The Null Device

Prozac in the water supply?

Conspiracy theory of the day: is the Bush administration drawing up plans to put Prozac in the water supply to head off the mass protests that are inevitable when Bush steals wins his second term and continues screwing things up? (via New World Disorder)
They noted that since the election of George Bush, the use of Prozac has increased by 30% and it was the opinion of this board of Department of Defense psychologists that if Bush has another term in office, it could lead to mass depression in the United States, wherein suicide and homicide rates could continue to rise.
There is also a memorandum from the FBI, expressing concerns about this -- that if Bush is allowed a second term in office, there could be not only an economic depression but also a mass psychological depression in the United States.

And then there's the connection between financial statistics and violent crime:

There's another reason why the Department of Defense wants to put Prozac in the water supply. The Department of Justice has begun to notice a very disquieting correlation - a rapid and tremendous increase in violent crime over the last six months. These include murders, kidnapping, rapes, and assaults, and this has occurred in correspondence with the time when people get their IRA and 4o1(K) statements.

Of course, they could just legalise marijuana and encourage everybody to toke up. It's remarkably useful for making people passive and docile, increasing snack food consumption (thus patriotically boosting the profits of companies like RJ Reynolds and Mars) -- and it has that countercultural cachet of rebellion and underground culture which will make some of those most prone to oppose The Man self-medicate into compliance. (The Netherlands, where cannabis is all but legal, has had surprisingly nonviolent international football matches, some believe due to the effects of all the hooligans taking advantage of the local ganja bars and getting mellow.)

Though, of course, it won't happen; the War On Drugs fundamentalists in the Republican party (and US government as a whole) are too committed to their ideology. Though it could be achieved surreptitiously; for example preventing the police from arresting cannabis growers, or even having the CIA start funneling high-grade skunk to the suburbs (as they allegedly did with crack cocaine in the inner cities). That would have the advantage of not risking diluting marijuana's underground cachet.

At the same time, synthetic cannabinol-based medications without the fundie-scaring image of Marihuana ("The weed with roots in Hell!"), and a milder buzz, could be developed and put on the market, all profits going to Republican-donating drug/food companies. Perhaps a genetically-engineered THC-bearing tobacco strain could be developed to get around the ban, ending up in "extreme cigz" for pierced, wallet-chained mooks.

There are 1 comments on "Prozac in the water supply?":

Posted by: alex http://fnord.org/ Thu Oct 3 16:30:12 2002

Speaking of tainted resources ... NWD was 'compromised' long ago when he alleged that webloggers were a target audience of the TIPS program. "I was just trying to make a new urban legend" was his defence. Take with a grain of salt.

Not everyone responds to Prozac and other anti-depressants the same way anyway -- this seems like a new spin on the old 'hippies putting LSD in the water supply' gag. The sooner the Zeta Reticuli arrive and subordinate the world's leaders, the better. But more importantly: what kind of pop music do they listen to?