New Rule!

I’m mad that I only thought to read Real Time transcripts from Bill Maher’s website a few weeks ago! Anyway, here’s the best New Rule from last Friday’s show...

And finally, New Rule: Stop pretending your drugs are morally superior to my drugs, because you get yours at a store. This week, they released the autopsy report on Anna Nicole Smith, and the cause of death was what I always thought it was. Mad Cow.

No, it turns out she had nine different prescription drugs in her. Which, in the medical field, is known as the "Full Limbaugh."

They opened her up and a Walgreen’s jumped out. Anti-depressants, anti-anxiety pills, sleeping pills, sedatives, Valium, methadone. This woman was killed by her doctor, who is a glorified bartender. And I’m not going to say his name, but only because, a) I don’t want to get sued, and b) my back is killing me.

Now, this month marks the 35th anniversary of a famous government report. I was 16 in 1972, and I remember how excited we were when Nixon’s much ballyhooed national commission on drug abuse came out and said pot should be legalized! It was a moment of great hope for common sense. And then, just like Bush did last year with the Iraq Study Group, Nixon took the report and threw it in the garbage. And from there, the ‘70s went right into disco and colored underpants.

When are we going to get it? That America’s most dangerous drugs are the legal ones in our medicine cabinets, while some of the most benign ones are growing under a heat lamp in my dressing room. I joke! I joke, of course. But, 40% of the U.S. population has tried pot. That’s 94 million Americans. Or, as I call them, "my base."

Are we all criminals? No. We‚re not. But it is criminal when a certain person borrows and doesn‚t return another person’s diamond-encrusted bong, Woody!

Now, this week, in The American Scientist – a magazine George Bush wouldn’t read if he got food poisoning in Mexico and it was the only thing he could reach from the toilet – described a study done in England that measured the lethality of various drugs, and found tobacco and alcohol far worse than pot, LSD or Ecstasy, which pretty much mirrors my own experiments in this same area.

The Beatles took LSD and wrote "Sgt. Pepper." Anna Nicole Smith took legal drugs and couldn’t remember the number for "911." That is a number.

In conclusion, I wish I had more time to go into the fact that the drug war has always been about keeping black men from voting by finding out what they’re addicted to and making it illegal. It’s a miracle our government hasn’t outlawed fat, white women.

But…it’s about 8:55 here in California, and it’s almost time for me to take my "medicine." I leave with one request: would someone please just make a bumper sticker that says, "I’m a stoner, and I vote"?

Draw your own conclusions about pot—I don’t really care either way—but there’s absolutely no question that prescription drugs do as much harm as good at this point. The AP had a small article today about prescription drug abuse about New Jersey. Here’s a blurb:

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy on Monday said 4 percent of New Jerseyans have abused prescription drugs in the past year, with 11 percent of young adults aged 18 to 25 reporting misuse of a prescription drug.

National drug use surveys indicate about 3 percent of residents have abused prescription drugs in the past year, with about 6 percent of those aged 18 to 25 reporting they have misused a prescription drug.

The White House drug office also noted treatment admissions in New Jersey for pain killers have increased 217 percent from 1999 through 2005.

Meanwhile, the National Institute on Drug Abuse has begun to look into it as well.