Susie Bright's Journal

R.U. Sirius: The Harsh Buzz of Senator Biden

Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden is arguably the most extreme drug warrior in the United States Senate since at least 1982.

This story is by R.U. Sirius, from Don't Tase Me, Bro!

Biden coined the mega-authoritarian phrase "drug czar" to describe the head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

He is the man most responsible for pushing the "Rave Act" through Congress— possibly the most absurd and potentially repressive piece of legislation the Congress has passed in recent years— and that's saying something!

Biden's act was originally titled "Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy."

(LOL -susie)

The bill was introduced in 2002 during the great Ecstasy (aka MDMA) panic of the early 2000s. More people die from bad reactions to normal doses of aspirin than from MDMA every year.

It was reintroduced in 2003. That year, another version of the law, titled "The Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act" was added to the "Amber Act," an emotionally-fraught piece of legislation that created a national system for responding to child abduction, and which very few congresspeople dared vote against. 

The "rave act" part of this legislation, signed into law by President George W. Bush, makes the sponsor of any public event legally responsible for any illegal drug exchanges or use that occurs at their event. 

The initial bill actually singled out raves as the likely enforcement target, but that language was changed as clearly prejudicial. In the words of a missive from the Drug Policy Alliance, which organized the opposition to this law, "Because of its broad language, the proposed law would... subject people to twenty years in federal prison if guests smoked marijuana at their barbecue."

The recent sponsor of the recent South Dakota 68th annual Jackpine Gypsies MC Rally— where John McCain was third-billed behind Kellie Pickler and Kid Rock— and where the smell of marijuana smoke wafted through the air, would be up for 20 years in an iron cage under the Rave Act.

A month after Biden's act was signed into law, DEA agents in Montana used it to intimidate the owners of a venue into canceling a benefit to raise money for Students for Sensible Drug Policy and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

It is unclear whether this law has been used since that time, but every time the hosts of a private party, musical event— or Republican Party rally— doesn't do everything within their  power to make sure that absolutely nobody in attendance uses or exchanges any plants or chemicals that are currently illegal, they are liable for a punishment far more severe than the sentence  meted out to the user, or even the dealer, of an illicit substance.

Biden also wrote the law against shipping drug "paraphernalia" through the mail— that's the one that put Tommy Chong in jail.

Regarding medical marijuana for pain management, in 2007 Biden said, "There's got to be a better answer than marijuana."

Of course, as every educated, informed person knows, the opiate drugs currently used for the management of intense pain are addictive, substantially harmful to health, and often fatal. The off-prescription use of these narcotics is the biggest drug problem today, particularly among young people. Marijuana has few health counter-indications and there has never been a fatality from smoking or eating it.

There may be some recent signs of moderation in Biden's lifelong drug war fanaticism. In 2007, Biden introduced a bill to end the discrepancies between the punishment for possession of powdered and crack cocaine, effectively reducing the draconian sentences for possession and/or sale of small amounts of crack.

And while campaigning in the recent Presidential primaries, Biden said he would end federal raids on medical marijuana patients (Of course, G.W. Bush said the same thing during the 2000 election campaign... and Bill Clinton told Rolling Stone we should decriminalize marijuana as he was leaving office).

It's interesting to note that earlier in the campaign, Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, a stalwart advocate of drug reform, was much discussed as the leading contender to become Obama's VP pick. Webb withdrew his name from consideration for that spot and has since commented on valuing his freedom to speak his mind.

Obama's positions on drug reform have been a moving target. Most famously, in 2004, Senator Obama said, "I think the war on drugs has been a failure, and I think we need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws." He went on to say that he opposed "legalizing" marijuana.

For the most part, Candidate Obama has been silent on the drug war, although he recently suggested that an extra DEA office would be just what the doctor ordered for New Orleans.

Looking on the bright side, it's possible that a stalwart drug warrior like Biden would have the credibility necessary to start winding down the excesses of the drug war (the "Nixon Goes to China" theory that only conservatives can get away with introducing certain types of reforms).

But the most disheartening thing about Obama's selection of Biden for Vice President isn't the selection itself, but the fact that Biden's history as a drug war fanatic doesn't even warrant mention... on CNN, MSNBC (including Keith Olbermann), or even on the first day's coverage at Huffington Post.

