another American author reckons without the drug war
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
January 15, 2023
ow 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, 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
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, 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 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.
Book Reviews
Most authors today reckon without the drug war -- unless they are writing specifically about "drugs" -- and even then they tend to approach the subject in a way that clearly demonstrates that they have been brainwashed by drug war orthodoxy, even if they do not realize it themselves. That's why I write my philosophical book reviews, to point out this hypocrisy which no other philosopher in the world is pointing out.
Clearly a millennia's worth of positive use of coca by the Peruvian Indians means nothing to the FDA. Proof must show up under a microscope.
Americans love to hate heroin. But there is no rational reason why folks should not use heroin daily in a world in which we consider it their medical duty to use antidepressants daily.
That's my real problem with SSRIs: If daily drug use and dependency are okay, then there's no logical or truly scientific reason why I can't smoke a nightly opium pipe.
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.
Lying billboards in Philadelphia say that "Fentanyl Kills." NONSENSE! If Fentanyl kills, then so do cars, horses and alcohol. PROHIBITION IS THE REAL KILLLER.
Democratic societies need to outlaw prohibition for many reasons, the first being the fact that prohibition removes millions of minorities from the voting rolls, thereby handing elections to fascists and insurrectionists.
Unfortunately, the prohibitionist motto is: "Billions for arrest, not one cent for education." To the contrary, drug warriors are ideologically committed to withholding the truth about drugs from users.
All the problems that folks associate with drugs are caused by prohibition. Thousands were not dying on the streets when opioids were legal in America. It took prohibition to bring that about.
"The Legislature deliberately determines to distrust the very people who are legally responsible for the physical well-being of the nation, and puts them under the thumb of the police, as if they were potential criminals."
-- Aleister Crowley on drug laws
The drug war is a big scare campaign to teach us to distrust mother nature and to rely on pharmaceuticals instead.
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, End Times by Bryan Walsh: another American author reckons without the drug war, published on January 15, 2023 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
ow 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. 
You have been reading an article entitled, End Times by Bryan Walsh: another American author reckons without the drug war, published on January 15, 2023 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
