Stop Mass Hysteria

by Michael Savage

  The hippies of the 1960s merged all of these phenomena into the tradition of “sex, drugs, and rock and roll.” That was sold to the eager, youthful masses by the gateway concept of “flower power.”44 The American Beat poet Allen Ginsberg created that concept in 1965 as a form of antiwar protest. The idea was, you dress in floral-design clothes, hand out flowers, keep everything bright and colorful and dance, and you could turn what were frequently illegal demonstrations into a happy, mindless celebration of all things natural and good… like drugs, except that the popular hallucinogenic lysergic acid diethylamide—LSD—was not natural and frequently resulted in death, as did the “organic” cocaine and heroin. Pot was quickly foisted on the so-called flower children as a part of that, used to get everyone in the mood for glassy-eyed celebration. Once that was accomplished, once pot had spread beyond the ability of law enforcement to effectively contain it, everything from concerts to protests to sex were “helped along” by pot. The psychedelic clothes, posters, graffiti, became as important as the reason for the gathering. Soon there no longer had to be a reason. Like zombies, the drugged masses gathered. In my own city, the Haight-Ashbury intersection famously became the beating heart of the hippie movement, the counterculture—a heartbeat driven to dangerously accelerated levels by drugs.

  At least back then marijuana was ghettoized. The current rush to poor judgment would have it legally spread across an entire state, and from there across the nation. In January 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the reversal of the reckless 2013 Obama-era policy that protected certain legal marijuana programs in select states from federal intervention.45 Sessions was entirely right to do so. The pro-pot hysteria is embraced, on the consumer end, by frightened and entitled youth who have been raised not to accept responsibility and, when they do accept it, to believe that oblivion is their fitting reward for a day’s work. On the supplier end, it is a thinly disguised effort to create a new generation of cocooned, fuzzy-thinking, inert Americans who will become state-dependent Democrat voters. If you think Millennials are dull-witted now—not all, but enough of them to elicit deep concern—Heritage Foundation chief of staff Charles Stimson wrote in a 2010 report, “Using marijuana creates losers. At a time when we’re concerned about our lack of academic achievement relative to other countries, legalizing marijuana would be disastrous.”

  The rationalizations for legalizing it aren’t rational. The pro-pot lobbyists equate marijuana’s use with alcohol, forgetting in their haze that most people can drink alcohol without it being habit-forming. Pot, on the other hand, requires ever-increasing amounts or strengths for the same high. Additionally, alcohol can be used in moderation for relaxation without becoming impaired: with pot, the entire point is to become impaired. And tangentially, to overeat—causing health problems that require further dependency on state-sponsored solutions like Obamacare.

  Not that anybody knows what the legal standard of “under the influence” with marijuana is. There is no established level of THC, pot’s psychoactive ingredient, that would indicate someone is incapable of acting responsibly, whether driving—or potentially worse, piloting—a vehicle, or acting correctly in other critical situations.46 The only way, currently, to determine whether someone has become incapacitated from marijuana use is to wait for that person to be involved in a tragedy, and then determine whether or not pot was being used. There is no federally accepted “safe” level.

  What we do know is that, unlike responsible alcohol use, long-term marijuana consumption is unsafe. It dulls memory, weakens the bronchial system’s immune response, contributes to cardiac and cerebral damage and likelihood of strokes, and creates artificial mood swings. It can also cause birth defects. I wonder if the women who were so quick to abandon alcohol and cigarettes during pregnancy will do the same with pot. Or will they rationalize continued use by citing uneducated, common “wisdom” that it isn’t the same? Assuming, of course, that women can get pregnant at all if their partners are busy smoking pot. It not only lowers a man’s sex drive, it reduces testosterone and sperm count.

  Thomas Lifson, the editor and publisher of American Thinker, summed up the stupidity of the “Prohibition worsened alcohol’s impact on society, so let’s legalize pot” argument. As Lifson put it, “The other side on legalization always claims the experience of Prohibition proves their point. But if you look at it the way a true conservative does—always being skeptical of rapid radical changes from tradition—the experience of Prohibition tells us to beware of change driven by social movements, like the decriminalization movement. Prohibition and legalization both used the power of the state, driven by political movements, to change abruptly the legal rules regarding intoxicants.

  “At least, that’s one way of looking at it.

  “We’ll see how it works out. We’re guinea pigs, or maybe we’re the petri dish.”47

  To my mind, Lifson is being kind to the cynical progressives who are rushing ahead with reckless disregard for physical and mental health, and the hysterics who are whining for “more, more, more.” What Lifson is comparing to the modern-day “Great Social Experiment” of Prohibition—legalizing pot—is actually a rush to social destruction we cannot imagine. Legalization advocates say that a tax on marijuana will produce economic benefits. What they fail to tell you is how much pot will have to be consumed in order to see those great tax windfalls. Which means the pro-pot lobby is banking on increasing use of this dangerous substance.48

  The legal-pot forces have begun to bring marketing to bear on their products. In addition to pot in its purest form—a smokable tobacco-like substance—it is being combined with flavorings so it can be “vaped” through smokeless cigarette systems, and even packaged in such a way that it looks like, and often contains, candy and other enticements. Those enticements, those packaging efforts, are geared toward children, toward a whole new generation of consumers, who will be exposed to toxins both inherent in pot as well as added to it during the growing process.

