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 don't know what's worse, being ignored entirely or being answered with a simple "Thank you" or "I'll think about it." One writes thousands of words to raise questions that no one else is discussing and they are received and dismissed with a "Thank you." So much for discussion, so much for give-and-take. It's just plain considered bad manners these days to talk honestly about drugs. Academia is living in a fantasy world in which drugs are ignored and/or demonized -- and they are in no hurry to face reality. And so I am considered a troublemaker. This is understandable, of course. One can support gay rights, feminism, and LGBTQ+ today without raising collegiate hackles, but should one dare to talk honestly about drugs, they are exiled from the public commons.
Somebody needs to keep pointing out the sad truth about today's censored academia and how this self-censorship is but one of the many unacknowledged consequences of the drug war ideology of substance demonization.
Many of my essays are about and/or directed to specific individuals, some well-known, others not so well known, and some flat-out nobodies like myself. Here is a growing list of names of people with links to my essays that in some way concern them.
The drug war is being used as a wrecking ball to destroy democratic freedoms. It has destroyed the 4th amendment and freedom of religion and given the police the right to confiscate the property of peaceful and productive citizens.
Uruguay wants to re-legalize psilocybin mushrooms -- but only for use in a psychiatrist's office. So let me get this straight: psychiatrists are the new privileged shaman? It's a mushroom, for God's sake. Just re-legalize the damn thing and stop treating us like children.
An Englishman's home is his castle.
An American's home is a bouncy castle for the DEA.
People magazine should be fighting for justice on behalf of the thousands of American young people who are dying on the streets because of the drug war.
Before anyone receives shock therapy, they should have the option to start using opium daily instead and/or any other natural drug that makes them feel good and keeps them calm. Any natural drug is better than knowingly damaging the brain!!!
The DEA should be put on trial for crimes against humanity for withholding godsend medicine from the depressed. Here is just one typical drug-user report that appeared in "Pihkal": "A glimpse of what true heaven is supposed to feel like..."
Had the FDA been around in the Indus Valley 3,500 years ago, there would be no Hindu religion today, because they would have found some potential problem with the use of soma.
Opium could be a godsend for talk therapy. It can help the user step outside themselves and view their problems from novel viewpoints.
Scientists are censored as to what they can study thanks to drug law. Instead of protesting that outrage, they lend a false scientific veneer to those laws via their materialist obsession with reductionism, which blinds them to the obvious godsend effects of outlawed substances.
Drug prohibition represents the biggest power grab by government in human history. It is the state control of pain relief and mental states.
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)
