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The Racist Drug War killed George Floyd

by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

June 4, 2020



One of the cops on the scene for the George Floyd murder actually had the sick sense of humor to tell the onlookers to "just say no to drugs." That's a very telling comment, because it is the Drug War that first made it acceptable in America for the police to treat suspects like dirt. Just watch any cop show or movie about the Drug War: the good guys are those who call the bad guys scumbags, rough them up, kick down their front door, stomp through their house like the proverbial bull in a china shop, and do everything that they can to violate their constitutional rights. Why? Because the Drug War mentality tells them that it's all right to be as evil as they want to be whenever they're dealing with suspects who dare to sell Mother Nature's plant medicines to their fellow earthlings.

Of course, the George Floyd killing itself had nothing to do with so-called drugs, but the contempt that the officers showed for human life is precisely the kind of behavior that Americans celebrate every time they watch a cop show or a movie about the Drug War. This is because Drug Warriors have convinced us to forget about human rights when fighting so-called drugs. It's little surprise therefore that racist police officers embrace that sick attitude toward suspects even in cases that have nothing to do with drugs.

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LETTER TO Virginia Senator TIM KAINE about the murder of George Floyd by racist police officers.

Politicians need to show the link between the Drug War and George Floyd's murder. One of the accomplices taunted the crowd by saying, "Just say no to drugs." That is no coincidence, Senator. It is the Drug War that first empowered police to treat suspects like scumbags. The Drug War mentality says that all extreme measures are welcome when fighting those who trade in Mother Nature's plant medicines. Americans actually celebrate and "cheer on" this behavior in cop shows and Drug War movies 1 2 3 4 (like "Running with the Devil," in which the DEA agent freely tortures and murders drug suspects -- and yet she is the heroin 5 E of the film!!!)

Though the murder of George Floyd was not connected with "drugs," it was made possible by the callous attitude that cops have been taught to adopt when dealing with drug suspects. It's no surprise that racist cops would feel free to adopt that same callous attitude, drugs or no drugs, when they're dealing with suspects from racial groups that they have learned to dislike.

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^{The Drug War taught cops to treat suspects like scumbags. No wonder that one of the accomplices in George Floyd's murder taunted the crowd by saying: 'just say no to drugs'.}{

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June 1, 2022

The first step in fighting substance prohibition is to admit that it exists. That's not going to happen as long as reporters like Lisa Ling do documentaries about Chicago violence in which they never even mention the Drug War: .


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Notes:

1: Glenn Close but no cigar DWP (up)
2: Running with the torture loving DEA DWP (up)
3: Blast-off for Planet Hypocrisy! DWP (up)
4: Drug War Quotes in TV and Movies DWP (up)
5: Hall, Wayne, and Megan Weier. 2016. “Lee Robins’ Studies of Heroin Use among US Vietnam Veterans.” Addiction 112 (1): 176–80. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.13584. (up)




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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




The drug war tells us that certain drugs have no potential uses and then turns that into a self-fulfilling prophecy by outlawing these drugs. This is insanely anti-scientific and anti-progress. We should never give up on looking for positive uses for ANY substance.

DEA Stormtroopers should be held responsible for destroying American Democracy. Abolish the American Gestapo.

In the age of the Drug War, the Hippocratic Oath has become "First, do no good."

When we place the FDA in charge of deciding whether a psychoactive drug should be re-legalized or not, we are asking them to decide on things like the relative importance of appreciating a sunset, a task for which the FDA has no expertise whatsoever.

Trump's lies about America's voting process are typical NAZI and DRUG WAR strategy: raise mendacious doubts about whatever you want to destroy and keep repeating them. It's what Joseph Goebbels called "The Big Lie."

Psychiatrists keep flipping the script. When it became clear that SSRIs caused dependence, instead of apologizing, they told us we need to keep taking our meds. Now they even claim that criticizing SSRIs is wrong. This is anti-intellectual madness.

Don't the Oregon prohibitionists realize that all the thousands of deaths from opiates is so much blood on their hands?

The drug war is a way for conservatives to keep America's eyes OFF the prize. The right-wing motto is, "Billions for law enforcement, but not one cent for social programs."

"Those gentlemen who adopt the anti-opium doctrine... are only comparable to the monomaniac, who, sane upon every subject but one, is thoroughly daft upon that." --William Brereton

Properly speaking, MDMA has killed no one at all. Prohibitionists were delighted when Leah Betts died because they were sure it was BECAUSE of MDMA/Ecstasy. Whereas it was because of the fact that prohibitionists refuse to teach safe use.


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Unless otherwise indicated, no AI is used in the creation of site content. These essays represent the original ideas of their author and not the ideas that the author SHOULD have based on an algorithmic parsing of existing data. For more on this subject, consider the AI-related viewpoints to which the author subscribes as delineated in the New York Times opinion piece entitled "What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity" by Rebecca Winthrop of the Brookings Institution.

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Copyright 2026, Brian Ballard Quass Contact: quass@quass.com

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