How brainwashed Americans pretend that drug prohibition does not exist
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
April 2, 2025
f a reader of my essays should ever seek to enumerate the overall themes of my philosophy against drug prohibition, they will discover that I am routinely advancing one single proposition: namely, the idea that most of the push-button social issues of our time can be considered in two different ways - 1) in light of drug-war prohibition and 2) in a sort of dogmatic ignoration of that prohibition - and that the conclusions gleaned from these two different perspectives will be very different indeed. Take the subject of antidepressants and their value in therapy1. If we take drug prohibition as a natural baseline, then antidepressants are the only game in town, at least for the severely depressed, and so they warrant consideration in the treatment of deeply depressed individuals. However, if we consider antidepressants in the light of wholesale drug prohibition, our conclusion is very different indeed. For we then must acknowledge the inconvenient truth that there is a vast pharmacopoeia of drugs out there - both potential and actual - that can elate and inspire in real-time - indeed, that the Hindu religion itself was inspired by just such a drug2 -- and so the question quickly becomes, "Why are we settling for a handful of Big Pharma treatments that have been formulated in such a way as to turn the depressed user into a patient for life by causing a chemical dependency that is tougher to kick than that of heroin?3"
Of course, those who consider antidepressants from the latter point of view still have to deal with the fact that all meaningful pharmacological alternatives to antidepressants are outlawed, but at least they do so without gaslighting the depressed by implicitly denying the obvious therapeutic power of a vast pharmacopoeia of alternative godsends. These latter disputants at least acknowledge that there is a problem here! They speak up for the depressed who have lost the right to the best possible therapy thanks to substance prohibition. Those who discuss antidepressants while ignoring prohibition, however, are implying thereby that antidepressants are somehow good in and of themselves and that it is "good riddance" as far as the vast outlawed pharmacopoeia is concerned. They are essentially telling the depressed that they should be happy with their starkly limited pharmacopoeia and that there is no problem here whatsoever. They are, in short, doing their "patient" an injustice by failing to stand up for their right to the best possible therapy. They are working instead to normalize drug prohibition by pretending that it leads to the best possible outcome. They are pusillanimously joining the drug prohibition bandwagon rather than fighting on behalf of the rights of their patients.
But antidepressants are just one of the many modern topics about which our conclusions will vary sharply depending upon whether or not we acknowledge that drug prohibition exists and that this fact has consequences.
Take the problem of suicide4. When we consider the problem in light of drug prohibition, we immediately see a terrible injustice here: namely, the fact that we have outlawed all sorts of medicines that could cheer up the suicidal in a trice and which could be part of an endless list of psychologically common-sense protocols based on individual circumstances. See the drug-user reports in Pihkal5 for proof of the ecstatic and inspirational potential of phenethylamines, for instance. Instead, almost everyone thinks of suicide as having nothing to do with drug prohibition. Just try to discuss drugs in a suicide forum and you will see what I mean: they will ask you to go elsewhere. And what is the practical result of this dogmatic oversight on our part? We actually prefer that the depressed commit suicide rather than that they use "drugs." Let me repeat that: We actually prefer that the depressed commit suicide rather than that they use "drugs."6 Nor are we honest enough to admit this openly. We merely shut our mouths about prohibition. If these anti-suicide organizations really wanted to stop suicides, they would demand the re-legalization of godsend medicines and call for a complete dissolution of America's superstitious and fearful attitude toward drugs. If they really wanted to make progress and were not subconsciously interested in toeing the drug-war party line, then the anti-suicide movement would become, first and foremost, an anti-prohibition movement.
And the list goes on. Electroshock therapy7 is yet another topic about which we will draw very different conclusions depending upon whether or not we acknowledge the existence of drug prohibition.
