If you do drugs, you will be caught. And when you are caught, you will be punished. George H W Bush
It became apparent to me that guns were going one way and drugs were going the other way. Mike Ruppert
The main reason the CIA deals drugs is to support the US economy. Mike Ruppert, The Truth and Lies of 9/11
Castillo documented CIA drug smuggling in DEA records in 1985-6. He was told to ‘leave it alone; it’s a White House operation’. ibid.
[Colonel James E] Sabow was murdered on 22nd January 1991 after discovering CIA C-130s flying cocaine on to the base [El Toro Marine Station]. ibid.
The Agency has dealt drugs throughout this country for a long time. Mike Ruppert, public forum remarks to John Deutch CIA director
And what happened to me was that I met and fell in love with a woman who was a contract CIA agent, a career agent. Now, I come from a CIA family and they had tried to recruit me, so this was not unexpected to me, but I began to see that she was protecting drug shipments and that the Agency was actively involved in dealing drugs ... It is that drug money is an inherent part of the American economy. It has always been so, as it was with the British in the 1600s when they introduced opium into China to fund the triangular trade with the British East India Company ... The CIA has dealt drugs for all 50 years of its existence – 50 plus years, even before it was the CIA. And the point is that with 250 billion dollars a year in illegal drug money moved, laundered through the American economy, that money benefits Wall Street. That’s the point of having the prohibitive drug trade, which the CIA effectively manages for the benefit of Wall Street. Mike Ruppert, Wall Street, CIA and the Global Drug Trade
Well, it’s not a War on Drugs. It’s a War on People. Consider this: Joseph McNamara, a former chief of San Jose from the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, published some really telling figures. In 1972, when Richard Nixon started the War on Drugs, the annual federal budget allocation was 110 million dollars a year for enforcement. In fiscal year 2000, 28 years later, the budget allocation was 17 billion dollars a year, and yet, in the year 2000, there are more drugs in this country, they are cheaper, and they are more potent than they were in 1972. That has to tell you that there’s some other agenda going on here. Mike Ruppert, former CIA drug enforcement officer, interview Guerrilla News Network, 2000
And so the CIA and Ronald Reagan and Bill Casey and George Bush (Vice President George Bush) were running the whole operation; we know that now. They circumvented the will of Congress and there was this explosion of drug trafficking all throughout Central America, coordinated by the CIA. ibid.
43,666. The accession of not one but three illegal drug users in a row to the US presidency constitutes an existential challenge to the prohibitionist regime. The fact that some of the most successful people of our time, be it in business, finances, politics, entertainment or the arts, are current or former substance users is a fundamental refutation of its premises and a stinging rebuttal of its rationale. A criminal law that is broken at least once by 50% of the adult population and that is broken on a regular basis by 20% of the same adult population is a broken law, a fatally flawed law. How can a democratic government justify a law that is consistently broken by a substantial minority of the population? What we are witnessing here is a massive case of civil disobedience not seen since alcohol prohibition in the 1930 in the US. On what basis can a democratic system justify the stigmatization and discrimination of a strong minority of as much as 20% of its population? Jeffrey Dhywood, World War D: The Case Against Prohibitionism
But the fact that the government has been involved in illegal narcotics trafficking, literally overdosing our own people, not third world target audiences, as we would expect ... At that time we had knowledge that the CIA was trafficking in illegal narcotics using Air America, which we over there had our own name for – we called it Air Opium ... As a matter of fact I was surprised and pleased to see the movie Air America finally come out because it showed for maybe the only time in history where the Pepsi Cola plant was set up in Laos, not to put mom and pop bottling companies out of business but rather to do the rather more sophisticated steps of taking opium and morphine into number four Asian [heroin] hell. Bo Gritz
In this country now we’re seeing drugs cradle to grave. In fact it’s not just in America, it’s other countries also. Children as young as two years of age are being put on certain types of drugs to decrease the amount of their aggressive tendencies ... The drugs are being used all the way through the adult period of life into the geriatric. Joyce Riley, radio host and producer, interview One Nation Under Siege
Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction. It is already happening to some extent in our own society. Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual’s internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable. Theodore Kaczynski
Anyone who takes drugs should be hammered. Andy Gray
I tried to give up drugs by drinking. Lou Reed
Oh God. I’ve gotta stop sniffing this Ajax. The Young Ones: Nasty, Vyvyan, BBC 1984
Dope never helped anybody sing better or play music better or do anything better. All dope can do for you is kill you – and kill you the long, slow, hard way. Billie Holiday
In this country, don’t forget, a habit is no damn private hell. There’s no solitary confinement outside of jail. A habit is hell for those you love. Billie Holiday, Lady Sings the Blues 1956
A drug is neither moral or immoral – it’s a chemical compound. The compound itself is not a menace to society until a human being treats it as if consumption bestowed a temporary licence to act like an asshole. Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book, 1989
Now, Master Doctor, have you brought those drugs? William Shakespeare, Cymbeline 1 v 4, Queen
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at
dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient
heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the
machinery of the night. Allen Ginsberg, Howl, 1956
We can no more hope to end drug abuse by eliminating heroin and cocaine than we could alter the suicide rate by outlawing high buildings or the sale of rope. Ben Whittaker, The Global Fix, 1987
We do have the right to pursue happiness. Howard Marks
Of course I took drugs like everyone. Marianne Faithfull, interview 1968
LSD: if it wasn’t meant to happen, it wouldn’t have been invented. ibid.
There’s one thing more annoying than a couple of wasters – it’s a couple of post-modern wasters. Rab C Nesbitt: Waste, BBC 1996
Rab: I’m trying to be supportive, you cheeky wee bastard that you are. What exactly is it you’re doing, pal, as a living these days, son?
Gash: I peddle soft drugs.
Rab: Oh I see. Well, you stick in, and one day you’ll be peddling hard drugs. Rab C Nesbitt: Commons, BBC 1999
Someone who takes a drug that is very bad such as heroine is a crime against himself, not a crime against society. Mick Jagger, World in Action interview
Of course a lot of those hippies may get busted once in a while. But you don’t hear of banks beings robbed by hippies. It’s your own private thing if you use drugs. Everyone should be able to think or do what they want as long as it don’t hurt anybody. Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child
It’s on the public record I’ve done a lot of drugs. I’ve done a lot of drugs and I’ve slept with a lot of women. And, boys and girls at home, don’t. If you think that by sleeping with thousands of women and taking thousands of drugs you’re going to have a good time, then let me just say this: don’t. I’ve just got out of the Henry Ford clinic ... Thank God, just for today, I’m clean and sober ... So don’t. Whatever you do. Don’t. Don’t. Just say mmm maybe. Peter Cook, Clive Anderson Talks Back, 1993
I don’t want to be a junky for the rest of my life. I don’t want to be a junky at all. Sid Vicious
Drugs is like getting up and having a cup of tea in the morning. Noel Gallagher, cited Daily Telegraph 28th January 1997