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The End Times by Bryan Walsh

another American author reckons without the drug war

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

January 15, 2023



How do you write a book about the end times and fail to even mention the power of love-inspiring substances to help humanity ward off Armageddon? This is what Bryan Walsh manages to do, but then he is just like almost every other non-fiction writer today in that he reckons without the Drug War. Americans like to think that the only downside to the Drug War is that it keeps hippies from getting "high," but it does so much more than that: it censors authors, for starters, and "End Times" is an example1. Of course, the censorship here is self-censorship. Bryan, after all, has grown up in a society whose media and academics is purposefully designed to ignore all positive reports on drug use. So all Bryan knows is that drugs are unnecessary problems, and as such should not figure in his books.

He has swallowed the Drug War lie, which tells us that the vast majority of psychoactive substances (aside from Big Pharma meds and a few drugs, like nicotine and alcohol) have no positive uses, for anyone, anywhere, ever, under any circumstances.

This is the Big Lie of the Drug War, which Bryan uncritically accepts: otherwise a book about end times would be unimaginable without mentioning the power of empathogens like MDMA and psilocybin to bring people together in defense of humanity.

Another issue with the book: Walsh keeps referencing the notion that information wants to be free, information wants to be free. But he tellingly cites the case of Napster, which is actually an example of how information can be jailed if moneyed interests put some effort into that task.

I was just looking for a free public domain download of the song Gaudeamus Igitur (for reasons that are beyond the scope of this essay). And I could find absolutely none. There were sites that seemed to promise a download, but most of them now stream such music, and those that promise downloads often deliver malware instead. Even the Library of Congress encourages you to stream old music -- a process that they have bizarrely farmed out to Sony Entertainment Corp., which is graciously allowing LOC to use ancient Sony tunes that actually should be in the public domain in any case.

The point here is that information can be jailed almost completely when there's a financial incentive for that to happen.

I think it would be easier for me to download the genome of the Black Plague than it would be for me to download a recorded book from Audible that was not in a proprietary format.

So the idea that we cannot put a lid on information is clearly false. We can actually do it, if we have the financial incentive to get it done.

To fight existential threats from science, we need to recognize that such action can be taken and be largely effective.

Such policies, combined with a policy of encouraging the use of drugs like MDMA 2 , may not save the earth, but they would surely cut down on school shootings as hotheads are given heart-felt evidence about the value of friendship and caring.



Author's Follow-up: January 17, 2024

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up



Here is my new review of Walsh's book "End Times" posted on the Goodreads website:

Like almost all non-fiction authors these days, Bryan Walsh reckons without the Drug War. If humankind is going to be annihilated by nuclear war 3 4 5 , it is going to be because we have demonized the drugs that inspire peace. Ecstasy brought unprecedented peace, love and understanding to the British dance floor in the late '80s and early '90s, but British politicians did not want peace, they wanted a Drug War. When they cracked down on ecstasy, the ravers switched to hate-facilitating drugs like alcohol, creating so much violence that concert organizers had to hire special forces troops to keep the peace. Special forces!

Ecstasy is one of the safest drugs on the planet. It is only dangerous to those with whom we have refused on principle to discuss "safe use." Meanwhile Big Pharma 6 7 drugs like Rinvoq have side effects that include cancer and death, and yet they are advertised openly on prime-time television.

The Drug War has already given a victory to Trump by arresting millions of his opponents and removing them from the voting rolls, Trump, the guy who now wants to kill the minorities that we were formerly happy with merely arresting.

The anti-democratic trend continues. The Fourth Amendment was long ago suspended on behalf of the Drug War. Until authors like Walsh stop pretending that there is no Drug War, nothing is going to change -- except for the worse. To the extent that we are approaching "end times," it is because of the Drug War and the militaristic anti-democratic mindset that it represents.











Notes for essay entitled The End Times by Bryan Walsh: another American author reckons without the drug war:

1: End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World: Asteroids, Super Volcanoes, Rogue Robots, and More Walsh, Bryan, End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World: Asteroids, Super Volcanoes, Rogue Robots, and More (up)
2: How the Drug War killed Leah Betts DWP (up)
3: 8 Nuclear Close Calls that Nearly Spelled Disaster Davidson, Lucy, History Hit, 2022 (up)
4: Global Nuclear Warhead Stockpiles (1945-2024) Voronoi, 2023 (up)
5: Nuclear Near-Misses: The Close Calls That Almost Changed the World Atomic Toasters, 2024 (up)
6: Seife, Charles. 2012. “Is Drug Research Trustworthy?” Scientific American 307 (6): 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1212-56. (up)
7: LaMattina, John. n.d. “Why Is Biopharma Paying 75% of the FDA’s Drug Division Budget?” Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2022/09/22/why-is-biopharma-paying-75-of-the-fdas-drug-division-budget/. (up)




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Just think how many ayahuasca-like godsends that we are going without because we dogmatically refuse to even look for them, out of our materialist disdain for mixing drugs with drugs.

The drug war is a way for conservatives to keep America's eyes OFF the prize. The right-wing motto is, "Billions for law enforcement, but not one cent for social programs."

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

Materialist scientists are drug war collaborators. They are more than happy to have their fight against idealism rigged by drug law, which outlaws precisely those substances whose use serves to cast their materialism into question.

I knew democracy was in trouble when most Americans in the '80s saw no problem with allowing drug testers to go on a fishing expedition in their bodily fluids for substances of which politicians disapprove.

The problem with blaming things on addiction genes is that it whitewashes the role of society and its laws. It's easy to imagine an enlightened country wherein drug availability, education and attitudes make addiction highly unlikely, addiction genes or no addiction genes.

The WHO says that depression will be the number-one cause of disability by 2030. What they don't say is that this is only because drug prohibition has outlawed all obvious treatments for depression.

Only a pathological puritan would say that there's no place in the world for substances that lift your mood, give you endurance, and make you get along with your fellow human being. Drugs may not be everything, but it's masochistic madness to claim that they are nothing at all.

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.

We've all been taught since grade school that human beings cannot use psychoactive medicines wisely. That is a defeatest lie. It's criminal to keep substances illegal that can awaken the mind and remind us of our full potential in life.


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