Cocaine has had a significant impact on popular music. While booze is far more likely to result in sloppy work and an unsightly beer gut in middle age, coke leaves you wired enough to ensure that you will produce a whole lot of something, and thus ups the odds that you will actually produce something good.
Keith Richards may have fallen out of a tree in Fiji while out of his gourd on other than vitamin supplements, but he is what rock n’ roll is all about: debauchery. And, while a sober Eric Clapton was quoted as saying, “I hate listening to my old records, which I did stoned or drunk,” he’s alone in that camp as most fans of his music hate listening to anything that he’s done straight.
Keith Richards’ entire career, Neil Young’s coked out performance at “The Last Waltz”, Stevie Nicks having built up such a tolerance to cocaine that she had to have it blown up her rectum to get a high (this never happened, apparently, but is nonetheless one of the more entertaining urban legends), cocaine use is an integral part of the rock-star lifestyle. It’s what young boys dream about: One day, if I practice enough and work on perfecting my skills as a singer-songwriter, I too will be able to snort cocaine off of the breasts of a vacant-eyed stripper whose name I’ll forget before I’m back on the tour bus and liquidating a savings account by mobile phone to settle debts with unsavory characters.
Here we have compiled a list of the Top 10 Cocaine Songs of all time — songs about, influenced by, and more than likely written on clouds of Peruvian marching powder:
In this one, the good Reverend regales us with the modern day parable of a farmer out in his field pulling corn and carrots “when two low-flying aeroplanes, ’bout a hundred feet high/dropped a bunch o’ bales o’ somethin’, some hit me in the eye”. The farmer cuts the bales open and notices a mysterious powder inside. Being a rube, for whom presumably white lightnin’ is still the biggest thrill in town, he has no idea what it is and brings it to his “Crazy Brother Joe”: “He sniffed it up and kicked his heels, said, ‘Horton, that’s some blow!’” Our lucky farming friend then heads into Dallas, becomes a millionaire by selling his find, ditches his farm in Texas and buys another in Peru. Think of it like the Bill Paxton movie “A Simple Plan”, only a whole lot happier and without Billy Bob Thornton in the role of a mouth-breather. We can safely assume that at some later point in this farmer’s life the drug dealers whose fortune he stole would have tracked him down and introduced him to the latest in Columbian necktie attire, however, for taking a different angle on the cocaine song and for its appreciation of the entrepreneurial spirit, we salute the Reverend Horton Heat and include “Bales of Cocaine” on our Top 10 Cocaine Songs of All Time list:
Bales of cocaine, fallin’ from low-flyin’ plane
I don’t know who done dropped ‘em, but I thank ‘em just the same
Bales of cocaine, fallin’ like a foreign rain
My life changed completely by the low-flyin’ planes
This is a song that needs to wipe its nose before returning to the dinner table. With two founding members who met in a tattoo parlor and bonded over their mutual love of AC/DC, Buckcherry exemplifies the type of hard rockin’ lifestyle that has enriched many a well-connected roadie. A song meant more for the mosh-pit than for lyrical analysis, this one is interesting though for the number of places in which the narrator gets “lit up”. They include: a plane, his couch, his bed, on a train and backstage somewhere with a groupie knocking, “Crack the door for the curious girl cuz she’s waitin’ she’s been waitin’…” And fulfilling the age-old maxim that all bands who look like this will eventually do something that reminds one of Spinal Tap, we get a replay of the classic, “It goes up to 11″ bit of dialogue in the following bit of verse: “I’m in touch love, from this crutch/Well you’re on ten but buddy I’m on eleven”.
“I’m on a plane With cocaine And yes I’m all lit up again”
“I don’t do cocaine anymore. Well, only occasionally,” GNR guitarist Slash, 1992. Long before the band broke up and Axl Rose set about attempting to strangle whatever bit of fan support they had with the “Chinese Democracy” debacle, the Gunners were at the forefront of cocaine-fueled hard rock with Appetite For Destruction, and “My Michelle” was one of their best. The Michelle in the song actually existed. She knew the band and asked Axl to pen a tune for her. She did not get “Sweet Child Of Mine” treatment. This one tells a story of a hard-living woman whose “daddy works in porno/Now that mommy’s not around/She used to love her heroin/but now she’s in the ground.” The song and the real-life story both have a happy ending, as, according to Slash’s biography (which would no doubt require a snort of something illicit to get through), Michelle has since moved across the country and cleaned up her act.
“So you stay out late at night And you do your coke for free Drivin’ your friends crazy With your life’s insanity”
Though better known for penning that motet Sweet Home Alabama, heard if a case of Amstel Light, a $150 Yamaha guitar, a group of white people, or a campfire are within a 100-yard radius, Skynyrd is also known for this thoroughly unpleasantly titled opus: ‘What’s that smell?’ being one of the worst questions you can ever hear uttered, along with ‘Is anyone here a vegetarian?’ A well-worn refrain when it comes to the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, members of the band were killed by over-consumption, but in this case, it was of fuel, at least according to the National Transportation Safety Board, who determined this caused their plane to take a nosedive into a Mississippi forest. This song references an earlier and less-killing crash involving guitarist Gary Rossington, whiskey, coke and an oak tree that would just not get out of the way.
