“Drugs, as a general term, is an obfuscation of the War on Drugs. We hear the phrase ‘alcohol and drugs,’ as if alcohol were not a drug, and as if by drugs we all know what is being talked about. Addiction is an issue with tobacco, alcohol, and the opiates, but is not at all a property of the entheogens. Addiction to alcohol, a cellular poison, is characterized by physical and mental deterioration that is virtually absent in opiate addiction. Tobacco kills nearly half a million Americans each year, but there are no recorded deaths from marijuana. Each of these plants and substances has distinct properties, promises, and dangers. All that is served by lumping a group of them together is a government program of spiritual and political oppression aimed at cutting off all dialogue.
   
The War on Drugs is in essence a religious war. That is why drug offenders frequently get longer prison sentences than violent criminals. A drug user is worse than a criminal—no punishment is too severe, because drug users are heretics.”

—Dale Pendell, “Amrta: The Neuropharmacology of Nirvana”; The Wisdom Anthology of North American Buddhist Poetry, edited by Andrew Schelling, 2005.