by Bill Wilt

Created on: June 04, 2009

It might be a good thing if the US were to go back to the good old days of PTSD for the survivors of the Civil War when men and women could easily get tincture of opium either to kill the pain of old wounds or depression, or what-had-they.

These nostrums were readily available from pharmacists or traveling "medicine men." (Find the book Chemical Muse to catch up on your popular drug culture history.) It's amazing how far we've come from "You're an adult-you control your own skin-sack and what you put in it, as per the Ninth Amendment" to "Except for my single-malt Scotch, all drugs are bad, evil, spawn of the Devil," etc.

Cocaine too was a popular nostrum. I think of Dave van Ronk's gravelly voice bellowing out Cocaine, run all 'round my brain, (but iTunes doesn't have Dave's version) and MIT Professor Tom Lehrer's catchy little tune, The Old Dope Peddler:

When the shades of night are falling,
Comes a fellow ev'ryone knows,
It's the old dope peddler,
Spreading joy wherever he goes.
Ev'ry evening you will find him,
Around our neighborhood.
It's the old dope peddler
Doing well by doing good.

He gives the kids free samples,
Because he knows full well
That today's young innocent faces
Will be tomorrow's clientele.
Here's a cure for all your troubles,
Here's an end to all distress.
It's the old dope peddler
With his powdered ha-happiness.

Well, I couldn't find that one, but here's a cute one for World War III:We'll All Go Together When We Go.

And the British, bless their empirical (in the sense both of practical and "empire builders") little hearts, fought tooth, jackboot and gun to gain control of as much opium production as they could to force upon, and thus literally tranquilize, the Chinese. Like they say, or like we in the Washington say, "Whatever works to spread our version of "democracy" and, um, "freedom" around the world, to protect our natural resources, in whatever country they might be found.

I know, I know...I've been reading too much Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn. And now Naomi Wolf and Naomi Klein have hopped aboard the bandwagon, bashing the US for effecting "regime change" in 14 or so nations (in only the past century, mind you), bombing North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos back to the stone age, and those silly Serbs, Iraqis, the poor Pashtos, or Afghans, now Pakistanis.

Hey, we never said our "smart" bombs were THAT smart, that they would miss the non-combatant women, children and old men. The expensive ones, laser-guided,

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