Drug Week: Where Are They Now?

Lay off the pipe, Man

We interrupt this rob-fueled Drug Week to sprinkle in some fun and tomfillery. 20 years ago, PCU was released, and three characters in particular from that film enjoyed Drug Week every week. G:TB is here to help you catch up with some old friends...

Gutter:
Amazingly, Gutter, as he was so affectionately known to his friends, became the most successful of the THC Trio pictured above. After leaving campus, he briefly gave it a go as a clown, until he almost died in a building fire because some neurotic bald man pushed him out of the way escaping. Depressed, he tried his luck in Vegas after some prodding from a friend. He gave MMA a shot, and was rumored to be dancing in the dark with Courtney Cox. Reportedly traveled a bunch to the North Pole filming a documentary on a worked in the Kringle Factory. Eventually became a pudgy body guard for a multibillionaire genius super hero egomaniac. Who's the big winner now?

Mersh:
Not to be outdone by Gutter's antics, Mersh saw fit to try to destroy a space time continuum portal for "religious" reasons, hung out with a McNasty midget, and then, in his greatest adventure, almost died of heatstroke fighting alien bugs.

During the filming of Starship Troopers (1997), Mersh suffered heatstroke after working all day in 120* desert sun. This stopped production for a week. When he recovered, several large holes were cut into his uniform so he could cool off. Many other cast member's suits had this modification as well in order to prevent further cases. On average there were 25 people per day being treated for heatstroke During the filming of Starship troopers.

Kosmo:
Yeesh. Kosmo is the black sheep of this group, settling for a museum guard job that's only highlight was seeing a talking dog and his ragtag group of friends attempt to solve some silly crime.

I can't even...this guy is turrible...

Wonder if Nats fans hate this guy as much as his brother Pete?

Drug Week: Public Service Announcement

"Get ripped off in a drug deal, and there's not a whole lot you can do. It's not like you can complain to the Better Business Bureau or leave your dealer a lousy review on Yelp. As one dealer puts it, "I mean, what you gonna do? What, you gonna go up to the police and say, 'Hey man, he skeeted me out of an ounce'? Hell no."

First, Yelp for drug dealers sounds like a brilliant idea. Who's in charge of app development around here?

More importantly, though, as we continue with our drug week coverage, until our call for legalization is heeded across the nation, you'll want to make sure you check out the sublimely and coincidentally perfectly named The Week's guide to safely purchasing your recreational meds.

While some of the recommendations are fairly obvious - 'do not be an addict' seems particularly intuitive, for example - what strikes me even more is that nearly all of the guidelines apply to commercial transactions of all types. Repeat customers are more likely to get better treatment, for example. My dry cleaner, a lovely Asian woman (it's not a stereotype; it's true), with an unfortunate habit of telling one of my daughters that's she's prettier than the other, charges me a discounted rate every time I bring my things to her. I've been going to her store for nearly 10 years. I'm a good customer, and I get treated as such.

As for The Week's advice to 'not offend the seller', again, this would seem to be self-evident. Common sense, even.

In the interest of public safety, then, here's the entire list of things to do to protect your interests in a drug deal, as compiled by criminologists Scott  Jacques, Andrea Allen, and Richard Wright (who seem to have gone to significant lengths to justify buying a bunch of weed):

(1) Portray yourself to the seller as likely to make further purchases if satisfied.
(2) Buy from the same seller on a regular basis.
(3) Become acquainted with the seller to the greatest degree possible.
(4) Bring the dollar amount specified by the seller.
(5) Be informed about the going market rate: price per unit of a particular grade.
(6) Do not offend the seller.
(7) Present yourself as willing to take your business elsewhere, complain, or retaliate.
(8) Do not be an addict.

Drug Week: Cocaine Has a Stupid Profit Margin

Many of us use pseudonyms on G:TB, and for various reasons. Me, I do it to protect my professional reputation (I'm a pretty big deal. For a dipshit.) Others change their names for whimsical reasons (Why else would you choose to go by 'T.J.'?). But one in our number aspires someday to elective office*, and as such, would prefer not to be directly associated with William & Mary basketball.

(* Or if not necessarily aspires, really enjoys the idea of it.)

That unnamed dreamer has been slowly and steadily building a constituency in his hometown, starting with taverns and public houses, and moving on from there. He's positioning himself as a pragmatic m
an of the people, which is good, because he's a pretty pragmatic man of the people. They say that George W. Bush connected with regular voters who felt like he'd enjoy sitting down for a beer with them. By that standard, our guy is a shoo-in, despite his political differences with the 43rd President.

But as we near the time of reckoning, his constituents will want to know more about how this man intends to govern their city. If recent events are any indications, the good people of Norfolk are in safe hands, indeed.