The reality is that 11 million pot smokers— and the many other mostly responsible users of recreational drugs that don't happen to be on the approved list— just don't count at all as far as the American political mainstream is concerned.

Story by R. U. Sirius (c) 2008 from Don't Tase Me Bro!

Photo:by the remarkable Etchsketchist, who will do an EtchASketch portrait for YOU, of anything you like, for a mere $10 clams! I feel like sending him my whole scrapbook!

Over the course of this election season, I'm going to be looking for stories you don't "see every day."

Obviously, I'm desperate for a regime change, happy to pull the lever for the Big O.

But I'm also completely left flat by the mainstream media coverage, and am rather estranged from all the God Bless America rigamarole. Please send me any tips you may have for off-the-radar election coverage... Susie

Remembrances of Cocaine Past

The more blood that congeals on George Bush's hands, the more shallow my interests become in his tenure.

It's a protective device; if I had to face the reality of his war crimes, his apocalyptic class terrors, his global burn-down— I'd surely self-incinerate.

Consequently, when his former Press Secretary, Scott McClellan, turned on the President in a recent White House memoir, the part I kept returning to, over and over again, was the "cocaine blackout."

Will you indulge me?

Scottie says W. claims he doesn't remember if he's ever felt the sensation of stinging white powder sear his nostril mucosa.

Really? What about numbing his gums, or  his cock?  Is that possible? Is cocaine the kind of gal you can just "space out," because you've had one too many Zombies? Does drinking really blot out everything  in succession?

I don't believe anyone intuitively puts anything UP their nose besides their finger.

One can assume Georgie-Orgy lies compulsively; that was Scott McClellan's insinuation. But just as a matter of drug lore, how "forgettable" is cocaine in the pantheon of intoxicants?

I'm not the most experienced person to ask, but like Bush, I was one of those people, who by simply living through the 80s, sampled the party favors at hand. I succumbed to peer pressure without a whimper— my luck is that I'm not habitual about anything, so I never got in very deep.

But I will never forget 80s cocaine, because:

a) coke is harsh, there's a burn to it. I remember touching hot stoves, too.

b) the way cocaine was displayed at the time was so outlandish. Snorting with rolled-up $$$ bills, cutting it up with credit cards, the exquisite silver spoons that dangled in the tan cleavage of women who looked like Farah/Raquel/Olivia. My introduction to coke was at a publisher warehouse Xmas party where the loading dock tables were laid end to end, and the lines were six feet long. Someone moved a pile of "Cujo" to make way.

c) I was taken aback by how expensive it was for such a tiny bit of powder, and how short the high lasted. I felt...ripped off. I drifted back to the hash pipe. Sober, I already have extravagant ambitious impulses and conceits... my idea of pleasant inebriation is to escape ego altogether.

What kind of party drugs ARE forgettable?

Obviously, the boozy blackout is the class leader. Are all sedating drugs the forgettable culprits? Can you "forget" anything that takes you up?

Psychedelics are probably the most impossible to ignore. I wish we could get Bush on tape saying he can't decide whether he ever dropped acid or not. Can't remember whether he threw up the beer or the peyote. The ayahuasca is all a blur.

Okay, your turn! Feel free to comment anonymously if you want to protect the guilty.


Photo: Al Pacino Will Never Forget! - Scarface

Let's Tie One On for Valentine's Day

After years of giving prudent, kind, and wholesome advice for Valentine's Day, I'm throwing caution— and my marbles— to the wind, and suggesting that you might want to get smashed for your romantic holiday this year, with an erotic twist.

It works if you're alone! It works for couples! It works... thanks to books like Stoned Free: How To Get High Without Drugs... even when you're technically clean and sober!

I got inspired in my own Trip for the Day, because of some amazing Hemp Oil, both high and holy, that a friend left in a small dropper bottle at my house over the LAST holidays. Wow. It reminded me of an erotic opium intake experience I had some years ago...

