Pro-Drugs Column Runs In UK

London’s esteemed Times newspaper ran a pro-drugs piece by one of its columnists, Martin Samuel (left). This is amazing. In the United States even articles that simply make policy arguments against drug prohibition – while still echoing the “drugs are bad” mantra – are almost never published. (See Eric Sterling’s post, LINK.) Samuel’s piece was a flat-out defense of recreational drugs. Wow.

Here’s an excerpt:

Now I don’t see my views on drugs reflected too often in the mainstream media, so here goes. This is the comedian Bill Hicks quoted in performance at the Laff Stop, Austin, Texas, December 1991. “I don’t do drugs anymore,” he said, “but I’ll tell you something honestly: I had a great time doing drugs. Sorry. Never murdered anyone, never robbed anyone, never raped anyone, never beat anyone, never lost a job, a car, a house, a wife, or kids. Laughed my ass off, and went about my day. Sorry.”

Martin Samuel, “Better to Have an E Than a Bee,” Times, 4 Jan. 2008. LINK

Leave Your Cocaine Outside the White House

Drugs Equal Death?

This cartoon uses the same rationale that the Office of National Drug Control Policy used in the following asinine marijuana ad, LINK.

Barack Obama is open about his past cocaine use. (Although it would be interesting to know how candid Obama would be if his admission had not been published in 1995.) Despite the fact that most cocaine users never become dependent, the mainstream media finds it noteworthy that Obama could have used cocaine without having drug problems as this New York Times snippet shows:

In more than three dozen interviews, friends, classmates and mentors from his high school and Occidental recalled Mr. Obama as being grounded, motivated and poised, someone who did not appear to be grappling with any drug problems and seemed to dabble only with marijuana.

Bush on the other hand is not open about his raucous past. Multiple people allege that he used to use cocaine like fellow staffers from a 1972 Republican senatorial campaign who have claimed he, “liked to sneak out back for a joint of marijuana or into the bathroom for a line of cocaine.”

Bush himself has never denied using cocaine, instead choosing to be coy. Republican hacks like to seize on the fact he once denied using “hard drugs,” however, put in context this appears to have meant heroin. Of course, at Fox any notion of Bush using cocaine is blasphemy. LINK

Sources

1. Robert Arthur, You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos (2007). LINK
2. Kitty Kelley, The Family (2004).
3. Serge Kovaleski, “Old Friends Say Drugs Played Bit Part in Obama’s Young Life,” New York Times, 9 Feb. 2008, ret. NYTimes.com, 28 Feb. 2008. LINK

Paranoid Readers, My Book Is In A Magazine

An excerpt of You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos will run in the Spring 2008 issue of Paranoia magazine (circ. 14,000). Paranoia’s critical acclaim can be admired at Wikipedia and the Spring issue can be pre-ordered at Paranoia’s website.