Why They Hate Us

Would We Stand For It?

1. In 1982 Ronald Reagan launched his disastrous war on drugs with the words, “We’re taking down the surrender flag that has flown over so many drug efforts. We’re running up a battle flag.”

2. In 2000 there were an estimated 85,000 alcohol related deaths in the United States alone. In 2005 there were 40,000 deaths from alcohol poisoning (alcohol overdose) in Russia alone.

3. Destroying drug crops in foreign lands was an idea conceived by the Reagan administration. Reagan hired mercenaries to clear the coca fields of poor Peruvian farmers with weed whackers. This was a farce considering coca grows naturally in Peru in valleys the size of Massachusetts. America is now waging this vegetative vendetta against poppies in Afghanistan.

4. America’s next plan was to aerially dump herbicides over the South American countryside. While officially targeting coca these toxins kill all plant life – including subsistance crops – while poisoning the environment and the local residents. This technique is still used in South America as a part of Plan Colombia. Afghanistan has understandably refused to allow the United States to dump herbicides on its countryside.

5. Another part of Plan Colombia is to pay farmers to plant crops other than coca. Like the previous two tactics, this has been comically ineffective as Bolivian farmers who switched to ginger learned when they found themselves, “up to their asses in ginger,” and nobody willing to buy it.

6. America uses its full diplomatic weight and financial power to bully other countries against liberalizing their drug laws. In 2006 America stopped Mexico’s legislation to legalize small amounts of drugs with a closed door meeting. The American position was that drug liberalization by Mexico would lead to narco-tourism for Americans. (America has an officer in most major foreign embassies charged with keeping Washington informed of any liberalization of drug policies.) How much America spends to coerce other countries to keep prosecuting their citizens is rarely revealed to the American public.

7. For thousands of years opium had been smoked as medicine in South Asia and coca has been chewed for sustenance in South America with miniscule deleterious effects. However, the American media portrays Afghanistan as a cesspool of addiction due to its easy access to opium. In articles such as Newsweek’s “Flowers of Destruction” and “Harvest of Treachery” moderate use of the drug is ignored and dysfunctional addicts who constitute a microscopic percentage of the population are highlighted. (The fact that the drug war drives people to use harder versions of the drug is always ignored. This recently occurred in rural Laos where an opium crackdown precipitated by immense Western pressure drove many tribespeople to heroin.)

More on Plan Colombia can be found in a Nation article, LINK, and at Wikipedia, LINK. The ongoing billion dollar program has killed a lot of flora, provoked massive amounts of bloodshed with American provided weaponry, and caused deep American resentment. It has not affected cocaine prices in the United States.

Sources:

1. “Alcohol Deaths Falling as Quality of Booze Climbs,” Moscow Times, 29 Jan. 2008. LINK courtesy of ViceSquad.
2. Robert Arthur, You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos (2007). LINK
3. Mike Gray, Drug Crazy (1998). LINK
4. Phillip Knightley, “What Went Wrong? The Drugs World War: Part Two,” Independent (London), 1 Feb. 1998.
5. “Laos’s Opium Ban,” Economist, 13 Aug. 2005.

Cocaine Did Not Kill Ike Turner

Ike Turner

The ubiquitous headlines have been “Ike Turner Died of Cocaine Overdose” and the underlying articles have focused on his past recreational drug use. As usual the government and the media have twisted their presentation of illicit drug use to create a morality lesson.

Fatal overdoses from cocaine, as with other stimulants, are extremely rare. (See this post, “Drug War Myth #726,001: Cocaine Is Deadlier Than Aspirin.”) Still, cocaine greatly increases the heart rate and, similar to roller coasters, should not be used by those with weak hearts.

Also, drugs are often incorrectly blamed for suicides. Recreational drugs are a favored exit route because they are easier and more pleasurable than shooting oneself or throwing oneself off a precipice.

Less publicized than the killer cocaine angle was the fact that Turner was at an advanced stage of emphysema. According to his daughter he was on oxygen and completely spent.

He just couldn’t – he’d gone at the time of his death four or five days without doing anything, and if he’d done anything, it would have been so minimal. He was too weak from the emphysema to do anything. He’d go in the studio for a couple of minutes and play a couple of bars and say he had to go lay down.

