WARNING: The author was banned from both the Drugs and the Drug War Reddits for pointing out the following inconvenient truths about America's unprecedented Drug War. Read these ideas quick, before the US government finally just plain declares these viewpoints illegal -- which might happen any day in a country that claims the right to outlaw Mother Nature's plants.
Earth to the PC online echo chamber known as the Drugs Reddit:
There is no drug problem in America. Instead, there are the twin related problems of ignorance and substance criminalization. The first leads human beings to make bad choices, the second guarantees that those choices will be bad by outlawing mere research on psychoactive plant substances, preferring to demonize them instead as the root of all social evil. How? First, by falsely claiming that chemical substances somehow fry the brain1 the moment they are criminalized by politicians, and second, by creating cop shows and drug-war movies 23 in which we never see the responsible use of criminalized substances. In this way, such Drug War entertainment implies that such responsible use is somehow impossible, notwithstanding the fact that many of America's founding fathers themselves used such substances responsibly, including Benjamin Franklin, Aaron Burr, and Thomas Jefferson.
If America's obsession with "drugs" made sense, surely the history of the world would be riddled with "drug problems" from the past. If so, the professors under whom I've studied "never got the memo." Consider the following Great Courses that I've audited over the last two years alone:
"The Pagan World: Ancient Religions before Christianity" with Professor Hans-Friedrich Mueller, PhD.: Twenty-four lectures with no mention of a drug problem.
"The Rise of Rome" with Professor Gregory S. Aldrete, PhD:
Twenty-four lectures with no mention of a drug problem.
"Native Peoples of North America" with Professor Daniel M. Cobb, PhD:
Twenty-four lectures with no mention of a drug problem.
"Ancient Mesopotamia: Life in the Cradle of Civilization" with Professor Amanda H. Podany, PhD.:
Twenty-four lectures with no mention of a drug problem.
"Ancient Greek Civilization" with Professor Jeremy McInerny, PhD:
Twenty-four lectures with no mention of a drug problem.
"Cities of the Ancient World" with Professor Steven L. Tuck, PhD:
Twenty-four lectures with no mention of a drug problem.
"The Celtic World" with Professor Jennifer Paxton, PhD.:
Twenty-four lectures with no mention of a drug problem.
(I can hear the Drug Warrior now: "How on earth did these civilizations survive when everyone had free access to all of Mother Nature's evil plant medicines???")
Conclusion: The fact that there's a huge "drug problem" in America today says far more about modern society than it does about something we call "drugs."
The best that the Drug Warrior can do in citing "drug problems" of the past is to point to the opium wars of the 19th century. But that problem was deliberately caused by government - the British government, to be exact - which strategically sought to glut the Chinese opium market with a particularly addictive form of the drug from India -- and then declared war when the Chinese responded by outlawing the drug altogether.
These damning facts not withstanding, modern Drug Warriors like John Halpern do their best to rewrite history in order to demonize opium itself (instead of the British government) when writing on this subject. Thus Halpern's 2019 book on this topic, "Opium," bears the propagandistic subtitle: "How an ancient flower shaped and poisoned our world."
Really?
A far more honest title would have been "Opium: how government monopolies shaped and poisoned our world," but Halpern couldn't miss an opportunity to lash out at the modern all-purpose scapegoat known as "drugs."
Unfortunately, I can't post this essay on the Drugs Reddit because I have already been banished there for life for merely broaching these ideas on a previous occasion. In fact, I've been banned on the DrugWar Reddit as well for the same reason. (I sometimes think that DEA moles have become moderators of such groups in order to make sure that observations like mine never see the light of day.)
What a coup Francis Burton Harrison scored in 1914 when, for the first time in American history, he outlawed a mere plant, the opium 4 poppy. Not only did the anti-Chinese politician thereby violate the natural law upon which America was founded, but he laid the legal groundwork for President Nixon to criminalize thousands of additional psychoactive plants six decades later -- not to protect the health of young people (as Julie Holland mistakenly claims in her 2020 book entitled "Good Chemistry") but to send his opponents to jail and remove them from the voting rolls by charging them with felonies. Because even imaginary problems like "drugs" can be used to good advantage by a savvy politician.
Thus corrupt politicians created a whole new scapegoat for social problems, something that we Americans call "drugs," and in so doing created a Drug War that incarcerates a million minorities a year and causes so much violence that it gave birth to a whole new movie genre about drug trafficking.
If the Drug Reddit really wants to be a force for good, it will stop fetishizing this red herring called "drugs" and break up, like AT&T, into more rationally oriented subreddits, focusing on topics such as "LEGALIZING PLANT MEDICINES," "INVESTING IN EDUCATION," and "USING MOTHER NATURE'S PSYCHOACTIVE BOUNTY TO COMBAT ADDICTION AND HABITUATION."
