Why You Can’t Take Me Anywhere

Last night I attended a meeting at our local school. It was part of a larger program put on by the police to teach parents how to prevent their kids from using drugs when they get older.

My personal objective was to make it through the night without making any inappropriate jokes that would embarrass my wife. It was a narrow escape.

Let me tell you, there are some situations where it is physically painful to be me. There was one point in the program where I think I ruptured a spleen trying to keep the jokes in. It came during the module on methamphetamines.

A parent asked why anyone would take meth, given all the downside risk and side effects. One of the policemen answered that meth releases 50 times more serotonin in the brain than an orgasm. Then they showed a before and after picture that looked a lot like this one:

http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/DrugIssue/MethResources/faces/photo_8.html

So I’m sitting there, doing the calculations in my head: Okay, that’s 4.5 years of meth use, once a day, 365 days in a year, 50 times more serotonin than an orgasm…that’s the equivalent of 80,000 orgasms.

On the downside, your teeth rot out, your skin itches until you scratch it off, you vomit, have withdrawals, possibly burn down the neighborhood, and roll around in your own filth while your life becomes a living Hell. And there is the jail thing.

Still, 80,000 orgasms…

I wanted to raise my hand while the “before and after” pictures were up and ask, “Isn’t that what anyone would look like after 80,000 orgasms?”

Or maybe, “So, on balance, you’re saying it’s totally worth it? Or am I doing the math wrong?”

But I didn’t. I listened for two and a half hours and tried my best to avoid looking like I had any of the telltale symptoms of hardcore addiction the policemen kept describing. I’m highly suggestible, so this was difficult. When they talked about the uncontrollable fidgeting, I realized I was fidgeting. When they talked about red eyes, I felt as if all the moisture in mine had evaporated. When they talked about the teeth grinding, I had an uncontrollable impulse to grind mine. I took deep breaths and tried to meditate so my pulse wouldn’t be too high – a sure sign of ecstacy use. I don’t think I was alone. The audience looked like a warehouse of mannequins by the end of the night. No one wanted to be a conspicuous fidgeter.

Then there was the bad guessing. The policeman would hold up a bag of one sort of drug or another and ask if anyone knew how much it would cost. No one wanted to nail the estimate on the first guess and have the drug dogs tearing out the upholstery in their minivan five minutes later. I was planning my own bad estimates in case I got called on. It would have gone something like this: “That looks like about a pound of cocaine, so I’m guessing it would be worth nine or ten dollars on the street. Am I close?”

I managed to get through the night without embarrassing myself, and without getting strip searched. I even got a free cookie, which spiked my blood glucose level and gave me a mild high, but I couldn’t enjoy it.

Comments

[Julia]

I was always the kind of kid/teenager who totally fell for all the scare tactics about drugs, smoking, etc. (Lame? In my mind I was smarter than the idiots who would try anything for a good time.)

If somebody had shown me all those before-and-after pictures as a teenager, I doubt if I would have been willing to take so much as an aspirin the rest of my life. Although I would have needed Pepto Bismol after seeing them.... a true dilemma....

[Luca Masters]

I'm reminded of this story on E2 about the kid who paid attention in drug education and decided to start answering the questions: http://everything2.org/index.pl?node_id=729784

[Erik]

They said serotonin? I'm pretty sure that should be dopamine. Dopamine is much more involved with pleasure (e.g. orgasms), and last I checked, meth acts by blocking dopamine reuptake. That's not to say that serotonin receptors aren't indirectly affected; they're just not the target.

[Chief of the Cubicle Police]

Wow. Crystal meth single handedly turned this guy into "Tom Hanks" from "Cast Away". 4.5 years, 80,000 orgasms and now he can go on tour.

http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/DrugIssue/MethResources/faces/photo_9.html

[Josh]

This past weekend, I went to one of my wife's friend's daughters 2nd birthday party (with my wife and my own two kids). At some point, my 20-month old daughter decided to take off her shirt (I think she spilled something on it), in the middle of a public park. I pulled a dollar bill out of my wallet and put it in her diaper.

Apparently that's not funny.

[Jason]

I think I'm going to go hang out with meth users. I'm kind of ugly; nobody would ever describe me as the good-looking one in a group.

However, if I hang around those people after they've really let it take a toll on their bodies, I might just become the most attractive guy in the room.

[Simon]

So... 80,000 orgasms, huh? Wow.

- Now, where did I put my wallet?

[Hmm...]

Thanks Scott, for lifting the spirits. I wish there was a spirit-o-meter that could prove how well you do it.

