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The War on Plants

The new American Conquistadores: using flame throwers to keep the world safe for Big Liquor

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

April 21, 2020



If you ever want to understand how absurd the Drug War is, just substitute the word "plants" for "drugs" in your mind the next time politicians start blaming "drugs" for something.

"Today," says Donald Trump, "I am calling for the execution of those who deal in drugs."

TRANSLATION:

"Today, I am calling for the execution of those who deal in Mother Nature's plants."

For that's what the Drug War really is: A WAR ON PLANTS, and as such it is every bit as superstitious and idiotic as the war on plant-using females of the witch-hunt days, to which the Drug War is philosophically linked. For witch hunting never died out in America: it is alive and well. The Cotton Mathers of the 21st century have just replaced the word "witch" with the term "drug user" and gone on their merry way persecuting Americans whom they don't understand. What was the witch's crime, after all, but the fact that she achieved "forbidden knowledge" through the ritualistic use of psychoactive plants?

To put this another way: The Drug War is just a Christian Science crack down on those who use Mother Nature's medicines for psychological healing and to achieve higher states of consciousness.

Christian Scientists, as you know, believe that we should be able to cure ourselves physically without resorting to drugs. Likewise the Christian Science Drug Warrior believes we should be able to control our mood and our conscious states in general without resorting to plant medicine. I need hardly add that this latter Christian Science is hypocritical, since the Drug Warriors have no problem with tobacco or alcohol - or even with synthetic drugs from Big Pharma 1 2 to which 1 in 8 American males and 1 in 4 American females are addicted even as I type this - with many SSRI antidepressants 3 being harder to "kick" than heroin 4.

But Drug Warriors will never use the word "plants" for "drugs" because they know it will make them sound every bit as silly, stupid, and intolerant as they actually are.

Substitute "plants" for "drugs" and then think about so-called "drug testing 5 ." That all-American business practice suddenly turns into the extrajudicial enforcement of Christian Science Sharia.

This, my friends, is why the Drug War needs to end: not because "it does not work," as my fellow liberals are fond of saying, but because it should not work, it MUST NOT work in a free society, least of all in a country that was founded on natural law: i.e., the idea that there are some rights that the government cannot take away, even under the guise of protecting its citizens from themselves: and the most obvious natural right in the world is what John Locke called our right to the earth "and all that lies therein."

This is not rocket science. It is obviously absurd and unconstitutional to criminalize plants. But tyrants and worrywarts still get away with it. How? By strategically using the word "drugs" in place of "plants."


The Links Police



Do you know why I stopped you? That's right, because it would be criminal to have a discussion of this sort without adverting to the common sense adumbrations of Dawn Paley in Drug War capitalism . (That plus the fact that your left rear tail light is out.) Paley, Dawn. "Drug War capitalism ." AK Press. October 20, 2014. https://www.scribd.com/read/432856229/Drug-War-capitalism .


October 24, 2022

The above arguably interesting reflections were posted an entire 2 1/2 years ago, when Brian was still a kid, scarcely more than 61 years old at most. Oh, he knew that the Drug War was wrong back then too, of course, but he had yet to fathom the full extent of its negative impact on such diverse socio-cultural categories as academic freedom, civil rights, and religious liberty -- and how it has inspired what Thomas Szasz calls the "language of loathing" and turned the American moviegoer into a fascist who cheers on DEA agents as they plant evidence and shoot unarmed Latino suspects at point-blank range. Had Brian indited this broadside today, in the full wisdom of his years (he's now 64 if he's a day!), he would have surely adverted to Dawn Paley's insights in "Drug War capitalism 6 ," that 2014 must-read wherein we learn how the Drug Warrior dubs the time-honored Indigenous villages of Latin America as 'narco-communities' in order to justify their mass displacement and literally pave the way for Walmart and co. (Don't take it to heart, Brian, old boy, we were all young once -- some of us twice, even, with the help of godsend plant medicine and fungi!)

"The right to chew or smoke a plant that grows wild in nature, such as hemp (marijuana), is anterior to and more basic than the right to vote."
--Thomas Szasz, from Our Right to Drugs, p xvi7










Notes for essay entitled The War on Plants: The new American Conquistadores: using flame throwers to keep the world safe for Big Liquor:

1: Seife, Charles. 2012. “Is Drug Research Trustworthy?” Scientific American 307 (6): 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1212-56. (up)
2: LaMattina, John. n.d. “Why Is Biopharma Paying 75% of the FDA’s Drug Division Budget?” Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2022/09/22/why-is-biopharma-paying-75-of-the-fdas-drug-division-budget/. (up)
3: Antidepressants and the War on Drugs DWP (up)
4: 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)
5: Drug Testing and the Christian Science Inquisition DWP (up)
6: What the drug war tells us about American capitalism DWP (up)
7: Szasz, Thomas. 1992. Our Right to Drugs. Praeger. (up)




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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




We drastically limit drug choices, we refuse to teach safe use, and then we discover there's a gene to explain why some people have trouble with drugs. Science loves to find simple solutions to complex problems.

Saying "Fentanyl kills" is philosophically equivalent to saying "Fire bad!" Both statements are attempts to make us fear dangerous substances rather than to learn how to use them as safely as possible for human benefit.

That's why we damage the brains of the depressed with shock therapy rather than let them use coca or opium. That's why many regions allow folks to kill themselves but not to take drugs that would make them want to live. The Drug War is a perversion of social priorities.

I looked up the company: it's all about the damn stock market and money. The FDA outlaws LSD until we remove all the euphoria and the visions. That's ideology, not science. Just relegalize drugs and stop telling me how much ecstasy and insight I can have in my life!!

When people tell us there's nothing to be gained from using mind-improving drugs, they are embarrassing themselves. Users benefit from such drugs precisely to the extent that they are educated and open-minded. Loudmouth abstainers are telling us that they lack these traits.

Self-medication is not a dirty word. It has always been a fundamental right to take care of one's own health -- until the medical establishment demonized the practice for obvious financial reasons.

Prohibitionists think that they merely have to use the word "drugs" to win an argument.

There are endless creative ways to ward off addictions if all psychoactive medicines were at our disposal. The use of the drugs synthesized by Alexander Shulgin could combat the psychological downsides of withdrawal by providing strategic "as-needed" relief.

Addiction was not a big thing until the drug war. It's now the boogie-man with which drug warriors scare us into giving up our freedoms. But getting obsessed on one single drug is natural in the age of choice-limiting prohibition.

Drug use is judged by different standards than any other risky activity in the western world. One death can lead to outrage, even though that death might be statistically insignificant.


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