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.
Prohibitionists have the same M O they've had for the last 100+ years: blame drugs for everything. Being a drug warrior is never having the decency to say you're sorry -- not to Mexicans, not to inner-city crime victims, not to patients who go without adequate pain relief...
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 based on two HUGE lies: 1) that prohibition has no downsides, & 2) that drug use has no upsides.
William James knew that there were substances that could elate. However, it never occurred to him that we should use such substances to prevent suicide. It seems James was blinded to this possibility by his puritanical assumptions.
It is a truism to say that we cannot change the world and that therefore we have to change ourselves -- but the drug war outlaws even this latter option.
No wonder the "Justice" Department relies on plea deals; otherwise juries could use nullification to free those charged with mere drug possession.
In Mexico, the same substance can be considered a "drug" or a "med," depending on where you are in the country. It's just another absurd result of the absurd policy of drug prohibition.
Scientists are censored as to what they can study thanks to drug law. Instead of protesting that outrage, they lend a false scientific veneer to those laws via their materialist obsession with reductionism, which blinds them to the obvious godsend effects of outlawed substances.
Drug Prohibition Downside #1,529:
aviation accidents caused by pilots who failed to use mind-sharpening drugs to improve their situational awareness. (See, for instance, Comair flight 5191)
Any self-respecting mycologist should denounce the criminalization of mushrooms.
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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