EMCEE: Live from the DEA Lounge, it's the man who put the "psycho" in "psychoactive."
[laughter]
Mr. Johnny O'Clonopan.
That's my name, use it only as directed.
[laughter]
[applause]
Thank you. Oh, you're too kind.
I will never understand how I got this gig at the DEA Lounge here in downtown Washington, D.C.
[laughter]
Apparently, the Human Relations staff failed to check my politics before signing me up.
The truth be told, I believe that the Drug War is...
1) Anti-patient.
[gasp]
2) Anti-scientific.
[gasp]
3) Anti-minority.
[gasp]
4) A violation of the natural law upon which this country was founded.
[gasp]
5) A way for conservatives to steal elections by locking up thousands of their political opponents.
[gasp]
6) A make-work program for law enforcement that is their golden goose thanks to the highly lucrative forfeiture of so-called drug property.
[gasp]
7) A protection racket designed to shield Big Pharma and Big Liquor from competition.
[gasp]
And an excuse to invade other countries, often with the goal of burning plants that have been used responsibly for millennia by the locals but which now pose an unacceptable competition to the American liquor industry.
Well, aren't you guys going to gasp?
[gasp]
That's more like it.
[drum]
[laughter]
No, seriously. How many of you saw Leslie Bibb, Nicolas Cage, and Laurence Fishburne in "Running with the Devil"?
[applause]
Well, that's depressing. I didn't realize it was that popular.
WOMAN: Oh, yes.
So, let me get this straight: Leslie Bibb is the DEA Chief and she gets to torture and murder mere suspects because they were dealing in....
[drum]
...oh, how horrible...
PLANTS???
[laughter]
Thomas Jefferson is not simply rolling in his grave, he is doing handsprings and cartwheels.
[laughter]
I mean, did somebody say "Whirling Dervish"?
CROWD: Whirling Dervish!
I thought so. But then the DEA never cared much for Thomas Jefferson anyway. Thirty-five years ago, they stomped onto Monticello 1 in their jackboots and stole the man's poppy plants.
[boo]
I know, right? Let me tell you something, folks. U.S. elections aren't being swayed by the Russians, they're being stolen by American movie producers, like the ones responsible for this little 90-minute bit of Drug War propaganda.
MAN: That's right.
[applause]
I'd better get out of here. I hear they're having a celebration for former DEA head John C. Lawn. You remember Mr Lawn. He was the guy who tried to poison American pot smokers back in the 1970s by lacing marijuana plants with paraquat, a weed killer that has subsequently been shown to cause Parkinson's Disease.
[boo]
What can I say? Your tax dollars at work during America's Drug War.
WOMAN: Disgusting
You took the hash right out of my bong, lady.
[drum]
[laughter]
Here's an idea. Since he likes that stuff so much, why don't we all chip in together and get him a birthday cake laced with the weed killer of his choice?
[siren wails]
Hey, I was just kidding. I would never try to poison someone with paraquat, unlike certain former DEA chiefs that I know.
[drum]
[laughter]
MAN: For sheezy my neezy.
It's scary, though, because 35 years later, Master Poisoner John C. Lawn remains a hero in the eyes of the DEA, and if that doesn't tell you how corrupt this agency is, then nothing will.
WOMAN: Word.
[applause]
My name is Johnny O'Clonopan, and my comedy is every bit as addictive as my Big Pharma 23 namesake, baby. I'll be here until Friday, or until the DEA finally figures out that I hate their friggin' guts.
[applause]
[laughter]
EMCEE: Let's put some hands together, please, gang, for Johnny O'Clonopan.
Morphine can provide a vivid appreciation of mother nature in properly disposed minds. That should be seen as a benefit. Instead, dogma tells us that we must hate morphine for any use.
We've created a faux psychology to support such science: that psychology says that anything that really WORKS is just a "crutch" -- as if there is, or there even should be, a "CURE" for sadness.
"Chemical means of peering into the contents of the inner mind have been universally prized as divine exordia in man’s quest for the beyond... before the coarseness of utilitarian minds reduced them to the status of 'dope'." -- Eric Hendrickson
To understand why the western world is blind to the benefits of "drugs," read "The Concept of Nature" by Whitehead. He unveils the scientific schizophrenia of the west, according to which the "real" world is invisible to us while our perceptions are mere "secondary" qualities.
Had the DEA been active in the Punjab and 1500 BCE, there would be no Hindu religion today.
Drug war pundits need to stop using the word "snorts" when it comes to cocaine. We "take" our "meds," and yet we "snort" cocaine, just like a pig. That is NOT neutral language, folks!
There would be little or no profiling of blacks if the Drug War did not exist.
If we encourage folks to use antidepressants daily, there is nothing wrong with them using heroin daily. A founder of Johns Hopkins used morphine daily and he not only survived, but he thrived.
Big pharma drugs are designed to be hard to get off. Doctors write glowingly of "beta blockers" for anxiety, for instance, but ignore that fact that such drugs are hard -- and even dangerous -- to get off. We have outlawed all sorts of less dependence-causing alternatives.
The Drug War is the ultimate example of strategic fearmongering by self-interested politicians.
Unless otherwise indicated, no AI is used in the creation of site content. These essays represent the original ideas of their author and not the ideas that the author SHOULD have based on an algorithmic parsing of existing data. For more on this subject, consider the AI-related viewpoints to which the author subscribes as delineated in the New York Times opinion piece entitled "What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity" by Rebecca Winthrop of the Brookings Institution.
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