Debilitated people often have heart attacks when using the commode because of the exertion. Do toilets get blamed? People often commit suicide by running a car in a garage. Do cars get blamed?

Turner was a lifelong musician who knew death was near and could no longer participate in his art. Close friends and family claim Turner was no longer using illicit drugs. Is it farfetched to believe Turner chose to end his life? His former drummer, Billy Ray, who was in Turner’s home when Turner was found dead said:

He was a man who knew he was going to pass away and if smoking bud or cocaine gave him solace in his final days, what difference would it be if he had a bottle of bourbon or Paxil?

Sources

1. Robert Arthur, You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos (2007). LINK
2. Chelsea Carter, “Cocaine Killed Ike Turner, Coroner Says,” AP, 16 Jan. 2008. LINK
3. Denis Devine & Teri Figueroa, “Ike Turner Died of Cocaine Overdose,” North Country Times, 17 Jan. 2008.LINK

Getting Outed: Kutcher Fingered the Bush Twins

Two More Bushes Get High

In compiling the lists of successful people who used illegal drugs for my book I avoided mentioning those in the modern entertainment industry. The first reason is that the arts are one of the only areas in which the admission of drug use will not cripple a career so the revelations are endless. (For sample see LINK.) Second, artists, e.g. rock stars, tend to sensationalize their drug usage to appear wild, crazy, and tormented. This tends to reinforce the stereotypes rather than break them. Third, an artist is not considered to have a “real job” by much of our populace. For those reasons I usually don’t bother noting modern artists.

In this blog entry I am going to make an exception. As comedian and talk-show host, Bill Maher, pointed out in his 2002 NORML conference address, prominent drug users need to come out of the closet. As with the early gay movement, recreational drug users cannot overcome negative stereotypes when their successful members hide. Maher proceeded to out Harrison Ford and Ted Turner in his speech. While any outing is noteworthy, the most impressive outing I know of is Ashton Kutcher’s 2003 outing of the twin daughters of President George W. Bush, Jenna and Barbara.

Kitty Kelley, the queen of unauthorized biographies, has investigated influential people – Frank Sinatra, Nancy Reagan, Jackie Onassis, and the Royal Family – and yet she wrote that people were the most fearful to talk about the Bush clan. Add the fact that First Children are still given relatively gentle treatment by the media and it is unlikely someone was going to out young Jenna and Barbara. Enter Kutcher.

Kutcher not only outed the Bushettes, but he did it with flair. In the 2003 Rolling Stone cover story the former underwear model openly revealed his past enjoyment of marijuana. He also described attending a Los Angeles Nike party in the early 2000s in which Jenna and Barbara were in attendance. Despite the fact his friend lewdly commented, “I’d fucking nail the shit out of that bitch!,” in earshot of Secret Service agents, the Bush girls still inquired what Kutcher was doing after the party.

Everyone ended up at Kutcher’s afterwards. Kutcher revealed that the Bushes engaged in underage-drinking in his abode with the Secret Service right outside. At one point he went upstairs to his aforementioned friend’s room and in his words:

… I can smell the green wafting out under his door. I open the door, and there he is smoking out the Bush twins on his hookah.

As usual, when a celebrity says something “too” honest their public relations staff has to then attempt obfuscation. In this case, Kutcher’s spokeswoman said he was not contrite about the outing because “he didn’t say what was being smoked or who was doing the smoking.”Her statement is comical to anyone familiar with marijuana parlance. (For you east coasters, “smoking out” is the equivalent of “smoking up.”)

George W. Bush smoked marijuana and now his daughters have as well. There is nothing wrong with this, of course, except for Bush’s hypocrisy. Bush has a horrible record regarding marijuana tolerance. Despite promising in 2000 to respect states’ independence in determining marijuana policy, he has done the exact opposite, in fact the federal government under Bush has done everything in its power to prevent other countries from giving marijuana users greater liberty. LINK

Sources:

1. Gavin Edwards, “Ashton Kutcher,” Rolling Stone, 29 May 2003.
2. Kitty Kelley, The Family (2005).
3. Bill Maher, NORML 2002 Conference Address, 20 Apr. 2002. LINK (DOC file)
4. Karen Thomas, “Did the Bush twins inhale? Kutcher won’t say,” USAToday.com, 7 May 2003, ret. 15 Dec. 2007. LINK