Also that "Sideshow Bob" comment by Chris Hunt totally cracked me up!

[Adrianne]

Wow. I'm a 42-year-old mother of two and this happens to me at every school-related event. Really. The one that really gets me is my son's elementary school's mascot. The Panthers. Every marking period that have this thing called the "Panther Pride Rally." No joke. Good thing the panther's blue, not black.
Am so tempted to show up at one wearing a huge black Afro.
Am wondering if anyone would get the joke, though. Am pretty sure most uber PTA moms think I'm a freak already. Oh, well. At least my kids, ages 3 and 7, already have advanced senses of humor!

[Scottupnorth]

I have a similar problem that at times gets me into trouble.

A good joke window is like a Pavlov mechanic for me. The opening comes and I drool with the appropriate comment fast to mind and ready to fly from my tongue. Problem is the appropriate comment is not always as appropriate as I would like it to be.

It gets laughs, or confused stares most of the time, periodically an icy glance when I inadvertantly touched on something I shouldn't.

Usually the icy stare is with women, not because its sexist but because I am too close to the mark and her and I both know it. Those are the best jokes usually saddly too.

[clarence]

So which picture is the before?

[PatB]

Generally - I really enjoy this blog - but I'm a little sickened at you linking to photos of real people addicted to meth. They're still people, eh?

Reminds me of the title of an upcoming book...

[Andy Watt]

"There is a massive difference between a drug USER and a drug ABUSER. I wish people would realize that. "

Adam, don't be so touchy: you're showing guilt there! Don't apologise or jusitfy yuorself, there's no need.

This is actually part of the problem: there's no "spectrum" applied here, it's black and white all the way. I don't do anything stronger than chabilis (oooo!) but I can appreciate that crystal meth is in a whole other league than weed. So don't get so het up Adam.

[less opinion more humor]

Let me guess. All the keeners that had no idea were in the front row. Meanwhile all the bad apples were at the back of the bus.

[Joshua Jacobsen]

Drugs, shmugs. What about the evils of alcohol? Why just yesterday, six elephants electrocuted themselves after drinking too much rice beer.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003969241_webelephants23.html

[Mark Thorson]

It's my understanding that
heroin has the opposite
effect -- a 50-year-old can
look like 30. But you never
see those pictures.

And they don't stay up all
night. That's probably got
something to do with it.

[D'ack]

Is it just me or does it look like meth use improves your hair? (http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/DrugIssue/MethResources/faces/photo_9.html)

[Chris Hunt]

Surely the photograph on the right is of Sideshow Bob?

[Stretch Mark Mama]

I have the same problem at funerals--an irresistable urge to make inappropriate jokes, which in my mind, are terribly funny.

[Diana W]

Wow, I was hoping someone would put together something like the "Faces of Meth" website! My company sells fingerprinting systems with mugshot archives, so I've seen some of the before and after mugshots of meth users before. I always thought this would be a good deterrent for young woman. Telling a teenage girl it's bad for her won't make a difference, but showing her that it will make her look like crap - well THAT'S a deterrent! We should be promoting vibrators over meth!

[Rich T.]

There's more to aspire to in life than getting high. Even if you, who are so fascinated by orgasms, could experience a perpetual orgasm, I bet you'd decline the offer. (For that matter, there's also more to sex than the moment of orgasm itself.) I agree that your post is funny, but there is no selling point to meth.

[Adrian D.]

All of which just demonstrates that the anti-drug laws are even stupider than doing drugs.

[DF]

So, did anyone try to snag an extra cookie? Wouldn't want the cop to think you had the munchies or anything...

[Enough Wealth]

Shit, all these years I thought I just had severe eczema and hay fever, and it turns out that I'm a meth and ectasy addict! Whose been spiking my diet coke?

Regards
http://enoughwealth.com

[Dan K]

I find it odd that the lighting on those faces of meth pictures somehow manages to be pretty consistant between all of the before and after pictures (which are mostly listed as being around a year apart) but not so much on the different faces (which were not a year apart according to the dates), it's almost like the before and after pictures were taken on the same day, the lighting only seems different when there is a different person (I also thought that the scars were kind of odd in a way that made me think the make up artist isn't being very creative).

It'd be hard to resist some chappel quotes during something like that... Meth is a hell of a drug... Marajuana is a hell of a drug... Coke is a hell of a drug... pop tarts are a hell of a drug... pepper spray is a hell of a drug... DON'T TAZE ME BRO!