How cop shows reinforce drug warrior lies about Mother Nature's plants
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
May 31, 2020
EMCEE: Live from the DEA Lounge, let's give it up for comedian Johnny O'Clonnapan, brought to you tonight by Paraquat, the only weed killer recommended by America's DEA.
[applause]
JOHNNY: Before I start to be funny, my lawyer has asked me to read the following FDA warning. Ahem. And I quote.
"The FDA played a randomly chosen comedy routine of mine to 2,000 lab rats and discovered that every 92nd one of them blew a gasket during the funniest parts of my material."
Personally, I think that study was flawed. First of all, how do we know for sure that my audience has the same comedic predilections as the species Rattus rattus? Be that as it may, we have replacement gaskets available at the bar tonight, just in case, for just $2 apiece, with any qualified purchase of a house cocktail worth $9 or more.
So, gaskets in the full upright position, folks. I'm about to unload.
[gasp]
With my humor that is.
[laughter]
FUNNYSHORTS
You ever stop to wonder what television would have been like over the last 50 years if America hadn't gotten the harebrained idea of criminalizing plants? Cop shows would not exist. I kid you not. All the violence that fuels the cop show plots would be gone. What a bummer for the police. Then they could only arrest people for actual bad behavior instead of for the pre-crime of possessing plants that had been demonized by politicians.
Cops would be like: "Damn, we've just got to sit on the sidelines now and let people go about their lives as they see fit. This is no fun."
^{How many Drug Warriors do we have in the house? Let me see a show of dunce caps.}{
[drum]
[laughter]
I mean hands. Let me see a show of hands.
You Drug Warriors are lucky. You've got so much working for you, propaganda-wise. Seriously. Almost every single cop show is free Drug War propaganda.
SAY THAT AGAIN!
Almost every single cop show is free Drug War propaganda.
Think about it.
Have you finished thinking? Oh, I'm sorry.
There are several Drug Warriors in the back there who still haven't quite wrapped their brains around it. That's okay. No hurry. Keep thinking about it, guys.
[laughter]
Be nice, folks. I'm sure the Drug Warriors are doing their best.
When have you ever seen a debonair genius like Sigmund Freud, casually employing coke on a cop show to render themselves prolific, and thus achieve self-fulfillment in life?
Never. That's when.
[applause]
That would violate Drug War superstition, which says that criminalized plants can cause nothing but evil.
You only ever see coke used by greedy Wall Street prodigies and morally rudderless young people, at stag parties and the like. As for the coke itself, it generally appears in a small white mountain on a card table in a dimly lit room, alongside a pile of bloodstained money, a razor blade, and a recently fired handgun.
And the dimwit viewers are all like:
"Oh, isn't cocaine just terrible? Honestly. The bullets, the blood and the razor blades! Oh my!"
And I'm like: Hello, folks. The bullets, the blood and the razor blades (Oh my!) didn't arrive on the scene until we criminalized cocaine and thereby placed its distribution in the hands of the underworld.
Boy, I'm glad I'm not a mean person, or else I would be seriously tempted to refer to Drug Warriors as idiots, I mean just utter morons who have about as much philosophy in their brain pans as I have in my little toe... let's say the one on my left foot for the sake of argument.
But I'm better than that, folks. There's nothing to be gained by trashing Drug Warriors personally, no matter how stupid their arguments might be in favor of criminalizing God-given plants - plants which God himself said were "good," in the Book of Genesis no less.
[applause]
Yes, there's no point in calling such people morons, that's for sure. Is it tempting to do so? Yes, of course it is.
But I wasn't raised that way, folks. I just wasn't raised that way.
[applause]
Speaking of TV cop shows, how many fans do we have of "The Republic of Doyle" here tonight? You know, that show about the family of Irish private detectives up there in Newfoundland of all places.
I just watched an episode in which Jake was getting all self-righteous about his niece Tinny's involvement in selling some marijuana plants. Jake was like,
"I expected more from you Tinny. Tsk tsk tsk."
And of course Tinny bows her head, knowing that she has committed heresy against the Great Western religion of Christian Science when it comes to mood disorders.
[Tinny sobbing]
Of course, in the next scene, Jake is in a bar, hypocritically throwing back a brewski, with which he has no moral problems whatsoever.
[burps] "Jake, please!"
[laughter]
Then there's another episode where Jake self-righteously tells a drug researcher that he (Jake) is not "into" drugs.
Would somebody please tell Jake that the word "drugs" is just a code word for "Mother Nature's plant medicines," and he should therefore stop preening his feathers, insisting that he wants nothing to do with them. That's just plain stupid: God gives us this wonderful pharmacopoeia that's full of psychoactive plants that can help us screw our heads on straight, and the ungrateful Jake says he wants nothing to do with them.
I sincerely hope that 50 years from now, when Jake is in an old people's home and feeling blue, that his Canadian caregivers will be allowed to provide him with psychedelic plants that will help him make his peace with death and rejoice once again in the wonder and the mystery of existence.