“Whiskey bottles, and brand new cars
Oak tree you’re in my way
There’s too much coke and too much smoke
Look what’s going on inside you
With an obstructed view concert ticket to one of their performances costing in the range of your average eight-ball, The Eagles certainly know a thing or two about life in the fast lane, a song inspired by a road trip Glenn Frey took with a dealer named ‘The Count’. In ‘Hotel California’, (a song so ubiquitous you can be wandering the rugged mountains of northern Laos and hear a villager who’s otherwise had no contact with modernity, humming a few bars) there were ‘mirrors were on the ceiling’, and in this song, their paean to hard-living, they served a dual purpose other than a means to admire your feather mullet and creepy mustache.
“They threw outrageous parties, they paid heavenly bills
There were lines on the mirror, lines on her face”
These Dead songs casually mention cocaine use as part of the average work day for those in two occupations — a train conductor and a trucker — and we’re hoping this was more fantasy than fiction. Truckers are already not the kind of people that most like to share the road with — their egos being inflated in proportion to their rigs and requiring no further boost from chemicals. Cocaine use might, however, explain, how train conductors can crash something that sets out on a predetermined track. The ‘livin’ on reds, vitamin C and cocaine” lifestyle is unlikely to feature prominently in the health and wellness section of your local bookstore alongside “You: On a Diet”, or “Train your Brain to Think like a Thin Person”.
“Driving that train, high on cocaine,
Casey Jones is ready, watch your speed.”“Livin’ on reds, vitamin C, and cocaine
All a friend can say is ain’t it a shame?”
Pound for pound, or more accurately, ounce for ounce, “Sticky Fingers” is one of the most drug-addled albums ever released, with nearly half of the songs on it in some way referencing drugs either obliquely, or quite explicitly with heroin in Dead Flowers, morphine in Sister Morphine, or singing the praises of a nighttime bump in Moonlight Mile. Sticky Fingers, along with Neil Young’s “Tonight’s the Night” are among the most depressing albums of the 1970s, and together make the Tom Waits song catalog sound like the collected works of the Village People by comparison.
“Yeah, you got satin shoes
Yeah, you got plastic boots
Ya’ll got cocaine eyes
Yeah, you got speed-freak jive”“Sweet cousin cocaine, lay your cool cool hand on my head
Ah, come on, sister morphine, you better make up my bed”“When the wind blows and the rain feels cold with a head full of snow, with a head full of snow”
There are numerous songs out there that go by the name “Cocaine Blues” or a variation thereof, presumably because there was no shortage of real-life material on which to base such ditties. We’re slotting two of the more prominent in our third and second spots. The first is a “traditional” song, which means that it’s public domain and can therefore be burned, photocopied, recorded, dubbed over, mixed with farm animal sounds, and played over and over again on the street corner to the annoyance of everyone within 100 yards (public noise ordinances notwithstanding) — all with copyright-infringement impunity. The Reverend Gary Davis, who, unlike Brother Horton Heat earlier in the list, actually was an ordained minister, laid down the definitive version of this one, and a young Bob Dylan added it to his repertoire. This version takes us through some of the less pleasant aspects of cocaine use — hence the “blues” part — including:
Any pretense to romance going out the window:
You take Sally, an’ I’ll take Sue,
Ain’t nah difference between the two.
Cocaine all around my brain.
Unpleasant physical effects:
Hey baby, you better come here quick,
This old cocaine ’bout to make me sick.
Cocaine all around my brain.
And one quite bizarre veterinary notion:
Cocaine’s for horses and it’s not for men,
Doctor said it kill you, but he didn’t say when.
Cocaine all around my brain.
The second of our public domain songs (go ahead and record this one on YouTube using a butt kazoo and a ukulele for all the record companies care) was first known by the far more ominous sounding name “Transfusion Blues”, but popularized as Cocaine Blues by none other than the Man in Black (especially after Labor Day) Johnny Cash. This was one of the songs that Cash sang at Folsom Prison that no doubt had the guards ruining underwear while wondering whether they would soon have a riot on their hands. This super-charged song tells the story of Willie Lee, a “hack”, which we presume means either a prison guard or cop, as a reporter for a schlock newspaper wouldn’t be as cool, who takes a shot of cocaine and shoots his cheating woman down. He then flees to Mexico, but is apprehended, put before a jury of “12 honest men” and sentenced to “99 years in the Folsom Pen”. By the end the convicted prisoner advises his fellows to stay off the cocaine, not to murder, mind you, but to avoid the cocaine; he seems ok about the murdering your wife part.