  Furthermore, states permissive enough to allow legal marijuana are going to turn blinder eyes on how it is cultivated. Within ten years, we will start seeing reports on how the chemicals used by semiregulated pot growers are seeping into the water supply, or contaminating the earth, and eventually into all of our bodies, whether or not we’ve chosen to ingest pot itself.

  Legalized pot’s damage goes beyond how it affects people physiologically. Count on street violence to rise in areas where legalized pot competes with criminals. How will government-run marijuana shops stay in business? They will need to have increased security measures paid for using the tax revenue they say is going to benefit all of us.

  Pot was the perfect drug for the near-ruination of a generation during the 1960s and it’s back to wreak destruction with ferociously greater potency on far more people. The irony is, that was just the tip of the marijuana iceberg; pot has been a part of mass amnesia and mass hysteria for centuries.

  THE WAR ON VITAMINS

  Just as much of the public suffers one type of mass hysteria regarding marijuana—denial of a real threat—it suffers under the opposite type when it comes to vitamins. Thanks to the deep pockets and insidious political influence of the pharmaceutical industry, vitamin supplements are in danger of being treated the way marijuana should be by legislators and regulators.

  It’s no secret the pharmaceutical industry wants to destroy the vitamin supplement industry, nor is it a mystery why they wish to do so. Every person who avoids an illness due to better nutrition is a lost customer for drug sellers. And they’re willing to attack an industry that helps keep people well, so they can profit from more people being sick.

  Back in 2015, they were going after fish oil supplements, a good source of omega-3 fatty acids, which naturally help reduce cholesterol. They don’t want people reducing their cholesterol with natural, side-effect-free natural supplements because then those people won’t buy statin drugs. Big Pharma’s lobbyists were so effective they had the corrupted Nat
ional Institutes of Health saying fish oil supplements were useless on one page of their website and likely effective in preventing heart disease on another. That shows you the negative NIH findings were purely bought and paid for.49

  This is a topic I know a little something about, having earned my PhD in nutritional ethnomedicine from the University of California. I’ve been a leader in this field for more than forty years. I can tell you firsthand that, despite their full-throated support for complete legalization of marijuana, it’s the Democrats who will help the pharmaceutical companies shut down the vitamin supplement industry. They believe in top-down government regulation, often imposed under the pretense of public safety. They’d like nothing better than to impose a 1950s-style Food and Drug Administration, which would help prosecute Big Pharma’s War on Vitamins.

  The free market approach of the Republican Party is the complementary medicine industry’s best friend. There is a difference between liberty and licentiousness. On this issue, the Republicans support the former and the Democrats the latter. Unlike the licentious, unqualified legalization of marijuana, the liberty to use vitamin supplements improves public health. It is vital that liberty be defended.

  The scourge of fake news and mind control began with an eleventh-century Arabic religious leader whose techniques are still used today by liberals. The combination of alcohol, pot, and outright lies were present on these shores during the dawn of the American Revolution. Misinformation, fake news, and mob rage destabilized families and institutions, and their repercussions lasted long after the actual hostilities of the American Revolution ceased—to the Occupy movement of 2011, and beyond.

  6.

  FROM ASSASSINS TO GENERALS

  Mass Amnesia and Lunacy of Marijuana Advocacy

  Just as today’s pro-pot lobby would use marijuana to curb the moral inhibitions of its foot soldiers, historically people have used marijuana, hashish, and its ilk to control their followers. People like the eleventh-century Arab missionary Hassan-i Sabbah.

  As a young man, Hassan traveled throughout the Arab countries, learning and preaching. His view of the all-important line of succession of the imams was not always well received and he was forced to seek protection in the mountains of Persia. There he came across a fortress of the ruling Seljuqs—Sunni Muslims. It was from this fortress that the Seljuqs maintained control over the Ismailis—Hassan’s clan. Hassan believed this fortress would be a perfect base for his missionary work. How he took the fortress—with a minimum of bloodshed—should terrify any right-thinking reader.

  Capturing the fortress through a direct attack was impossible: From the date of its completion in 602 until Hassan arrived in 1088, it had never been taken. To do so would have required, quite literally, an impossible uphill battle.

  As Muslim warriors have demonstrated over the millennia, their two greatest weapons are patience and stealth. The fortress drew its manpower from the villages that surrounded it. Over the course of two years, Hassan’s emissaries went into the villages and slowly brought many people into their fold. By 1090, Hassan had converted enough adherents that any summons for manpower would inevitably admit significant numbers of Hassan’s agents. That is precisely what happened.

  It was at this fortress that members of Hassan’s community became known as Hashshashin—or, as they have become better known, Assassins. Chalk up another gift to the world from the religion of peace.1

  While the term assassin was originally applied specifically to members of Hassan’s community, it was soon broadly applied to other minions known as the Fedayeen—an Arabic word meaning “those who sacrifice themselves.” Which brings us to mind control.

