Dirk Flinthart's drug-induced whimsies

So, here I am, picking up a job that used to be done by a woman who claimed to be inspired by some kind of psychic dog. Worse still, I'm supposed to be funny about the relationship between gigantic, carnivorous, brutally efficient predators like transnational drug companies and their small, fuzzy, helpless Third World prey. I don't even know where the First World is, let alone where the Third World hangs out.

Fortunately, I'm indomitable. (It's true. I am. It says so on my CV.) So, being indomitable, I promptly went and found out about this Third World thing. You can go there yourself --http://geography.about.com/science/geography/library/faq/ blqz3rdworld.htm – but it's incredibly boring. Not funny at all, except in the sort of black-beret-wearing post-modern, sniggering-through-your-goatee way that seems to keep Arts faculties around the world endlessly amused. Strike one. Total bust.

Okay. Still being indomitable, I reached back into my fund of stories from my days as a soldier of fortune. Back when the REAL George Bush was running things and moustachioed Arabic sorts had to wash their underpants frequently, I did some time in a mercenary unit owned by one of those transnationals. Of course, they weren't admitting they owned the unit or anything, but the corporate logos printed on our camo scrim were a real giveaway.

Anyway, our job was to test various drugs on vicious Communist revolutionary sorts – who are apparently all Third Worlders, and to that end we were issued with a lot of really strange ammunition. It was okay while we were testing anaesthetics and downers. Put a shotgun load of Serepax into a charging Mau-Mau, and things generally go the way you want them to.

Some of the other drugs were a bit less useful. I still don't understand the point of firing Prozac bullets at Marxist guerillas, for example. Marxists have by nature a complete immunity to antidepressants. Besides, even a cheerful Marxist can still bore you to death in less than sixty seconds.

The worst episode occurred in South Africa. They issued us with these little diamond-shaped blue bullets and sent us in-country. The ANC irregulars ambushed us one night, and we returned fire in good order. Next thing we knew, there were about three hundred howling Africans chasing us with gigantic, steaming erections. Sensibly enough, we ran like antelope before the lion. I still have nightmares . . .

But I digress. The more contemporary drug culture is easily found in the Web – that hotbed of prohibited goodies deemed unsuitable for human consumption. It’s all right there if you know where to look.

So: http://www.crrh.org/hemptv/dancing_cannabis.html isn't exactly about transnational drug companies, but it is funny, in a dumb kind of way. And it involves drugs, so that's got to be good, right? And http://www.crackinthebox.com/ is a nice look at what transnationals might look like if the Columbians were allowed to franchise their business. (Looks like a pretty good idea to me. I'm tired of wannabe street-tough dealers with Hollywood "attitude". Give me a smiling guy in a stripey apron, offering me fries with my coke any day!)

http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/streetterms/Default.asp provides a terribly handy reference for people who don't want to look like a total Wally while attempting to purchase their illicit drugs. After all, think how embarrassed you'd be if you asked for a wildcat when what you really wanted was a woolah! Better bone up now, before your next visit to your local undercover officer.

More fun still is http://www.brunching.com/toys/drugslanger.html which has its own inbuilt dictionary of drug slang terms, which it translates back into English for you. Apply it to this very site: see for yourself the secret drug code that we have been speaking all along, fiendish drug barons that we are.

Finally, I'm not certain whether http://biopsychiatry.com/ is meant to be funny or not, but there are places where it made me giggle, and it had some useful information as well, so I thought: what the hell. Let's put it in.

Right -- that's it for me. Gotta go and participate in the latest drug trials. If I'm lucky, and I didn't get the placebo, I may just be able to grow an extra arm by late this afternoon. That will help with the deadlines no end!