Since this has been bOINGed, I imagine this will be all over the Internets now… and what’s not to love? It’s a kid, completely out of his brain on doctor-administered drugs. Yes, he’s probably more wacked out than is strictly necessary, but if it weren’t that way, then it wouldn’t be on the Internets, now would it?
This is my 7 year old son who had an extra tooth removed last summer, 2008. I had the camera because he was so nervous before I wanted him to see before and after.
He was so out of it after, I had to carry him out of the office. The staff was laughing and I had tears it was so funny.
He is doing fine now and the teeth are great.
Best of all he is the best kid as his brother William. I couldnt have asked for two better sons!
Who among us has not once asked, “Is this real life? Why is this happening to me? Do you have four eyes? Is this going to be forever?” And more importantly — what kind of parent would film their child in this state, then share it with the world for LOLS? And what kind of sick blogger would post this exploitative material on Boing Boing?
Gotta love the exploitation. Wow, this kid is going to have fun at college. If I were the parents: 1) I’d research some Neuromancer-style metabolizing anti-amphetamine technology, 2) take out a life insurance policy, and 3) brace for the G’s of a severe rollercoaster ride through this kid’s semi-public, heavily peer-influenced life.
This footage was prepared recently by a citizen-journalist / advocate in Vancouver. Contrary to what one might think, it’s a pretty good PSA for crack addicts wanting to manage their addiction … and it’s apparently legal, too.
When it comes to drug legalization, there are a few approaches. Harm reduction, for example, makes the argument that the purpose of public policy is to reduce harm, and that any policy that creates more problems than it solves isn’t actually successful. There’s decriminalization, which is essentially driven by voter initiative. There’s rescheduling, which seeks to alter the definition of a drug so that it no longer meets certain criteria for enforcement. There’s the medicinal movement, which seeks to alter access to certain drugs on the basis of their beneficial qualities. One of the features that all of these techniques share is that they directly address currently illegal drugs, and attempt to directly argue that these drugs should not be illegal.
…and then there’s this guy from Vancouver, who has created a Jonathan Swift-esque Modest Proposal, of sorts. Essentially, our Vancouver Videographer has created a tutorial that illustrates how to take plain coffee, combine it with a household cleanser, and end up with a super-pure, smokable form of caffeine. Essentially, his challenge to policymakers is this: criminalize coffee. Naturally, after coffee is criminalized will inevitably come the next food that can be purified, and so on… This is the argument of absurdity (reductio ad absurdum); how ridiculous could we theoretically make policy before policy has become too absurd to take seriously?
Some people will doubtless be shocked that the Vancouver Videographer suggests selling it on the school playground with the name “black magic,” but he insists that it must be sold with the disclaimer that it is legal to sell. Of course, anyone who is shocked by the suggestion is clearly missing the point of the video. In A Modest Proposal, Swift never advocated for cannibalism, and he would probably have been disgusted if people actually ate the children as a result of his proposal. On the contrary, people ought to be shocked by what is currently criminalized.
Personally, I love this message, but I’m not about to freebase some coffee. I would suggest that a more direct route to smokable caffeine would be to purchase chemically pure caffeine, rather than using the coffee method depicted in the video. I’ve heard that United Nuclear is a good source, but I’ve never purchased from them, and I make no warranties. Although this does have me thinking about some possibilities, let me reiterate: making freebase caffeine isn’t the point of the video.
I’d venture that all anyone really needs to hear are the words “freebase caffeine” and they are less than an hour from actually making it a reality. The knowledge is already out there, and a video tutorial isn’t a necessary step to making your own freebase caffeine. Any process that can be explained in 120 seconds is childishly simple, so it’s not like this video is the groundbreaking source of some “great new technique.”
What is groundbreaking, however, is the suggestion that we could criminalize everything simply by showing how easy it is to transform it into a “scary form.” Hot peppers, for example, are well known for their accompanying endorphin rush – perhaps peppers aren’t too far behind coffee? In fact, someone could just walk down the aisles of a supermarket and identify which products, fruits, and vegetables have any conceivable potential for becoming “scarier.” Why not create an act stipulating that nothing, whatsoever, can be sold in a store unless it has first been confirmed that it could never be made into a scary form?
Because it is absurd.
If it is plain to see why this line of reasoning is absurd, then we need to work backwards to figure out where this absurd line of reasoning began, and then remedy the situation so that it is no longer absurd.
[UPDATE 2009-01-20]
Since there is question about whether or not anyone has ever done this, I submit for your evaluation the following Erowid report:
I recently bought a bottle of ’stacker 2′ pills. I really like these pills taken orally but I find that the excessive amount of caffeine (200mg) is a bit much for me. It also contains several vitamins, herbs, etc–but most importantly, ma huang extract (standardized 25mg ephedrine). I decided to do what the cigarette companies do to tobacco in order to convert the nicotine salt into a freebase–soak it in ammonia. I opened up one of the capsules onto a glass dish, added 5ml household clear ammonia via medicine dropper, ‘cut’ with razor blade until capsule contents were fully saturated, and let soak for approx. 1 hour. Next, I evaporated the ammonia in the microwave, scraped up sticky goo (light brown in color, almost rubbery but sticky when rolled into a ball), and smoked through my trusty bowl. That was bout two hours ago. Since then, have taken about 7 hits of the pharmaceutical-tasting lump…
Obviously, RTFA. I take two things from this report:
1) the guy lived
2) the caffeine was hard to disambiguate from the ephedrine (which he also freebased).
So, this doesn’t strictly mean it’s safe to do, but there is more that you can read about the topic…
The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged.
The government’s forced use of antipsychotic drugs, in people who have no history of mental illness, includes dozens of cases in which the “pre-flight cocktail,” as a document calls it, had such a potent effect that federal guards needed a wheelchair to move the slumped deportee onto an airplane.
“Unsteady gait. Fell onto tarmac,” says a medical note on the deportation of a 38-year-old woman to Costa Rica in late spring 2005. Another detainee was “dragged down the aisle in handcuffs, semi-comatose,” according to an airline crew member’s written account. Repeatedly, documents describe immigration guards “taking down” a reluctant deportee to be tranquilized before heading to an airport.
The seven social sins are:
1. “Bioethical’ violations such as birth control
2. “Morally dubious” experiments such as stem cell research
3. Drug abuse
4. Polluting the environment
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
6. Excessive wealth
7. Creating poverty
Hmmm… Morally dubious, indeed. I guess drug use (e.g. alcohol during a religious ceremony) is set apart from drug abuse. Don’t forget: you can ALWAYS be forgiven. In Catholicism (maybe in all of Christianity), there’s a sacrament involving being forgiven on your death-bed.
Well, on the topic of drugs, I use this as the basis for the demand to take the fluoride out of my municipal tap water! My toothpaste packaging tells me it’s a drug, and yet I get more fluoride with every glass of water I drink. I know my intake of fluoride is excessive, because on the basis of the poison recommendation on the toothpaste, I intake 8x the amount I use for brushing. Is this abuse? I’m beginning to think so…
On second glance, this looks like a pretty good list. I think the definition of the word “Sin” needs to be reworked.
Rufus Terrill has had it with the drug dealers, petty thieves and vandals he says roam the streets outside his downtown Atlanta bar, O’Terrills. Instead of calling the police or hiring private security guards, Terrill built his own security robot. (Ryon Horne/AJC)
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