The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

New South American Drug Is Almost Enough To Make Your Head ‘Splode

Posted on | May 31, 2011 | 27 Comments

by Smitty (h/t Digg)

As someone who has trouble with drinking coffee without addiction, resulting in minor flu-like symptoms upon withdrawal, the notion that people cede any liberty to chemicals is weird. Sure, nicotine doesn’t affect the conscious that much, but still. And drunkenness lost its appeal over a decade ago.
Beyond the drugs that are old and minor enough to be acceptable to many are those more potent and addictive. The military has mandatory annual training concerning drugs. We go online to find out what people mainline these days. One feels old to read about what strange new experiments in illegal autobiochemical manipulation are afoot.
Yet this new oxi compound sounds like the stuff of a zombie apocalypse:

oxi, a highly addictive and hallucinogenic blend of cocaine paste, gasoline, kerosene and quicklime (calcium oxide) that is wreaking havoc across the Amazon region.

How potent is it?

“The difference between cocaine and oxi is like the difference between drinking beer and pure alcohol,” said a federal police operative on the Peru-Brazil border, who refused to be named.

And

“The effects of oxi are so devastating,” he said. “When a person starts using oxi they spend days just using, without eating properly. They start to become very thin, almost skeletons, and they want to use more and more. If you do not stop you are a candidate to either die of an overdose or of other consequences of the oxi.”

Now, one is tempted to wonder if this isn’t just a trifle over-hyped.

Thought Experiment
But let’s step back from that extended family member who gave up their life for a needle, a rock, or some powder. Put on your hyper-cynical, libertarian hat and ask: are überdrugs more of a feature than a bug?
I’m not saying that somebody sacrificing their life and soul for transient pleasure in chemicals is less than tragic.
I’m not saying that the unintended consequences on innocent victims is less than sinful.
I’m wondering if some sort of de-humanizing spectacle of people who voluntarily live in some vast, enclosed “Truman Show” pit, with some food and all of the dope they can do, food, and cameras aplenty for a debased reality TV spectacle would have some deterrant effect.
Let junkies that truly hate themselves be lowered in.
Let there be a pit in the middle where they can throw the bodies of the overdosees.
Let people voluntarily sort themselves into the humans, and the zombies who want to worship at a chemical altar.
Would such a spectacle of debasement have any deterrent effect?

Category: Farce

Comments

Comments are closed.