”The junk merchant doesn’t sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product.
William S. BurroughsNaked Lunch
“Don’t do that.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
A cold slap in the face of freedom. The law cracks its whip and suddenly everything you crave turns to poison, or so they say. But the truth? The forbidden only feeds the fire. It’s the gasoline they pour while calling it rain.
This isn’t your Sunday school sermon. This is a dive into the black underbelly of prohibition, where rebellion meets brutality, and power plays puppeteer with your pain.
The Forbidden Fruit’s Dark Kiss
Tell a kid not to touch the stove. Watch their fingers twitch. Tell a generation “no drugs.” See the thirst deepen. Psychologists call it reactance, but it’s really the human soul clawing for control in a cage built by suits and sirens.
Back in America’s roaring twenties, the “noble” experiment of alcohol prohibition hit the streets. And guess what? Drinking dropped for a hot minute, then roared back at 70% strength with a chainsaw. Organized crime grinned, homicide rates jumped 13%, and poor immigrants caught the worst of it. The law didn’t stop the drink, it drove it underground, where the monsters hide.
Black Markets: The Dealers of the Damned
Cut off legal supply? Black markets step in wearing smiles painted with blood. No age checks. No safety nets. Just pure, unfiltered chaos.
Drugs get stronger, cheaper, and more available, especially to kids. Take cannabis in the U.S. before legalization: easier for teens to snag than a beer, because the legal market made sure grownups had IDs. Meanwhile, cartel bosses laughed all the way to the bank, billions in shadow economies thriving on your misery.
Prohibition Breaks More Than Laws.
It Breaks Lives
When the law hunts you for your pain, you stop asking for help. Addiction festers in silence, overdoses pile up like trash in a back alley.
Look at the Philippines under Duterte. 12,000 dead in drug war bloodshed. Mostly poor. Mostly innocent. No drop in drug use. Just bodies and broken families.
Then flip to Portugal, where decriminalization didn’t spark a riot. It sparked healing. Overdose deaths dropped from 80 to 6 per million. HIV infections tanked. Addiction became a health problem, not a jail sentence. They didn’t ignore drugs, they stared into the abyss and learned how to fix it.
Who’s Cashing In On This Nightmare?
It’s not some shadowy cult. It’s the system itself.
20% of American prisoners? Locked up for drug offenses. Police grab billions in “war” money, buying tanks and spy gear with your tax dollars. Private prisons smile while the cogs keep turning. Big Pharma sweats bullets at every natural cure they can’t patent. Politicians pander with fear, scoring votes on your suffering.
And repressive regimes? They weaponize drug laws to silence dissent. When you’re branded a “dealer” or “addict,” your voice is crushed beneath a boot.
Prohibition isn’t about safety. It’s about control. About power. About profit.
The Myth of Chaos: What Happens When We Legalize?
Scared that legal means wild? Think again.
Portugal? Overdose deaths plummeted. Uruguay legalized cannabis, use stayed steady, problematic cases under 2%. Canada’s cautious steps saw modest use increases, but harmful use dropped. The Netherlands tolerates weed with fewer deaths and less social wreckage than the U.S.
Legalization doesn’t unleash hell. It builds walls around the flames.
So Why Do We Keep Pouring Gasoline?
Because it’s easy to blame drugs. Easier to build prisons than communities. Easier to cage people than to care for them.
Because the machine needs enemies. Needs fear. Needs control.
Because admitting prohibition failed would topple thrones.
What Now? Where Do We Go From Here?
From punishment to education.
From fear to harm reduction.
From control to compassion.
Decriminalize personal use. Regulate markets to protect kids. Fund mental health and addiction care. Teach truth, not lies. Stop the war. Start the healing.
This isn’t radical. It’s survival.
Closing Blast
Substances can hurt. Addiction kills. Families shatter.
But prohibition is a beast that feeds on that hurt, gorging itself on your pain and calling it order.
If you’re struggling: the people who love you want you safe and free, not caged and broken. If you’re tired of this mess: we can build a world that heals, not punishes. And if you’re in power, ask yourself: who are you really serving?
The fire’s burning. It’s time to turn it into light.
Sources whispered in the shadows: WHO, UNODC, Transform Drug Policy Foundation, Portugal’s 2001 decriminalization study, CDC overdose stats.
World Health Organization – Global Drug Report
UNODC World Drug Report
Transform Drug Policy Foundation
Drug Policy Alliance
Portuguese Decriminalization Study (Hughes & Stevens, 2010)
U.S. Overdose Death Statistics – CDC
Open Society Foundations – Global Drug Policy
