“Negroes Riot After Smoking Marijuana.” This is the sort of lead in newspapers that helped lead to the outlawing of marijuana and rigorous penalties against its use.

Thousands of Civil War veterans became addicted to opium during the War, and even more had to have it to deal with the pain and even more with the pains diseases caught in the War left them with. During the War it was called God’s Own Medicine, the only effective remedy for pain.

Tens of thousands of veterans ordered opium in the mail, because, as you read now, “They were addicted to it.” Most of them probably ordered it because it was the only thing that kept their painful lives bearable.

George Washington had several POUNDS of opium on his regular grocery list.

Opium could not be restricted until the Civil War Army had pretty well died out. And when the campaign against opium got going, it, like the campaign against marijuana, stated that opium was causing the inferior races to go nuts. Those who criticize the War on Drugs point this out in every documentary.

Drug laws got through on racial inferiority when THAT was popular. Nothing has really changed except that the “Violent Negroes” and “Dangerous Orientals” have become “children” and nut jobs.

But the basic concept has not changed at all. Everybody believes in Freedom, but we cannot let you or me have what might fall into the hands of chinks, jigs, or, more lately, children and psychos.

When someone says “Freedom is the right to do what you wish so long as it doesn’t affect others” they are demonstrating what happens when a concept becomes Wordist and capitalized. Everything you do outside your own skull affects others, and the Freedom types want to be sure the right thing happens inside your skull, too.

It is hard to imagine a society that is less free than one in which you are not allowed to own anything that psycho could misuse. Children are officially unfree. They must be taken care of, and both our political left and our right would cheerfully extent childhood to the grave.

There is a white powdery substance that, used wrongly, could kill a million Americans. But it is freely available. It is called sugar, and it can be fatal to diabetics. Yet candy is freely available even to children and irresponsible adults.

Some people make money selling sugar with no restrictions at all. This certainly violates the Wordist definition of Freedom. People die of sugar shock all the time.

But Wordism never has to face its own silliness. In an earlier generation Prohibition was brought in with overwhelming approval. In fourteen years we learned better. Even the most fanatical anti-alcohol Bible Belt states got rid of it.

But the War on Drugs will never stop. We are not the people who learned better. We NEVER ask whether the present prohibitions WORK. It is like guns: psychos kill with guns, children should not run around shooting unsupervised, so they must outlawed.

Not because prohibition WORKS, but because they SHOULD be outlawed.

Mantra Thinking ALWAYS concentrated on what WORKS and how things really work. Wordist thinking leads to Freedom, which is, as Orwell said, is slavery. You cannot be free without Mantra Thinking.