[applause]
Hopefully by that time, Jake will no longer be talking about: "I'm not into drugs."
I tell you, if I were God and I heard that, I would take it personally. I can hear God right now.
[gong sounds]
"Here I make all these wonderful medications for you that, when used wisely, can be godsends, and you tell me that you're not 'into' them? I mean, Earth to Jake: that's what some of us would call base ingratitude on your part."
How about that? God has a British accent. Who knew?
[laughter]
Before I go, I'd like to remind you all to pick up a bottle of Paraquat Weed Killer, located in the poison aisle of your local lawn and garden center. It's the only weed killer recommended by America's Drug Enforcement Agency. This is the exact same formula that the DEA used in the 1980s to poison pot users in the United States.
[boo]
And talk about long-lasting, it's still working to this very day, causing Parkinson's Disease in the scofflaw Americans who unwittingly inhaled it four decades ago, courtesy of DEA Chief and Master Poisoner John C. Lawn.
[boo]
Is John C. Lawn in the house? Why doesn't he stand up and take a bow? I'm sure that those pot users forgave him years ago for screwing up their lungs.
[dog snarls]
[gasp]
Although it would appear that the seeing-eye dog at table 5 still remembers the outrage like it was yesterday. I guess the details got passed down to him by some kind of oral tradition peculiar to the canine tribe.
[dog barks]
Besides, let's face it, the ones who survived are too disabled by Parkinson's Disease to think about vengeance.
[boo]
What? They told me to plug Paraquat, and I plugged Paraquat.
[drum]
[applause]
Keep me in your prayers, folks. I'm going to get a proper tongue lashing from my agent the second that I get off this stage.
Oh, no, here she comes now!
[hysterical agent babbling]
I know, I know. Well, you're the one who told me to plug Paraquat.
[laughter]
EMCEE: You've been listening to Johnny O'Clonapan, live from the D E A Lounge.
Brought to you tonight by Paraquat, the only weed killer recommended by America's DEA, who reminds you to turn in your loved ones today if you discover them using any plants of which politicians disapprove. Together, we can all just say no to each and every one of Mother Nature's godsend mood medicines.
NARRATOR: For more information about America's bogus Drug War, which is a violation of natural law and responsible for thousands of unnecessary deaths around the globe every year, visit AbolishTheDEA.com.
Author's Follow-up: February 3, 2023
The Clinton Administration broke the law in the late 1990s by colluding with the media to fashion TV show narratives to place "drug use" in a bad light.FN0047
Comedy
The Drug War is laughable -- or it would be if the Drug Warriors hadn't deprived us of laughing gas, the substance that William James himself used to study alternate realities.
The Drug War is a religion. The "addict" is a sinner who has to come home to the true faith of Christian Science. In reality, neither physical nor psychological addiction need be a problem if all drugs were legal and we used them creatively to counter problematic use.
The American Philosophy Association should make itself useful and release a statement saying that the drug war is based on fallacious reasoning, namely, the idea that substances can be bad in themselves, without regard for why, when, where and/or how they are used.
In the Atomic Age Declassified, they tell us that we needed hundreds of thermonuclear tests so that scientists could understand the effects. That's science gone mad. Just like today's scientists who need more tests before they can say that laughing gas will help the depressed. Science today is all about ignoring the obvious.
In the 19th century, poets got together to use opium "in a series of magnificent quarterly carouses" (as per author Richard Middleton). When we outlaw drugs, we outlaw free expression.
America is an "arrestocracy" thanks to the war on drugs.
I'm looking for a United Healthcare doctor now that I'm 66 years old. When I searched my zip code and typed "alternative medicine," I got one single solitary return... for a chiropractor, no less. Some choice. Guess everyone else wants me to "keep taking my meds."
What prohibitionists forget is that every popular but dangerous activity, from horseback riding to drug use, will have its victims. You cannot save everybody, and when you try to do so by law, you kill far more than you save, meanwhile destroying democracy in the process.
There are hundreds of things that we should outlaw before drugs (like horseback riding) if, as claimed, we are targeting dangerous activities. Besides, drugs are only dangerous BECAUSE of prohibition, which compromises product purity and refuses to teach safe use.
The book "Plants of the Gods" is full of plants and fungi that could help addicts and alcoholics, sometimes in the plant's existing form, sometimes in combinations, sometimes via extracting alkaloids, etc. But drug warriors need addiction to sell their prohibition ideology.
In fact, there are times when it is clearly WRONG to deny kids drugs (whatever the law may say). If your child is obsessed with school massacres, he or she is an excellent candidate for using empathogenic meds ASAP -- or do we prefer even school shootings to drug use???
The Drug War is a religion. The "addict" is a sinner who has to come home to the true faith of Christian Science. In reality, neither physical nor psychological addiction need be a problem if all drugs were legal and we used them creatively to counter problematic use.