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Just Say No To Some Drugs
by Josh Christian
So
here I am staring at my keyboard, trying to congeal my thoughts on the subject that I am about to explore. First off, these are only my observations and opinions. This has no connection with the web site where you are seeing it, except for the fact the folks running it are kind enough to let me rant. Second, if you read the back of either of the
Toxik records, in the lower right hand corner they have the then Generic "Stop the Madness" logo that appeared on each and every Roadrunner/Road Racer release from that era. It goes on to
say "Drugs are no fun. Drugs endanger the life and happiness of millions. It must stop. We appeal in particular to the youth of today. Stop the madness. There are better things in life.” (1987
Roadrunner Productions)
At the time I was very proud of that message and even had a song called Pain and Misery about a roommate that was smoking a lot of Crack...
Almost 20 years later and I am still proud of the song, but a little confused by the message.
You see, back then the world was 2 dimensional for me and people like me. The awareness of the late Fifties and Sixties had
been long since been replaced with the selfishness of the Seventies and the vanity of the Eighties... a very uncultured time... my time. The technological revolution/evolution was just
beginning to happen. Home computers, cellphones & the Internet were all still several years away from being mainstream... So in a way it was also the ending of a certain innocence. There wasn't
one tenth of the info that is available today. Good or bad, we were living in a very different bubble .
“Just Say No To Drugs” was an over used popular political slogan/program that had been kicking around for years. I am sure
you all remember it well enough. Starting with Nixon-ites in the seventies then reinvented and repackaged with a mascot, First Lady - Nancy Regan in the Eighties, which in itself was sort of
ironic because the rumor was that Nancy and Ronnie had done their share of drinking and drugging. Along with Frank Sinatra and the rest of the dry Martini Hollywood clique back in the day.
In spite of this, Just Say No had the desired effect and the notion that recreational drug use could be "Normal" and "Acceptable"
was now regarded as old dogma. That's when scenes like the Straight edge movement and Christian rock started to gain larger followings.
My Point Is This..
While the rhetoric of a drug free society may be great for attracting certain types of target voters. The reality is the rate
of addiction and overdose is pandemic... and people aren't just strung out on street drugs any more. There is a huge portion of the population (group a) that has become addicted to legal and
prescribed " personality " drugs in mass quantities ...much to the delight of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries alike. While we as a nation, have more people incarcerated right now
2004 than ever before. As many as 5.8 million globally ! (infowars.com ) Many of them for soft drugs (group b). Users and very small time sellers, your friends my neighbors, our
parents, brothers and sisters... Americans... sitting in prisons rotting because it became a popular voting platform. What separates the two groups, other than a dubious Federal Stamp? Apparently not very much.
The war on drugs is in fact a farce that continues to this day at the expense of our pocket books and our precious short lives... it's been a huge money maker
for the corrupt elite who have played both sides of the issue as supplier and denier from the very beginnings.
 In 1885 John S. Pemberton creates Coca-Cola
..in an attempt to copy a popular French Beverage/wine called Vin Mariana, which also uses cocaine as an ingredient. Pemberton is quoted as saying he has improved on "The Original." Pemberton, a reported
Morphine addict, suffers from poor health and is forced to sell off three quarters of the company. There are stories that he sold one quarter twice (he was probably high). Asa Candler acquires
full ownership in 1889 by 1906 Coke as it is now referred to goes international and oddly enough gets exported to Columbia and Cuba first. 1914 sales hit 52 million US dollars and Coca Cola is
recognized as one of the best known products of the day. The original formula "7x" did contain cocaine... about 1/400 of a grain, or 1 part per 50 million, or, and this really says it... one
year’s supply (about 25 million gallons) from 1902 had 1/600 of an ounce!!!
In other words, you could literally drink five gallons of Coca Cola and not catch a buzz. By comparison another product of the day, "RYNOS HAY FEVER," was
99.8 percent pure cocaine and was advertised as being able to "make the ill feel well." I bet it did. It was used widely in hospitals and was perceived by many as a sure fire cure all.
If Coke had continued to market themselves as a health aid which they did originally there would never have been the issue
but Coca Cola the company came under serious public (publicized) scrutiny because of the evil drug in their non medical public product
... Whether the healing properties existed or not... the thought police are always on guard against you being self empowered. So Coke switches from Cocaine to Coca leaves with an even weaker formula
... however, this effort does not appease the do-gooders.and ultimately Coca is removed altogether in 1929. The formula that follows is used until the 60's
..and contains more caffeine than six eight ounce cups of black coffee and roughly 3/4 ounce of refined sugar.... In a 6 ounce bottlel OK? So why is the Minuscule Coca extract offensive and the
Heaping kidney clogging Caffeine-Sugar bomb acceptable? You tell me... the health issues are clear by volume. So then is it money... could they not have just as easily grown
coca fields as coffee fields? Or is it Control?
1551 Cocaine becomes villainized and criminalized for the first time ..not surprisingly by the Catholic church. A Spanish Bishop
in a recently concurred Incan province deems use of the drug by the locals " Foul " and " Loathsome " He goes on to describes it
as "an agent of the devil" and its use must be forbidden ...however he soon realizes that he can not motivate the locals to do anything without the leaves. ..has an immediate policy shift
and begins to cultivate and distribute it ..becoming quite popular and wealthy in the process... god and business... The old "One, Two."
Sigmund Freud, arguably the best best known name in his field, was an avid user and prescribed it routinely to patients. Robert Louis Stephenson
wrote Jekyll and Hyde on a six day binge. Shakespeare used to smoke it... can you imagine? Obviously they had figured out a way to burn/inhale it. I doubt if it looked
anything like what's getting sold on the corners of every city in America... but still... Shakespeare, the crack head..?
