Abbott and Costello join the DEA

Homepage of the Drug War Philosopher, Brian Quass

Abbott and Costello join the DEA

or at least they try to

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher (Substack version)

September 27, 2026

ABBOTT: Yes, we came to apply for the Substance Tester position with the DEA?

HR: Okay, please take a seat. We will be taking applicants on a quick tour of the facilities in just a moment.

ABBOTT: Oh, thank you very much. You hear that, Lou? They're going to take us on a tour of the facilities. This is exciting, isn't it?

COSTELLO: I don't know, Abbott.

ABBOTT: What do you mean, you don't know? We need a job, don't we?

COSTELLO: Yes.

ABBOTT: And the DEA pays well, don't they?

COSTELLO: Well, they should. They have a $51 billion budget, after all.

ABBOTT: Okay, then, so what's your problem?

COSTELLO: Isn't this the same DEA that kicks our grandmothers in the groin if they think they may be harboring plant medicines in the privacy of their own homes?

ABBOTT: Relax. The DEA does not kick our grandmothers in the groin.

COSTELLO: They don't?

ABBOTT: No, not at all.

COSTELLO: The owner of my favorite bodega in the Bronx would beg to differ with you.

ABBOTT: What, do you mean Ricardo Sanchez?

COSTELLO: Yes, I mean Ricardo Sanchez.

ABBOTT: The clue is in the name, Costello. Ricardo Sanchez? I'm sure they never kick American grandmother's in the groin, at least not reasonably well-heeled American grandmothers like ours.

COSTELLO: Are you saying that Ricardo Sanchez isn't an American?

ABBOTT: No, I just-- Oh, you know what I mean!

COSTELLO: Yes, I'm afraid I do, Abbott.

ABBOTT: Now, let's take a seat beside our fellow applicants here. My goodness, there must be at least 50 of them. And there's even some Mexicans in the group, too.

COSTELLO: And this is after they narrowed the number down with drug tests and investigations of the applicant's political history and so forth.

ABBOTT: I'm surprised that we're still in the running given your obsession with the rights of alien grandmothers.

COSTELLO: And I figured that we were "in like flint" given your penchant for kowtowing to authority.

ABBOTT: Oh, be quiet, Lou. The HR guy is coming back.

HR: Now, if you applicants will follow me. I'm going to show you our Bioassay Lab so that you can get an idea of the work environment associated with the job for which you're applying.

COSTELLO: Hey, Abbott, what's a bioassay lab?

ABBOTT: That's where they test drugs for efficacy.

COSTELLO: Efficacy?

ABBOTT: Yeah, you know. To find out if the drugs work.

COSTELLO: Gee, I'm not sure I'm qualified for such work, Abbott.

ABBOTT: You can swallow a pill, can't you?

COSTELLO: Well, yes.

ABBOTT: You can smoke a pipe, can't you?

COSTELLO: Yes.

ABBOTT: You can snort a powder, can't you?

COSTELLO: Yes.

ABBOTT: Then you're qualified for the job.

COSTELLO: But how do I decide if a psychoactive substance really works?

ABBOTT: Don't worry about that now. They're going to tell us what effects we should be looking for in these drugs.

COSTELLO: Oh, that's a relief.

ABBOTT: They're probably going to want us to flag any substance that improves our mood or that increases our power of mentation.

COSTELLO: Mentation?

ABBOTT: Yeah, our brain power.

COSTELLO: Oh.

ABBOTT: [murmuring] What little you may have of that commodity.

COSTELLO: I heard that.

HR: Now, if you'll all gather around work station 20, here. That's it, form a circle so that everyone can see.

COSTELLO: Hey, Abbott, what are those two nerdy guys in the lab coats doing?

ABBOTT: How do I know, Lou? Just listen and learn.

HR: As you can see, the two nerdy guys in the lab coats are investigating a new tryptamine that has just hit the streets. Word has it that the drug can give you peace of mind, improve your mental ability -- and that it isn't even addictive.

COSTELLO: Aha! So that's the kind of drug that we should flag as good, right?

HR: Who said that?

ABBOTT: Quiet, Lou. You're going to spoil our chances.

HR: Apparently, at least one of you has not read the introductory brochure to the agency.

ABBOTT: Now you've done it.

COSTELLO: Oh. Well, I just thought that peace of mind and increased brain power was a good thing.

ABBOTT: Would you just be quiet and listen to the man?

HR: Drugs that in any way influence the mind for the better are a definite no-no.

ABBOTT: You hear that, Lou? A definite no-no.

