all beneficial uses of drugs in advance based on our biases against the kind of people whom one assumes are using them.
Cash Cheslock from the Hackensack Soundboard.
Cash WHO? From the WHAT?
Inquiring minds want to know, Mr. Philosopher, what other essays have you written or updated lately?
Lord, help my memory. Well, let's see: do you remember that 2022 harangue of mine called "Drug Warriors can go to hell!7"?
Oh, you mean the one in which you let Drug Warriors have it for depriving you of godsend medicines for an entire lifetime?
That's the one.
Mr. Philosopher, Madeline Hayball from the East Hampstead Express and Daily Record, weekend supplement.
Oh, I LOVE that supplement!
My sources tell me that you have updated your article about "The Truth about Opium89" by William H. Brereton and that you have added dozens of insightful citations from the three lectures that it contains.
Did you say thwee?
Oh, you know what I mean!
I'm just kidding you. Yes, I have highlighted dozens of insightful citations from that lecture series, far more than just thwee of them.
Oh, you!
Ladies and gentlemen, the Drug War Philosopher of the United States of America.
Prohibition turned habituation into addiction by creating a wide variety of problems for users, including potential arrest, tainted or absent drug supply, and extreme stigmatization.
The depressed Canadian Claire Brosseau wants the state to kill her. This is the same state that refuses to let her use drugs that could make her want to live. https://abolishthedea.com/drug_use_is_not_worse_than_death
Getting off some drugs could actually be fun and instructive, by using a variety of other drugs to keep one's mind off the withdrawal process. But America believes that getting off a drug should be a big moral battle.
Being less than a month away from an election that, in my view, could end American democracy, I don't like to credit Musk for much. But I absolutely love it every time he does or says something that pushes back against the drug-war narrative.
Drug prohibition is the biggest tyranny imaginable. It is the government control of pain relief. It is government telling us how and how much we are allowed to think and feel in this life.
Even prohibition haters have their own list of drugs that they feel should be outlawed. They're missing the point. We should not drugs "up or down" any more than we should judge penicillin or aspirin in that way.
Endless drugs could help with depression. Any drug that inspires and elates is an antidepressant, partly by the effect itself and partly by the mood-elevation caused by anticipation of use (facts which are far too obvious for materialists and drug warriors to understand -- let alone materialist drug warriors!).
America legalizes alcohol and then outlaws all the drugs that could help prevent and cure alcoholism.
The whole drug war is based on the anti-American idea that the way to avoid problems is to lie and prevaricate and persuade people not to ask questions.
The "scheduling" system is completely anti-scientific and anti-patient. It tells us we can make a one-size-fits-all decision about psychoactive substances without regard for dosage, context of use, reason for use, etc. That's superstitious tyranny.
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..."
This is the only full-cast recording of Aleister Crowley's 1922 classic paeon to common sense. It is the first book -- and so far almost the only book -- to stake out a philosophy of drug use that is compatible with human freedom, one in which we learn to use drugs as wisely as possible for the benefit of humanity. This recording was produced by the Drug War Philosopher and your purchases help support his effort to push back against the tragically counterproductive policy of drug prohibition, in the name of human freedom and of humanity's right to heal.
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.
(up)