 

  Listen to an excerpt 

Listen to the whole show at Audible.com: LINK

Get the show free for a month: LINK

Next, on my audio show this week,  I have an update on the infamous Pastor Ted. Remember Reverend Ted Haggard and all his woes? Well, he's back in the limelight of a failed rehab— I mean, "spiritual restoration"— and we'll look at how long it took him to fall off the wagon again. If I thought my hemp oil would help, I'd send some right over to his Phoenix lair...

Finally, in my Try This at Home mailbag, a listener asks: What is up with the "Viagra-people"? 

P.S. I would be remiss if I didn't remind you that I have a stash of the cutest, most adorable valentines you've ever seen, to share with you, on my Flickr account. They're from the 20s and 30s... my mom's childhood scrapbooks. Just print them out and start cutting, folding, and inscribing with endearments!

Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions, feedback about the show, and requests for free show coupon cards to susie@audible.com. (Episode 328, February 8, 2008).

Grow Your Own Viagra

"Grow-Your-Own Viagra Craze Hits Britain's Garden Centres"

By David Randall at The Independent

"A chance discovery by a Berkshire allotment-holder that a plant widely available in garden centres has the same effect on men as Viagra has been confirmed by experts at one of the world's leading botanical institutions.

"The plant is winter-flowering heather, and botanists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, many of them heather experts who have recognised the source of its active ingredient, now expect it to be the next must-have plant in British gardens. Demand is already high. Nurseries and garden centres in some areas are having trouble finding sufficient supplies as word spreads of the plant's unexpected properties..."

Read all about it: LINK

This is all quite thrilling— but would someone get on it, and tell me how to grow my own Valtrex? 

Drugs, Sex, & Chicks

The second part of my interview with RU Sirius, about "Drugs, Women, and Sex," is  transcribed at ZenMonkey. We had a good time:

RU SIRIUS: Tell us a bit about your psychedelic sex workshop.

SUSIE BRIGHT: Okay... About a year ago, I got invited to this conference in San Jose called “Sacred Elixirs.”

I wouldn’t have paid any attention to that name because I’m an atheist. When people say sacred, I’m always snoozing… I don’t pay attention.

But then, I found out that it was a reunion of the heaviest, coolest, smartest people in psychedelics. Oh! That's sacred? I’m there! Oh my god, it was so fabulous. There were so many fantastic people there.

Sasha Shulgin delivered a chemistry lesson that made me realize that if I’d had him as a science teacher, everything could have turned out differently. For him, it’s like a musician talking about music. It’s a language.

RU: Plus he speaks in this rapid high pitch. It’s like getting a download of information from some kind of alien.

SB: I just couldn’t wait to go home and write about all the things people talked about. But while I was there, some of us women noticed that virtually every presenter was a guy; all the poetry was read by fellows — it was almost quaint.

We didn’t, like, have a hissy fit about it, it was just sort of dumb. There were so many interesting women there. Every woman I met there, I wanted to spend hours talking to. Everyone was so interesting and intelligent.

Some of us started brainstorming about what would be fun to talk about at a woman-oriented conference. And I suggested— well, so many things… but definitely, sex. And not just the erotics of sex, the pleasures of sex— but sex in terms of one’s sexual life cycle.

A lot of us here have our memories of what it was like when we discovered psychedelics as young people. But then, what happens when you become a mother? What happens as you age? How does your relationship to your sexual life cycle and your drug of choice change over time? I don’t know. No one talks about this! Wouldn’t it be great if we did?”

We got a group of women together at this crazy sort of “Peacock retreat” in Sonoma run by a woman who’s into Egyptology. She has a lot of gorgeous peacocks wandering around, which kind of added a little atmosphere. It was so much fun. It was like fifty people. You got to know everybody on a first-name basis.

The untold story — which I didn’t get until I was there — was the generation gap. We had a lot of good talks about it. There were these young people who were in MAPS and Erowid — they’re like these new groups that are trying to decriminalize drugs and raise drug consciousness in a very contemporary fashion.

RU: They’re very organized and intelligent and digital.

SB: Yeah. They’re very geeky.

STEVE ROBLES: Drug nerds.

