by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
July 5, 2021
Just read an article by Troy Ange and Zane Kaleem on Medpage Today entitled "We Must Legalize Opioids Now."
I kind of agree. But Troy and Zane fail to understand that the opioid crisis is just one of many inevitable results of substance prohibition itself. And since legalizing opioids is such a big ask already, they might as well go for the brass ring and pursue the legalization of all naturally occurring substances, including opium itself.
My views on this topic are perhaps made somewhat clearer in the following comment I posted beneath the article above cited, though my comment was really in response to another comment by a certain Dr. Michael Atkins, who IMHO betrayed his allegiance -- consciously or otherwise -- to a variety of Drug Warrior lies.
Does Michael not realize that no one in their right mind would use a super-addictive opioid if all psychoactive plant substances (like opium, pot and mushrooms) were legal -- like they have been thru 99.9% of recorded history, until America, the one nation founded on Natural Law, decided for racist reasons to start outlawing plants in 1914? It is the outlawing of all natural mood-affecting psychoactive substances that has incentivized bad guys to profit by selling highly addictive synthesized drugs. The result, Michael? We have an all-out war in Mexico, prisons full of minorities, a self-proclaimed "Drug War Hitler" in the Philippines, and movies in which Americans are encouraged to cheer on DEA agents who are gleefully violating the US Constitution -- a document which they obviously hold in disdain. Besides, doctors have no leg to stand on in denouncing addiction, since they tell addicted psychiatric patients like myself to "keep taking our meds." After 40 years of addiction to doctors' brain-numbing drugs, however (oh, pardon me, their "meds"), I am as depressed as ever and longing to be able to use opium weekly instead (to better enjoy a concert, a la De Quincey). If I'm going to be addicted for life, I would prefer a substance that can assist my creativity and insight. Besides, opium is NOT addictive if used properly, whereas Big Pharma antidepressants are addictive BY DESIGN. They're meant to be taken every day of one's life! Marco Polo enjoyed opium. As did Benjamin Franklin and Marcus Aurelius. If someone they knew had died of an overdose, they would have blamed a lack of education, both about substances and about life in general, rather than superstitiously blaming the death on an inanimate substance called a "drug."
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Some Tweets against the hateful war on drugs
SSRIs are created based on the materialist notion that cures should be found under a microscope. That's why science is so slow in acknowledging the benefit of plant medicines. Anyone who chooses SSRIs over drugs like San Pedro cactus is simply uninformed.
As such, "we" are important. The sun is just a chaos of particles that "we" have selected out of the rest of the raw data and declared "This we shall call the sun!" "We" make this universe. Consciousness is fundamental.
It's depressing. I thought mycology clubs across the US would be protesting drug laws that make mushroom collecting illegal for psychoactive species. But in reality, almost no club even mentions such species. No wonder prohibition is going strong.
Properly speaking, MDMA has killed no one at all. Prohibitionists were delighted when Leah Betts died because they were sure it was BECAUSE of MDMA/Ecstasy. Whereas it was because of the fact that prohibitionists refuse to teach safe use.
Drug warriors aren't just deciding for us about drugs. They're telling us that we no longer need Coleridge poems, Lovecraft stories, Robin Williams, Sherlock Holmes, or the soma-inspired Hindu religion.
Oregon's drug policy is incoherent and cruel. The rich and healthy spend $4,000 a week on psilocybin. The poor and chemically dependent are thrown in jail, unless they're on SSRIs, in which case they're congratulated for "taking their meds."
The worst form of government is not communism, socialism or even unbridled capitalism. The worst form of government is a Christian Science Theocracy, in which the government controls how much you are allowed to think and feel in life.
The best step we could take in harm reduction is re-legalizing everything and starting to teach safe use. Spend the DEA's billions on "go" teams that would descend on locations where drugs are being used stupidly -- not to arrest, but to educate.
The formula is easy: pick a substance that folks are predisposed to hate anyway, then keep hounding the public with stories about tragedies somehow related to that substance. Show it ruining lives in movies and on TV. Don't lie. Just keep showing all the negatives.
The problem with blaming things on addiction genes is that it whitewashes the role of society and its laws. It's easy to imagine an enlightened country wherein drug availability, education and attitudes make addiction highly unlikely, addiction genes or no addiction genes.
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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, Troy Ange and Zane Kaleem Get It (almost): in their article 'We Must Legalize Opioids Now', published on July 5, 2021 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)
