What do you do when the entire world has gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick?
by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
May 2, 2025
n December of last year, I sent an essay to historian Richard Hutton, author of "The Witch: A History of Fear from Ancient Times to the Present." I politely suggested that the Drug War is the ultimate case of strategic fearmongering by the powers-that-be and that it was therefore an oversight on his part to fail to mention drugs in his book -- the more so given the fact that the "herbs" that he continually mentions uncritically were actually drugs insofar as they manifested psychoactive properties. The difference was that, back then, the populace was in the habit of holding persons responsible for evil rather than focusing on the substances that they used to bring about evil. Today, of course, we blame substances themselves for evil -- first and foremost by demonizing them with the pejorative epithet of "drugs," which in modern parlance refers to a substance that is superstitiously supposed to have no positive uses for anybody, anywhere, at any dose and when used for any reason whatsoever. Unfortunately, Richard only mentions the word "drugs" once in his entire book, and only then in a pejorative fashion, by likening the poison-selling magician to a drug dealer -- as if the kinds of substances that have inspired entire religions are all poisons. How ironic that a book meant to challenge fearmongers should itself contain such fearmongering about the time-honored substances that Drug Warriors have outlawed in defiance of common sense -- nay, in defiance of human progress itself.
The good news is, Mr. Hutton actually responded to the email containing my essay about his book. The bad news is, he merely thanked me for my comments and signed off. Too typical, I'm afraid. Amazing as it is, I have never yet known one single author or philosopher to respond to the substance of my comments, after having written literally hundreds of letters to the movers and shakers in various relevant fields over the last six years. It is as if it is considered bad manners these days merely to bring up the subject of drug prohibition. It really feels as if the smart people have concluded that the Drug War mentality is here to stay and that their best bet is to censor themselves accordingly. And so we have a kind of faux science these days, a world in which our conclusions in fields like psychology and consciousness only make sense if we assume that drug prohibition constitutes a natural baseline for research on all topics -- even political science, wherein pundits never consider the strategic use of empathogens to end hatred in the world and so stave off nuclear annihilation. Meanwhile, psychology mags publish monthly feel-good pieces about ending depression while yet completely ignoring the fact that drug law outlaws all substances that could do just that, and in real-time as well.
And so we live in a world of make-believe today, a world in which we are completely blind to the progress-preventing effects of our superstitious drug demonization. I say superstitious, for to say things like "Fentanyl kills" makes no more sense than to say "Fire bad!" in the presumptuous manner of our paleolithic ancestors. The truth is that dangerous substances CAN be used wisely -- if we do not make a religion out of insisting otherwise.
This leaves a philosopher like myself in the position of Alfred North Whitehead. We both live in a world in which almost everybody has got ahold of the wrong end of the stick. In Whitehead's case, the vast majority of the world had a bifurcated conception of nature, according to which matter is matter and mind is mind and ne'er the twain shall meet. In my case, the vast majority of the world believes that drugs are drugs and meds are meds and ne'er the twain shall meet. The fact is, of course, that psychoactive substances are psychoactive substances, and that labels like "meds" and "drugs" and "herbs" are used (or rather misused) by Drug Warriors to make us think otherwise. Their obvious goal is to linguistically whitewash dependence-causing pills created by materialist chemists by referring to them by the gentle names of "meds" while harshly scorning as "drugs" the sort of time-honored holistic medicines championed historically by indigenous peoples around the world.
And so I have the same problem as Whitehead in attempting to get my points across. Our arguments are just too novel to be persuasive without the inclusion of many qualifications designed to answer the many kneejerk objections that will naturally occur to a reader who has lived and breathed the fallacious status quo for their entire lifetime. As Whitehead himself phrased this problem in his preface to "The Concept of Nature":
"In the presentation of a novel outlook with wide ramifications, a single line of communications from premises to conclusions is not sufficient for intelligibility. Your audience will construe whatever you say into conformity with their pre-existing outlook."
For those who want to understand what's going on with the drug war from a philosophical point of view, I recommend chapter six of "Eugenics and Other Evils" by GK Chesterton.
"Is cocaine use good or bad?" The question does not even make sense. Cocaine use is a blessing for some, just a little fun for most, and a curse for a few. Just like any other risky activity.
The Drug War has turned America into the world's first "Indignocracy," where our most basic rights can be vetoed by a misinformed public. That's how scheming racist politicians put an end to the 4th amendment to the US Constitution.
There is an absurd safety standard for "drugs." The cost/benefit analysis of the FDA & co. never takes into account the costs of NOT prescribing nor the benefits of a productive life well lived. The "users" are not considered stakeholders.
More materialist nonsense. "We" are the only reason that the universe exists as a universe rather than as inchoate particles.
Until we get rid of all these obstacles to safe and informed use, it's presumptuous to explain problematic drug use with theories about addiction. Drug warriors are rigging the deck in favor of problematic use. They refuse to even TEACH non-problematic use.
Philip Jenkins reports that Rophynol had positive uses for treating mental disorders until the media called it the "date rape drug." We thus punished those who were benefitting from the drug, tho' the biggest drug culprit in date rape is alcohol. Oprah spread the fear virally.
The Holy Trinity of the Drug War religion is Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and John Belushi. "They died so that you might fear psychoactive substances with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."
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.
The DEA should be tried for crimes against humanity. They have been lying about drugs for 50 years and running interference between human beings and Mother Nature in violation of natural law, depriving us of countless potential and known godsends in order to create more DEA jobs.
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, Whitehead and Witches: What do you do when the entire world has gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick?, published on May 2, 2025 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)
n December of last year, I sent an essay to historian Richard Hutton, author of "The Witch: A History of Fear from Ancient Times to the Present." I politely suggested that the Drug War is the ultimate case of strategic fearmongering by the powers-that-be and that it was therefore an oversight on his part to fail to mention drugs in his book -- the more so given the fact that the "herbs" that he continually mentions uncritically were actually drugs insofar as they manifested psychoactive properties. The difference was that, back then, the populace was in the habit of holding persons responsible for evil rather than focusing on the substances that they used to bring about evil. Today, of course, we blame substances themselves for evil -- first and foremost by demonizing them with the pejorative epithet of "drugs," which in modern parlance refers to a substance that is superstitiously supposed to have no positive uses for anybody, anywhere, at any dose and when used for any reason whatsoever. Unfortunately, Richard only mentions the word "drugs" once in his entire book, and only then in a pejorative fashion, by likening the poison-selling magician to a drug dealer -- as if the kinds of substances that have inspired entire religions are all poisons. How ironic that a book meant to challenge fearmongers should itself contain such fearmongering about the time-honored substances that Drug Warriors have outlawed in defiance of common sense -- nay, in defiance of human progress itself.
You have been reading an article entitled, Whitehead and Witches: What do you do when the entire world has gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick?, published on May 2, 2025 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)
