and how we respond to it -- an open letter to Professor Nathan Nobis
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
April 12, 2022
ood morning, Professor Nobis.
I am a 64-year-old philosopher and the founder of abolishthedea.com, where I post a wide variety of philosophical arguments against America's Drug War.
I just wanted to share with you a few ideas I have on the subject, if you have a moment. I'll try not to presume too much on your time, however, because if you have any real interest, you can always browse my writings on the topic at abolishthedea.com.
Here then are ten points that I believe receive "short shrift" by current opponents of the Drug War:
1. The Drug War is a violation of the natural law upon which Jefferson founded America, because it involves the government telling us which plants we can have access to -- whereas John Locke himself wrote in his second treatise on government that human beings have a right to the use of the land "and all that lies therein." (Surely Jefferson was rolling in his grave when the DEA stomped onto Monticello in 1987 and confiscated his poppy plants.)
2. The Drug War represents a wrong way of looking at the world. To understand this, we merely need to replace the political term "drugs" with the term "godsend plant medicine." In short, the Drug War makes sense only if we take a jaundiced Christian Science view of the medical bounty of Mother Nature (which is really an anti-Christian outlook since the Christian God himself said that his creation was good).
3. Which brings me to point 3: the Drug War can be seen as the enforcement of the Christian Science religion with respect to psychoactive medicine. The government requires us to believe that drugs are morally bad in this latter case.
4. Drug testing is wrong because it punishes people, not for impairment, but for the mere use (however dated and fleeting) of a proscribed substance. In this sense, it is an extrajudicial "fishing expedition" by corporations acting on behalf of the federal government. Moreover, the punishment is cruel and unusual, insofar as it involves the removal of the "guilty" party from the American workforce without trial, a punishment not even inflicted on paroled murderers.
5. Many opponents of the Drug War (especially libertarians) start on "the back foot," since they effectively agree with the prohibitionist notion that there is no reasonable use for "drugs." This standpoint ignores the fact that the Vedic religion was inspired by the psychoactive impact of botanicals, that Plato's view of the afterlife was inspired by the psychedelic-fueled Eleusinian mysteries, that Benjamin Franklin, Marcus Aurelius and many poets and authors have profited from opium use, and that coca has been used for centuries by South American cultures and inspired the writings of such authors as HG Wells, Jules Verne, Alexandre Dumas, and Henrik Ibsen.
6. In light of point 5 above, the Drug War may be seen not simply as the outlawing of a religion, but rather as the outlawing of the very fountainhead of the religious impulse.
7. The Drug War has government dictating what can be studied by scientists in the same way that the Church once dictated terms to Galileo, with the exception being that Galileo recognized that he was being censored, while modern scientists almost never acknowledge this censorship, so used have they become (through lifelong indoctrination) to considering Drug War prohibitions to be a natural baseline for modern research, thereby drastically limiting their conception of what drug-aided wonders might be possible with respect to improving human happiness, learning potential, ability to overcome addiction and depression, and even bringing about world peace (considering how Ecstasy brought peace, love and understanding to a multiethnic dance floor -- before being shut down by prohibitionists who couldn't get their minds around the fact that this utopia was brought about by a "drug"). Even the fight against Alzheimer's and autism is stymied by our outlawing of medications that show great prima facie potential for ameliorating if not curing these conditions (as, for instance, psychedelics can generate new neurons and new neuronal connections).
8. Almost no drug-war critic holds the Drug War responsible for the fact that 1 in 4 American women must take a Big Pharma med every day of their life (far more than were ever "habitues" of opium prior to 1914), and that the meds in question can be harder to kick than heroin thanks to the way that they change brain chemistry, without yet "fixing" the depression at which they were targeted (source: Julie Holland).
9. In light of point 8 above, we can see how the term "addict" is a political term in a Drug War society. Before prohibition, opium users were "habitues." Only after 1914 were they demonized as "addicts." Likewise, a lifetime heroin user is deemed an "addict" (with all the judgmental baggage that implies) while the lifelong user of a modern antidepressant is not only NOT an addict, but is someone whom we actually tell to "keep taking their meds."
10. Drug war propaganda is spread in very subtle ways. Academic papers about "drugs" almost always focus on misuse, abuse and addiction, thereby giving the impression to those who merely browse such collections that outlawed substances do absolutely nothing other than pose a threat to human health. The articles may all be 100% accurate and yet the collective effect of these articles is misleading because it is ahistorical and ignores a world of therapeutic possibilities that we have dogmatically decided to ignore on an a priori basis.
