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Time to Glorify Drug Use

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

March 28, 2023



One of the main themes of my site is that the Drug War is based on a huge number of misconceptions. One of the least recognized but most muddleheaded misconception is the idea that we should not "glorify" drug use1.

Oh, really? Why not?

We glorify alcohol and tobacco use every day in TV, movies and magazines. We even glorify the UNSAFE use of these substances. The Andy Griffith show had its own resident drunk, who had apparently learned to "let go and let liquor." The movie "Arthur" shamelessly glorified the lifestyle of an unapologetic drunkard. The protagonists of modern movies are often regular chimneypots, scornful (indeed almost proud) of the risks that they are taking by puffing away on so-called "cancer sticks."

Speaking of "cancer sticks," I almost gasped out loud the first time I heard that phrase back in the early '90s. It was uttered in an offhand manner by my niece who was a preteen at the time, and I thought to myself: "Bless my heart, they must be using vivid imagery in those DARE classes that she's been attending."

Well, folks, guess whose niece grew up to be a regular smoker? So much for the power of vivid imagery.

The fact is that nobody rushed out to become a drunkard after the release of the movie "Arthur" in 1981. Then again, if they had done so, we would not have heard about it, because the media would not have been in a hurry to draw a connection between that "lovable" romance comedy and a horrid addiction. Now, had Arthur been a fan of opium , reporters would have been sent out like hound dogs to find connections between the airing of the film and addiction. And they may have even found a few cases that seemed relevant (hey, it's a big world out there) - but not to worry. A few cases is all the media would need to denounce the movie as "a clarion call for addicts to 'take up thy pipe.'" In fact, one single solitary gnarly story of addiction on the front page of a tabloid could have caused the Academy to revoke any awards with which they might otherwise have felt tempted to grace such a film.

Yet we have heard this mantra for so long - "don't glorify drug use" - that it seems like a law of nature. But WHY should we not glorify drug use? Because it can be dangerous? True, anything can be dangerous if undertaken by the uninformed - but in that case, why do we glorify NASCAR racing and free climbing? Why do we glorify stunt-plane flying and water skiing? Why do we glorify sky-diving and ice hockey? Surely all those activities are extremely dangerous when engaged in by the uninformed.

Why then do we bar glorification only in the case of drugs?

It is because those who made this rule against "glorification" falsely believe that drugs are things that "have no good uses, for anyone, anywhere, in any dosage, at any time, for any reason, ever."

Now, if that were true, then we should not "glorify" drugs, since they are completely evil: they have no positive uses whatsoever.

And yet this is a bald-faced lie. There are no substances in the world that "have no good uses, for anyone, anywhere, in any dosage, at any time, for any reason, ever." Even cyanide has positive uses.

So there is no special reason why we should refrain from glorifying drug use - except for the fact that we have been programmed since childhood to regard the politically created category of "drugs" as highly dangerous in a way that nothing else in the world is - even free climbing. This fear has been greatly enhanced by the most mendacious lie in the history of public service announcements, the 1980s ad in which the Partnership for a Drug Free America 2 told us that "drugs" fry the brain3, when, to the contrary, many "drugs" increase neural connections and even grow new neurons in the brain. Ironically, if any substances fry the brain, they are modern Big Pharma 4 5 drugs, a contention that I make based on 40 years of firsthand experience with the same.

Why should we not glorify substances that have inspired entire religions? Why should we not glorify substances that have inspired great literature? Why should we not glorify substances that have changed the user's world view for the better?

I'd like to see movies that glorify the use of opium 6 and coca and ibogaine and ayahuasca and peyote, or any of the hundreds of psychedelic godsends synthesized by Alexander Shulgin. Of course, due to the brainwashing referred to above, the movie would probably have to end with an on-screen bromide about safe use, saying something like: "Of course, these substances must be used safely, etc." That said, we never see such disclaimers after movies 7 8 like "Arthur." "Warning: in real life, alcoholism is not always connected with a cheerful disposition and a carefree romance."

Author's Follow-up: March 28, 2023


Back in the early '90s, I was still bamboozled by Drug War lies. I sensed that criminalization was all a crock of shit, but I had yet to open my mind to the way that the Drug War ruins absolutely everything it touches. However, when my preteen niece casually referred to cigarettes as "coffin sticks" out of the blue, I really thought that she was being indoctrinated with an alarming degree of intolerance by the DARE organization. She hadn't been taught to understand facts: she had been taught to feel certain emotions instead.

But this is what the Drug War is all about: it's not to teach you about "drugs," it's rather to get you to feel the politically correct emotions about "drugs," namely fear and disdain -- all in the name of an unspoken commitment to the theological notions of Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the drug-hating Church of Christian Science.









Notes:

1: Glorifying Beneficial Drug Use DWP (up)
2: Horses Kill The Partnership for a Death Free America (up)
3: Meds fry the brain, not drugs DWP (up)
4: Seife, Charles. 2012. “Is Drug Research Trustworthy?” Scientific American 307 (6): 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1212-56. (up)
5: 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)
6: The Truth About Opium by William H. Brereton DWP (up)
7: Glenn Close but no cigar DWP (up)
8: Running with the torture loving DEA DWP (up)




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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




Here are some political terms that are extremely problematic in the age of the drug war: "clean," "junk," "dope," "recreational"... and most of all the word "drugs" itself, which is as biased and loaded as the word "scab."

Harm Reduction is not enough. We need Benefit Production as well. The autistic should be able to use compassion-enhancing drugs; dementia patients should be able to use drugs that speed up and sharpen mental processes.

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.

Prohibitionists have the same M O they've had for the last 100+ years: blame drugs for everything. Being a drug warrior is never having the decency to say you're sorry -- not to Mexicans, not to inner-city crime victims, not to patients who go without adequate pain relief...

If drug warriors were serious about saving lives, they'd outlaw guns, cars, and all pleasure trips to Mars.

Drug Warriors should be legally banned from watching or reading Sherlock Holmes stories, since in their world, it is a crime for such people as Sherlock Holmes to exist, i.e., people who use medicines to improve their mind and mood.

Drug warriors abuse the English language.

In the Atomic Age Declassified, they tell us that we needed hundreds of thermonuclear tests so that scientists could understand the effects. That's science gone mad. Just like today's scientists who need more tests before they can say that laughing gas will help the depressed. Science today is all about ignoring the obvious.

What prohibitionists forget is that every popular but dangerous activity, from horseback riding to drug use, will have its victims. You cannot save everybody, and when you try to do so by law, you kill far more than you save, meanwhile destroying democracy in the process.

Americans outlaw drugs and then insist that those drugs did not have much to offer in any case. It's like I took away your car and then told you that car ownership was overrated.


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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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