I didn’t know this, but apparently in Florida (and likely in many other states as well) the Attorney General can just make up laws banning shit anytime she wants. As you may have seen mentioned in the news, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi has, apparently by fiat, banned a “new drug” on the scene called MDPV. Sold as “bath salts”, when snorted it “gives users super-human strength and has similar effects to LSD, heroin and cocaine” according to the article.
Holy FUCK! super-human strength? We better ban that shit right now or else people will be hulking out and ripping telephone poles out of the ground and playing baseball with them or something. Of course, this is actually bullshit. I know this because it’s fucking impossible for a drug to instantly increase your strength. This isn’t D&D here, you can’t just take a Potion of Giant Strength and give your strength score a boost. It doesn’t goddamn work that way.
When people are under the influence of high powered stimulants (which is really all MDPV is–it’s not fucking LSD or heroin, it’s more like speed or meth) they can sometimes do things “normal” people couldn’t–but not because they’ve suddenly boosted their STR score from 14 to 22. It’s likely because they’re able to ignore pain and thus push through barriers that stop the rest of us from doing these things. Nobody goddamn uproots trees when they take PCP though, and they sure as fuck don’t get “super-human strength” from MDPV.
No, that’s just typical scare-mongering from the government. Like how they used to tell us that smoking a joint would make you flip out and kill your mom or something, and when they told us that crack cocaine was the most addictive substance in the universe and one hit would make you addicted for life. I’m not saying recreational drugs don’t have bad effects or that they’re harmless, I’m just saying you might want to get your information about them from somewhere other than the people who have a vested interest in keeping them illegal (the government, the police, the courts.)
What actually scares me more than this pretty typical overblown hue and cry about MDPV is the fact that the AG of the State of Florida is apparently empowered to just make shit illegal whenever she feels like it. Just out of the blue, she’s allowed to put a substance on the same controlled substance list as drugs like heroin and cocaine. She can make up new felonies as she sees fit. Does this scare anybody else?
This is the e-mail I sent to Stephen about that. I’ma copy it here so the WHOLE WORLD CAN SEE.
It’s fucking intense how credulous the media is. MDPV “gives users super-human strength and has similar effects to LSD, heroin and cocaine?” What? It’s, like, a stimulant. So it has effects similar to cocaine, sure, but also similar to caffeine. According to some sources, it’s possible (http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=82100) to hallucinate, but that appears to be caused mainly by sleep deprivation due to stimulation rather than as a primary psychoactive effect of the drug. As for heroin…
heroin’s an opiate, man. It’s a depressant. It has the exact *opposite* effect.
And don’t even get me started on super-human strength. What? If they make a drug you can snort and turn into the Hulk, I’m fucking buying some right now.
“I frankly had a nightmare last night that someone was going to overdose on this and we hadn’t done anything,” [Attorney General Dip Shitstick] said.
Great! Now you’ve done something, and people can still overdose on it! As an added benefit, you’ve granted yourself the power to ruin their lives forever if they don’t. Served and protected.
“McKeithen said 11 law enforcement officials were unable to control a man high on the drug who “tore the radar unit out of the vehicle with his teeth.” In another incident, a young woman tried to behead her mother with a machete because she believed she was a monster, McKeithen said.”
I once heard about a woman whose son was killed by incompetent camp counselors, and so she went crazy and started murdering camp counselors! So I think we should ban women. Oh, and? Unlike your story, I can cite a primary source for mine.
“Bondi’s emergency order will last 90 days, giving lawmakers time to criminalize the bath salts during the legislative session that begins March 8.”
Thank god for that.