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American City Homicide Awards 2021

by Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

August 6, 2022




ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the American City Homicide Awards for 2021, brought to you by drug prohibition, doing its part to keep the guns firing fast and furious in the 'hood. Now here is your host, Paxil Buspar.



PAXIL: Paxil Buspar here with co-host Adderall Zoloft, and it's an exciting night here in the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia.


GUNSHOT



ADDERALL: Oh! It sounds like someone's trying to make sure that Atlanta, Georgia, comes out on top tonight when it comes to the homicide totals.




PAXIL: The joke is on them because it's already 2022, so any murders that are committed tonight are going to have no effect on tonight's award show.


"Yeah!"



ADDERALL: Speaking of which, it's going to be a close competition tonight.




PAXIL: That's right, Adderall. Now that Covid restrictions are easing up, we're seeing record homicide numbers throughout the country, and not just in the usual cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.



ADDERALL: That's right, Paxil. Homicide totals are up all over the country, including in unlikely cities like Columbus, Ohio; Portland, Oregon; Detroit, Michigan; Atlanta, Georgia; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Milwaukee, Wisconsin...




PAXIL: Yes, we get the idea, Adderall.



ADDERALL: ...Portland, Oregon; Toledo, Ohio; San Francisco, California; Memphis, Tennessee...



PAXIL: Enough, already.



ADDERALL: ...Springfield, Missouri; Billings, Montana; Davenport, Iowa; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Berkeley, California; Chattanooga, Tennessee...



LAUGHTER



PAXIL: Long story short, Adderall...



ADDERALL: Yes, Paxil?




PAXIL: ...if it's a city, it's a deathtrap.




"Word"



ADDERALL: Well, you've got to give a lot of credit to America's War on Drugs, Paxil.




PAXIL: That's right, Adderall.



ADDERALL: In fact, do you know what Heather Ann Thompson wrote in the Atlantic in 2014?




PAXIL: What's that, Adderall?






ADDERALL: She wrote, and I quote... ahem! ahem!
"Without the War on Drugs, the level of gun violence 1 that plagues so many poor inner-city neighborhoods today simply would not exist."2






PAXIL: Nice impersonation.




ADDERALL: Thanks, Paxil.





PAXIL: All in the name of the God-fearing Drug War, Adderall.


CHURCH ORGAN PLAYING




ADDERALL: Amen.






PAXIL: Could you hand me the envelope, please? Oh, this is so exciting.


ENVELOPE CRINKLING




ADDERALL: Do you need some help with that?



PAXIL: No, thanks, I've got it.




The American city with the third-highest homicide rate per capita in 2021 is...



DRUM ROLL PLAYING



...Detroit Michigan...



CHEERING



...with 309 homicides out of a population of just over 630,000. Accepting the Silver Bullet Award on behalf of Detroit is gang member Reginald Perez from the Fiver Percenters.




REGINALD: Yo, I'd like to thank the DEA for outlawing Mother Nature's godsend medicines.



PAXIL: Oh, yeah?





REGINALD: Are you kidding me? It opened up endless entrepreneurial opportunities in the 'hood.





PAXIL: Opportunities in which guns came in handy, right, Reginald?





REGINALD: The white lady knows whereof she speaks.



CHEERING




ADDERALL: Okay, now it's my turn, Paxil.



PAXIL: Say the magic words, Adderall.





ADDERALL: Oh, great. I've always wanted to say this. Ahem. May I have the envelope, please?

ENVELOPE CRINKLING



What kind of envelopes are these, anyway? Guess they made it out of some kind of funky organic material, like seaweed. Here we go.



DRUM ROLL PLAYING



The American city with the second-highest homicide rate per capita in 2021 is New Orleans, Louisiana...



CHEERING



...with 218 homicides out of a population of 384,000. It looks like New Orleans has been pulling out all the stops...



CORK POPS





PAXIL: And all the AK47's, for that matter.


ADDERALL: To accept tonight's award on behalf of New Orleans, I'd like to welcome Tanya Wingate to the stage. She's chairwoman of the Stop the Violence Campaign in the city's historic 9th Ward.



CROWD MURMURING




What's that? Oh, that's terrible. I've just gotten word that Tanya was killed by a stray bullet while she was pulling out of her driveway this morning to catch a plane for Atlanta.


PAXIL: Oh, God, that is awful.


ADDERALL: Well, I guess I will accept this award on behalf of Tanya's next-of-kin.


PAXIL: Good idea.