HR: Tim, why don't you tell us what you and Larry are doing here?

TIM: Well, Larry has just swallowed a tryptamine called 4-HOHO-DMT and I'm monitoring him for effects and recording any observations that he may make while he is stoned.

COSTELLO: Stoned?

ABBOTT: Quiet.

COSTELLO: Is that a scientific term, Abbott? "Stoned"?

ABBOTT: I said shush.

HR: And, Larry, how are you feeling?

LARRY: It's... it's amazing, boss.

HR: Yes?

LARRY: I now see that Allen Ginsberg was right.

HR: Right? Right about what?

LARRY: Well, about the whole body politic when it comes to drugs.

HR: I'm not following you, Larry.

LARRY: Well, you know what Allen Ginsberg says about drugs in The Yage Letters by William Burroughs?

HR: The quote escapes me for the moment, Larry. Refresh my memory.

LARRY: Ginsberg said, and I quote... "A materialist consciousness is attempting to preserve itself from dissolution by restriction and persecution of experience of the transcendental."

HR: Security. Show this Flower Child to the door.

LARRY: "But sleep and death cannot evade the great dream of being and the victory of the bureaucrats of illusion is only an illusion of their separate world of consciousness."

HR: Blah, blah, blah.

LARRY: Hey, get your hands off me!

HR: Get him out of here, now!

LARRY: Do you hear me? "Sleep and death cannot evade the great dream of being and the victory of the bureaucrats of illusion is only an illusion of their separate world of consciousness!" I said get your hands off me!

HR: I'm sorry about that, folks. Every now and then we encounter a drug that seems custom-made to make even our most conservative substance testers rebel.

COSTELLO: [whispering] I think Larry had a point.

ABBOTT: Quiet!

HR: Hang tight there, Tim. We'll be supplying you with a new partner in just a tick. [turning to applicants] And that new partner could be any one of you -- except for the clown who just whispered that Larry had a point.

ABBOTT: Are you happy now, Lou?

HR: I don't know who it was yet, but as Liam Neeson says in the movie "Taken": 'I will find you and I will kill you...' or at very least I will show you the door.

ABBOTT: Now, behave yourself!

HR: Let's move over to table 21, here. Quiet. It looks like the drug tester in this case is getting ready to say something about her experience.

MARY: I feel a sort of colossal calm.

HR: Are you getting that, Joe? She feels a sort of colossal calm.

JOE: "Colossal calm." Got it.

MARY: My depression lifted from my mind like the sun coming out of the clouds.

HR: Oh, my God. Don't give her any more of that junk, Joe. Let Mary be the last person in the world to use that substance legally.

COSTELLO: [whispering] Gee, you'd think that such a drug could be a godsend for the depressed, Abbott.

ABBOTT: That's your problem, Lou: you think.

HR: Sorry to subject you applicants to Mary's delirious ravings, but as a bioessayist, you must be prepared to encounter such thoroughly wacked-out states.

COSTELLO: [whispering] If only the suicidal could become as wacked-out as Mary.

ABBOTT: Oh, stop that.

HR: Have one of our female guards give Mary a cold shower -- while reading her the periodic table: anything to bring her back down to earth again.

COSTELLO: I could help with that.

ABBOTT: I bet you could.

COSTELLO: By reading her the periodic table, I mean.

ABBOTT: Oh, stop it.

[Costello raises hand]

HR: Yes, question?

COSTELLO: So how does this work? Does a drug get criminalized just because we say so?

HR: Technically speaking, no. After you flag a drug for negative consequences such as an ability to improve mentation or to inspire an holistic view of life, that drug is then passed on to our REAL chemistry lab down the hall, where the lab coats come up with a scientific reason to ban the drug.

COSTELLO: But what if you can't find a scientific reason to ban a drug?

HR: We can ALWAYS find a scientific reason to ban a drug. If nothing else works, we give the drug to lab rats at ridiculously large doses. That's sure to cause SOME problem. It might give the rats cancer or damage their livers or compromise their immune systems -- always assuming that it doesn't kill them outright, of course. Our scientists can then write up a scientific report about these quote-unquote "downsides" of the drug and then pass them on to the Spin Department, located next door but one, where the results are leveraged with the help of AI and the creative writing skills of our staff into a heartfelt appeal for the immediate outlawing of the drug in question. Lawyers and legislators then get involved, and before you know it, not one single depressed person in the world is going to be subject to the dangers of using such substances -- except, of course, for drug abusers, whom the DEA will lock up quicker than you can say "Jack Sprat."

COSTELLO: Jack Sprat?