  Nearly all organisms share a common trait: the desire for self-perpetuation. Even plants, which don’t think, will send tendrils toward water, or turn toward sunlight. I have watched these slender fingers wrap themselves around other upright plants to keep their flowers to the sunlight. How, therefore, was Hassan able to create a cadre of men willing to risk themselves in opposition to this basic instinct?

  According to the writings of the Venetian merchant Marco Polo, who reportedly witnessed the process, the answer was the promise of Paradise—and drugs. At some point in the training of these young men, they would be given a drugged drink. The exact mixture is lost to antiquity, but knowing what was available then and there, chances are it was a flower-based mixture of a relaxant, an opioid, and an intoxicant. The specific plant was apparently named for those who took it: the Hashshashin were fed hashish. After ingesting it, the young men would fall asleep, at which point they would be carried to an enclosed section within the valley and left to wake on their own.

  When they awoke, they were surrounded by dense gardens populated with fruit-bearing trees. Small channels flowed with honey, milk, and wine—constructed at Hassan’s demand in accordance with the descriptions of Paradise. And yes, upon waking these young men were greeted by beautiful women—women with whom they were encouraged to sample every manner of earthly delight.

  After several hours of bliss, the young men would be given another drugged drink. This time, when they awoke, they were in Hassan’s court. Their benefactor would ask each young man where they had come from. In their drugged state, combined with the teachings of their faith, the youths truly believed that they had visited Paradise.

  It was at this moment that Hassan’s psychological control came into full force. He knew the young man before him would do anything to return to that Paradise and he also knew that the other men in the fortress, those who hadn’t yet been to Hassan’s prefabricated Paradise, would similarly desire entry. The price, of course, was simple: Kill an enemy of the sect and Paradise could be yours. And if they died in the assassination attempt, the angels would nonetheless bear them to Paradise. The roots of mass amnesia can be found in those who never experienced Hassan’s fake paradise garden. Think about it: would-be assassins, those who came to be eager killers for Hassan, freely accepted the words of drugged-out assassins! How is that different from today, when stoned protesters are interviewed on the news and spout nonsense they heard from other stoned protesters—or even modern-day Hassans? Why was Hassan’s version of Islam more appealing than that of some other acolyte?

  That’s not for us to say. Hassan continued to study, reportedly never leaving the fortress he had conquered for three decades, apparently secure in the righteousness of his vision. What we can state is that he succeeded because he used his name and fortress as a base from which to promote his views. He did that in much the way that the mass media today uses once-valued brands like the New York Times and CNN to push their fanciful agendas from secure fortresses.

  We all know the terrible effects of people being able to send hateful messages on social media, protected in their own anonymous fortresses. The truth is that many of the people who send me hate emails, who post vitriol on my social media sites, who actually protest outside my radio network, have never bothered to read one of my books or listen to my show. It’s like that game “Telephone,” where phrases became increasingly distorted as they are whispered from player to player. Only in this case, stupidity is the passed-along commodity. There’s a test you can do to prove this. The next time someone is protesting “climate change” or “the religious right” (as if that’s a homogenous bloc) or even Donald Trump, ask them to articulate their concerns deeper than a thought or two. They can’t. That’s because they have been brainwashed by the Hashshashin of the left, driven to mass hysteria by trusted voices, dulled above the neck by marijuana. And the effect, by the way, isn’t only to the brain, where increased dopamine release can cause impaired judgment or memory loss. The mouth may burn, the lungs will become irritated, phlegmy, and subject to increased cancer risk, the heart rate accelerates, the immune system will be suppressed, and overeating—people joke about “the munchies”—can cause its own health issues. Who on the left and among progressive politicians have you heard warning the public about these serious health issues?

&nb
sp; How seriously should we take this issue of pharmaceutical influence on our minds and our nation? Very.

  In June 2018, we saw the tragic suicides of two celebrities who seemingly had it all. Kate Spade, the iconic fashion designer, took her own life by hanging in her Park Avenue home. Later, chef and travel host Anthony Bourdain took his own life while shooting on location in France.

  Both deaths struck a chord with Americans as they brought to light the escalating crisis of suicide, reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to have increased by nearly 25 percent in recent decades. While no reports established whether or not Spade or Bourdain sought drug treatment for their mental health, their shocking loss sparked a national dialogue on suicide, depression, and the prescriptions so closely associated with psychiatric treatment.

  I assure you the mainstream media will not report the relationship between antidepressant drugs and suicide although the correlation was first noted in 1990 and has been generally accepted since 2002. In a 2016 study published in the British Medical Journal, researchers at the Nordic Cochrane Center in Copenhagen revealed that pharmaceutical companies were not offering the full impact of these medications in reports. Their research concluded that suicidal thoughts and aggressive behavior doubled in children and adolescents who used medications such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) and serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRI).2

  Even more concerning from their findings was that they determined that antidepressants do not offer their prescribed results in children. Nordic Cochrane Centre professor Peter Gøtzsche said: “Antidepressants don’t work in children, that is pretty clear, in the randomised trials children say that they don’t work for them, but they increase their risk of suicide.”