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 12 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 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
Someone needs to create a group called Drug Warriors Anonymous, a place where Americans can go to discuss their right to mind and mood medicine and to discuss the many ways in which our society trashes godsend medicines.
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.
Ug! Fire bad!
There were 4,731 fire-related deaths in America in 2023.
Learn more at the Partnership for a Death Free America.
The Drug War is a religion. The "addict" is a sinner who has to come home to the true faith of Christian Science. In reality, neither physical nor psychological addiction need be a problem if all drugs were legal and we used them creatively to counter problematic use.
The Drug War is a crime against humanity.
The main form of drug war propaganda is censorship. That's why most Americans cannot imagine any positive uses for psychoactive substances, because the media and the government won't allow that.
I have nothing against science, BTW (altho' I might feel differently after a nuclear war!) I just want scientists to "stay in their lane" and stop pretending to be experts on my own personal mood and consciousness.
Laughing gas inspired the philosophy of William James. Outlawing N20 is outlawing academic freedom. Laughing gas should be available for the suicidal. Drug prohibition is not a victimless crime.
The idea that "drugs" have no medical benefits is not science, it is philosophy, and bad philosophy at that. It is based on the idea that benefits must be molecularly demonstratable and not created from mere knock-on psychological effects of drug use, time-honored tho' they be.
This hysterical reaction to rare negative events actually creates more rare negative events. This is why the DEA publicizes "drug problems," because by making them well known, they make the problems more prevalent and can thereby justify their huge budget.
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