Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

“I think a DA might say don’t sell drugs that way you don’t have to worry about being treated fairly by our judicial system since you won’t be arrested I think that’s what they might say.”

“And that kind of statement is always fairly persuasive I must admit.”

“And it has the added benefit of making the speaker sound cynical and tough thus shielding him from accusations of naïveté, which is like the worst quality you can have, and all the while the speaker still feels morally superior because he doesn’t sell drugs so chalk that up as another reason why he’s a good person.”

“Of course the problem, and I use the term loosely because I don’t give the slightest what happens to these people, is this Casi. We’ve already said that a lot of these people out there selling drugs, and seemingly a higher percentage of those arrested, are themselves addicted to drugs. And naturally the two things, the fact that the person is addicted to drugs and the fact that they have been arrested for participating in a drug sale or the possession of drugs, do not exist independent of each other but instead the person is possessing or selling drugs because they are addicted to them. Given that fact, how much free will, of the kind people like your speaker love to take shelter in, is actually involved here? We know, for example that a mother will leave her newborn alone in her apartment for days to go buy and smoke crack. Addicts will go days without eating to save their money for crack.”

“I had a guy who had had a pacemaker installed on Saturday and came through on a 220.03 the following Wednesday. He showed me the freshly-bandaged incision lest I disbelieve.”

“I had a woman who traded her artificial leg in for crack.”

“The addict’s options are limitless.”

“Sell your mom’s stereo.”

“Pimp your thirteen-year-old daughter.”

“Before he was interrupted your guy was going to say, after taking pains to assure everyone he was heterosexual, that he performs oral sex on men in order to finance his drug-taking activities.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“Now haven’t you ever wondered what smoking crack feels like? Ever reasoned that it must be one of the greatest feelings in the world to cause such extreme behavior in the name of its pursuit?”

“I guess, have you?”

“I don’t have to wonder, I’ve smoked crack.”

“ What? Now you’ve got my attention, tell me about that.”

“Later. The relevant question for now is whether non-violent behavior such as directing willing buyers to willing sellers in order to feed what appears to be an extreme compulsion should give rise to these sentences and the collateral effects these sentences have on the affected communities.”

“ Don’t use drugs, just say no to them, that same DA might say, that way you avoid becoming addicted and all the other horrors you’ve described that end with you going to state prison. As for the teen twerp, he’d tell him to go to school, get ahead et cetera and he won’t feel compelled to get involved in a dirty business that can destroy his life. Those seem to be the kind of things these pointless fucks say.”

“Now that one’s laughable. Again I don’t actually care about the so-called human toll but it does pain me to see the rules of logic violated. I assume your speaker is referring to not using drugs initially since we’ve already discussed how apparently difficult it is to stop using a drug like crack cocaine once you’ve started — a feat the likes of which is almost invariably beyond the will-power capabilities of the speaker of such a statement by the way and which they would readily admit if they were being honest with themselves. One advantage the speaker will have, however, is that he will most likely never have used, unlike me, a drug like crack. So what that person will essentially be saying is don’t do something I’ve never done and have no interest in doing and which abstinence therefore, to me, seems easy. Of course, that apparent ease is built on a fallacy and one that is created by money and this takes me to my proposed solution.” He checked his watch to make sure he had time to deliver his full proposal and I saw that what he was checking was an undeniable Rolex.

“You see, what the overwhelming majority of these people can’t say is that they don’t use drugs or that they’ve never used drugs. So I say the answer, certainly the most entertaining one at any rate, isn’t legalization but rather criminalization. I’ll show you what I mean. First, let’s outlaw all drugs and see what happens, what do you say? Of course, the first thing we’ll have to do is define what we mean by the term drug in this context. How’s this? For the purposes of our new law, an illegal drug will be any substance ingested by a person that has the effect of, and which is taken for the purpose of, altering that person’s physiology in a manner that person deems beneficial and which is taken in the absence of physical pain or malfunction. There you have it. Unless you had a legitimate medical purpose, and I’m talking exclusively about maintaining your corporeal health since all sorts of non-nutritive, highly-altering substances are susceptible to justification in the name of that ever-elusive mental health, you would not be allowed to use any of the substances you’ve grown to first know, soon love, and finally worship. Now I would happily wager that, operating under this new definition, every adult you know is on drugs so what would happen in the days following the implementation of this new law? How about utter chaos?”

“But—”

“That’s right, try utter chaos! I believe we’d see open revolt in the streets. You might as well outlaw eating. The only thing that would compare would be if you took Television and computers away from them. Think of the substances people would have to give up. Talk about kicking the crutches out from under a nation of invalids. Take your average dipshit to see what I’m talking about. The rooster crows and now this clown has some rising and shining to do, must report to his cubicle to ride that carpal tunnel. Only he was up the entire previous night worrying about how he’s going to get that big promotion his wife wants so his energy level is currently nil. Well no matter really because he heads into his marbletop kitchen, the one with the center island, to brew your parental homeland’s second most popular export—”

“How do you—”

“He guzzles his coffee and the caffeine kickstarts his limited brain so he’s ready to face the day. This drug gives him energy that he wouldn’t have otherwise. Let’s examine this closely because I can tell from your look that although you know where I’m going with this, you’re having trouble getting past the admittedly benign appearance of this situation. Remember he doesn’t ingest this drug because he’s sick and the drug serves a medicinal purpose. He’s taking this drug because it will make him feel a certain way i.e. it will make him feel, at least in some sense, energetic as if he had gotten a good night’s sleep the night before. Any run-of-the-mill coffee drinker will admit this. Put another way, this person’s body has a highly normal reaction to its circumstances, only its owner doesn’t like this reaction, is not willing to be discomfited in any way, so he takes a substance that allows him to avoid the unpleasantness for the moment. Of course, as is always the case, there’s a cost and any hardcore caffeine user will tell you that if they discontinue use they are rewarded with consistent migraine-level headaches. So perhaps the apparent benignancy of the situation was misleading. After all what kind of substance, when spurned by a former lover, takes its revenge by attacking the spurner’s head? Unconvinced?”