SB: They’re drug nerds! Thank you. They aren’t drug hippies. And they said very politely – we don’t want to just sit around listening to how great your acid trip was in 1969. And they were right.They want to hear about stuff that’s happening now, and in their future. At one point this amazing young woman who everybody seemed to revere stood up. She looked like the all-American girl. She was like Gidget on acid.

RU: I think Gidget was on acid...

Read the whole interview: Link

Listen to the whole audio show: Link

That's Thora Birch in Ghost World.

 

RU Sirius Tweaks Susie Just For Fun

R.U. Sirius is responsible for my first smart drug overdose. I became unreasonably horny on something that started with a 'G', allegedly from R.U.'s stash.

I was in a recording studio, when someone handed me the glass of Kool-Aid, and... minutes later, I was deeply frenching a woman who was trying to mike me for a serious interview.

I knocked over a table and then had to be put to bed with Playboy magazine, where I collapsed in helpless laughter.

Je regrette rien! My affection has never ended for R.U.'s pioneering spirit, his cyber-magnificent collaborations, and my memories of Mondo2000.

Before last week, I last saw Ken (R.U.) with Kathy Acker at a Robert Redford film screening of Quiz Show— an excellent conspiracy film. I never saw beloved Kathy again, but when R.U. invited me be his guest  on his new freewheeling podcast, I jumped.

Here's a couple audio clips of the fun we had:

Part 1, Excerpt, Life as an Expert Sexpot

Listen to the whole show: Link

Part 2, Excerpt, Experienced Women Talk About Psychedelics and Sex

Listen to the whole show: Link

Hold The Diapers— I'm Pedaling As Fast As I Can

A friend of mine got in a pickle lately, and I advised her to give my old Well friend and legal genius Mike Godwin a call.

Mike said to her, "Hey, it could be worse— you could be stalked by an astronaut in diapers with a BB gun."

So true! Really, all of life's challenges shrink like hemorrhoids by comparison.

I'd like to venture an opinion about Captain Nowak. Everyone says, "She's crazy!" But what kind of crazy? She's too old for adult onset schizophrenia. I have another (entirely unproven) theory: she's strung out on amphetamines.

I don't know whether it's meth, Ritalin, or Reverend Ted's crack pipe, but Nowak's delusions, paranoia— and most of all, her changing appearance— made me think: speed kills.

The drug's utility would be an attractor in her profession, where, as her superiors described, she was "a vibrant, hardworking, energetic person who did her job very well."

Mother of three, married for almost twenty years, separated just weeks ago. Her friends and family say she was perpetually cheery, always "disciplined." The stress in these kind of jobs to be more vibrant, always perfect... you can imagine the pressure if things didn't go just right, and you had access to a performance enhancer. Mother's Little Helper gets her through her busy day.

It was Nowak's booking photo that gave me pause. I'd like to see her smile or scream, so we could see the dental situation. She's lost weight from her previous photos, her hair looks to be falling out— and her skin, even for a mug shot, is like parchment. And, of course, she drove all those hundreds of miles in Depends so she wouldn't have to stop for anything.

People talk all the time about meth epidemics in their hometowns, but no one ever points it out when it hits the prestige or celebrity circuit. I was in a neighborhood café not long ago when I overheard the waitress bitching about her ex-husband to the chef: "Oh yeah, he's gotten it all taken care of, with his mom... His mom does his laundry, his mom takes care of his kids, his mom scores his meth."

It's exactly that ubiquitous. Speed is driving everyone crazy, and it's more of a middle-class and rat-race epidemic than anyone likes to admit.

Meanwhile, diapers are making headlines this week. Dan Savage's column split my sides open with his answer to the loving wife of a diaper-baby-man. The missus wrote Dan to say that despite her devoted practice to peg and fill all her husband's infantilist whims, he was now withholding all vanilla sex from her— the one thing she needs to get off, every blue moon or so!

Dan replied:

Does your "baby girl" realize what he's got in you? The world is crawling—literally crawling—with adult babies who are alone and single and miserable and always will be. While the internet has made it possible for adult babies to find each other more easily, a shared interest in nappies and nurseries doesn't guarantee compatibility. Plus, female adult babies are scarcer than folks who can read "my husband whines and cries and pretends to be a baby during sex" without hurling. Your husband should be doing everything in his power to keep you happy.