ADDERALL: And congratulations once again to New Orleans for coming in second place in the 2021 homicide awards here in Atlanta, Georgia's State Farm Arena.



PAXIL: That's a hard act to follow, Adderall.



ADDERALL: I know, right? Especially if you're not wearing a bullet-proof vest.

LAUGHTER




PAXIL: But it's time now to announce the winner for the American City Homicide Awards of 2021.




ADDERALL: Here's the envelope, Paxil.




PAXIL: Nice try, Adderall, but you're not going to deprive me of the opportunity of saying those magic words once again tonight.


ADDERALL: Oh, right.


PAXIL: May I have the envelope, please?



ADDERALL: I thought you'd never ask.



ENVELOPE CRINKLING



PAXIL: Excuse me just one moment.



CHAINSAW BUZZES




There.

DRUM ROLL PLAYING


And the winner for the American City Homicide Awards for 2021 is... St. Louis, Missouri...





CHEERING



...with 195 homicides out of a population of just 300,000.




ST. LOUIS HOMEBOY: St. Louis does not accept your stupid award.





ADDERALL: And who might you be?



ST. LOUIS HOMEBOY: I might be the guy that's gonna shove that microphone down your throat if you don't stop glamorizing gun violence 3 .


AUDIENCE GASPS


PAXIL: You should be happy. Your city won the American City Homicide competition for 2021.



ST. LOUIS HOMEBOY: Yeah, but only because the racist Drug War incentivized drug dealing, thereby filling my hometown with guns.




PAXIL: You say potato and I say potahto.



ST. LOUIS HOMEBOY: Say what?




ADDERALL: Can we get some security officers up here, please?



PAXIL: Well, I'll tell you what. I used to live in St. Louis myself so I will accept this Silver Bullet Award on behalf of my former hometown.



ADDERALL: I didn't know you used to live in St. Louis.



PAXIL: Oh, yeah, I grew up there.




ADDERALL: Why did you leave?




PAXIL: Because between you and me, it was way too violent.



CHEERING


ANNOUNCER: You have been listening to the American City Homicide Awards for 2021, brought to you by Drug War prohibition: helping to keep the 'hood exciting by incentivizing drug dealing among the poor and powerless. Do your part to marginalize and kill American minorities: tell your Congress people to ratchet up the patriotic War on Drugs today. The War on Drugs: proudly keeping Mother Nature's godsends from the American people for over 100 years.







Notes:

1: Firearm Violence in the United States Center for Gun Violence Solutions, Johns Hopkins University (up)
2: Heather Ann Thompson. 2014. The Atlantic. The Atlantic. October 30, 2014. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/10/inner-city-violence-in-the-age-of-mass-incarceration/382154/. (up)
3: Firearm Violence in the United States Center for Gun Violence Solutions, Johns Hopkins University (up)








Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




Scientists are censored as to what they can study thanks to drug law. Instead of protesting that outrage, they lend a false scientific veneer to those laws via their materialist obsession with reductionism, which blinds them to the obvious godsend effects of outlawed substances.

I don't have a problem with CBD. But I find that many people like it for the wrong reasons: they assume there is something slightly "dirty" about getting high and that all "cures" should be effected via direct materialist causes, not holistically a la time-honored tribal use.

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies." -- Groucho Marx

There is an absurd safety standard for "drugs." The cost/benefit analysis of the FDA & co. never takes into account the costs of NOT prescribing nor the benefits of a productive life well lived. The "users" are not considered stakeholders.

We should no more arrest drug users than we arrest people for climbing sheer rock faces or for driving a car.

Question: Why do doctors judge cocaine by its worst possible use? Answer: Follow the money.

The best harm-reduction strategy is to re-legalize drugs.

The Cabinet of Caligari ('62) ends with a shameless display of psychiatric triumphalism. Happy shock therapy patients waltz freely about a mansion in which the "sick" protagonist has just been "cured" by tranquilizers and psychoanalysis. Did Robert Bloch believe his own script?

M. Pollan says "not so fast" when it comes to drug re-legalization. I say FAST? I've gone a whole lifetime w/o access to Mother Nature's plants. How can a botanist approve of that? Answer: By ignoring all legalization stakeholders except for the kids whom we refuse to educate.

Scientists are responsible for endless incarcerations in America. Why? Because they fail to denounce the DEA lie that psychoactive substances have no positive medical uses. This is so obviously wrong that only an academic in an Ivory Tower could believe it.


Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us






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