"Death lies on her ( hold on... sizzle sizzle... crackle, crackle... exhale... whoa...) Like an untimely frost upon the sweetest
flower of the field ."
Now, I am not advocating the use of illegal drugs or suggesting that drugs that are legal be criminalized. I personally know quite
a few folks who benefit from their prescriptions. I have also known several fatal overdose victims... including friends that died of diseases years later from HIV / AIDS that they contracted
while shooting Heroin. Ya dig? This ain't my first rodeo... but this false war, like other false wars we seem to be engaging in these days puts profit ahead of people and is much more likely to
hurt than to help. I guess we have all gotten used to being ' Just a Number " or have we ? How do we make that work in our heads with the instilled individualism that we as US citizens hold so near
and dear?Well, the answer is we don't or we can't and we're going nuts trying, as the Drug and Casket makers laugh all the way to the bank.
Photo courtesy of CNN.
The fact that a drug has the FDA seal of approval only indicates that it has gone through the proper commercial channels... the right palms have been greased
and the right favors performed..not that the compound has a safe place in our medicine cabinet..just listen to the disclaimer at the end of the commercial, "Common side effects include
Nausea, Diarrhea, Vomiting, Sexual Disfunction, Headache, Dizziness, Dry mouth, Blurry vision, Hives, Skin Sores, Mouth Sores, Hair loss, Weight gain/loss, Tiredness, Irritability, Numbness, Tingling , Shaky
, Cold, Hot, Sweats, Sleep loss, Loss of Taste, Loss of Smell, Cramping, Premature Menstruation and in rare (how rare?) but extreme cases... Cardiac arrest, Shock, Dementia, Kidney failure, Liver failure...DEATH !
Yikes ! What's worse the illness or the cure? Corporate Drug Pushers? You know it. No one there is interested in your health or your well being.
Profit and control... control and profit... they really compliment each other so well. If we control what you can and can't
take and we keep you doped up on TV and disinformation so that nothing really gets under your skin or "agitates" you, you'll just go on buying those worthless consumer trinkets and
paying for more legal, good drugs... drugs, drugs, drugs. So which drugs am I supposed to say “No” to?
Here are a couple of thoughts to finish with.
(this was reported by Peter Jennings in 96 so the numbers may have become even stronger in my favor as illegal drug use is way down and Tobacco use is way up )
Tobacco kills 100 times as many people yearly than all illegal drugs put together .if you bring Alcohol into the fray the number
shoots up to 144 times as many deaths. Now that could be spun a lot of ways. Even at face value the point is made.
We've spent nearly 400 billion as of 2002 for the war on drugs that number will double by 2006 ...not including the infinite funds
blown on litigation and housing for the millions of Americans in jail. All tax dollars people... you and me...
We love wrestling. We Love our porn. We love fast food.
I guess we don't care as much about our money
...or our Countrymen ?
The amount of advertising that the pharmaceutical industry is putting out has gone way way up - 300% in the last five years.
Think about how many adds you've seen on television for everything from Viagra to Wellbutrin, Clariton, Zoloft, Paxell, Prozac... then of course you have the home remedies that we've
all grown up on, tried and true... Tylenol, Bayer, Pepto Bismol, Alkaseltzer... on and on and on... but don't smoke a JOINT! Heavens no! That could... hurt you? “Sure,” says the crowd voice, “One joint
is equivalent to 20 packs of cigarettes.” Ha! I would love to see that bit of data. Talk about Urban Legends, that's right up there with Mikey and his ill-fated date with Pop-Rocks
and, you guessed it, Coca Cola.
Drugs are illegal because we need enemies. Hard to see, quiet enemies. Enemies THEY can scare us with and protect us from.
Like rogue states... another good one. Very hard to pin point, but "trust us, we are professionals." Be afraid, very afraid. Keep the terror level up abroad to keep us on our toes externally while
the war rages on drugs at home and helps to keep us unsettled, skeptical and suspicious of our neighbors. A little of the old divide and concur? As local police forces are steadily militarized ..no
more local cop that everybody knows and likes. What is your gut reaction when you see a patrol car in the rear view mirror these days?. Whether you are speeding or not... panic? Fear?
That’s law enforcement. Without a drug war, where is the budget? There are no alcohol gangs terrorizing neighborhoods because it's legal. They are sustaining the situation by keeping
the drugs in the hands of an otherwise product-less subculture.
No. I am thinking it comes down to something much darker. Much more Sci Fi.
They don't want you to self medicate.. They don't want you to elevate your perception or feel "too good." THEY don't
want you to do anything that takes you out of the
Work-Consume-Die
loop. You are worth so much more as a semi healthy Praying/functioning work unit. Pushed ever forward by your natural instinct to achieve and a systemized imprint from
birth... that as Americans we have a right and a responsibility to ourselves and our country to work and buy and if you happen to fall off into the abyss of the anti
socialite, there's a thirsty judicial/prison/military industrial complex just waiting to snap you up and put you to work. You'll never be lonely again.
Fact: there is a profit margin in your birth, your life and your death. Someone makes money on all three of these
events without your name ever being mentioned. OK, so it's not the Matrix with big ugly machines sucking electricity from our spinal columns, but it's pretty damn close, and
there we are, like cows... Fat, stupid and sullen. Living life one purchase at a time...
The war on Drugs is a war on our minds. It is a war on your most basic desire... to feel good. This is nothing new. It's all
very Roman of course and has its roots in the darkest depths of human desire... control, Control... CONTROL!!! Possibly the strongest addiction of all...
MOO
-Tinkabottit
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