As said, I do not want to presume on your time. Suffice it to say that my drug-war focus and belief is the following: that the Drug War is far more insidious and wrong than almost any Drug War critic has yet realized, and that the Drug War can be shown to cause all of the problems that it purports to fix, and then some.
My goal is to share ideas like these that I do not think have been adequately considered by drug-war opponents, and I hope you find these ideas interesting and useful in fighting the war on the war on drugs.
Best Wishes!
Brian Quass
abolishthedea.com
PS I personally feel that the modern attempt to roll back the Drug War is unnecessarily defensive, often starting on the assumption that "drugs" really are bad and unnecessary. I would advocate an offensive approach, wherein we push for the legal prosecution of the DEA for crimes, such as lying about plant medicine for the last half century and poisoning Americans with a weed killer that causes Parkinson's Disease (and which was known to be deadly to human beings even at the time that it was first employed by Reagan's Jefferson-busting DEA).
November 10, 2022
Brian failed to point out, bless him, that Professor Nobis is a bioethics philosopher at Morehouse College. Nor has our author made it entirely clear why he contacted Nathan in the first place. This is a trifle puzzling, given his worship's usual rigor on such points. Fortunately, the admittedly interesting observations enumerated above can stand on their own. Still, one can't help speculating about the nature of the no-doubt fascinating article and/or opinion piece that prompted them.
Author's Follow-up: November 10, 2022
Professor Nobis has not yet quite seen his way clear to respond to me. But it's early days. Watch this space for developments.
Open Letters
Check out the conversations that I have had so far with the movers and shakers in the drug-war game -- or rather that I have TRIED to have. Actually, most of these people have failed to respond to my calls to parlay, but that need not stop you from reading MY side of these would-be chats.
I used to be surprised at this reticence on the part of modern drug-war pundits, until I realized that most of them are materialists. That is, most of them believe in (or claim to believe in) the psychiatric pill mill. If they happen to praise psychedelic drugs as a godsend for the depressed, they will yet tell us that such substances are only for those whose finicky body chemistries fail to respond appropriately to SSRIs and SNRIs. The fact is, however, there are thousands of medicines out there that can help with psychological issues -- and this is based on simple psychological common sense. But materialist scientists ignore common sense. That's why Dr. Robert Glatter wrote an article in Forbes magazine wondering if laughing gas could help the depressed.
As a lifelong depressive, I am embarrassed for Robert, that he has to even ask such a question. Of course laughing gas could help. Not only is laughter "the best medicine," as Readers Digest has told us for years, but looking forward to laughing is beneficial too. But materialist scientists ignore anecdote and history and tell us that THEY will be the judge of psychoactive medicines, thank you very much. And they will NOT judge such medicines by asking folks like myself if they work but rather by looking under a microscope to see if they work in the biochemical way that materialists expect.
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.
That's the problem with prohibition. It is not ultimately a health question but a question about priorities and sensibilities -- and those topics are open to lively debate and should not be the province of science, especially when natural law itself says mother nature is ours.
If you're looking for an anti-Christ, just look for an American presidential politician who has taught us to hate our enemies. Gee, now, who could that be, huh? According to Trump, Jesus was just a chump. Winning comes before anything at all in his sick view of life.
Here's one problem that supporters of the psychiatric pill mill never address: the fact that Big Pharma antidepressants demoralize users by turning them into patients for life.
Oregon has decided to go back to the braindead plan of treating substance use as a police matter. Might as well arrest people at home since America has already spread their drug-hating Christian Science religion all over the world.
"There has been so much delirious nonsense written about drugs that sane men may well despair of seeing the light." -- Aleister Crowley, from "Essays on Intoxication"
In "How to Change Your Mind," Michael Pollan says psychedelic legalization would endanger young people. What? Prohibition forces users to decide for themselves which mushrooms are toxic, or to risk buying contaminated product. And that's safe, Michael?
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.
When folks banned opium, they did not just ban a drug: they banned the philosophical and artistic insights that the drug has been known to inspire in writers like Poe, Lovecraft and De Quincey.
I have yet to find one psychiatrist who acknowledges the demoralizing power of being turned into a patient for life. They never list that as a potential downside of antidepressant use.
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, Top 10 Problems with the Drug War: and how we respond to it -- an open letter to Professor Nathan Nobis, published on April 12, 2022 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)
ood morning, Professor Nobis.
You have been reading an article entitled, Top 10 Problems with the Drug War: and how we respond to it -- an open letter to Professor Nathan Nobis, published on April 12, 2022 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)