My advice: Take that break. Cut the little brat off—no more baby games until he can successfully wrap his bonnet around this: Your pleasure matters as much as his does. Then tell him that although he may not be interested in regular sex, he better learn to fake it convincingly. And finally, tell him that his continued failure to meet your vanilla needs is gonna get his diapered ass divorced, leaving him single and shit out of luck, sex-partner-wise, for the rest of his adult infancy.

Putting the gun down and the diapers aside, I have to ask— what is it about us mortal dingbats that we always have to fuck things up when we hold paradise in our hands?

Photo: No slander is intended to lovely Marta (Yvonne Craig), starring in Star Trek as a green Orion Slave Girl. She's as sane as they get.

White Moms on Dope

My guest this week on In Bed is Mike Males, the author of a recent Op-Ed titled This is Your Brain on Drugs, Dad, and several books on the way society demonizes and fears teenagers.

In Bed with Susie Bright 277:

Soccer Moms Gone Wild, with Mike Males

Listen to my whole interview with Mike: Link

In his Op-Ed, Males says that contrary to media stereotypes of drug-abusers, it's middle-aged, college-educated white people who have the highest rate of drug abuse today, with some of the most startling increases in the number of female addicts. Rush Limbaugh and his girlfriends are not the exception, they're the rule!

According to the CDC, the number of Americans dying from the abuse of illegal drugs has leaped by 400 percent in the last two decades, reaching a record 28,000 in 2004. The F.B.I. reported that drug arrests reached an all-time high of 1.8 million in 2005.

The Drug Abuse Warning Network, a federal agency that compiles statistics on hospital emergency cases caused by illicit drug abuse, says that number rose to 940,000 in 2004— a huge increase over the last quarter century.

Why are so few Americans aware of these troubling trends?

One reason is that today's drug abusers are simply the ''wrong'' group. As David Musto, a psychiatry professor at Yale and historian of drug abuse, points out, wars on drugs have traditionally depended on ''linkage between a drug and a feared or rejected group within society.''

Today, however, the fastest-growing population of drug abusers is white, middle-aged Americans. This is a powerful mainstream constituency, and unlike with teenagers or urban minorities, it is hard for the government or the news media to present these drug users as a grave threat to the nation.

Among Americans in their 40s and 50s, deaths from illicit-drug overdoses have risen by 800% since 1980, including 300% in the last decade. In 2004, American hospital emergency rooms treated 400,000 patients between the ages 35 and 64 for abusing heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, hallucinogens and ''club drugs'' like ecstasy.

Equally surprising, graying baby boomers have become America's fastest-growing crime scourge. The F.B.I. reports that last year the number of Americans over the age of 40 arrested for violent and property felonies rose to 420,000, up from 170,000 in 1980. Arrests for drug offenses among those over 40 rose to 360,000 last year, up from 22,000 in 1980. The Bureau of Justice Statistics found that 440,000 Americans ages 40 and older were incarcerated in 2005, triple the number in 1990.

...Few experts would have suspected that the biggest contributors to California's drug abuse, death and injury toll are educated, middle-aged women living in the Central Valley and rural areas, while the fastest-declining, lowest-risk populations are urban black and Latino teenagers. Yet the index found exactly that. These are the sorts of trends we need to understand if we are to design effective policies.

These numbers blow my over-40 mind!

It also caused me to have a personal reflection. In the past couple years, among my own circle, the two people I'm closest to who've had an unpleasant brush with the law are both women in their mid-50s. One was busted for her third DUI. Another became addicted to Oxy after a surgery, then got caught scoring it illegally.

Neither of my friends are "Ma Barker"— they're the salt of the earth, wonderful, giving, educated, and really hard on themselves. All their loved ones were "shocked"— but now I think, why? Apparently, my girlfriends are right in the bullseye of the fastest-growing trend ever.

The more intriguing question is: what do my friends, and other middle-aged women have in common that makes them so vulnerable to substance abuse?  —Or the cascading law and order disasters that follow in its wake?

