While unpacking from my vacation, I found a strip of pills given to me by the doctor onboard the Ushuaia for motion sickness. When crossing The Drake Passage I took one the night before hitting rough waters, but didn't find I needed them for the two days of trauma that followed, so I never used them. I thought I gave them all away, but apparently I did not.

I had no luck using the Pill Identifier at Drugs.com (my go-to site for identifying mystery pills), so I typed in what information I could find from the partial package I had... "Janssen" and "ugero" and "75"... which resulted in Stugeron 75 MG Tablet...

Stugeron is a medicine that belongs to the category of antihistaminic medications. It is used to treat problems associated with the inner ear and the brain. This medicine is used to treat dizziness and sickness associated with motion sickness.

Apparently this is a better drug for motion sickness than the Promethazine I had requested from my personal doctor. When the ship's doctor had us bring any medications we were going to use to dinner to show her, she just kind of chuckled and shook her head "no" while handing me the Stugeron. Needless to say, I took her word for it, because I'm guessing somebody serving on a ship would know what works best.

Ah the wonders of modern pharmaceuticals!

Which is a strange thing for me to say given my raging hatred for "Big Pharma" and the way they manipulate doctors into over-prescribing their over-priced crap.

And yet...

Gabapentin, which I like to refer to as "The Miracle Drug," has been life-changing for me. After being plagued with ever-worsening "restless leg syndrome" for years, I finally got relief (and a good night's sleep) once I consulted Dr. Google and found that people were getting good results with Gabapentin. I begged my doctor to let me try it and, 600mg a night later, my quality of life has improved so profoundly over the last couple months that I am almost moved to tears just thinking about it.

And so...

Not all drugs are all bad all the time. Sometimes they are a necessary part of life that you just have to accept and be grateful for.

And I am.

Even though I still wish drugs were cheaper, doctors wouldn't be so quick to throw a bunch of drugs at every problem that walks through the door, and Big Pharma would be forbidden from influencing doctors and politicians with their endless supply of money.

Time for Gabapentin and bed now.

Last night I decided to stop taking the pain-killers I've been on since getting run down in France. I don't like the way drugs mess with my head, and this time it was more debilitating than usual for some reason. I wasn't just having trouble concentrating at work... I was having trouble concentrating while watching television, and that just isn't done.

The pain in my ribs is breathtaking, as expected.

But it's the pain in the arm where I got my tetanus shot that really took me by surprise. My arm aches. Every movement feels like somebody just punched me. Hard. I Googled my pain only to discover that, yeah, this is totally normal. Tetanus shots are brutal. So now I am questioning this foolish decision to live life drug-free, as I am a real weenie when it comes to pain.

I'm also questioning getting a tetanus shot, but that ship has sailed.

And then there's this...

Have a good night!

Grass. Weed. Reefer. Pot. Skunk. Bud. Chronic. Mary Jane. Ganja. Herb. Wacky Tobacky.

No matter what your name for it, Marijuana is now legally for sale in Colorado... and will be legally for sale here in my home-state of Washington sometime this Spring.

And while I was a huge proponent of legalizing marijuana for personal use, I will undoubtedly not be partaking myself. That would be money wasted when Jägermeister already does such a great job of ejecting me from reality when I need that...

But I make no promises.

The reason being that I am so rarely able to keep my promises.

As an example, I once promised that I would no longer write editorial rebuttals on my blog because they so rarely do anything to elevate the conversation. Probably because the only reason I write editorial rebuttals in the first place is that I'm very, very angry about said editorial. And while angry rants may be a release... may be cathartic... and may even be fun... they're also overly-emotional, profanity-laden, and sometimes even incomprehensible.

Thus my promise.

Except...

A pathetic joke of an op-ed piece in The New York Times' by David Brooks was published today. It's rife with the kind of condescending rhetoric that a sane person would avoid at any cost but, like the fool I am, I dove in anyway. And, while I honestly don't give a shit about Brooks or his laughably transparent attempt at manipulating his readers, I do give a huge shit about what the fucking douche has to say about legalization supporters like me.

But, before we get there, it's important to put it into context.

The first half of his op-ed waxes poetic about how Brooks smoked pot when he was a teenager, but eventually gave it up.

And then we get to this...

"We now have a couple states — Colorado and Washington — that have gone into the business of effectively encouraging drug use. By making weed legal, they are creating a situation in which the price will drop substantially. One RAND study suggests that prices could plummet by up to 90 percent, before taxes and such. As prices drop and legal fears go away, usage is bound to increase. This is simple economics, and it is confirmed by much research. Colorado and Washington, in other words, are producing more users."