The judge he smiled as he picked up his pen
99 years in the Folsom pen
99 years underneath that ground
I can’t forget the day I shot that bad bitch down
Come on you’ve gotta listen unto me
lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be
Don’t be fooled by Clapton’s fatigued version, this gem penned by J.J. Cale (a man to whom Slow Hand arguably owes his entire career) is in our estimation, the definitive blizzard ditty. Clapton is quoted on Wikipedia as having once said that “Cocaine” is actually an anti-cocaine song. If you study it or look at it with a little bit of thought… from a distance… or as it goes by… it just sounds like a song about cocaine. But in actual fact, it is quite cleverly anti-cocaine.” Being that Clapton didn’t write this song, this opinion is about as valuable as the answer you’d get if you asked the Byrds what they were thinking when they came up with “Mr. Tambourine Man”. Defending his position, Clapton mentions the lyric, “If you wanna get down, down on the ground; cocaine” to demonstrate that the song is anti-coke. He doesn’t mention though that every other lyric in the song could feature in the text of a Colombian drug-runner’s spring/fall catalogue:
If you want to hang out, you’ve got to take her out, cocaine
She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie, cocaine
If you got bad news, you want to kick them blues, cocaine
When your day is done and you got to run, cocaine
She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie, cocaine
If your thing is gone and you want to ride on, cocaine
Dont forget this fact, you cant get it back, cocaine
She dont lie, she dont lie, she don’t lie, cocaine
Honorable or dishonorable omissions: Never Change (Jay-Z), Snowblind (Black Sabbath), Cocaine (The Game), No Thing On Me (Curtis Mayfield), What A Waster (The Libertines), Picture (Kid Rock)
Contributor: Sharkguys
jfrater: I think this is a somewhat naff list & I find the author’s or authors’ witless wit annoying, but I would hate to see it withdrawn simply because it’s attracted negative comments. That would constitute a form of censorship that in my admittedly limited experience here goes against this site’s spirit. Most of the comments above are in fact complimentary anyway. And provoking some controversy is healthy, surely.
My assumption was that you pulled the ‘Indian Facts’ list because it was plagiarized. This list has appeared elsewhere, God help us, but its authorship is not in question.
So, please let it be.
well well well… Good list. I love the song cocaine by J.J.Cale. I have never heard the other version. I recall my big brothers liked this song growing up – otherwise I would probably not even know it existed. Good list
Its like Bill Hicks said, think of all the greatest music that you’ve heard in the last 40 years, all of it made by guys on drugs. Amazingly its true. Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, even the Beach Boys. Brian Wilson was so wasted after making Pet Sounds, he didn’t get out of bed for 15 years! Amy Winehouse may be a train wreck in real life, but that doesn’t change the fact that the quality of her music was vastly superior to the mind-numbing R+B that saturates the market today. Drugs are bad when it comes to living a normal life, but as far as artistic expression goes the facts speak for themselves. Baudelaire once wrote that drugs will open a door, but that it is up to the individual to actually walk through it.
chris: OK. But it depends on the drugs. And the musicians. Drugs are indirectly responsible for some of the most pretentious & deeply boring music in the history of mankind. I’m thinking of the prog rock cul-de-sac of the 70s. Thank Christ for the advent of punk. Plus, even if some drugs can enhance creativity it doesn’t follow that songs about drugs are interesting. By & large they’re not.
ciunas: very true, but think of the greatest of the greats, all wasters at some point of their lives. And prog rock is terrible, but those guys, like ELO and Emerson Lake and Palmer were straight. Do you see the connection, whereas the Punk pioneers were off their chops. But I agree, songs about drugs are generally boring.
Thank you all for the comments, positive and negative…
And those in the negative camp, there is nothing stopping you from doing your own lists…or landing your own book deals, for that matter.
Sorry to all those who took offense…and to those who enjoyed it, who knows? Perhaps a heroin list is on the horizon…
By far, my favourite arrangement of the iconic “Cocaine” by JJ Cale is by Nazareth, on their album “Snaz”. If you haven’t heard it, look it up. It’s very acoustic and percussive, and not what you might expect.
Seriously, this version is one of my all-time favourite songs, and has been for over 20 years.
I was going to link the Youtube video, but it’s absolute *****e.
Loser List. This is like the Papparazi or TMZ, when you don’t have talent yourself, you talk ***** about others.
#125 thesharkguys I’ve mentioned it before (forgive me) but I love the song “Heroin” by the Velvet Underground. I would hope that would make the “heroin list”
I only read the intro and glanced at some of the songs’ names. But from reading over some of the comments (the ones I agree with), count me among those who think it was a stupid idea for a list and, as someone posed (maybe more than one), I am disappointed that it was posted. Then, the issue of whether or not it’s plagiarized comes up???