Of course, I am speaking anecdotally, but I am fascinated to see my life fitting the statistics. Sure, I have teen friends who've gotten in trouble too, but it was crap like shoplifting, graffiti, and underage-whatever. A nineteen year old friend of mine suffered the worst violence of last summer because he was held up at his minimum wage donut-shop job, at gunpoint, by someone who was no doubt a middle-aged drug addict. Lock up Pop! Time out for Mom! Grandma is going down!

I phoned Mike the instant I read his op-ed, because I recognized that the way teens are fetishized as drug fiends, they are similarly targeted as sexual monsters or victims. It's the same propaganda, and in the case of sexuality, once again, it's women in their late-childbearing-years who are leading out-of-wedlock births, not teenagers. 

Why does there have to be a teenage bogeyman or mewling kitten-victim in every tree of media fear-climbing? Mike's got the facts at his fingertips that really put the sting on this thing.

Finally, in my Try This at Home mailbag, I gave Mike the option to stay and listen to me answer a letter from a man who wonders if he can use a dildo as a depth finder. Gee, the things senior criminal justice researchers have to listen to!

Don't forget, you can request Susie's Girly Cards, or send confidential sex questions and feedback about the show to susie@audible.com. (Episode 277, January 12, 2007)

 

You Get the Timothy Leary You Deserve

Shortly before his death, Timothy Leary was asked about Richard Nixon calling him “the most dangerous man in America.” 

“It’s true,” Leary replied. “I have America surrounded.” 

—Which is why Higgs titled his biography, I Have America Surrounded: The Life of Timothy Leary.

The Legacy of Timothy Leary by Paul Krassner 

“There is one thing people should know about Leary,” says British writer John Higgs. “He was fucking funny!”

PK: How do you view the negative media depictions of Leary that have come out this past year?

JH:  I find them very revealing.  —Not in what they're saying, of course, but in what they are ignoring. 

Most of the mud that has been slung at Leary is perfectly true, but you can be factually accurate and wildly misleading at the same time.  For instance, if someone asked me to describe Winston Churchill, I could say he was a mentally ill drunk who lost the 1945 UK General Election. 

And I'd be factually correct, but that wouldn't mean I was being fair, or that I'd nailed the essence of the man. 

With Leary, for everyone with a complaint against him, there are countless people who credit him with enriching their lives on a very profound level, and I don't understand the desire to ignore this.

Ultimately, you can't hope to understand why he did what he did if you refuse to look at the ideas that drove him. Leary was too complicated a figure to dismiss as either a saint or a moron, as many people try to. He's probably the best example of the “trickster” archetype that the 20th Century produced, and his ambiguity is key to understanding him. 

The crux of his philosophy was the extent to which the reality that appears to be external to us is actually a model constructed by our own minds, a model that we are responsible for and which in certain circumstances can change. This is a frightening and unsettling idea, but it is also liberating. 

The implication is that if you hear someone describe Leary as a saint or as a moron, then they are not really telling you anything about Tim, but revealing something about themselves. 

Leary used to say, “You get the Timothy Leary you deserve.” He was being willfully antagonistic here, I think.  It would perhaps be fairer to say that you get the Timothy Leary you want. The upshot of all this, of course, is that it is only right and fitting that we hear so many wildly different opinions about him. Perversely, it validates his ideas.

PK: How do you think history will remember him?

JH: With increasing interest. We all know that Leary was instrumental in millions of people deciding to take LSD in the ’60s and ’70s. 

The big question, however, is how deeply did the impact on this affect our current, 21st Century western culture? It's a huge question, and one we've hardly begun to answer.

A lot has been written about the impact of psychedelics on music, for example, but very little on its impact on the rest of our society, on subjects as diverse as chaos mathematics, religion, molecular biology, post-modernism or politics.

Happily, people are now starting to look at these questions. John Markoff's recent book, What the Dormouse Said, which looks at the impact of ’60s thought on the emergence of the PC industry, is a good example of this.

As the years pass, I think we're going to slowly get a better perspective on the impact of this historically unprecedented mass psychedelic use, and with that a better appreciation of Leary's impact on us all. William Burroughs said that Leary's impact would not be fully understood for a hundred years.  I can't bring myself to disagree with this, but it is no reason not to venture a few steps further down that road now.

(c) Paul Krassner, first published in High Times.