ABBOTT: Quiet.

COSTELLO: Don't you think it's funny that he said "Jack Sprat"? Why not "Bob's your uncle" or "apple sauce"?

ABBOTT: Would you quit?

COSTELLO: Why precisely "Jack Sprat"?

[murmuring]

HR: Well, this is unusual. Our bioessayists seem to be getting quite excited.

COSTELLO: Don't forget, I'm always available to read the periodic table to any female who becomes wacked out of her mind.

ABBOTT: Would you stop it?

HR: It must have something to do with the new batch of phenethylamines that arrived this morning for testing.

COSTELLO: Hey, Abbott. What's a fineal-ethelo-amine?

ABBOTT: Phenethylamine.

COSTELLO: Yeah, fineal-- foneal-- What is it?

ABBOTT: Everybody knows THAT, Costello.

COSTELLO: Enlighten me.

ABBOTT: Well, let's see, how can I put this in layman's terms?

COSTELLO: How should I know?

ABBOTT: A phenethylamine is... well, it's an organic compound, what you might call a trace amine, that acts as a central nervous system stimulant in human beings.

COSTELLO: Oh, why didn't you SAY so!

ABBOTT: It regulates monoamine neurotransmission by binding to trace amine-associated receptor 1 and-- Didn't they teach you anything in school?

COSTELLO: Well, I just--

ABBOTT: Quiet.

HR: Now listen closely, applicants. You can pick out a variety of user reports as they're being voiced by our various participants. All of them are apparently wacked out of their skulls by some phenethylamine or other.

[note: the following are actual reports of users after ingesting a variety of synthesized phenethylamines. Only the tenses have been changed to protect the storyline]

BIOESSAYIST 1: I have the desire to laugh hysterically at what I can only describe as the completely ridiculous state of the entire world!

BIOESSAYIST 2: I know it sounds strange, but this is like a very intense form of relaxation.

BIOESSAYIST 3: Excellent feelings, tremendous opening of insight and understanding, a real awakening.

BIOESSAYIST 4: I'm learning a great deal about myself and my inner workings.

BIOESSAYIST 5: I'm becoming aware of a point, a brilliant white light, that seems to be where God is entering...

BIOESSAYIST 6: I now know that the mind has a remarkable ability to control the particular place the psyche is in.

BIOESSAYIST 7: The view out the window is unreal. The garden is painted on the window, and every petal of flower and tuft of grass and leaf of tree is carefully sculptured in fine strokes of oil paint on the surface of the glass. It is not out there; it is right here in front of me.

BIOESSAYIST 8: All emotions and feeling available, but there is a cool perspective which informs all thinking... Could do a lot of learning with this material...

BIOESSAYIST 9: I am experiencing more deeply than ever before the importance of acknowledging and deeply honoring each human being.

BIOESSAYIST 10: This feels marvelous, and a whole new way to be much more relaxed, accepting, being in the moment. No more axes to grind. I can be free.

ABBOTT: You're right! These people are really wacked out of their freaking skulls!

HR: Yes, it's disgraceful, isn't it?

ABBOTT: Excuse me, sir, but aren't phenethylamines the class of drugs that were synthesized by American chemist Alexander Shulgin in the early 1990s?¹

HR: Yes, more's the pity. I still can't believe that guy ever got the right to synthesize those hundreds of drugs in the first place back in 1991. You can't imagine the harm he did by showing the world that drugs had so many beneficial uses. Well, the DEA got their own back a few years later. We raided his joint in Lafayette, California, in 1994 with dozens of agents and at least eight police and fire vehicles. It was great fun! It was what you might call a media circus. Okay, maybe we didn't find any reason to arrest the guy, but fortunately for us, his record keeping was shoddy, so we were perfectly justified in forcing him to remove $25,000 out of his already meager retirement account.²

ABBOTT: Served him right.

COSTELLO: You are such a toady.

ABBOTT What did you say?

COSTELLO: I said I'm thirsty for a sodi.

ABBOTT: That's what I thought you said.

COSTELLO: Oh, you did, did you? Well, that just goes to show what YOU know! What I actually said was, you are such a toady!

ABBOTT: Remind me to kill you later.

HR: Speaking of which, don't be alarmed if we raid your house too, should you be offered a job at the DEA.

COSTELLO: What?

HR: Our agency has gotten so used to performing SWAT raids that we're using those raids for all sorts of purposes these days.

ABBOTT: What do you mean, sir?

HR: Well, say that you leave out a required page on a drug-user report: we don't waste time trying to track you down to find the missing document, we just raid your house.

