reader of this site, especially one raised on Drug War propaganda (which is to say literally everyone these days), may say to themselves: "Gee, this guy is awfully hung up about drugs. "
But that's got the whole situation backwards. The fact is that the whole world has been "hung up" about drugs, ever since the Harrison narcotics act of 1914 criminalized a mere plant (the poppy plant) in contravention of the natural law upon which America was founded. Since then, "drugs" have become the national (and, alas, international) boogeyman and scapegoat, responsible for all social ills and therefore something that the police and military have mobilized around the world to combat, letting civil liberties fend for themselves.
It is thus society that is hung up about "drugs," not me. My whole goal in writing these essays is to stop the world from superstitiously scapegoating drugs. Drugs are not the problem. To the extent that there's a problem that's ASSOCIATED with drug use, it stems from a lack of education, not the substances themselves. To think otherwise, is to reason like our prehistoric ancestors: if they got hit by lightning, then the evil lightning was to blame, not the fact that they had stupidly stood out in the open and attracted the lightning bolt.
There was no drug problem in Ancient Egypt. There was no drug problem in Ancient Greece. There was no drug problem in Ancient Mesopotamia. There was no drug problem in Ancient Rome. There was no drug problem in the Mongol Kingdom. There was no drug problem in the Viking Age.
Why then is there suddenly a huge "drug" problem today? Answer: Because racist politicians (especially Francis Burton Harrison and Nixon) wanted to punish the people with whom they associated certain substance use, and since they could not enact any laws that were OBVIOUSLY racist, they drafted drug laws that would throw their enemies in jail, often for life, for using their substance of choice, thus often taking away their right to vote in American elections and ensuring the future election of yet more drug-warrior racists.
The Drug War thus created has nothing to do with America's health. If it did, then its first targets would be Big Pharma antidepressants, to which 1 in 4 American women are addicted. Then it would move on to crack down on "liquor abuse," which one could plausibly argue is "rampant" in America. Yet the Drug Warrior is blind to such problems. When they say they want to crack down on "drug use," they are using the word "drugs" as they have defined the term for their own strategic political purposes: namely, a substance that fails to enrich Big Pharma and Big Liquor, and a substance whose ingestion could help Americans bypass the expensive and highly addictive pill mill of psychiatry, thus leaving the medical establishment out of the loop when it comes to the profits to be reaped by addicting one's fellow human beings.
So the Drug Warrior willfully lies about these substances that they have hypocritically labelled "drugs" for political reasons, claiming that such substances have no therapeutic value, thus lying in the teeth of contrary anecdotal evidence that dates back millennia. They say coca is pure evil: yet it was an Incan God and helped Jules Verne and HG Wells create the best sci-fi stories in the world. They say opium is even PURER evil: yet Benjamin Franklin and even Thomas Jefferson himself partook.
No, I'm not the one who's hung up about drugs: it's the racist politicians who are fixated on "drugs," but not any drugs, mind: just the drugs that they have decided to demonize in order to achieve their racist political goals (namely, getting elected by marginalizing their opponents through the enactment of harsh drug laws). Sadly, they have hoodwinked liberals to play along, by convincing them that it's all about health, encouraging leftists to embrace the superstitious reasoning that amoral substances can be blamed for problems, rather than the lack of free and objective education that could render drug misuse impossible.
Author's Follow-up: August 28, 2022
Speaking of America's obsession with "drugs": "Just say no" classes are like DIY instruction for rebellious kids. They say, in effect: "If you ever decide to rebel, kids, here are some nasty substances that you can take to really piss off your parents and other authority figures." Besides that, such classes are anti-scientific, because they promote the pernicious idea that some substances can be bad without regard for how, when, or why they are used. In reality, there are no such substances in the world. Even the highly toxic Botox can have positive uses in the correct context. Moreover, it is this lie about substances that, even as we write, is censoring scientists by outlawing their thorough research of psychoactive medicines, some of which have great promise for combating Alzheimer's disease and autism. But American drug policy is all about scaring Americans, not educating them. That's why Joe Biden's Office of National Drug Control Policy was originally set up with a charter that prevented its board members from even considering positive uses for the substances that politicians had outlawed.
One wonders when scientists are going to recognize this fact, come out soundly against the status quo, and insist that we stop politicizing substances -- and thus science -- altogether.
Re-affirm natural law and forbid politicians from barring the world's use of medicines simply because they do not pass moral muster with racist WASP politicians.
Yes. 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.
It also bothers me that gun fanatics support the drug war. If I have no rights to mother nature, then they have no rights to guns. If the Fourth Amendment can be ignored based on lies and ignorance, then so can the Second.
New article in Scientific American: "New hope for pain relief," that ignores the fact that we have outlawed the time-honored panacea. Scientists want a drug that won't run the risk of inspiring us.
It's also not clear why we have such a low tolerance for the downsides of drug use but are fine with high risk levels for any other activity on earth. If drug warriors were serious about saving lives, they'd outlaw guns, free flying, free diving, and all pleasure trips to Mars.
In the board game "Sky Team," you collect "coffees" to improve your flying skills. Funny how the use of any other brain-focusing "drug" in real life is considered to be an obvious sign of impairment.
Don't the Oregon prohibitionists realize that all the thousands of deaths from opiates is so much blood on their hands? Prohibitionists, j'accuse!
The American Philosophy Association should make itself useful and release a statement saying that the drug war is based on fallacious reasoning, namely, the idea that substances can be bad in themselves, without regard for why, when, where and/or how they are used.
Why don't those politicians understand what hateful colonialism they are practicing? Psychedelics have been used for millennia by the tribes that the west has conquered -- now we won't even let folks talk honestly about such indigenous medicines.
Check out the 2021 article in Forbes in which a materialist doctor professes to doubt whether laughing gas could help the depressed. Materialists are committed to seeing the world from the POV of Spock from Star Trek.
Prohibitionists are also responsible for the 100,000-plus killed in the US-inspired Mexican drug war
Listen to the Drug War Philosopher as he tells you how you can support his work to end the hateful drug war -- and, ideally, put the DEA on trial for willfully lying about godsend medicines! (How? By advertising on this page right c'here!)
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, Why America is Hung Up on Drugs published on August 27, 2020 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)
reader of this site, especially one raised on Drug War propaganda (which is to say literally everyone these days), may say to themselves: "Gee, this guy is awfully hung up about drugs. "
You have been reading an article entitled, Why America is Hung Up on Drugs published on August 27, 2020 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)