S_R: had you have done more than just skim the comments, you would have seen the one which is only 4 above your own by the AUTHOR of the list who sent it to me. The issue of plagiarism clearly does NOT come up. How do you know whether you agree with a comment? Do you read the first couple of words to see if you agree and ignore the rest? Do you not find that that hinders your ability to broaden your horizons and learn new things?
Well, thank the Net for its diversity of opinions. I personally thought this list was hilarious. And I thought that some of the more negative opinions on here made the posters of the comments seem like a bunch of joyless drones. Viva la difference.
A year or so ago, a close friend from high school messaged me on MSN and asked me if I’d ever heard of Buckcherry.
“Uh, no. Why?”
“Oh. I just *****ed the lead singer.”
So now whenever I see them, all I can think is “Stacey Lynn did you.”
maybe you should correct the title to top ten ROCK songs about cocaine. there is a lot of really good cocaine rap.
This is missing Black Sabbath’s Snowblind.
Good point to the person who suggested that this be renamed the Top 10 Rock Songs about Cocaine (though a couple wouldn’t fit). Indeed, some rap stuff was missed…
That said, how can you complain about the writing in this one? This is VERY WELL WRITTEN compared to the majority of lists out there…
All in all, a great job, though sadly racking in cocaine rap…
ayo for yayo?
My first thought when I saw the title of this list was GRANDMASTER FLASH! I can’t believe its not on here, but superb list nonetheless
nice list! very happy to see the absolute Cash classic Cocaine Blues, and of course the great album Sticky Fingers
I don’t know…I thought it was great…and they did get Jay-z, The Game on there…read to the end…
I have a *LOT* to say, but I’m not going to say most of it.
The songs which really spoke to the subject of cocaine, its ability to gain a few minutes of pleasure in an otherwise awful existence, were the old Blues songs. As the contributor left out that entire genre, the genesis of all the bastardized rock songs in the list (and many, many more), I feel it would be the height of dishonor to comment on the list itself.
Randall: SpannerInTheWorks is a trained, working Botanist. When he speaks of weed or weeds, he is speaking of garden pest plants, not *****. He doesn’t deserve to be belittled or otherwise:
#87. Randall – July 3rd, 2008
but inspiration? Eh. It doesn’t need to come out of a bottle or from a powder or a weed. That, frankly… is a shade weak…
You may have been away when his job was under discussion, and he is a Brit, with the Saharanly dry Brit sense of humor. If you’re not used to it, it takes some doing.
You’re a bright guy. You know I like you. I know you’ll learn Spanner is a top-notch fellow.
S_R wants nothing but Jesus lists. Go praise Fake-o somewhere where it isn’t so annoying to everyone else.
JFrater: On a list like this where I’m not going to go into detail about explaining my stand, yes. Since I dislike the subject matter to begin with, I read a couple of sentences to see which direction the author is taking. Even if he opposes my beliefs but words his post in an intelligent manner, I might read it. If he’s juvenile about it, though, I’ll skip it.
At 48 years old (in 12 days), I’ve gone through many periods in my life, including letting drugs destroy it at one point. Thank God, I’m out of that. So, I’ve been on both sides of the fence, so to speak. I know PLENTY about drugs and what they can do. So, Jamie, and I mean this in a nice way, I know all anyone needs to know about drugs. My “horizons” have extended WAY betond what I wish they ever had.
Drugs destroy lives and kill people, even innocent ones. So does alcohol, but it’s LEGAL. That to me, is STUPID! Just so you know I’m not so uptight–I don’t understand why alcohol is legal but ***** isn’t. In fact, I’d rather see ***** legalized rather than alcohol. It’s the lesser of the two evils. You don’t hear about people committing the atrocities they do when drinking when they’re smoking. I’d rather no one did either, but that’s not going to happen.
I forgot to add, they’re “praising” the creative abilities of the artists while on coke, but they forget, they had a lot of problems in their lives because of it. And many DIED. Yet I read a couple of posts where people have condoned its use for artisitic abilities and even encouraged it. How selfish can one be? “If coke makes you write better music that I like, go ahead and kill yourself. Just get me some cool tunes, man.”
Well written and provocative list Sharkguys. Back in the 80,s I was a limosine driver for a while. Nearly every tip I received was a rolled up hundred dollar bill. I never cared for the drug myself or being with people who were using, although I must say, once when I was dead tired, driving from Montreal to Vermont (in a snow storm of course), I did a line and it not only woke me up, it made improved my night vision to an astonishing degree.
****
144. YogiBarrister – July 4th, 2008
…, I did a line and it not only woke me up, it made improved my night vision to an astonishing degree.
****
Sounds like an argument for a line just before stepping up to the eye-test portion of the DMV test.
Wow. It’s not a GREAT list, but it was an interesting read.
Too much whining over it though. :/
well, the last few sentences mention some other songs, but to me coke rap is also: clipse, rick ross and young jeezy aka the SNOWMAN. nevertheless, this is a great list.
