Worthless Guide to Drugs Part 3: Higher Still

By Henry

Fact: Not all drugs are illegal. Every year Americans spend more than
38 dollars on safe and effective over-the-counter drugs such as
aspirin, cough syrup, energy drinks, and cigarettes. These four legal
drugs alone provide us humans with relief from some important symptoms
(Headaches, coughs, low energy, and not hacking up blood due to
cancerous lung polyps). This article covers the effects and histories
of legal drugs like caffeine, tobacco, and cocaine (Note: Obviously
cocaine isn’t actually legal, but that ruins the intro so just play
along). Oh, and if you haven’t read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, I think you should do that now because otherwise you won’t understand what’s going on with the plot.

By Henry

Fact: Not all drugs are illegal. Every year Americans spend more than
38 dollars on safe and effective over-the-counter drugs such as
aspirin, cough syrup, energy drinks, and cigarettes. These four legal
drugs alone provide us humans with relief from some important symptoms
(Headaches, coughs, low energy, and not hacking up blood due to
cancerous lung polyps). This article covers the effects and histories
of legal drugs like caffeine, tobacco, and cocaine (Note: Obviously
cocaine isn’t actually legal, but that ruins the intro so just play
along). Oh, and if you haven’t read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, I think you should do that now because otherwise you won’t understand what’s going on with the plot.

Part 1 – Heroin,
Marijuana, LSD, Mushrooms

Part 2 – Meth,
Ketamine, Alcohol

Part 3 – Cocaine, Caffeine, Tobacco

History

If you’ve seen films like Scarface, American Gangster, or Animal House,
you probably have a pretty good idea of how important cocaine is to
American culture. But cocaine was around in some form a long time
before these movies were released. In the 16th century a bunch of South
American natives were chewing on coca leaves when the Spanish explorers
arrived. The explorers were fascinated by this new drug, and celebrated
this discovery by slaughtering a bunch of the natives and stealing it.

Then in 1890, this guy Albert Niemann figured out how to get the pure
cocaine out of the leaves and went around blabbing about it to any
company that would listen. Coca-cola decided to add it into coke (why
not?) and later removed it, but it was too late and the damage to
society was already done. Forever more a bunch of idiots would stupidly
remark “Hey did you know this stuff used to have cocaine in it?” while
drinking coke, as if they were revealing some great unknown secret to
you. This is the dark shadow cocaine has cast across the face of
humanity. Oh, and also all the lives it has destroyed too.

Effects

• Hyperactivity / Restlessness
  

  These effects are all well and good, but frankly I don’t think they are
  going to cut it for today’s youth. According to what I have seen on Frontline,
  most teenagers are already hyperactive and restless even without taking
  cocaine, so what the hell do they care? Oh, wait, maybe cocaine will
  affect these kids like Ritalin… Maybe it increases hyperactivity in
  regular people, but in hyperactive people it cures it! As a registered
  physician I hereby recommend giving children cocaine to cure ADD (Editor’s Note: No.)

• Paranoid Delusions

  This may not seem so great at first, but I believe paranoid delusions
  may actually help a person in the long-term. I see them as a way to
  build confidence. They always say that if you believe in yourself, you
  can accomplish anything, and from what I hear cocaine is very effective
  in this way. If a man takes cocaine and begins to believe he can take
  on 12 Hell’s Angels in a seedy bar, catch a shotgun shell between his
  teeth at point-blank range, or leap screaming through the plateglass
  window of a Wendy’s, is that really such a terrible thing? Remember:
  You can’t spell success without belief.

• Increased Sexual Interest and Pleasure
  

  Hot! Cocaine also increases the interest in sex and the pleasure
  associated with it? I certainly don’t see a possible downside to that!

• Impotence

  Dammit! Well still, that isn’t so terrible. I mean, a bit of the old
  droop now and then never hurt anyone right? The positives still
  outweigh the negatives as far as I’m concerned, I’m still giving
  cocaine the thumbs up!

• Acute Depression / Intense
  Cravings / Violent & Erratic Behavior / Convulsions / Muscle Spasms
  / Respiratory Failure / Life-Threatening Blood Pressure Increases /
  Stroke / Coma / Cerebral Hemorrhage / Heart-failure
  

  Heh. Heh. Well those… Uh. Well you see I di—

  …

  Nevermind.

Advice

Well, what do you think?

Final Note

Cocaine can also be made into crack, which is smoked. It goes without
saying that smoking crack is probably not the best idea either.

History

Caffeine is found all around in a bunch of plants and places. So blah
blah blah, the cavemen chewed on a bunch of random plants and found
ones with caffeine in them that made them feel energetic, then the
Chinese people made tea out of it and have been obsessed with it ever
since (England too). Also, maybe you don’t know that chocolate has
caffeine in it, so ever since there has been chocolate people have been
taking it whether they like it or not. These days everybody is inhaling
this crap. Blue collar workers are drinking approximately 50 gallons of
acidic and nearly poisonous energy drinks a day just to keep up with
their fellow employees.