And this...

"But, of course, these are the core questions: Laws profoundly mold culture, so what sort of community do we want our laws to nurture? What sort of individuals and behaviors do our governments want to encourage? I’d say that in healthy societies government wants to subtly tip the scale to favor temperate, prudent, self-governing citizenship. In those societies, government subtly encourages the highest pleasures, like enjoying the arts or being in nature, and discourages lesser pleasures, like being stoned."

So...

• In other words, Brooks was "self-governing" enough to decide that he wanted to illegally smoke pot when he was younger... but he doesn't think that anybody else should be legally able to make the same decision today.
• In other words, Brooks believes that marijuana should stay expensive and illegal so it's use is exclusive to wealthy people who can afford the product and the legal ramifications associated with it.
• In other words, Brooks feels that only Brooks is smart enough and responsible enough to handle cannabis because only he is smart enough and responsible enough to quit using it. You, however, are not, so shame on you for wanting it legalized.

Well fuck you David Brooks.

Will legalizing marijuana bring about more drug users? I have no clue. It's not going to change my habits. Will there be people who abuse legalized marijuana? Of course there will. And they should be punished just like alcohol abusers are now. Driving while drunk or driving while stoned, it doesn't matter... you break the law you pay the price. The precedent has already been set, so move along, there's nothing to see here.

Seriously, there's nothing to see here.

Which is why, after reading this piece, I can't quite decide whether David Brooks is pretending to be so obtuse... or if he is, in fact, mentally deficient.

A few points...

• I voted for legalization because it should be my fucking decision whether or not I get high, not yours.
• I voted for legalization because responsible use of marijuana shouldn't be treated any different from responsible use of alcohol... and I fail to see how being an alcoholic is somehow more desirable than being a stoner when people do abuse it.
• I voted for legalization because IT'S BEEN CONFIRMED BY MUCH RESEARCH that marijuana is less of a health risk than alcohol.
• I voted for legalization because... cigarettes and tobacco products. Look into THAT one, bitch.
• I voted for legalization because I'm sick of the racist bullshit surrounding marijuana use. It runs roughly an equal percentage between whites and blacks, but guess who bears the brunt of arrests when it comes to getting caught using it?
• I voted for legalization because now pot smokers are fucking TAXED just like alcohol drinkers such as myself already are. Fair is fair, blazers!
• I voted for legalization because the massively expensive (yet massively ineffective) "War on Drugs" needs an equally massive overhaul so we're not dumping tons of effort and taxpayer cash ON FUCKING STUPID.
• I voted for legalization because I am sick and tired of self-righteous assholes like David Brooks unleashing the "Do as I say, not as I do" edict for acceptable behavior in America.

If nothing else, smoking a join would sure beat lesser pleasures... like reading unintelligent op-ed trash by David Brooks.

Don't believe me? Just ask a teenage David Brooks.

Despite having worked a big chunk of Saturday and Sunday I was still completely overwhelmed today. This was kind of disheartening, as it made me feel as if I had given up my weekend for nothing.

It's times like this that I am seriously reconsidering my no-drug policy here at Blogography.

Because, let's face it, if anybody is the perfect candidate for drug use it's me. I work under high amounts of stress, I am often alone, and I have a highly addictive personality. I often joke that the only thing that keeps me from doing buckets of cocaine is the cost. But the truth is that I could probably juggle a few things in my budget and be able to free up enough cash for a decent coke habit if I really wanted to.

And days like today, I really want to.

Living in a hallucinatory land of green skies with pink clouds while surrounded with hundreds of imaginary monkeys may seem like a terrible thing, but I assure you it sounds pretty good compared to my non-cocaine-hallucinated reality...

So far so good.

But then I look at the legal ramifications of being caught in possession of cocaine, and this rose-colored scenario starts to turn murky. As a first-time offender, I could probably get off with community service and drug counseling. Picking up garbage on the side of the highway wouldn't be too bad, that I could do. But the idea of having to go to meetings with crack-heads, stoners, blazers, and drugged-out nut-bags while some counselor lectures on the joys of a drug-free life... well, that's enough to scare me straight before I even begin. In all honesty, I'd rather go to prison.

So I'm back to square one.

I guess it's time for chocolate pudding and a glass of milk.

Which I'm sure is almost as good as a couple lines of cocaine anyway.