I registered just to put in my two cents… Metallica’s Master of Puppets. Its got to be about coke…
You don’t need to register to comment. But it helps if you take a bump before going online. Funny list… It was well written that’s for sure.. Feels like some old blues guys are missing, but I can’t think of any songs right now…
Hmmm….
Anybody? Dang! Tip of my tongue!
Anyway, these were some interesting choices, and an interesting discussion here too. The comment from the former limo driver about rolled up tips gave me a good laugh.
Thanks!
no “master of puppets” by metallica?!!
Tell It To Me by Old Crow Medicine Show is a good cocaine song.
“Save my life,Im going down for the last time
women with the sweet lovin is better then a white line
dont you know she could bring a good feeling aint had in such a long time
or how about the old beatles song
Here come old flat top he comes groovin up slowly hes got choo choo eyeballs he shoots coca-cola
I dont see why this list is any worse or less creditable then compared to some of the other lists on here.And whether you do this drug or not you negative,closed minded people still come and look at the list ,but hey how dare they list such a thing,Well then get the ***** out of this list dumb asses.I am not for cocaine but I dont come to a list if I dont like what the subject pertains to or am curious what other people are saying about it,Dont complain if you wanna come inside because you are just gonna ***** .GTFO!!!!
****
152. Janet
…quite a bit of extraneous drivel pertaining to Janet’s self-delusional self-importance edited, due to complete lack of substance…
****
Janet, I’m a regular reader/poster on listverse, so are a lot of the people posting here. The idea isn’t to have a lot of lists with which everyone agrees…in fact, we quite often have some rather educated debates, pro & con, over various list subjects.
It would be a boring list indeed, if the only lists posted were so saccharine or so bland that everybody could agree with one another.
One of the hallmarks of an adult, Janet, is to be able to disagree with ones peers, even disagree strongly, and still have respect for that person.
Yes, there are a couple of people here who seem to be stuck records, but we know who they are and choose to either engage them, or ignore them.
Your solution “GTFO!!!!” is the classic playground ploy of “If you don’t wanna play *my* way, I’ll just take my ball and go home!”.
It might be a good idea for you to either just spend a few weeks lurking; watching how we operate around here.
Other than that, take your own advice, and just go away.
School will start up again soon, and you won’t be so bored that you have time to try and bother the grown-ups.
Seuge, you are about a real jerk.I have been here and do act like an adult but am sick of the winers who dont just make a statement but like you they act 2 years old.Dont think that I dont think it is about debates but to say the childish things that some have said ,yourself included,really are about people who are just STUPID.Oh and by the way next time you speak take the dick out of your mouth first you punk.
*edited for the tight assed amongst us*
have a beer. do a line. smoke ‘em if ya gotta. shoot it up. like whatevah……
given the hostile nature of some recent comments….this is why i never liked cocaine, it makes people mean and nasty. so everybody chill and fire up a doobie. like get mellow people. its just teh internets.
*edit*
this is a personal sarcastic remark not representative of my usual sarcastic remarks made as a sarcastic representative of this site.
loosen up dem sphincters dude.
geezus!
Oh and another thing you stupid moron,dont speak for everybody else like your some superior person here and you know what this site is all about.Only childish minds like yours who probably do cocain would just assume they are so much better,.Grow up or GTFO!!!!!!!lol.I bet you are gay and use your little nuts for mud flaps while your getting your pencil dick up some poor fools hershey highway you are using your nuts for mud flaps right now you gay mo fo!!!!!!!Now get the ***** out.lol lol lol.Polish=Seuge English=Sewer.What a dumb stupid name,what a jerkoff!!!!!
Janet -
read
http://listverse.com/comment-faq/
and adjust your meds.
****
154. Janet
**winers = whiners
**dont = don’t
**Dont think that I dont think it is about debates but to say the childish things that some have said ,yourself included,really are about people who are just STUPID
…If there was some way to unravel that attempt at a sentence, I might try to answer, or rebut, but since grammar and syntax are so glaringly missing, I’ll just have to let most of it go. Two things I did manage to garner from that hash of words:
1 – Some people, including myself, have said some childish, stupid things. Well now, isn’t that a crime?
Imagine! Sometimes we get carried away and post something dumb! Sheesh! Somebody just shoot me now! I can’t be 100% intelligent 100% of the time.
2 – Obviously Spelling and Grammar are no longer taught in the schools.
**Oh and by the way next time you speak take the dick out of your mouth first you punk.
…(actually we type here)Have you ever tried to speak with a dick in your mouth? It’s really almost impossible, and usually painful to the owner of the dick.
Oh! btw, re: the punk statement, darling child. Shall we guess which one is the punk, or put it up for a vote?
segue -
QOTD goes to you!
‘Have you ever tried to speak with a dick in your mouth? It’s really almost impossible, and usually painful to the owner of the dick.’
