the only comedian whose stand-up routine is listed as Schedule One by the DEA
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
May 13, 2020
EMCEE: Introducing the man who has passed more drugs tests than any other comedian on the planet.
ADDERALL: On Planet Mars, that is.
[laughter]
EMCEE: Let's hear it for Adderall Zoloft.
ADDERALL: Hey, use me only as directed, folks.
[applause]
ADDERALL: Here's a little riddle to warm you guys up. What do you get when you cross banisteriopsis caapi with psychotria viridis?
PAXIL: I don't know. What do you get when you cross banisteriopsis caapi with psychotria viridis?
ADDERALL: Ten to twenty years in the state penitentiary.
[drum]
[laughter]
No, seriously. You actually get ayahuasca if you're lucky.
PAXIL: Ayahuasca?
ADDERALL: That's right. Ayahuasca. Speaking of which, did you know that there's actually a church in America that has won the legal right to use ayahuasca in its religious rituals?
[applause]
I kid you not. Needless to say, the DEA fought that one all the way to the Supreme Court.
PAXIL: That figures.
ADDERALL: I'm happy to report however that they lost that final case, 9 to freakin' zero.
[applause]
PICTURE1
I don't like to gloat, but when I heard that outcome, I was like, "In your face, with a can of mace!"
[laughter]
PAXIL: I know what you mean, Adderall.
ADDERALL: Really?
PAXIL: Yeah. I myself was like, "Up your nose with a garden hose!"
[laughter]
ADDERALL: Paxil Busspar, ladies and gentlemen, my loyal sidekick. How are you tonight, Paxil?
[applause]
PAXIL: I'm doing great, Adderall.
ADDERALL: Oh, really?
PAXIL: Yes, I just passed my drug test to work at Taco Bell.
[laughter]
ADDERALL: Your parents must be so proud of you.
PAXIL: I know, right?
ADDERALL: But I'm a little puzzled.
PAXIL: Oh, really? How so?
ADDERALL: I thought you agreed with me that drug testing 1 was so much Christian Science bull [bleep].
PAXIL: Yes, I usually do, but this drug test was actually fair for a change.
ADDERALL: The drug test was fair? What do you mean?
PAXIL: Well, after the test was over, the lab guys actually congratulated me for the drug that I had in my system. They said I had chosen well.
ADDERALL: That's interesting. And what drug did you have in your system, Paxil?
PAXIL: I can't tell you and give away the answer.
[drum]
[laughter]
ADDERALL: Fair point.
PAXIL: Suffice it to say that it was a so called entheogen, and it helped sharpen my thinking and made me more friendly and compassionate. The lab guys actually said that it would help make me a valuable addition to the Taco Bell work force.
[laughter]
ADDERALL: Aha. I bet it was a mushroom from the genus psilocybe.
PAXIL: Tut tut Adderall. Nice try, but I'm not going to give away the answer, since you haven't taken this particular drug test yet.
ADDERALL: Fair enough, Paxil. Fair enough. I'm actually waiting for someone to create a church around the ritual use of psilocybin.
[applause]
PAXIL: Good for you.
ADDERALL: Say, Paxil, is it legal to murder a ghost?
PAXIL: I don't know. There's precious little case law in that area. Why do you ask?
ADDERALL: I was thinking of summoning the ghost of Francis Burton Harrison via Ouija Board and then beating the crap out of him, for outlawing opium 2 in 1914.
PAXIL: I'm afraid that would never work, Adderall.
ADDERALL: Why not, Paxil?
PAXIL: Because Francis's ghost would realize that the seance was a set-up job, and so he would never appear.
[laughter]
ADDERALL: Well, I'm still mighty sore at that bonehead.
PAXIL: Me too, Adderall.
ADDERALL: That man up-ended American democracy with his so-called Narcotics Act which, for the first time in American history, criminalized a freakin' plant.
[boo]
PAXIL: Now, Adderall, watch your blood pressure.
ADDERALL: I know, Paxil, but the man succeeded single-handedly in replacing the natural law on which America was founded with common law, criminalizing plants, which are the birth right of anyone who is born on planet earth.
[applaud]
PAXIL: Well, I'm sure he meant well, Paxil.
ADDERALL: Meant well? The man is responsible for millions of unnecessary deaths.
PAXIL: Remember your blood pressure.
ADDERALL: And he single-handedly created a violent movie genre in which sanctimonious Americans go south to intervene in supposedly sovereign countries in order to shoot Latinos.
[gasp]
[boo]
And why? Because they're selling plant-based medicines that have been used responsibly for millennia by non-western cultures.
PAXIL: We've talked about this, Adderall. Your audiences don't like it when you get on your high horse.
ADDERALL: It's just pops my buttons, that's all.
PAXIL: I know.
ADDERALL: I mean, stop the god [bleep] war on Mother Nature's [bleep] plants already.
PAXIL: It sounds like somebody didn't get a nap this afternoon.
[baby cries]
[laughter]
ADDERALL: Sorry about that, Paxil. Now then, where were we?
PAXIL: I think we were just getting to the part where everything that we say is hilarious and elicits hearty guffaws from the audience.
ADDERALL: You hear that, audience? Watch for your cue now.
[laughter]
PAXIL: I know, why don't you tell a joke?
ADDERALL: Good idea. Okay, let's see. What do you get when you cross an anti-Chinese electorate with WASP Americans who have a jaundiced view of Mother Nature's plants and fungi?
PAXIL: I don't know. What do you get when you cross an anti-Chinese electorate with WASP Americans who have a jaundiced view of Mother Nature's plants and fungi?
ADDERALL: You get the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, that's what you get.
[drum]
[laughter]
PAXIL: Oh, there you go again!
[drum]
[laughter]
EMCEE: Let's hear it for the only comedian whose stand-up routine is listed as schedule one by the DEA.
ADDERALL: That's right folks. They can't even study me in laboratories without an act of Congress.
Psychiatrists never acknowledge the biggest downside to modern antidepressants: the fact that they turn you into a patient for life. That's demoralizing, especially since the best drugs for depression are outlawed by the government.
The drug war has created a whole film genre with the same tired plots: drug-dealing scumbags and their dupes being put in their place by the white Anglo-Saxon establishment, which has nothing but contempt for altered states.
We won't know how hard it is to get off drugs until we legalize all drugs that could help with the change. With knowledge and safety, there will be less unwanted use. And unwanted use can be combatted creatively with a wide variety of drugs.
Drug War censorship is supported by our "science" magazines, which pretend that outlawed drugs do not exist, and so write what amount to lies about the supposed intransigence of things like depression and anxiety.
The Petpedia website says that "German Shepherds need to have challenging jobs such as searching for drugs." How about searching for prohibitionists instead?
"I can take this drug that inspires me and makes me compassionate and teaches me to love nature in its byzantine complexity, or I can take Prozac which makes me unable to cry at my parents' funeral. Hmm. Which shall it be?" Only a mad person in a mad world would choose SSRIs.
There are endless ways that psychoactive drugs could be creatively combined to combat addiction and a million other things. But the drug warrior says that we have to study each in isolation, and then only for treating one single board-certified condition.
Why don't those politicians understand what hateful colonialism they are practicing? Psychedelics have been used for millennia by the tribes that the west has conquered -- now we won't even let folks talk honestly about such indigenous medicines.
Prohibition turned habituation into addiction by creating a wide variety of problems for users, including potential arrest, tainted or absent drug supply, and extreme stigmatization.
At best, antidepressants make depression bearable. We need not settle for such drugs, especially when they are notorious for causing dependence. There are many drugs that elate and inspire. It is both cruel and criminal to outlaw them.