The injustice of plea dealing in the age of drug prohibition
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
March 16, 2026
I asked AI the following question this afternoon:
How many felonies were committed in 2025 and how many were drug-related?
It responded as follows:
"In 2025, there were over 1.5 million drug-related arrests in the United States, indicating a significant number of drug-related felonies. However, the total number of felonies committed in 2025 is not specified in the available data." -- Search Assist AI on Duck Duck Go Browser, question asked on March 16, 2026.
AI only cited two sources for this information -- or rather for this LACK of information -- one of which was a site for "SoCal Defense Attorney" in which a Southern California defense lawyer by the name of Tammy Higgins gives drug prohibition an enormous Mulligan by blaming all of the problems that it causes on drug crime.1
"Drug crimes hurt entire neighborhoods," tut-tuts Tammy, "not just the people involved. Families worry about their safety when drug activity increases nearby." She then goes on to lament the deteriorating property values brought about by such crime, the overwhelming of local healthcare services, the impact on local businesses and local schools, and Tammy doesn't know what-all!
[Sigh]
This is just another case of an American blaming drugs for the problems that are caused by drug prohibition itself, another case of giving drug prohibition a big fat Mulligan for the evil that it has brought to America.
By the way, I was looking up this felony stat after reading Colleen Cowles' account in "War On Us"2 of how drug criminals are subject to cruel and unusual punishment in our so-called justice system. What an eye-opener! Did you know that 97% of all criminal cases in the United States are a result of plea deals? 97%. The cases never go to trial! And this is no wonder. There are 1.4 million drug arrests every year, after all, and as Colleen writes, "If even 1/4 of these cases required prosecutors to actually spend time reviewing facts in detail or preparing for trial to prosecute those charges, the court system would implode."
And what does this mean for those arrested on drug offenses? It means that they are under great pressure to admit to charges, regardless of facts, and to forswear their rights, lest they incur long jail sentences for standing up for those rights.
"You do have the right to demand a trial," writes Colleen, assuming the voice of a deal-making prosecutor, "but did I mention that additional charges may be filed against you if you don't accept this plea agreement? Have you looked at the maximum penalty for what you're charged with? That pill in your pocket could carry seven years. If you go to trial, we'll convince that jury that you need to be behind bars for a long time. Do you really want to risk years in prison?"
We should end plea deals altogether. Let the system implode, and maybe then Americans will see the folly of outlawing our right to our own bodies and what we place therein.
But I'll leave the final word on America's plea-dealing mania to Judge William Young of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts, whom Colleen quotes as follows from his opinion in the 2004 case of US v. Green:
"This is the essential key to an understanding of federal sentencing policy today. The [Justice] Department is so addicted to plea bargaining to leverage its law enforcement resources to an overwhelming conviction rate that the focus of our entire criminal justice system has shifted far away from trials and juries and adjudication to a massive system of sentence bargaining that is heavily rigged against the accused citizen."3
Author's Follow-up:
March 19, 2026
No wonder the "Justice" Department relies on plea deals; otherwise juries could use nullification to free those charged with mere drug possession.
Problem 2,643 of the war on drugs:
It puts the government in charge of deciding what counts as a true religion.
Anyone who has read Pihkal by Alexander Shulgin knows that the drug warriors have it exactly backwards. Drugs are our friends. We need to find safe ways to use them to improve ourselves psychologically, spiritually and mentally.
When it comes to "drugs," the government plays Polonius to our Ophelia:
OPHELIA: I do not know, my lord, what I should think.
POLONIUS: Marry, I'll teach you; think yourself a baby!
The Drug War is the most important evil to protest, precisely because almost everybody is afraid to do so. That's a clear sign that it is a cancer on the body politic.
Imagine if we held sports to the same safety standard as drugs. There would be no sports at all. And yet even free climbing is legal. Why? Because with sports, we recognize the benefits and not just the downsides.
The proof that psychedelics work has always been extant. We are hoodwinked by scientists who convince us that efficacy has not been "proven." This is materialist denial of the obvious.
Drug warriors have taught us that honesty about drugs encourages drug use. Nonsense! That's just their way of suppressing free speech about drugs. Americans are not babies, they can handle the truth -- or if they cannot, they need education, not prohibition.
All drugs have potential positive uses for somebody, at some dose, in some circumstance, alone or in combination. To decide in advance that a drug is completely useless is an offense to reason and to human liberty.
FDA drug approval is a farce when it comes to psychoactive medicine. The FDA ignores all the obvious benefits and pretends that to prove efficacy, they need "scientific" evidence. That's scientism, not science.
Cocaine is not evil. Opium is not evil. Drug prohibition is evil.
Unless otherwise indicated, no AI is used in the creation of site content. These essays represent the original ideas of their author and not the ideas that the author SHOULD have based on an algorithmic parsing of existing data. For more on this subject, consider the AI-related viewpoints to which the author subscribes as delineated in the New York Times opinion piece entitled "What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity" by Rebecca Winthrop of the Brookings Institution.
I asked AI the following question this afternoon:
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