ROFLMAO!
Whoa anger. I thought this list was cool and well-written! I love music lists and I always thought number one was by clapton for some reason!?!? Now I learned something.
Cyn, how could I possibly resist a line like that?
I’ll be sooo glad when school is back in session.
R-O-T-F-L-M-B-O ! ! !:
Segue:
“Janet, I’m a regular reader/poster on listverse, so are a lot of the people posting here. The idea isn’t to have a lot of lists with which everyone agrees…in fact, we quite often have some rather educated debates, pro & con, over various list subjects.
It would be a boring list indeed, if the only lists posted were so saccharine or so bland that everybody could agree with one another.
One of the hallmarks of an adult, Janet, is to be able to disagree with ones peers, even disagree strongly, and still have respect for that person.
Yes, there are a couple of people here who seem to be stuck records, but we know who they are and choose to either engage them, or ignore them.
Your solution “GTFO!!!!” is the classic playground ploy of “If you don’t wanna play *my* way, I’ll just take my ball and go home!”.
It might be a good idea for you to either just spend a few weeks lurking; watching how we operate around here.
Other than that, take your own advice, and just go away.
School will start up again soon, and you won’t be so bored that you have time to try and bother the grown-ups.”
Cyn:
“given the hostile nature of some recent comments….this is why i never liked cocaine, it makes people mean and nasty. so everybody chill and fire up a doobie. like get mellow people. its just teh internets.”
So, as a representative of the site, this site is now PROMOTING drug abuse??!!
S_R: you seem to be obsessed with collective thinking. Cyn can say what she likes. I can say what I like. You can say what you like. This site does not promote or the inverse any particular way of thinking or behaving. Individuals on the site (whether admins or not) have their own ways of thinking and their own morals – leave them to it and stop accusing people (in particular my site!) of things.
Let us not forget that I defended your point of view on the homo*****ual marriage list – no one called me names for doing that – you seem to be the only one doing so. Relax – we will all get along much better that way.
Jamie, you misunderstood what I was trying to get across. I was “reminding” her that she DOES represent this site and she should be careful about posting things like that. Especially since she’s always worried about the “advertisers”.
S_R
dude! you crack me up!
OH. I expected her to delete that post as hse’s done before.
S_R -
i strongly suggest you watch yourself and shut up while you still can. a personal warning not as a representative of this site.
oh but for a cyber version of ‘taking you out behind the barn for a good whuppin’. personally, i’ve had enough of you pontificating all over this site. so do not come after me directly. got it? comments is not the place. forums is fine. btw..think my forum avatar will speak for itself. this is a personal comment.
S_R: I represent this site – whatever anyone else says is their own business. And no one has to be careful about what they post – so quit going down this road and enjoy yourself
this is J’s place. i only do what he allows me to do on the admin side of things. which is how it should be. that he tolerates me at all…i am forever grateful. he knows only too well how i can be.
frankly..i love this site. i do tend to take things too personally. i hate when people trash it. or use it as their own personal pulpit. so i can get kinda intense about stuff. heh..
way i am.
OH, did miss. cyn get upset? No cookies for me today, right?
I’m just going to hop on with a couple broad comments actually intended to add a little perspective to the situation so people might re-appraise their pre-set judgements and take stock of their own mistaken assumptions.
1: About the argument of the ‘bad taste’ of the subject matter: Taste is a purely subjective and personal opinion. You have the right to it, just as you have the right to enjoy the taste of oranges and to dislike apples.
Plato said: Only a fool argues taste.
Think on that. Can you see how stupid it would look to watch someone try to force someone else to like apples when they didnt? So, believe it or not, your assumption that ‘cocaine is universally evil and bad and bad taste and we can’t talk about it’ isn’t universal and you have no more right to censor others or force your taste on them than they do you.
You do, of course, have the right to logically and rationally refute their stances, with valid and reasoned points that build the foundation for your justifying your beliefs so that they prove themselves as the optimal route.
You can’t, and won’t ever be able to, force a person to agree with you. Not only is it the hallmark of fascism, but if you are a grown up you should know this by now. The comfort of being a 12 foot tall Norse warrior from behind a monitor in your mom’s basement allows average sane people to turn into 5 ft tall soccer moms in SUVs with road rage screaming and threatening criminal biker gangs. Think on that.
2: As soon as you start personally insulting someone else and are no longer deconstructing their points and stances, THEY WIN. YOU LOST. You have just announced to everyone else taking part that you cannot handle your beliefs in an intellectual arena and lack the ability to invalidate the stances of those who disagree with you, and thus must behave like a child in order to distract people from noticing that you weren’t intelligent enough to prove your case. While it may whet the appetite for rage, it is a false rage, and it is a public declaration of failure.
