Remember when we were kids and the government told us all not to do drugs? I remember it fondly because I was naturally a sedated kid and didn’t need drug sedation in order to sit in a chair for 7 hours every day for 13 years straight in order to get educated about stuff. I would supplement my education by scribbling crude scientific diagrams of various alien genitalia and their uses within the context of xenoreproductive habits. I was working on my resume for Star Fleet Academy.

In retrospect, it was rather unwise of me to craft these drawings within the margins of various workbooks, my teachers on occasion flipping through said workbooks to check periodic enrichment assignments. My margins were way too enriched, if you know what I mean. My teachers probably all thought I was on drugs.

Anyway, so we were told not to do drugs in a class called “D.A.R.E. To Keep Kids Off Drugs”. We would all wear these black goth-looking emo shirts to illustrate how D.A.R.I.N.G. we were not to do drugs, and boy did I learn a lot about drugs during that government program! It was so much fun! I specifically remember learning about LSD and how if you took it you could “taste music”, and “hear colors,” and “sing with all the voices of the mountains” and “paint with all the colors of your wind”!

I was quite a gassy kid so I was really excited about this. When I heard about that I actually stopped doodling alien genitalia for a few minutes and when I went home I further supplemented my D.A.R.E. education by learning all I could about how to make LSD. Dial-up AOL internet was really slow and pixelated though in the mid 90’s and it knocked out your phone line so I just gave up.

But then the policeman who taught us all about LSD, someone named Officer Becker, told us not to do those drugs and I went back to my xenobiology diagrams. All drugs were bad, Officer Becker taught us, except for Aderall® (amphetamine), Concerta® (methylphenidate), Desoxyn® (methamphetamine hydrochloride AKA “glass pills”), Dexedrine® (dextroamphetamine), Focalin® (dexmethylphenidate), Ritalin®, Datrana®, Vyvanse® (lisdexamphetamine dimesylate), Intuniv® (guanfacine alpha-2-adrenergic agonist), and Straterra® (atomoxetine). Those were all great drugs despite mandated FDA black box warnings of increased suicidal tendencies in children if we weren’t good at sitting still by occupying ourselves with the fine details of sketching extra-terrestrial sex positions and needed some help calming down.

I didn’t need those drugs, but I do remember they made up some complicated name for the terminal disease all these kids had that did need them. They had this serious problem where all they wanted to do was like, get up and, like, DO things instead of sit all day. They called it ADHD, for Accelerated Decrepit Hyperinsanity Disorder. Oh, and the ADHD kids were all told that the best weapon against a drug habit was a high self-esteem, and also to make sure you took all your drugs if through no fault of your own you were unable to SIT THE $%*& DOWN AND SHUT THE *#@& YOU LITTLE S*$&S!!

It was top notch education.

And while the bad drugs were bad, if, through no fault of our own we were sad all the time, we could also take fluoxetine, sertraline, citalopram, paroxetine, fluvoxamine, escitalopram, or guanohexadinaflarg cyanide. (OK, I made the last one up. Guanohexadinaflarg is actually a poison. But seriously, the rest, which are all real, were considered good despite additional FDA-mandated black box warnings of increased suicidality. But never mind that. All they really did apparently was prevent your brain from reabsorbing neurotransmitters like serotonin, which floods your brain with serotonin, which makes you really jumpy all the time, which means you have to double up on your dose of prescription meth to SIT STILL! I forgot to close parentheses.)

So in my D.A.R.E. class we had all these kids told that they had hyperinsanity dementia for not sitting still, on brain-chemistry-altering neurotransmitter-flooding drugs because they were sad, on more drugs to keep them sedated from the other drugs, all with black box warnings of increased risk of suicide, being told that in order not to do drugs they had to think very highly of themselves and learn about how amazing drugs like LSD are but you definitely should NOT do them. This is known as “drug control”.

Maybe I live under a jagged rock or I’m just too busy drawing aliens or I’m taking way too many drugs (probably all three), but as far as I know there is absolutely no drug problem in the US because we have drug control. I mean aside from all the drugs that we’re supposed to be on. Drugs are illegal, at least the illegal ones are, and after spending more than $1 trillion on drug control enforcement, drugs are finally a thing. Of the past.

So that’s why we need way more gun control. Because in order to stop crazy people from murdering others with assault weapons, all you need to do is make them illegal. So if the government just sits down and does something responsible for once and makes it illegal for anyone to purchase assault weapons, all the kids now on brain-altering antidepressants and ADHD drugs to make sure their antidepressants don’t make them so jumpy that they no longer have the ability to concentrate on their D.A.R.E. courses about how they shouldn’t do drugs which they can’t get anyway because of drug control, won’t go out and somehow find an assault rifle somewhere on the black market and murder people.

It really has absolutely nothing to do with all the drugs the government says these kids should be on because they need to sit and listen for 13 years straight 7 hours a day and they have hyperinsanity dysphagia, but shouldn’t be sad about it because it’s really not their fault, and won’t be as long as they’re taking all their antidepressants.

I mean think about it. When the government says you can’t buy something, like an assault rifle, how in the world are you going to find one?

I would suggest, humbly, as someone successfully educated by the government never to taste any colors with LSD, that maybe the solution to mass shootings could perhaps involve something like stop giving kids so much drugs that come with warnings of increased risk of suicide and making them sit and be lectured at for 13 years straight by law and instead let those who can’t handle such sedentary habits go to work and DO something but I’m just too busy illustrating the Star Fleet First Contact Guide to the Intergalactic Kama Sutra.

Enjoy this very serious and not sarcastic piece? Then you’ll be totally titillated by this fantastic nonsense about Libertarianism and Silicone Brain Implants.