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Why the Holocaust Museum must denounce the Drug War

an open letter to the UHMM in Washington, DC

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

September 9, 2020



Dear US Holocaust Memorial Museum:

I am writing today to encourage the Holocaust museum to take a stand against America's Drug War. Why? Because thanks to that war's anti-scientific effort to demonize psychoactive plant medicines, Americans have now gotten in the habit of referring to "drug dealers" as scumbags and vermin - scumbags and vermin because they dare to sell plant medicines of which our politicians disapprove.

2025 Update

This hyperbolical language of the Drug War is chillingly reminiscent of the Nazi's characterization of Jews and, like that demonization, is based on lies, propaganda and half-truths. It is therefore, I believe, incumbent upon your institution to sound the alarm about this hysterical demonization and urge sensible Americans to cease and desist, especially since this atmosphere of demonization has now given Donald Trump the "moral cover" to call for the execution of said "dealers," revealing yet another insidious way in which the Drug War resembles the Nazi war on Jews. Trump, after all, seems to be advocating a "final solution" to deal with those Americans who dare to sell plant medicines of which politicians disapprove.

For those who would like further proof of this pernicious American mindset, we have only to watch those "Drug War" movies 1 2 in which the heroes are DEA agents who cynically ignore the US Constitution in order to wipe out vermin drug dealers. In the 2019 movie "Running with the Devil," for instance, a DEA agent played by Leslie Bibb (the apparent "good guy" of the movie) tortures one drug suspect (hanging him from a meat hook in his speedos) and shoots another one in cold blood at point-blank range. Why? Because she's frustrated by her longstanding inability to quash the use of naturally occurring substances: she therefore concludes that the time has come to just plain start shooting the offenders without so much as a trial (this despite the fact that she herself is constantly puffing on a drug that kills far more than the substance that she's attempting to outlaw). Natalie's hypocritical fury reminds me of the frustration shown by Glenn Close's character in the TV movie "Four Good Days" (also from 2019) when she sees a young drug dealer and says, "That guy should be shot," and then rushes inside to calm down with a hastily gulped glass of wine. Such is the hysteria fanned by the Drug War that those who behave in this way are our new American heroes.

Millions of decent Americans will gladly say "Never again" in thinking of the Holocaust, but they forget that the road to evil begins with the unthinking demonization of "the other," and that is exactly what Drug War propaganda is all about: the unprecedented demonization of those who sell Mother Nature's psychoactive plant medicines. This despite the fact that Benjamin Franklin and Marcus Aurelius used opium 3 to increase their creativity and affability. HG Wells and Jules Verne used the coca plant to write better stories. Francis Crick used psychedelics to think outside the box and thus envisioned the DNA helix. The psychedelic-fueled Eleusinian Mysteries4 inspired Plato's theory of the afterlife. If such "drugs" do fry the brain5, as those highly mendacious Drug War ads have suggested, it is only because the Drug War has made it impossible for the user to be sure of obtaining a safe product. Of course, Reagan's DEA didn't help matters when it sprayed marijuana plants with Paraquat in the 1980s, a weed killer that has subsequently been shown to cause Parkinson's Disease, but which was already a known toxin at the time it was employed by DEA Chief John C. Lawn, who thus essentially used chemical weapons "against his own people."

Pardon my prolixity, but we can only understand the modern habit of demonizing drug dealers by examining the Drug War lies and propaganda that have inspired that demonization.

Conclusion: The Drug War must end because its hypocritical and politically motivated ideology leads to the demonization of certain Americans, especially minorities, as subhuman - leading, of course, to the biggest prison population in American history, composed mainly of minorities, minorities whom Trump is no longer satisfied with simply vilifying and imprisoning and removing from the voting rolls: now he wants to execute them as well.

I hope I have motivated you to denounce the Drug War practice of encouraging Americans to speak of their fellows as scumbags and vermin, simply because they choose to sell plant medicines of which politicians disapprove. Indeed, I hope I have motivated you to denounce the Drug War, period, full stop. Surely a scientific country needs a Drug Education Agency, not a Drug Enforcement Agency. For the current system is pure evil, and the proof is everywhere you look: in the civil wars in South America, the inner-city shooting fatalities (almost 800 in 2021 in Chicago alone), the government censorship of scientists when it comes to researching plants and fungi, and the extrajudicial removal of Americans from the nation's workforce by drug testing 6 , not because they were impaired but merely because their urine revealed mere traces of those plant medicines of which botanically clueless politicians disapprove -- plant medicines that have been the inspiration for entire religions in non-western cultures.

Sincerely Yours,
Ballard Quass
Abolishthedea.com

June 13, 2022

PS The Drug War was responsible for almost 800 deaths in Chicago alone in 2021, due to the gun violence 7 that substance prohibition has created out of whole cloth. For as Heather Ann Thompson wrote in The Atlantic in 2014: "Without the War on Drugs, the level of gun violence 8 that plagues so many poor inner-city neighborhoods today simply would not exist.9"

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Author's Follow-up: September 24, 2022





Well, it's been over two years since I gave the Holocaust Museum the heads-up about the Nazification of sentiment produced by the Drug War and they have not yet QUITE seen fit to respond to my concerns. Well, we'll give them a few more years before we start to worry. Meanwhile, for those of you who need more proof that the Drug War is Nazifying our attitudes toward our fellow humans, consider the recent movie "The Runner," in which a black teenager is dismissed by a white detective as "a scumbag, not worth another thought." Why? Because he was selling medicine from a plant that the Inca considered to be a divinity. The detective (aptly named Detective Wall, since he's clearly impervious to common sense and common compassion) expresses the wish that the teenager get 20 years at minimum in a federal pen.