3: ‘Moral Failures’ are again subjective. Claiming shock and horror at the idea that someone is taking part in a culture that you have been taught to abstain from, with the intent to sway opinion and forcibly coerce others to adhere to your stances, is an intellectually corrupt and cowardly act. You will find this most often with people who cannot use reason to validate their stances, and thus must resort to plea bargaining with attempted manipulations of visceral reactions.
I can see specific comments in this list but I will remain neutral for this post and bring up this as an example instead:
In North America there is a large stigma and associated image of uneducated, poverty stricken and ignorant personage when it comes to a single mother or even moreso, a single mother with children from several different fathers. It is fairly often judged as immoral and dirty and a sign of general failure.
In Iceland, however, it is commonplace not only for women to have children before marriage, even to do so while still attending university, but to also have children with multiple men (in consecutive relations, not concurrent) where the interaction between all parties, past and present, remains amiable. This is not only a norm, but is fully embraced and accepted as good by it’s culture.
Sound strange to you? Then we should also note that Iceland is ranked the best country on the planet to live in and ranked the happiest people on earth.
Point being, feigning moral outrage or revulsion is another admission of failure- it is a last resort when the user lacks valid and logic driven stances at best and a greasy, manipulative, used car salesman tactic at worst.
Shame is a tactic of control; what shame hates is those people who do not fear it and thus expose it for the cowardice it truly is.
4: Finally, on cocaine: you may be surprised to hear this, but the world actually keeps going while you are asleep. And out in that great big darkness, there exists good reason to believe your most heartfelt stances are completely and totally wrong. Let me say this:
Cocaine has NO HARMFUL EFFECTS WHATSOEVER.
Now, as half of you are flippin ape***** and the other half are slying grinning because they know what I’m on to, let me explain:
There are no harmful qualities to cocaine. The actual drug does not harm and does noharm anyone. Before it is pushed through the modern refining process, it possesses no biologically damaging qualities or harmful/poisonous effects on the human body. The final product of refined cocaine adapts its dangerous and destructive properties due to additives that are so harmful they literally create toxic waste in the process.
I live in south america. I’ve studied the plant and the culture around it; from a botanical point of view the coca is actually beneficial and used as medicine because of the cocaine. From a societal point of view, the cultures have been using pure unadulterated cocaine for centuries with none of the destruction you have assumed (and assumed for everyone else as well) every incarnation of the plant makes.
Still not convinced, huh? Then look this up yourself: The U.S. government sanctions pure cocaine for medical use and imports it quite out in the open, no controversy or stir, every year. Go ask your dentist about the practises of using cocaine in dentristy. Look up the medical distribution of cocaine. I mention the U.S. because it is safe to assume the majority of posters in any generic location on the net that is english will be american (I can show you the logic why but it would be a derail).
Now, my point for all of that was to show that your assumptions- what you think you know you know and everyone else knows too and anyone who disagrees with you is wrong or stupid or evil- is just your own ignorance and hubris.
Say it again with me, folks: hubris.
Hubris.
Janet You’re ridiculous. It’s segue, not seuge. And I’m pretty sure segue’s a woman And I know for sure that segue is brilliant. Always posts interesting, reliable facts and well thought out opinions. Segue is highly respected around these parts, girl. Why don’t you look up “segue” and see what it really means.
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172. Mr.Graves
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There is *some* truth to what you say.
Due to an extremely rare, and severely painful disease, I am on, and have been for almost 11 years now, a rotation of 3 opiates in doses which would kill the average human. I take this dosage 3x a day.
Used properly, under the guidance of a doctor trained in the use of pain medications, these drugs *ARE* safe.The list of qualifiers is long and stringent. A doctor must go through extra years of specialized training to become a pain management specialist.
Without this special training, without this special knowledge, I might have been dead years ago. I would never trust my care to any doctor without this training, much less take the word of some article posted on the web.
174 Segue: I can only sympathize (actually I don’t sympathize at all; sympathy is a form of pity and pity is a form of contempt- there is no reason to give you that) with you so much because I am almost in the exact same boat. I had multiple doctors tell me I was probably never going to work again before I even turned 30, and by the time I was given a constant supply of morphine I had both my neurologist and my GP admit to me that as of present there is nothing they can do but make me comfortable. Because of a lack of a genetic marker, nearly all forms of painkillers have a massively reduced effect and I recieve minimal benefits from them. So, you’re not alone.
However; I’m not sure how these situations relate to my post. I was using examples to prove how assumptions and leaping to conclusions on behalf of others are blatantly wrong. Also, you note that ‘some’ of what I said was true. You made no note of what was true and what wasn’t, and I can only surmise that somehow you became of the opinion that I am advocating the principle that all drugs are harmless or some such.
Nothing I posted urged anyone to go and do any drug; I urged them to look into factuals and ask their doctors to get the truth, actually, which is what you did.
Or maybe I didn’t catch what you meant by your post (always a logical possibility in written discussion) and that you were citing your situation as another example as to how an individual circumstance might go against what is otherwise held as ‘mythology’ or somesuch; in your case the administration of drugs far beyond their limit but done by a professional.