He'll never tell you this, but the future Mayor of Norfolk played a critical role in last week's seizure of 732 pounds of cocaine with a street value of $100 million (and wholesale value of $12(!) million) at that city's busy port. First, the official version of events as relayed by the Virginian Pilot,

"This was a cold hit. There was no specific intelligence," (Customs and Border Protection Area Port Director Mark J.) Laria said. He spoke next to a table covered in bags and boxes of cocaine as more than a dozen armed guards secured the building. The cocaine was found inside a shipping container that originated from Trinidad and Tobago off the coast of Venezuela, Laria said. It was destined for New York.Officers targeted the container because of some recent, unspecified smuggling trends. Laria said they started out using large-scale X-ray machines, transitioned to some smaller devices and eventually pulled out the can openers."

Our sources within CBP swore us to secrecy, but the real story is a humdinger. I can't get into the details, but let's just say that it's unlikely that Steve Tasker, Jimmy Buffett, and Stephen Hawking will ever be in the same room together. And while our guy will never take credit for it, the people of Norfolk are in very good hands. Or at least they will be.

Drug Week: A Very Special GTB Report

Welcome to Drug Week at G:TB, a nuanced and deeply researched* look into our nation's evolving and conflicted approach to the enforcement, legalization, and use of mind-altering substances. 

(* - It will be neither of those things. Hell, it's unlikely that we'll make it more than two days before collapsing in a weed and booze-addled lazy haze.)

Yesterday, @BadNewsHughes pointed out an amusing coincidence on Twitter, noting that both NFL conference championship games were played in states that have legalized recreational marijuana use. The Broncos were obviously the more relaxed team in their matchup with New England, and it's not hard to understand the reason. Seattle, interestingly, pressed throughout the first half against San Francisco, clear evidence of the long-standing irony of caffeine's widespread acceptance as a legal stimulant juxtaposed against pot's status as mellower non grata. The Emerald City's deep-rooted addiction to coffee-based kickstarts overcame Washington's recent legalization of marijuana until Pete Carroll passed a bowl around the Seahawks' locker room at halftime. Some habits die hard. Because they're subsidized and protected by governments.

More noteworthy this week (though somehow not really mentioned by the press at large), were President Barack Obama's comments on marijuana. While the President didn't come out for Federal legalization of recreational use, he did say something that I found at the same time controversial and true. In an interview with The New Yorker, Obama said, ""I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life. I don't think it is more dangerous than alcohol." (Emphasis ours.)

When I was in high school, long before I ever smoked pot (which I did just one time, and didn't like it, as far as my parents will ever know), I began a long-running argument with my father about the merits of marijuana legalization. I didn't have the benefit of the numerous studies comparing alcohol use and abuse to marijuana's negative societal impacts at my disposal. Instead, I had a kid's natural inclination to rebel against his parents and a teenager's highly refined bullshit/hypocrisy sensor. Meanwhile, Dad, who was a military officer and later a high school principal, argued from authority. And even today, I don't disagree with his points about negative influence on military and educational discipline - I just don't think pot's impact on those things is materially different than alcohol's.

Dad and I never settled anything, as you might guess, but it strikes me that the President's words today are meaningful in changing the terms of the debate. The Commander in Chief smoked pot as a young man (as did each of his last two predecessors). He's not advocating cannabis for all (pot in every pot, as it were) - in fact, he takes pains to classify weed as a bad thing - he's merely articulating an argument for equivalence with America's most widely accepted vice. Alcohol fucks us up immeasurably more than does marijuana, and it's propped up by a billion-dollar industry that spends more than $15 million a year (which actually seems low) on lobbying just the U.S. Congress - in no small part to ensure that marijuana doesn't get a Federal stamp of approval.

The President said something else that matters in changing the conversation about marijuana when he addressed the depressing and borderline criminal disparities in the enforcement of our current laws.  "Middle-class kids don't get locked up for smoking pot, and poor kids do," he said. "And African-American kids and Latino kids are more likely to be poor and less likely to have the resources and the support to avoid unduly harsh penalties."

According to the (clearly pro-legalization) Drug Policy Alliance, the quote-unquote War on Drugs costs us $51 billion/year. Legalization would yield an estimated $46.7 billion in tax revenues, assuming weed was taxed at comparable rates to alcohol and tobacco. That's a net benefit to the economy of nearly $97 billion, with immeasurable positive impacts in terms of lives no longer ruined by mandatory drug sentences, and a reduction in crime related to marijuana trafficking. 

But above all the economic and enforcement arguments, none strikes me as more compelling as the same one I made as a kid. It remains the height of hypocrisy to insist on public policy that treats alcohol as America's magical social lubricant while demonizing the use of cannabis. And I thank the President for agreeing with 16 year-old me. Somewhere, likely in a glorious hookah room in Heaven, my father probably grudgingly agrees. Even he could eventually be swayed by logic.