If we simply ignore prohibition and look at a deeply depressed individual, we might say, "Well, we have tried everything else, and so now we have to take drastic measures by damaging the patient's brain." But, of course, the fact is, we have NOT tried everything else: we have tried only the sorts of drugs and treatments that politicians will allow us to try. When we consider electroshock therapy in light of substance prohibition, we see a huge injustice. We see that people like my uncle have their brains damaged so that they will be less depressed - but NOT so that they can thrive in life. We do not WANT such individuals to thrive in life. We specifically deny them the drugs that could help them do just that. And yet if you try to discuss drugs in an anti-ECT forum, you are likely to be booted from the group. It is clear, however, that anti-ECT organizations should be anti-prohibition organizations if their number-one goal was really to end shock therapy. But just like the anti-suicide folk, they have a "prior commitment" to supporting the drug-hating ideology of the War on Drugs. They would rather that we damage a patient's brain than to have them use drugs. Let me repeat that: they would rather that we damage a patient's brain than to have them use drugs.8 If this were not the case, then enemies of shock therapy would be standing outside the clinics whenever such procedures were performed, holding signs that read: "End shock therapy! Re-legalize godsend medicines NOW!"
Here is yet another topic that will be seen in two different ways, depending upon whether or not we acknowledge the existence of drug prohibition: police brutality and the rights of minorities.
If we consider drug prohibition, we see that drug laws have given racist white police officers carte blanche to be as evil as they want to be when it comes to minorities. The George Floyd9 case is just one case in point. It is a particularly "telling" example insofar as the officers on the scene actually told the bystanders to "Just say no to drugs" as they were throttling their victim. (The perpetrators were all but telling the minority onlookers: "See, folks? Drug prohibition gives us this power over you guys in the first place! And we cops LOVE IT!") When we fail to acknowledge this connection between injustice and substance prohibition, when we pretend that prohibition does not exist, then the problem of police brutality becomes much more diffuse and hard to deal with. Fans of civil liberties have to look at themselves in the mirror and ask: "Do we wish to end the blatant misuse of power by the police or do we prefer to keep supporting Drug War prohibition by our silence on the subject?" They cannot do both. When we acknowledge the role of the Drug War in instigating violence against minorities, we can imagine concrete measures to fight back, namely by ending drug prohibition; when we treat the instigated violence as just generically "systemic" in origin, however (i.e., as having no direct connection with the drug prohibition which enabled it in the first place), then we are left with a laundry list of merely "secondary targets" to attack in our war against injustice. We have ceded the principal battlefield to our opponents. This is why I say that the Black Lives Matter movement should be, first and foremost, an anti-prohibition movement, and for the same reasons that I have called upon the anti-suicide and anti-ECT movements to adopt the same strategy above.
We see then that the downsides of substance prohibition are hidden in plain sight thanks to the fact that Americans refuse to talk about them. We refuse to hold substance prohibition responsible for the evil that it both creates and facilitates: like unnecessary suicides, unnecessary shock therapy, and unnecessary violence against Blacks, etc. Instead, we take this unprecedented outlawing of godsend medicines as a natural baseline from which to evaluate the issues of our time. In fact, we even take substance prohibition as a natural baseline in science! This is why readers of magazines like Psychology Today and Science News and Scientific American come away with the impression that depression is a tough nut to crack - that we need to spend more millions on studying chemical pathways and dopamine levels - when the simple fact is that we could end depression in real-time with the common-sense use of psychoactive medicines. Unfortunately, scientists do not believe in common sense thanks to their adherence to the inhumane doctrine of behaviorism when it comes to mind and mood medicine. But history does not lie. The use of psychoactive Soma inspired and elated, to the point that it inspired the creation of the Hindu religion. Only a dogmatic materialist could fail to see the obvious implications of this fact for the treatment of depression and other mood disorders: namely, that we do not need more behaviorist studies by the NIH: we simply need to end prohibition once and for all and to start using godsend drugs in common-sense protocols, unhindered by the dehumanizing tenets of behaviorism.
