The new American Conquistadores: using flame throwers to keep the world safe for Big Liquor
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
April 21, 2020
f 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 to which 1 in 8 American males and 1 in 4 American females are addicted even as I type this - with many SSRI antidepressants being harder to "kick" than heroin.
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." 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," 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!)
Rick Strassman reportedly stopped his DMT trials because some folks had bad experiences at high doses. That is like giving up on aspirin because high doses of NSAIDs can kill.
Two of the biggest promoters of the psychedelic renaissance shuffle their feet when you ask them about substance prohibition. Michael Pollan and Rick Strassman just don't get it: prohibition kills.
That's so "drug war" of Rick: If a psychoactive substance has a bad use at some dose, for somebody, then it must not be used at any dose by anybody. It's hard to imagine a less scientific proposition, or one more likely to lead to unnecessary suffering.
Most substance withdrawal would be EASY if drugs were re-legalized and we could use any substance we wanted to mitigate negative psychological effects.
If the depressed patient laughs, that means nothing. Materialists have to see results under a microscopic or they will never sign off on a therapy.
This massive concern for safety is downright bizarre in a country that will not even criminalize bump stocks for automatic weapons.
The FDA is not qualified to tell us whether holistic medicines work. They hold such drugs to materialist standards and that's pharmacological colonialism.
To understand why the western world is blind to the benefits of "drugs," read "The Concept of Nature" by Whitehead. He unveils the scientific schizophrenia of the west, according to which the "real" world is invisible to us while our perceptions are mere "secondary" qualities.
I'm told antidepressant withdrawal is fine because it doesn't cause cravings. Why is it better to feel like hell than to have a craving? In any case, cravings are caused by prohibition. A sane world could also end cravings with the help of other drugs.
"Can I use poppies, coca, laughing gas, MDMA?" "NO," says the materialist, "We must be SCIENTIFIC! We must fry your brain and give you a lobotomy and make you a patient for life with the psychiatric pill mill! That's true SCIENCE!"
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, The War on Plants: The new American Conquistadores: using flame throwers to keep the world safe for Big Liquor, published on April 21, 2020 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
f 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.
You have been reading an article entitled, The War on Plants: The new American Conquistadores: using flame throwers to keep the world safe for Big Liquor, published on April 21, 2020 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)