I find it confusing because you start with a statement that dissavows the validity of a majority of my writing, but clarify nothing in the statement, not even which you agree or disagree with, and finish with what looks like a possible reference to discrediting the value of my post in lieu of conferring with a doctor, which I wouldn’t understand because nothing I posted attempted to subvert a physician’s knowledge.
Anyways, if you could clarify, I would be appreciative. Thanks.
Mr Graves: I haven’t made any pro- or anti-drug statements yet so allow me to be hubristic. You seem to be saying that cocaine in its pure state isn’t physically harmful. Well, so what? It’s the short- & more importantly the long-term psychological effects of taking the drug that are potentially damaging — as I’m sure even its most enthusiastic proponent would admit.
I chewed coca leaves in Peru & Bolivia, incidentally, when travelling there. The dependence on this habit by indigenous cultures is in no way comparable with the effect of refined cocaine on modern societies.
ciunus, you are, in effect, bolstering my statement. however i don’t think you realize that that was merely an example, and not the point, the point being our perceptions of knowledge are not as all encompassing as we like to tell ourselves.
so, as an example, i gave way to showing how ‘cocaine’ was not ‘evil’.
you’ll hear no argument from me saying that coke/crack (or refined cocaine) doesn’t destroy people’s minds and lives; my point was to show how even the beliefs we assume to be completely solid may be questionable.
speaking from my study and experiences in various parts of south america, including peru and the mountains of cusco particularily, the only negative determinet coca leaf consumption is admitted to cause is yellowing teeth- although this isn’t even from the coca leaves but from the lime they chew in conjunction.
my entire point was to show the massive disparity of the worlds between ‘cocaine’ and ‘cocaine’, making blanket labels redundant out of paradox.
Perhaps I can come in here again with a relevant comment that isn’t off-the-wall and bloody stupid this time, as my previous entries above, which I ran from in shame.
As botanists who live and work in South America, occasionally stooge around on foot very high in the Andes and are then liable to suffer from ‘puna’ or ‘soroche’ (altitude sickness)*, Anita and I can speak from personal experience of coca in Bolivia and Peru. People there recommended chewing the leaves, or better, drinking a diffusion or tea, as a remedial or preventative. (An entire garlic is said to be effective too!) It has always been part of Aymara and Quechua indian culture. It deadens hunger and helps to get workers through long and tedious hard labour at altitude, such as tin- and silver-mining. We think of it in connection with Spanish imperial ‘slavery’, but no doubt it functioned in earlier Inca days as well. Apparently there is no pathological clinical addiction, as there is after the complex chemical processes that refine it to a potent powder.
We have also worked botanically in Turkey, where the oppium poppy is the resident narcotic. Areas in west Turkey are set
aside for official medical opium production. Women give their teething babies the seed pods to chew on, as the gum from which the heroin is refined helps to deaden the pain.
Both these two herbs have to be refined to become potent and addictive and socially destructive.
*Its *****ing dangerous. One of our working botanical colleagues died of it in Nepal.
Mr Graves,
I have backtracked a short way up the column from the readings that led to my last posting. (It seems I must have Chinese genes: I always seem to work from the bottom upwards. Eventually I may even discover what these Cocaine Songs actually are.) So it seems I haven’t stated anything new at all, merely in part supplemented your excellent discourse, not too tautologically, I trust.
I would only add that it occurs to me your use of the word cocaine, and explanation of its non-harmfulness, as opposed to the contaminants that come with it (these added in our country, shame to say), may perhaps be too ‘pure’ for most folks in the street. What I mean by that is that the word cocaine has become irrevocably attached in common useage and understanding to the tragic contaminant horrors that had us reeling so tearfully away from on our TV exposé here at the beginning of the week. (And caused my ill-considered red-rag-to-bull reaction above.) Not to mention the ‘trade’. A ‘trader’ actually lives opposite us, but at least he’s quiet and extremely discreet behind his sub-fortress walls, and we live on the dictum that a fox never fouls its own earth. Fascinatingly, he and his light candles to the (or a) virgin to bring them success in their enterprise.
I wonder how near-neighbours we might happen to be, Mr Graves?
Next, from what I have just learned above from and about segue. Whatever form of expression that appropriately conveys my feelings without, as Mr Graves says, bearing negative contempt or pity, I would wish to express to you, segue.
I consider though, Mr Graves, you were more than a bit harsh on that kind word sympathy. It is our common currency towards those who have just lost loved ones, after all, and I hardly think we can be accused of running down the line through pity to contempt in that case.
I’ve just dug my battered Concise Oxford out for the second time tonight.
sympathy: Being simultaneously affected with the same feeling, tendancy to share or state of sharing another person’s or thing’s emotion or sensation or condition;
mental participation in another’s troubles, compassion.
That’ll do from me, segue.