Last night, I watched a 25-minute YouTube interview with Nathan Lake, an expat travel writer living in Ecuador. It was a highly informative video about living in South America, especially for someone like myself who is thinking of retiring in that country beginning in June of next year. However, the host made a comment at the halfway point which stuck in my proverbial craw. It was the kind of comment that sounds innocent at first blush but which makes one think twice as they contemplate the problematic assumptions behind the utterance. I hoped to cite the comment verbatim for you, but the YouTube transcript option seems unavailable on this video, so I will paraphrase the host's remarks instead, assuring you as I do so that the following quote grasps the spirit, if not the letter, of his troubling adumbrations. I refrain from posting the name of the host here, since my goal is to expose the racist nature of the mainstream mindset about drugs and not to trash any particular person for holding it, especially when the offender is obviously unaware of the racist implications of that mindset.
I hate to even ask you about violence in Ecuador," quoth the host (more or less), "because we know in America that the problems with guns and things are in specific places, so as long as you avoid those places, you will be fine."
Now, it's a simple statement of fact, right? We avoid the violent places. That's common sense. And yet to me it also represents the attitude that keeps Americans happy with the War on Drugs: the victims of that war are in specific places, after all; nay, they are different kinds of people than we are, belonging to specific races and economic classes, and so if we just ignore them, we will be fine. It's not a problem if they are gunning themselves down thanks to prohibition in some little corner of the world that we never visit. It's not affecting us. We know how to steer clear of the carnage that we ourselves are causing by knowingly promulgating a policy that created the Mafia as we know it today and is responsible for the influx of massive armaments into the 'hood. We can carry on with life as normal, as long as we pretend that such victims do not exist.
In other words, such comments are "all of a piece" with the Drug Warrior's absurd belief that the Drug War has no downsides. And they're right: of course. The Drug War has no downsides... for them. The Drug War's downsides are reserved for the invisible minorities that simply do not count.
Author's Follow-up: March 22, 2024
If you want to uncover unconscious racism, just watch some YouTube videos about moving to Latin America. The hosts will "blow off" violence in countries like Mexico and Ecuador by saying things like, "It's not a problem for us, really," ("us" apparently meaning "relatively rich expats"). "You've just got to know the places to avoid."
But this attitude is the whole problem when it comes to the Drug War. Rich westerners do not think of prohibition as a problem because it isn't one for them, and they do not lose any sleep worrying about the demographics for which the Drug War IS a problem. The victims are nameless minorities, after all, with addresses like "the 9000 Block of Water Street" or some other godforsaken location that is conjured by the very word 'downtown' these days when used in crime reports. "Gang shooting killed five in Baltimore? Not to worry, that shooting happened DOWNTOWN, after all, where you've got to expect such things."
I just saw a video about moving to Mexico, in fact, in which the host pooh-poohed the idea that the country was dangerous, saying that she hadn't noticed any major problems. But then she can hardly expect to see the 60,000 people who have been "disappeared" thanks to the Drug War1, nor the 39,000 whose bodies are tucked away in the country's morgues, still waiting to be identified by next-of-kin2.
When it comes to the downsides of the Drug War, the attitude of the reasonably well-off travel show host seems to be: "Don't ask, don't tell," or rather, "Don't worry, be happy."
What is the end game of the drug warrior? A world in which no one wants drugs? That's not science. It's the drug-hating religion of Christian Science. You know, the American religion that outsources its Inquisition to drug-testing labs.
M. Pollan says "not so fast" when it comes to drug re-legalization. I say FAST? I've gone a whole lifetime w/o access to Mother Nature's plants. How can a botanist approve of that? Answer: By ignoring all legalization stakeholders except for the kids whom we refuse to educate.
Immanuel Kant wrote that scientists are scornful about metaphysics yet they rely on it themselves without realizing it. This is a case in point, for the idea that euphoria and visions are unhelpful in life is a metaphysical viewpoint, not a scientific one.
Proof that materialism is wrong is "in the pudding." It is why scientists are not calling for the use of laughing gas and MDMA by the suicidal. Because they refuse to recognize anything that's obvious. They want their cures to be demonstrated under a microscope.
It's because of such reductive pseudoscience that America will allow us to shock the brains of the depressed but won't allow us to let them use the plant medicines that grow at their feet.
The "acceptable risk" for psychoactive drugs can only be decided by the user, based on what they prioritize in life. Science just assumes that all users should want to live forever, self-fulfilled or not.
The whole drug war is based on the anti-American idea that the way to avoid problems is to lie and prevaricate and persuade people not to ask questions.
MDMA legalization has suffered a setback by the FDA. These are the people who think Electro Shock Therapy is not used often enough! What sick priorities.
Musk vies with his fellow materialists in his attempt to diss humans as insignificant. But we are not insignificant. The very term "insignificant" is a human creation. Consciousness rules. Indeed, consciousness makes the rules. Without us, there would only be inchoate particles.
If I want to use the kind of drugs that have inspired entire religions, fight depression, or follow up on the research of William James into altered states, I should not have to live in fear of the DEA crashing down my door and shouting: "GO! GO! GO!"
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