They used to laugh at him, said he'd never be a stand-up comedian. Well, they're not laughing now. Give it up, please, gang, for Johnny O'Clonapan.
[applaud]
Oh, I'm sorry. Was that my cue?
[laughter]
That's far too subtle for me to pick up on.
[drum]
[laughter]
Thanks for coming out. I should warn you, however, that there will be a drug test at the end of my gig.
[gasp]
So pay attention.
[laughter]
Of course, I myself have already taken a drug test before coming on tonight.
WOMAN: Uh-huh.
^{This is the DEA Lounge, after all, where you're judged not by the color of your skin, but by the contents of your digestive system.}{
[drum]
[laughter]
I'm happy to say that I passed the drug test with flying colors.
[applaud]
Oh, thank you very much.
Oh, my government would be so proud of me.
CROWD: Awww!
The drug-testing lab didn't find so much as one single naturally occurring godsend in my system.
ANGELS: Praise God!
That's good because according to Christian Science Sharia, I am not allowed to work in America if I use plant medicine to improve my psychological condition.
Sounds like we have some Drug War heretics in the house.
MAN: Yeah.
Speaking of which, it's a good thing that Freud got his psychotherapeutic work out of the way before America's Drug War began. Otherwise, he'd be smoking his trademark cigars in the San Quentin prison yard.
[laughter]
Freud would be like:
FREUD: Yo, homie. You're in this joint because you had a bad relationship with your father. Wanna talk about it?
And the homeboy would be like:
HOMEBOY: Do you want me to bust your head, yo?
[laughter]
Listen to this here cokehead, talkin' about my father? That [bleep] is whack, yo.
And then there's Ben Franklin, who used to liberally avail himself of opium 1 . Just think: If he had lived in the age of the Drug War, he would have been a mere unemployed scumbag. Benjamin Franklin would be panhandling on the street, talking about:
FRANKLIN: Hey, dude, I just invented a lightning rod.
And the guy on the street would be like:
GUY: And you know where you can PUT that lightning rod, you damn junkie.
[laughter]
Here's an idea for a Drug War: Let's criminalize tobacco and alcohol and throw everyone in jail who partakes of them. That's a Drug War that I could get behind because it would give the hypocritical Drug Warriors a taste of their own medicine.
[applaud]
We'll have drug tests, too, and anyone who has drank or smoked within the last three weeks won't be able to get so much as a job at Taco Bell.
[laughter]
I was about to say you've been a great audience, but I really won't know that until I've learned what you guys have got in your respective digestive systems.
[gasp]
So let's take a short break while you all provide urine samples to our lab technicians.
[boo]
What's the matter? Are you guys anti-American or something? ^{Drug testing is as American as... as... as invading other countries to burn plants that other cultures have been using responsibly for thousands of years.}{
[boo]
You do realize that this is the DEA Lounge, right? I'm sure that the powers that be are taking note of your anti-American reaction to my drug-testing proposal.
MAN: Uh-oh.
Uh-oh is right. Is there not one patriot in the house who is willing to take a patriotic piss for America?
[crickets chirping]
I'll take that as a no... as well as a sign that this lounge has a serious insect problem.
[drum]
[laughter]
I'm going to be generous, though. On behalf of the United States government, I'm going to allow you to continue seeking gainful employment in the United States despite your failure to take my drug test.
[applaud]
Aren't I magnanimous?
WOMAN: Ah, yes.
Just remember: if you ever happen to ingest a natural substance that promotes happiness or motivation and provides you with psychological insight, chances are you are in violation of American Sharia.
WOMAN: Ah!
So, spit that substance out at once.
[spits]
WOMAN 2: Disgusting!
And kindly report yourself to the nearest DEA office.
MAN, siren wailing: Clear the way, folks: drug scumbag coming through!
[tires squeal] [brake engages] [car door opens & closes] [feet walking on gravel] [knock on door] [door creaks open]
FEMALE AGENT: Welcome to the DEA! [agent cackling]
They will then handle all the pesky details of ruining your life by consigning you to the nearest massively overcrowded penitentiary.
[cell door clangs]
FEMALE AGENT: Sleep tight! [agent cackling]
[laughter]
You've been a great audience... as far as I can tell. You sure you're not gonna piss for me?
[boo]
OK, relax. There's no harm in asking. That's a shame, though, because I paid a pretty penny to have these lab technicians come along.
CROWD: Awww!
I guess they'll just have to go back to their labs to continue removing marijuana users from the American workforce.
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 fact that drugs have positive uses for human beings is a psychological corollary of Husserl's phenomenology and Whitehead's philosophy of organism.
Addiction was not a big thing until the drug war. It's now the boogie-man with which drug warriors scare us into giving up our freedoms. But getting obsessed on one single drug is natural in the age of choice-limiting prohibition.
Alcohol makes me sleepy. But NOT coca wine. The wine gives you an upbeat feeling of controlled energy, without the jitters of coffee and without the fury of steroids. It increases rather than dulls mental focus.
When scientists refuse to report positive uses for drugs, they are not motivated by power lust, they are motivated by philosophical (non-empirical) notions about what counts as "the good life." This is why it's wrong to say that the drug war is JUST about power.
Someone should stand outside Jefferson's estate and hand out leaflets describing the DEA's 1987 raid on Monticello to confiscate poppy plants. That raid was against everything Jefferson stood for. The TJ Foundation DISHONORED JEFFERSON and their visitors should know that!
One merely has to look at any issue of Psychology Today to see articles in which the author reckons without the Drug War, in which they pretend that banned substances do not exist and so fail to incorporate any topic-related insights that might otherwise come from user reports.
That's so "drug war" of Rick: If a psychoactive substance has a bad use at some dose, for somebody, then it must not be used at any dose by anybody. It's hard to imagine a less scientific proposition, or one more likely to lead to unnecessary suffering.
More materialist nonsense. "We" are the only reason that the universe exists as a universe rather than as inchoate particles.
NIDA is just a propaganda arm of the U.S. government -- and will remain so until it recognizes the glaringly obvious benefits of drugs -- as well as the glaringly obvious downsides of prohibition. We need a National Institute on Drug Use, not a National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Most prohibitionists think that they merely have to use the word "drugs" to win an argument. Like: "Oh, so you're in favor of DRUGS then, are you?" You can just see them sneering as they type. That's because the word "drugs" is like the word "scab": it's a loaded political term.
The fact that drugs have positive uses for human beings is a psychological corollary of Husserl's phenomenology and Whitehead's philosophy of organism.