AFTERWORD
I hope I have made my case that America's public discussion on the push-button problems of our time is biased by our refusal to acknowledge the role that drug prohibition plays in causing and/or exacerbating those very problems. This is the result of the cradle-to-grave brainwashing that we have all received from a government and media determined to shield us from any reports of positive drug use for positive purposes. The success of that propaganda campaign of censorship is alarming when you consider that most history books about the 20th century do not even MENTION the War on Drugs. Nor is it simply conservative historians like Paul Johnson10 who ignore the Drug War: progressive Harold Zinn never once mentions drug prohibition in his "A People's History of the United States.11" And yet the Drug War is an unprecedented power grab by government, putting bureaucrats in charge of how and how much the citizen is allowed to think and feel in this life. It is the unprecedented wholesale outlawing of psychoactive medicine under the childish belief that the plants and fungi of mother nature pose a threat to the national security of our country. The failure of American historians to even mention this unprecedented government coup should be alarming to freedom lovers anywhere. It is just another sign that the Drug War is the enemy of both democratic freedoms and common sense.
That's so "drug war" of Rick: If a psychoactive substance has a bad use at some dose, for somebody, then it must not be used at any dose by anybody. It's hard to imagine a less scientific proposition, or one more likely to lead to unnecessary suffering.
I've been told by many that I should have seen "my doctor" before withdrawing from Effexor. But, A) My doctor got me hooked on the junk in the first place, and, B) That doctor completely ignores the OBVIOUS benefits of indigenous meds and focuses only on theoretical downsides.
Drug warriors are too selfish and short-sighted to fight real problems, so they blame everything on drugs.
The Petpedia website says that "German Shepherds need to have challenging jobs such as searching for drugs." How about searching for prohibitionists instead?
"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."
At best, antidepressants make depression bearable. We need not settle for such drugs, especially when they are notorious for causing dependence. There are many drugs that elate and inspire. It is both cruel and criminal to outlaw them.
The government causes problems for those who are habituated to certain drugs. Then they claim that these problems are symptoms of an illness. Then folks like Gabriel Mate come forth to find the "hidden pain" in "addicts." It's one big morality play created by drug laws.
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.
To understand why the western world is blind to the benefits of "drugs," read "The Concept of Nature" by Whitehead. He unveils the scientific schizophrenia of the west, according to which the "real" world is invisible to us while our perceptions are mere "secondary" qualities.
"If England [were to] revert to pre-war conditions, when any responsible person, by signing his name in a book, could buy drugs at a fair profit on cost price... the whole underground traffic would disappear like a bad dream." -- Aleister Crowley
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, The Invisible Drug War: How brainwashed Americans pretend that drug prohibition does not exist, published on April 2, 2025 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)
f a reader of my essays should ever seek to enumerate the overall themes of my philosophy against drug prohibition, they will discover that I am routinely advancing one single proposition: namely, the idea that most of the push-button social issues of our time can be considered in two different ways - 1) in light of drug-war prohibition and 2) in a sort of dogmatic ignoration of that prohibition - and that the conclusions gleaned from these two different perspectives will be very different indeed. Take the subject of antidepressants and their value in therapy1. If we take drug prohibition as a natural baseline, then antidepressants are the only game in town, at least for the severely depressed, and so they warrant consideration in the treatment of deeply depressed individuals. However, if we consider antidepressants in the light of wholesale drug prohibition, our conclusion is very different indeed. For we then must acknowledge the inconvenient truth that there is a vast pharmacopoeia of drugs out there - both potential and actual - that can elate and inspire in real-time - indeed, that the Hindu religion itself was inspired by just such a drug2 -- and so the question quickly becomes, "Why are we settling for a handful of Big Pharma treatments that have been formulated in such a way as to turn the depressed user into a patient for life by causing a chemical dependency that is tougher to kick than that of heroin?3" 
You have been reading an article entitled, The Invisible Drug War: How brainwashed Americans pretend that drug prohibition does not exist, published on April 2, 2025 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)
