ADDERALL ZOLOFT:Welcome to Rat Out Your Neighbors. I'm DEA field agent Adderall Zoloft, joined today in Washington by bureau chief Paxil Buspar. How are you today, Paxil?
PAXIL BUSPAR: I'm drug free, Adderall. How about you?
ADDERALL ZOLOFT: Drug free and proud of it.
PAXIL BUSPAR: I've made some coffee. Help yourself.
ADDERALL ZOLOFT: Fantastic!
Wait, aren't you having any?
PAXIL BUSPAR: Are you kidding me? I'm already buzzing like a top, thanks to these Red Bull Colas I've been throwing back all morning.
Oh, pardon me.
ADDERALL ZOLOFT: Sounds like an angel just got his wings.
PAXIL BUSPAR: Or a DEA agent just got his first M-4 assault rifle.
ADDERALL ZOLOFT: Primed and loaded, baby.
PAXIL BUSPAR: Kicking down America's doors since 1973.
ADDERALL ZOLOFT: Let's go straight to the phones now. The number, as always, is 1 800-RAT-BAIT. That's 1 800-RAT-BAIT. Call right now to rat out your friends and loved ones for using substances of which our government disapproves.
PAXIL BUSPAR: Wow, that was fast. Looks like we've got a caller already.
ADDERALL ZOLOFT: Hello there. You are on Rat Out Your Neighbors. Who are the scumbags that you would like to report?
CALLER: Yes, I'd like to report my creative writing teacher at college.
ADDERALL ZOLOFT: I see. And what evil substance have you seen them using? I'm guessing coca or pot, right?
CALLER: Worse yet. It's opium .
PAXIL BUSPAR: Ex-squeeze me?
ADDERALL ZOLOFT: What? You mean they're using the substance whose name must not be spoken?
CALLER: Well, I haven't yet actually caught them in the act of using opium yet, but...
PAXIL BUSPAR: Please, don't use that word.
ADDERALL ZOLOFT: Yes, caller. You see, here at the DEA, we call it "the substance whose name must not be spoken."
CALLER: But he keeps going on about how opium can be used wisely to engender creativity.
PAXIL BUSPAR: What?
CALLER: And telling us how the stories of Poe and Lovecraft, for instance, are full of so-called opiate imagery.
ADDERALL ZOLOFT: And what imagery would that be, exactly?
CALLER: You know, like in the short story "Celaphais" by HP Lovecraft, in which the protagonist, and I quote, wanders through...
"the spectral summer of narcotic flowers and humid seas of foliage that bring wild and many-coloured dreams."
PAXIL BUSPAR: Blasphemy.
CALLER: I know, right?
PAXIL BUSPAR: But I'm afraid that you really have to catch this professor with the goodies before we can kick down his door and scare his children and elderly grandmother to death.
ADDERALL ZOLOFT: I feel for you, caller, but it's not yet quite illegal to speak about positive uses of evil substances like... like... you know what.
ADDERALL ZOLOFT: Yes, caller, like the substance whose name must not be spoken.
CALLER: Sorry about that.
PAXIL BUSPAR: It's all good. Just keep an eye on this professor of yours and maybe even record his classes for us.
ADDERALL ZOLOFT: Yeah, then send us the tape when he incriminates himself.
CALLER: But isn't that illegal?
PAXIL BUSPAR: Illegal? That's a good one.
ADDERALL ZOLOFT: You're talking to the DEA, caller. Where there's a will, there's a way, right?
PAXIL BUSPAR: Yeah, haven't you seen those movies 23 like "Running with the Devil," where we hang suspects from meat hooks and shoot them in cold blood at point-blank range?
CALLER: Oh, right.
ADDERALL ZOLOFT: That's why we're overseen by a drug czar, baby, so that everyone will know that we're going to play fast and loose with the U.S. constitution.
The MindMed company (makers of LSD Lite) tell us that euphoria and visions are "adverse effects": that's not science, that's an arid materialist philosophy that does not believe in spiritual transcendence.
Attempts to improve one's mind and mood are not crimes. The attempt to stop people from doing so is the crime.
The DEA has done everything it can to keep Americans clueless about opium and poppies. The agency is a disgrace to a country that claims to value knowledge and freedom of information.
The problem with blaming things on addiction genes is that it whitewashes the role of society and its laws. It's easy to imagine an enlightened country wherein drug availability, education and attitudes make addiction highly unlikely, addiction genes or no addiction genes.
After watching my mother suffer because of the drug war, I hate to hear people tell me that the problem is drugs. WRONG! That's a western colonialist viewpoint. God loved his creation (see Genesis). He did not make trash. We need to use entheogenic medicines wisely.
If I smoke opium nightly, I am a drug scumbag. If I use Big Pharma "meds" every day of my life, I am a good patient.
Every time I see a psychiatrist, I feel like I'm playing a game of make-believe. We're both pretending that hundreds of demonized medicines do not exist and could be of no use whatsoever.
Drugs like opium and cocaine should come with the following warning: "Outlawing of this product may result in inner-city gunfire, civil wars overseas, and rigged elections in which drug warriors win office by throwing minorities in jail."
I wonder if Nixon knew what a favor he was doing medical capitalism when he outlawed psychedelics. Those drugs can actually cure things, and there's no money in that.
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