ABBOTT: What?

HR: Well, you've got to remember, we are positively swimming in money at the agency. We've got to do SOMETHING with all the trigger-happy bounty hunters that we've hired.

ABBOTT: Oh, yes, of course.

HR: Besides, we've found that these unannounced raids greatly increase the attention to detail of the average worker. Nobody wants to have their home raided, after all, especially since we might accidentally shoot their grandmother after breaking down the front door with our jackboots.

COSTELLO: Or you might accidentally kick our grandmothers in the groin.

HR: And then there's that, too.

COSTELLO: See, Abbott. I told you they would kick our grandmothers in the groin.

ABBOTT: Will you stop?

HR: Any questions?

COSTELLO: Are there any other positions available besides Substance Testers?

HR: Are you kidding me? We've got so much money, job applicants can practically invent jobs for themselves. We have plenty of jobs for public speakers, for instance. How would you feel about traveling to grade schools and teaching the kids about how god awful drugs are? You know, really teach them to hate drug users -- to hate them viscerally, so to speak -- and to lavish, if possible, even MORE disdain upon those who PEDDLE the junk?

COSTELLO: Um... forgive me for asking, but isn't that kind of like indoctrinating kids in the drug-hating religion of Christian Science?

HR: Aha. So! You must be that clown who thought that Larry had a point when it came to the so-called "persecution of experience of the transcendental."

ABBOTT: Never mind him. He's ready to believe whatever he is expected to believe in order to earn a living.

COSTELLO: Speak for yourself, you toady.

HR: Sorry, Mister...

COSTELLO: Costello.

HR: Sorry, Mister Costello, but I'm going to have to vote you off the island.

COSTELLO: Oh, that's okay. As long as I'm still eligible for the job.

ABBOTT: You idiot. He means that he's not going to GIVE you any job.

COSTELLO: As long as I'm still-- What?

HR: It's a pity, really. It would have been a pleasure to raid your house on some technicality or other.

COSTELLO: Why, I oughta--

HR: I only wish that we could stuff you and place you in our DEA Museum in Arlington, Virginia, so that kids could see what a Drug War heretic looks like.

ABBOTT: He doesn't mean it, sir, really.

HR: The only problem is, we might not have enough stuffing.

COSTELLO: Are you gonna let him talk to me like that, Abbott?

HR: [turning to Abbott] And you! It looks like you two come as a package deal, so I'm going to have to "just say no" to the both of you!

ABBOTT: Oh, but, sir, I promise you that--

HR: I wouldn't hire you guys to clean the urine beakers in our drug testing lab.

COSTELLO: Oh, no? [beat] What a pisser.

ABBOTT: Would you be quiet?! Listen, sir, really--

HR: Security! Escort these troublemakers back into the wild -- and don't let any of their high-falutin ideas about time-honored freedoms rub off on you.

ABBOTT: There, are you satisfied?

COSTELLO: What did I do?

ABBOTT: You lost us our jobs, that's what you did.

COSTELLO: Can I help it if I think that human beings have a right to godsend medicines?

ABBOTT: Well, so do I, really, when you get right down to it, but I share my ideas by writing letters to the editor, not by lecturing employers about human and civil rights violations and thereby losing my chance for a job.

COSTELLO: Oh, well... I'm sorry, Abbott.

ABBOTT: Well, you should be. We had those jobs in the palms of our hands and then you start muttering about the rights of the depressed and so forth.

COSTELLO: I know, I know...

[security arrives, begins escorting pair out of office]

ABBOTT: Well?

COSTELLO: Well, what?

ABBOTT: What do you have to say for yourself?

COSTELLO: Nothing.

ABBOTT: Nothing?

COSTELLO: Except that...

ABBOTT: Except that what?

COSTELLO: [shouting] "Sleep and death cannot evade the great dream of being and the victory of the bureaucrats of illusion is only an illusion of their separate world of consciousness!" Hey, get your hands off me!

Notes for essay entitled Abbott and Costello join the DEA: or at least they try to:

1: Shulgin, Alexander T, and Ann Shulgin. 2019. Pihkal : A Chemical Love Story. Berkeley, Ca: Transform Press. (up)
2: Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. 1996. “DEA Raid on Shulgin Laboratory.” Bulletin of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. July 1996. https://www.serendipity.li/wod/dea_raid.html. (up)

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tombstone for American Democracy, 1776-2024, RIP

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Abbott and Costello join the DEA

or at least they try to

Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US

Break the ice with a sledgehammer: place this book on your coffee table.

Diary of a Drug Fiend