i remember being in fifth grade (aka age 10ish) and having to go through state/federal mandated curriculum on drugs. i had to read about how babies were born addicted to crack and if you did crack even once, even accidentally, you would probably die instantly. and if you didn't die, you would do it again and again until you died because it took over your brain. and that all the dangerous things called "drugs" are like this: they make you addicted and ruin your mind until you do them so much you die.
each of the kids in class had to get up and read a paragraph they wrote about how sad it is that drugs kill you and pledge not to ever do them and tell the police if you see them. this well constructed scene from Ozark gave me hilarious flashbacks to the absurdity of such initiatives
i had never even heard of drugs, recreational or otherwise. but i sure as shit would hear about them constantly for the next decade and a half. every video game i played had a warning about drugs on it with the FBI logo and the name of the director (William Sessions, never forget).
as an early adult, upon smoking weed the first time, i realized the government was just plain lying and wondered why. thus began an unraveling of an onion that probably would have been left alone if they didn't spend years upon years and billions of dollars trying to make me and everyone else think a certain way.
isn't even sworn in.