SPOILER ALERT: The black kid does not get thrown in the pen, but that's only because his chest is riddled with bullets in a criminally irresponsible DEA raid on a teenage drinking party. I know what you're thinking, Detective Wall was fired for that atrocious outcome, right? Wrong. You see, in the hail of gunfire, the feds also managed to kill the Latino mastermind of the botanical-selling operation, so Detective Wall receives a special award for his efforts, which he humbly accepts with the proviso that he's just happy to do his job: which, based on the film, is nothing less than killing minorities and keeping human beings from using natural medicines that have inspired entire religions.

What? You've read this far and you're still not sure why the Holocaust Museum should denounce the Drug War? Check out the anti-American message of the 2021 movie "The Runner," in which an unarmed black teenager is riddled with SWAT-team bullets at a high-school party -- and 'Detective Wall' gets an award for the raid!!!



Author's Follow-up: March 31, 2025

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up




It's been another two and a half years, and the Holocaust Museum continues to ghost me. It makes one weep. What's the point of saying "never again" if you're not brave enough to speak up about the mindset that demonizes 'the other'? William Bennett thinks that those who deal in plant medicines should be beheaded -- Daryl Gates opined that it would be nice to shoot drug users -- right before going to the tavern, of course, to down a drug that kills 178,000 a year in America alone10.

It is stunning how thoroughly bamboozled Americans are. It is not just the suits at the Holocaust Museum who fail to see the evil principles at work in modern prohibition.

What about those organizations that are SUPPOSEDLY fighting to end suicide 11 -- and yet are saying nothing about the outlawing of a vast pharmacopoeia of drugs that, used wisely, could do precisely that12?

What about those organizations that are SUPPOSEDLY fighting to end shock therapy -- and yet are saying nothing about the outlawing of a vast pharmacopoeia of drugs that, used wisely, could end the need for such barbaric brain-damaging procedures in the first place13?

What about those organizations that are SUPPOSEDLY fighting to end police brutality -- and yet are saying nothing about the prohibition that first gave racist police officers carte blanche to be as bad as they wanted to be toward minorities14?

But then that is the whole point of the Drug War, really: to take our eyes off the prize when it comes to ending bad social policies that were created by the rich in order to protect the status quo by marginalizing the poor and minorities.



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The Links Police


All right, buddy, do you know why I stopped you? That's right, because the Drug War gives me carte blanche to be a noxious busybody. But I also thought you might be interested in the following additional essays touching on fascism -- and also the need for the Holocaust Museum to speak out against the same -- at long last, be it said!!!









Notes for essay entitled Why the Holocaust Museum must denounce the Drug War: an open letter to the UHMM in Washington, DC:

1: Glenn Close but no cigar DWP (up)
2: Running with the torture loving DEA DWP (up)
3: The Truth About Opium by William H. Brereton DWP (up)
4: The Eleusinian Mysteries: A Gateway to the Afterlife in Greek Beliefs (up)
5: Meds fry the brain, not drugs DWP (up)
6: Drug Testing and the Christian Science Inquisition DWP (up)
7: Firearm Violence in the United States Center for Gun Violence Solutions, Johns Hopkins University (up)
8: Firearm Violence in the United States Center for Gun Violence Solutions, Johns Hopkins University (up)
9: Heather Ann Thompson. 2014. The Atlantic. The Atlantic. October 30, 2014. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/10/inner-city-violence-in-the-age-of-mass-incarceration/382154/. (up)
10: CDC. 2024. “Facts About U.S. Deaths from Excessive Alcohol Use.” Alcohol Use. July 8, 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/facts-stats/?CDC_AAref_Val=https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/features/excessive-alcohol-deaths.html. (up)
11: Why Americans Prefer Suicide to Drug Use DWP (up)
12: Suicide and the Drug War DWP (up)
13: Electroshock Therapy and the Drug War DWP (up)
14: Defund the DEA DWP (up)




read more essays here





Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




Americans are starting to think that psychedelics may be an exception to the rule that drugs are evil -- but drugs have never been evil. The evil resides in how we think, talk and legislate about drugs.

Alcohol is a drug in liquid form. If drug warriors want to punish people who use drugs, they should start punishing themselves.

I never said that getting off SSRIs should be done without supervision. If you're on Twitter for medical advice, you're in the wrong place.

Drug war pundits need to stop using the word "snorts" when it comes to cocaine. We "take" our "meds," and yet we "snort" cocaine, just like a pig. That is NOT neutral language, folks!

There's more than set and setting: there's fundamental beliefs about the meaning of life and about why mother nature herself is full of psychoactive substances. Tribal peoples associate some drugs with actual sentient entities -- that is far beyond "set and setting."

America won't be grown up until we start blaming drug misuse on people and/or policies rather than on drugs.

A lot of drug use represents an understandable attempt to fend off performance anxiety. Performers can lose their livelihood if they become too self-conscious. We only call such use "recreational" because we are oblivious to the common-sense psychology.

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.

Had we really wanted to "help" users, we would have used the endless godsends of Mother Nature and related synthetics to provide spirit-lifting alternatives to problem use. But no one wanted to treat users as normal humans. They wanted to pathologize and moralize their use.

Materialist scientists are drug war collaborators. They are more than happy to have their fight against idealism rigged by drug law, which outlaws precisely those substances whose use serves to cast their materialism into question.


Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us






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