Two things. One is how drugs got into the American mainstream big-time. It was through academia. Harvard, to be exact. From professors Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later known as “Ram Dass.) They urged American youth to “turn on, tune in, drop out.” It caught on like wildfire.

I remember that about 1964 the Houston Post or Chronicle ran a 2-page, full-color spread in the Sunday paper about new drug use by students at Houston’s Rice University. It was a breathless article about how “in” and wonderful it was to turn on with drugs. Color on-campus pics of students in a turned-on state of bless were used. Before 1963-64, drug use was not common.

Only 4 or 5 years later, kids who had been hippies had become “freaks” (Hippie-junkies, that is.) They grew into the Boomers. I saw it first-hand, as a grad student then a college teacher.

The other thing: some drug users use a LOT of drugs. That is about all they do. They use too heavily to hold a job, and get their money mostly by stealing. In fact, most theft is to support drug use, if I remember the numbers correctly. Those heavy users may account for much or most of the volume of drugs used.

I want to apologize to whoever it was that worked a thread 5-10 wretchard posts ago ….– to whom I compared to an old buddy of my mine — Charles Hayes. Thirty years ago we smoked pot together. I gave it up because I thought the drugs (and alcohol) would kill me. I was only able to give up the drugs and alcohol & cigarettes because I came to Jesus. I could not have done it by my lonesome.

I have a neice who was born in Singapore where using chewing gum could cost you big time …can’t remember if it was your life or the Bobbit part but lots of those countries are tough.

Pam’s lips …lets go to the video.

Nineteen Twenty Nine

He told me his next billet was on a U.S. Navy ship stationed in a Chinese coastal city where he got a lot of opportunity to see the solution Chiang Kai Shek and his troops worked out for Opium addiction.

They marched a bunch of addicts to the river bank every day and chopped off their heads.

Singapore seems to have a similar idea.

China, too maybe?

Also — China charges the family of the executed convict for the cost of the round sent into the brain.

They also harvest the epidermal tissues of freshly executed convicts, process them to extract the collagens, and sell the gunk to European manufacturers of fine cosmetics.

Waste Not etc.

Don’tcha love it?

How those lips doin’ Pam?

I think somewhere along the line I mention legalization for coke and ganga..Tax it , get that good revenue and do a good deal of harm to the bad guys.

Just to clarify. I personally don’t object to personal drug usage. I just know that what ever the true numbers may be, and we may never know ,but all the evidence points toward a good deal of the money going to fund guys who kill our guys..that weighs heavily on my brain.

Belive me I’ve done my share but one day on TV I saw the commercial that pointed that out and I just said, not me brother, I can grow my own or wait til they make it legal but I’m not fighting terrorism by subsidizing it ..that would be too big a stretch in logic.

It took breaking a long time habit but like rules, bad habits are made to be broken.

Not to mention the advantages of turning gangbangers into stoners.

And would leave more amow for the rest of us.

Normally I really enjoy your posts, but I’ve got a few arguments re: drug use.

First, right now, (some) drug purchases definitely do fund IEDs/jihad. BUT, this is because they’re illegal, driving up the price (and thereby funding) by a factor of 100x. If drugs were legalized, drugs’ price would drop by 99%, and funding would drop by 99%. Mr. Afghan-Poppy-Grower might even find better revenues growing, I dunno, alfalfa. Although then alfafa might fund jihad to an extent.

Second, 90% just seems ridiculously high. Some countries have legalized pot; do anywhere near 90% of their populations “use”?

Third, 20% of beer drinkers consume 80% of the beer made. I suspect a ratio like that is going to hold for drug users as well (thinking back to high-school/college would seem to anecdotally confirm this hypothesis). I lead a somewhat-sheltered life here in the midwest running a business, but gads, if 10% of the people I know are drug users I’d fall out of my chair.

Just food for thought.

in your dreams only, but your poropagandists would recall you, though these times they are out !