AFTERTHOUGHTS
The Moderators for the Drugs Reddit "just don't get it." Check out the message that one sees when trying to post there (which, good luck if you plan to be honest):
"If your post, or a reply to it would make it easier for someone to get drugs, it's not permitted."
Think of what this statement actually means, given the fact that "drugs" is just another word for "criminalized plant medicine." It means:
"If your post, or a reply to it would make it easier for someone to get forbidden plant medicine, it's not permitted."
The fact that the anonymous Moderators just blandly state this warning, without also roundly denouncing it, shows that they either don't appreciate the injustice at work here or that they gladly accept it as natural.
So then let me get this straight: First we are separated from Mother Nature by the Drug War, and now we are told that we cannot even discuss Mother Nature's plants when we feel that they would be useful to a fellow human being. And so I could be thrown in jail (or worse yet, banned from the Drugs Reddit!) for merely telling a dying grandmother where she can harvest psychedelic plants that will help her make her peace with the inevitable approach of "the gentle hand of Azrael," as Edgar Allan Poe, a beneficiary of psychoactive substances himself, might have called it. "Yes, sorry, Grandma: your health and happiness is important to me, but I cannot violate the tenets of America's most righteous and holy Drug War!"
Again, the Drugs Reddit should be lashing out at this absurd and tyrannous status quo at every chance. Instead, they banish those who so much as mention these inconvenient truths, preferring instead to act as cheerleaders for America's obsession with "drugs," doing everything they can to show that they are willing collaborators in the government's war on Mother Nature's psychoactive plant medicines.
The difference between someone "using a drug" and his being "addicted" to it is not a matter of fact, but a matter of our moral attitude and political strategy toward him. Indeed, we might, and must, go further than this, and note that the very identification of a substance as a drug or not a drug is not a matter of fact but a matter of moral attitude and political strategy: tobacco, in common parlance, is not considered to be a drug but marijuana is; gin is not but Valium is. Here, now, briefly is how those who wish to wage war on drugcraft use the language of loathing to enlist recruits for their cause. - Ceremonial Chemistry, Thomas Szasz
Author's Follow-up: October 16, 2022
Ah, yes, the language of loathing. This is why the Drug War is all about substance demonization, and the unscientific idea that some substances can be bad without regard for how, when or why they are used -- an attitude which indefinitely delays the cure to such maladies as depression, Alzheimer's 5 and autism, insofar as the drugs we demonize can grow new brain cells and give users a new lease on life.
Besides, why should I listen to the views of a microbe?
Science knows nothing of the human spirit and of the hopes and dreams of humankind. Science cannot tell us whether a given drug risk is worthwhile given the human need for creativity and passion in their life. Science has no expertise in making such philosophical judgements.
If Fentanyl kills, then alcohol massacres. The problem is drug prohibition, not drugs.
Our tolerance for freedom wanes in proportion as we consider "drugs" to be demonic. This is the dark side behind the new ostensibly comic genre about Cocaine Bears and such. It shows that Americans are superstitious about drugs in a way that Neanderthals would have understood.
Most psychoactive substance use can be judged as recreational OR medicinal OR both. The judgements are not just determined by the circumstances of use, either, but also by the biases of those doing the judging.
Two of the biggest promoters of the psychedelic renaissance shuffle their feet when you ask them about substance prohibition. Michael Pollan and Rick Strassman just don't get it: prohibition kills.
The formula is easy: pick a substance that folks are predisposed to hate anyway, then keep hounding the public with stories about tragedies somehow related to that substance. Show it ruining lives in movies and on TV. Don't lie. Just keep showing all the negatives.
"Judging" psychoactive drugs is hard. Dosage counts. Expectations count. Setting counts. In Harvey Rosenfeld's book about the Spanish-American War, a volunteer wrote of his visit to an "opium den": "I took about four puffs and that was enough. All of us were sick for a week."
Two weeks ago, a guy told me that most psychiatrists believe ECT is great. I thought he was joking! I've since come to realize that he was telling the truth: that is just how screwed up the healthcare system is today thanks to drug war ideology and purblind materialism.
Ah, yes, the language of loathing. This is why the Drug War is all about substance demonization, and the unscientific idea that some substances can be bad without regard for how, when or why they are used -- an attitude which indefinitely delays the cure to such maladies as depression, Alzheimer's 5 and autism, insofar as the drugs we demonize can grow new brain cells and give users a new lease on life.
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