The immorality of assisted suicide in the age of drug prohibition
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
February 24, 2026
When I first learned that North Americans like Claire Brosseau were demanding the right to assisted suicide on account of their depression, I was stunned. I simply could not understand how such westerners could "make that call" without realizing the obvious: namely, that it is drug prohibition which is keeping them from using drugs that could make them want to live! I could not understand how activists like Claire were not calling for an end to drug prohibition rather than demanding their right to die with the help of the state: the same state that was refusing to let them heal! Now that I am coming to my senses after that blow, like a boxer shaking off the effects of a left hook, I realize that assisted suicide for any reason is morally reprehensible insofar as the option is chosen in willful ignorance of the option-limiting policy of drug prohibition.
How can we decide on a person's quality of life without taking their mental state into account? And if drug prohibition prevents us from improving that mental state, how can we make a fair decision about "allowing" that patient to die?
Westerners believe they can pass judgment on the value of a paralyzed life by considering only the physical elements of that existence. They pay short shrift to the ability of the human mind to rise above challenges -- so much so that they outlaw all the drugs that could help a disabled person leverage that mental power to new heights of ecstasy and insight.
This mental power arises naturally in some. After having been paralyzed by a stroke, French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby dictated an entire book about his life through the strategic blinking of his left eye. (Had his left eye itself been inoperative, Bauby might well have been considered to be braindead.) We have a moral duty to use any and all drugs necessary to prompt the many less naturally motivated patients to rise above their paralyzed condition as well, not so that they too can write their memoirs, but so that they too can rise above their condition and gain a sort of philosophical perspective on their troubles with the help of the attitude improvement vouchsafed by the strategic use of a wide variety of motivating drugs.
Make no mistake, I occupy the high ground in this argument. I am merely making the common-sense claim that we should use all available medicines to help the paralyzed patient -- whereas the prohibitionists believe that we should use only those drugs of which politicians approve, and to hell with the mental state of the depressed paralytic -- even though the mental state of the patient is ultimately all that really matters for them in life.
As an Elizabethan poet once wrote:
My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such perfect joy therein I find
That it excels all other bliss
Which God or nature hath assign'd.
We are morally guilty of torturing patients when we knowingly deprive them of drugs that could improve their mental states and so improve their ability to tolerate their pathologies, whether we consider those pathologies to be physical or psychological.
It's just plain totalitarian nonsense to outlaw mother nature and to outlaw moods and mental states thru drug law. These truths can't be said enough by us "little people" because the people in power are simply not saying them.
The Drug War shows us that American democracy is fundamentally flawed. Propaganda and fearmongering has persuaded Americans to give up freedoms that are clearly enunciated in the U.S. Constitution. We need a new democracy in which a Constitution actually matters.
Saying "Fentanyl kills" is philosophically equivalent to saying "Fire bad!" Both statements are attempts to make us fear dangerous substances rather than to learn how to use them as safely as possible for human benefit.
Psychedelic retreats tell us how scientific they are. But science is the problem. Science today insists that we ignore all obvious benefits of drugs.
The Drug War brought guns to the "hoods," thereby incentivizing violence in the name of enormous profits. Any site featuring victims of gun violence should therefore be rebranded as a site featuring victims of the drug war.
"Like Christians burning mosques and temples to spread the word of Jesus, modem drugabuseologists burn crops to spread the use of alcohol." -- Ceremonial Chemistry, p. 48
If we encourage folks to use antidepressants daily, there is nothing wrong with them using heroin daily. A founder of Johns Hopkins used morphine daily and he not only survived, but he thrived.
I personally hate beets and I could make a health argument against their legality. Beets can kill for those allergic to them. Sure, it's a rare condition, but since when has that stopped a prohibitionist from screaming bloody murder?
No wonder the "Justice" Department relies on plea deals; otherwise juries could use nullification to free those charged with mere drug possession.
I hope that scientists will eventually find the prohibition gene so that we can eradicate this superstitious way of thinking from humankind. "Ug! Drugs bad! Drugs not good for anyone, anywhere, at any dose, for any reason, ever! Ug!"
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