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The Medicalization of Life is the natural result of drug prohibition in a scientistic society

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

March 10, 2026



I continue to be the only pundit to draw the obvious connections between drug prohibition and social problems. Most recently I pointed out how assisted suicide for the depressed cannot be discussed meaningfully without discussing the drug prohibition which renders it necessary in the first place (at least in the minds of the depressed)1. We outlaw all the drugs that could cheer a person up, and then we give them the right to kill themselves if they become too depressed. Go figure! But while I wait for any of the pundits in the debate to recognize my existence, I have discovered a new obvious connection between drug prohibition and social problems, to wit: the medicalization of life, first unveiled by mavericks like Ivan Illich2 and Thomas Szasz3, is powered by drug prohibition -- indeed, it could not exist without drug prohibition.

Most people would get on with their lives with the strategic use of godsend medicines and not listen to sermons about brain chemistry and their need to put their life in the hands of doctors. No one would see a reason to become a ward of the healthcare state by swallowing pills that are far harder to kick than heroin 4. Absent drug prohibition, no one would need to turn themselves into a childlike ward of the healthcare state.









Notes for essay entitled The Medicalization of Life is the natural result of drug prohibition in a scientistic society:

1: No one would need assisted suicide if we ended drug prohibition: what Claire Brosseau's case tells us about the warped mindset of the west when it comes to drugs DWP (up)
2: Illich, Ivan. 1977. Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/544958. (up)
3: “Medicalization of Everyday Life, the – Syracuse University Press.” 2026. Syr.edu. 2026. https://press.syr.edu/supressbooks/953/medicalization-of-everyday-life/. (up)
4: Heroin versus Antidepressants DWP (up)




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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




Prohibition never ended. Busybody Americans just gave alcohol a big Mulligan for killing 178,000 a year in America alone and then began fighting to outlaw everything else.

Materialist scientists cannot triumph over addiction because their reductive focus blinds them to the obvious: namely, that drugs which cheer us up ACTUALLY DO cheer us up. Hence they keep looking for REAL cures while folks kill themselves for want of laughing gas and MDMA.

"My faith votes and strives to outlaw religions that use substances of which politicians disapprove."

If there was free speech in America, we would see billboards demanding freedom to use psychoactive substances for religious purposes, or to heal, or to follow-up on the research of William James regarding the nature of human consciousness.

Drug testing labs should give high marks for those who manage to use drugs responsibly, notwithstanding the efforts of law enforcement to ruin their lives. The lab guy would be like: "Wow, you are using opium wisely, my friend! Congratulations! Your boss is lucky to have you!"

The drug war outlaws everything that could help both prevent addiction and treat it. And then they justify the war on drugs by scaring people with the specter of addiction. They NEED addiction to keep the drug war going.

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.

There are times when it is clearly WRONG to deny kids drugs (whatever the law may say). If your child is obsessed with school massacres, he or she is an excellent candidate for using empathogenic meds ASAP -- or do we prefer even school shootings to drug use???

In "Psychedelic Refugee," Rosemary Leary writes: "Fueled by small doses of LSD, almost everything was amusing or weird." -- Rosemary Leary In a non-brainwashed world, such testimony would suggest obvious ways to help the depressed.

Freud found that cocaine CURED most people's depression and he "got off it" without trouble.


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Book Cover

Break the ice with a sledgehammer: place this book on your coffee table.

This book features 150 annotated images, designed to force brainwashed Americans to confront the fact that drug prohibition is wrong. Here is what author Richard Parrish II says of the book's compiler: "The drug prohibition philosopher provides first-hand, principled, persuasive, and insightful arguments against the current drug prohibition regime..."

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Book Cover

Diary of a Drug Fiend

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