Kevin Sabet and other Philosophically Challenged Prohibitionists
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
January 29, 2022
Kevin Sabet is at it again, plucking my last and final nerve. Today, he's promoting a post on Twitter that encourages us to panic over the fact that a vast minority of pot users use the drug daily.
Now then, why does Kevin think that a body might use marijuana every single day of their life? Gee, that's a real poser. Hmm. Could it have anything to do with the fact that their government has outlawed ALMOST EVERY OTHER PSYCHOACTIVE MEDICINE ON THE PLANET???
People seek self-transcendence, Kevin, get over it.
And until we outlaw prohibition, would you prefer that such users were drinking alcohol every day of their life, or taking Big Pharma meds every day of their life like 1 in 4 American women, thereby turning themselves into socially acceptable zombies? But Kevin has no problem with socially acceptable zombies.
Speaking of which, one has to wonder if Kevin is on the take from Big Pharma . All I can say is that if he's not, the Big Pharma companies are missing a great opportunity.
Kevin's knee-jerk prohibitionist policies have killed hundreds of thousands of Mexicans over the last decade and resulted in the election of insurrectionists by throwing millions of black voters in jail. Meanwhile these policies have outlawed substances that have inspired entire religions -- and stolen Thomas Jefferson's poppy plants. Gee, thanks, Kevin for your "enlightened" policies that have overthrown natural law and militarized police forces around the world.
And this is the guy whom Atlantic editor David Frum calls "The most important new voice in the American drug policy debate"? There's nothing new about Kevin's voice: it's Drug War 101: demonize and criminalize substances rather than teach about them. This has been official government policy for half a century now, as reflected in the ONDCP guidelines which forbids the discussion of any potential benefits to be realized by the substances that we call "drugs." But it's no wonder that Kevin gets the Atlantic's endorsement. That's the magazine that keeps publishing feel-good pieces about new depression treatments without ever mentioning the fact that our government has outlawed almost all the substances that could treat depression effectively. The Atlantic is thereby ignoring the fact that the Drug War is censoring scientific research, something that supposedly freedom-loving Americans should be ashamed of.
I'm glad Kevin is not an exterminator. If he noticed a single solitary bug in a house, he would treat the problem by gassing the whole neighborhood. Then when children and pets lay dying on the pavement, Kevin would point to the bug-free condition of the house in question and cry: "Success! We have won the war on bugs!"
That's why Drug Warriors are like Mrs. Grose in "The Turn of the Screw." They cause the very problems that they seek to solve.
As I've said before, I agree with Kevin: folks should not use weed -- or any other substance -- excessively*. But like every other drug-related problem these days, the problem is caused by the Drug War, Kevin, not by drugs themselves!
Teach, don't demonize. Divert the billions we're spending on law enforcement to teaching safe use in the relevant communities, meanwhile recognizing the so far unacknowledged fact that nothing we can do (neither prohibition nor legalization 1 ) is going to "save" everybody, and that when we try to do so with a Drug War, the "victories" that we achieve will always be Pyrrhic ones.
Related tweet: June 10, 2023
Check out these prohibitionists who whine about the popularity of weed. It's like they outlawed steak and pork and then they complained about the popularity of chicken. I'd be more than happy to diversify my medicine cabinet once these clowns stop outlawing Mother Nature.
Author's Follow-up: July 3, 2023
Of course, the definition of "excessive" use is not determined scientifically. It has everything to do with the desires and goals of the "user." Folks like Sabet would have told Ben Franklin to cut out the opium 2 smoking -- but Ben's use would have been considered "excessive" only by those onlooking prudes, not by Benjamin Franklin himself. Again, the determination of what's excessive is a personal matter, for which supposedly objective facts about a drug are only one of the many considerations that come into play. But just as Drug Warriors prefer one-size-fits-all pills from Big Pharma 34 over holistic remedies, so they prefer a list of one-size-fits-all binary judgments about "drugs" (good/bad) over the highly nuanced cost-benefit analyses that must come into play in any REAL life of a would-be user, an analysis that takes into account the crucial dreams and aspirations of that user. What kind of world do THEY want to live in? What are their goals in life? Do they want to follow up on the research of William James? Do they want to give up alcohol? Do they want to be less angry?
The Drug Warrior ignores all such real-life considerations and tells us ex cathedra that the drugs in question are somehow bad in and of themselves (a claim that can be properly made only of the Devil himself, in which the vast majority of Drug Warriors will tell you they do not believe). In that case, surely liquor too is bad in and of itself and should not be excused on the grounds of making the drinker more relaxed and sociable, as hypocritical Drug Warriors are apt to do.
Author's Follow-up:
May 01, 2025
Until recently, I had struggled to make it clear to my readers why Kevin Sabet's prohibitionist mindset is so frustrating to me. Then I noticed the following lines by Alfred North Whitehead that said it all.
In the presentation of a novel outlook with wide ramifications, a single line of communications from premises to conclusions is not sufficient for intelligibility. Your audience will construe whatever you say into conformity with their pre-existing outlook.
In Whitehead's case, his audience lived and breathed a bifurcated view of nature, as consisting of perceptions on the one hand an molecular causes on the other. In my case, my audience lives and breathes a bifurcated view of psychoactive substances, as consisting of "meds" on the one hand and "drugs" on the other. The former can, generally speaking do no wrong, while the latter are considered prima facie bad and to be judged only by their misuse and abuse, the assumption being that positive, beneficial and worthy uses simply do not exist.
"The evolution of modern medicine gave us our current, bifurcated view of drugs: the good ones that treat illness and the bad ones that people use to change their minds and moods." --Jacob Sullum, from Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, p. 2515
It's funny to hear fans of sacred plants indignantly insisting that their meds are not "drugs." They're right in a way, but actually NO substances are "drugs." Calling substances "drugs" is like referring to striking workers as "scabs." It's biased terminology.
Drug prohibition represents the biggest power grab by government in human history. It is the state control of pain relief and mental states.
The press is having a field day with the Matthew Perry story. They love to have a nice occasion to demonize drugs. I wonder how many decades must pass before they realize that people are killed by ignorance and a corrupted drug supply, not by the drugs themselves.
Here are some political terms that are extremely problematic in the age of the drug war:
"clean," "junk," "dope," "recreational"... and most of all the word "drugs" itself, which is as biased and loaded as the word "scab."
The idea that "drugs" have no medical benefits is not science, it is philosophy, and bad philosophy at that. It is based on the idea that benefits must be molecularly demonstratable and not created from mere knock-on psychological effects of drug use, time-honored tho' they be.
Kids should be taught beginning in grade school that drug prohibition is wrong.
Cop and detective shows are loaded with subtle drug war propaganda, including lines like, "She had a history of drug use, so..." The implication being that anyone who uses substances that politicians hate cannot be trusted.
Another problem with MindMed's LSD: every time I look it up on Google, I get a mess of links about the stock market. The drug is apparently a godsend for investors. They want to profit from LSD by neutering it and making it politically correct: no inspiration, no euphoria.
This is why America is creeping toward authoritarianism -- because of the prohibitionists' ability to get away with everything by blaming "drugs."
America is an "arrestocracy" thanks to the war on drugs.
Check out these prohibitionists who whine about the popularity of weed. It's like they outlawed steak and pork and then they complained about the popularity of chicken. I'd be more than happy to diversify my medicine cabinet once these clowns stop outlawing Mother Nature.
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