Effects

• Higher Mental Alertness / Clearer Flow of Thought
  

  It is said that caffeine allows you to think faster and concentrate
  better. Well I will tell you that I’m “hopped up” on caffeine right
  now, and this garbage is the best I can come up with, so you can decide
  for yourselves if these claims of higher mental alertness are true. The
  same thing goes for clearer flow of thought. If by clearer flow of
  thought they mean “an intense pressure behind my eyes, jittery hands,
  and an indistinct unease”, then yes, I am experiencing a clearer flow
  of thought right now.

• Reduces Fatigue

  If you’re “down in the dumps” or just a little drowsy during the day,
  it might be a good plan to drink some coffee or something. Just be
  careful. If you are really tired and you drink caffeine so you can do
  some bloodsports or something, you could be in danger when it starts to
  wear off. Imagine you’re competing in the 19th Annual Arby’s Deathbowl
  3000 and just as you begin to cross the balance beam over the pit of
  broken glass shards and jagged fiberglass sculptures (sponsored by
  Dell) you suddenly become exceedingly drowsy because instead of
  sleeping last night you drank some tea. As you begin to swoon you
  glance over at little son Nelo and your wife Charza in the audience
  just in time to see their faces contort in sheer horror as your foot
  slips from the beam. You hear the roar of the crowd and everything
  goes dark. The end.

• Increased Urination

  If you have a little caffeine you can expect to have to go to the
  bathroom about every 30 minutes. This is because the caffeine
  stimulates the hyrenosythine receptors in your brain, which in turn
  dilates the major blood vessels of your kidneys, causing you to think
  that it’s time to urinate when it actually isn’t. You may also notice a
  bluish tint in your urine, and the smell of fish oil may fill the
  restroom. These symptoms are sure signs that I’ve simply made a bunch
  of stuff up to fill space. Hyrenosythine? Come on now.

• Difficulty Sleeping
  

  If you snort a 500Mg line of pure caffeine every day before church,
  don’t expect to fall asleep easily at night. Your brain will be
  chattering away and you will probably start running in your sleep even
  if you did finally pass out. Then you’d probably kick off the covers
  and freeze to death. Here is an old home remedy for insomnia that I
  learned from my dad though: If you can’t get to sleep, just take a
  couple of vicodins, a handful of sleeping pills, drink a bottle of
  fortified wine, and then put a plastic bag over your head before you
  lay down. Hmm, wait. Actually I think that might have been instructions
  for a painless way to commit suicide, you’d better not try it after
  all.  

Advice

Go wild with caffeine, it isn’t going to hurt anything.

History

Let’s begin by saying that I hear 1 in 4 people smoke, so 1 in 4 people
will most likely be disgusted and angry because of this section. That
is in addition to the 3 in 4 people who are normally disgusted and
angry just from reading a normal article on this site. We don’t need
any more of that, so please just skip this part if you smoke.

Tobacco has a long, drawn-out, and extremely dull history. But
cigarettes are the most popular way to take it in. Suffice it to say
that all throughout history people have smoked and it hasn’t really
done anything (well, except for seating Tobacco Company executives atop
a throne comprised of cancer-ridden corpses, deceit, and blood money).

Alright, alright, sorry about that. I’ll try to make sure this isn’t a
depressing sermon on why smoking is bad and if you smoke and have
children you are poisoning your own children and likely setting them up
to be tiny cancerous orphans, and why perhaps you would actually be
better off becoming addicted to heroin, because you would probably have
more fun, have an easier time quitting, and also suffer less ill health
effects. But I promise I won’t go there. Instead I will offset the
darkness by filling this section with random happy photographs like
this.

Effects

If I were to list all the effects of smoking tobacco, this section
would probably extend to about twelve pages. And anyway who doesn’t
already know that smoking cigarettes leads to:

So in light of all this, I’ve decided just to focus on the positives.

• Could Reduce Risk of Alzheimer’s

  There have been a few studies done where it was found that people with
  Alzheimer’s are likely not to have smoked. They say this might mean:
  Smoking = Not As Big Of A Chance of Getting Alzheimer’s. This truly is
  amazing news for smokers! Now if you happen to NOT be killed by any of
  the horrifying, frightening, and inordinately painful diseases listed
  above, there’s a small change you might be at a lesser risk of a
  disease you technically probably wouldn’t even realize you had.
  Comforting, isn’t it?

• May Protect Against Ulcerative Colitis

  I guess ulcerative colitis is an inflammatory bowel disorder, and
  smoking might protect against it. But oops, smoking also increases your
  risk of Crohn’s disease, the other form of inflammatory bowel disorder.
  Can’t win em all.

  
• May Decrease Incidence of Acne

  Oh wow, how wonderful. So you’re less likely to get acne if you smoke,
  this is sure to make you more attractive to potential mates! Now all
  you have to do is hold your breath so you don’t breathe nasty cigarette
  halitosis in their face, make sure they don’t smell your clothes, your
  house, or your car, and marry them before you get any horrible diseases
  (or you give them some). That way they won’t be able to leave you
  because of the vows (sickness & health, etc).

Advice

Hey! Don’t smoke.