Maxwell J. BradfordAmerican SatireAmy BertkenAugust 2, 2014

Hallucinogenic Drug Use & Satire

Illegal hallucinogenic drugs, and their consumption in American satire serve as a

vehicle that moves the comedic plot that they are a part of forward. Most hallucinogens

are notoriously categorized as a “Schedule I Controlled Substance” by the US Drug

Enforcement Agency (DEA); “substances in this schedule have no currently accepted

medical use in the United States, a lack of accepted safety for use under medical

supervision, and a high potential for abuse.”i A hallucinogenii is “a drug which causes

hallucinations” and hallucinatingiii is “the mental condition of being deceived or

mistaken, or of entertaining unfounded notions; …. an illusion.”. Lastly, satireiv is “a

poem, novel, film or other work of art which uses humour, irony, exaggeration, or

ridicule to expose and criticize prevailing immortality or foolishness, especially as a form

of social or political commentary.” This document does not condone the use of illegal

drugs, it merely aims to explore the relationship between hallucinogens and American

satire.

“Set and Settingv” a term from Norman Zinberg refers to the hallucinogenic drug

user’s ‘mindset’ or mental state before hallucinating, and the ‘setting’ or environment

that the drug user is in when the hallucinating happens. On the role of “Set and Setting”

in hallucinogenic drug use Dr. Timothy Leary (a prominent figure in the 1960’s

American countercultural movement and advocate of hallucinogenic drug use) said, “The

nature of the [hallucinogenic] experience depends almost entirely on set and setting. Set

denotes the preparation of the individual, including his personality structure and his mood

at the time. Setting is physical – the weather, the room’s atmosphere; social – feelings of

a persons present towards one another; and cultural – prevailing views as to what is

realvi”. Understanding these guru-esque guidelines of “Set and Setting” to hallucinating

explains themes in hallucinogenic drug use in American satire. The themes I am shedding

light on show that the satirists who choose to incorporate hallucinogenic drug use into

their works utilize the chemically feeble-minded hallucinogenic drug user as a target for

their satire’s “ridicule, criticism … [and] foolishness”.

The illegality of hallucinogenic drugs invites tension into their setting. The

fragility of a mindset under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs is easily tormented by

this tension. This has the ability to pose as a “Catch-221vii” for the voluntary

hallucinogenic drug user; a person who wants to ‘expand their mind’ by entering a

hallucinogenic state is tasked with both 1. Entering into a relaxed mental state before

consumption of the drug, and 2. Mulling over that whatever substance they are

possessing is almost certainly felonious (not just illegal) in the United States. Knowing

this, a satirist’s burden is significantly lessened because the very laws encompassing the

substances that are being incorporated into their given scene have the ability to make

their user(s) paranoid. This ‘paranoia paradox’ by means of schadenfreude2viii, has the

ability to function satirically. This paradox skims the surface of how a satirist can

manipulate their hallucinogenic drug user’s mindset in their plot as a means to propel it

forward. The inflated moods of a hallucinogenic drug user can be pricked and popped by

1 “A supposed law or regulation containing provisions which are mutually frustrating; a set of circumstances in which one requirement is dependent upon another, which is in turn dependent upon the first.” 2 “Malicious enjoyment of the misfortunes od others.”

the most insignificantly obscure occurrences leading to comedic and volatile outbursts in

reality.

Satirist’s manipulations of the hallucinogenic drug user’s ‘setting’ produces

satirical situations that also push a plot forward. This is done through the satirist’s

renditions of the perceived hallucination. For example, having a main character ‘riding in

a friend’s car from an after-school hangout to dreaded football practice with Chad, the

bully-of-a quarterback’ is a traditional example of education and athletics in American

culture. If the writer takes the position of a satirist incorporating hallucinogenic drug use

then they are free to whimsically interpret the mundane in any radical way they want;

suddenly ‘riding in a friend’s car from an after-school hangout to football practice’

becomes ‘an intergalactic voyage beginning by launching full-speed down an asphalt

track away from his home planet.’ Football practice with the bully-of-a quarterback shifts

into ‘a dreaded round of gladiator-esque mortal combat with Chad, Master of the First

String Offense’. The satirical power of hallucinogenic drug use lies with the situational

creativity of the satirist, not the potency of the given drug.

This example of satire used hallucinogenic drug use to morph the mundane

afterschool session into an action-packed comic book plot. This shows the first of two

ways that hallucinogens are used to propel a plot; by creating humor in the perceived

rendition(s) of the hallucinogenic drug user. When a satirist incorporates hallucinogens

into their plot, they are in some sense creating an alternate world within their plot. This is

because the world of the hallucinogenic drug user is traditionally detached from reality.

The first way that hallucinogenic drug user’s are cast as the butt of the joke is through the

surreal, colorful, horrifying, melting, and shifting rendition of their world serves as a

springboard for humor. In a world where familiarity and normality are absent, nearly

anything has the potential to be the catalyst for a joke.

The second way that hallucinogens are used to propel the plot is by creating

humor in the user’s inability to function normally in reality. The humor required to laugh

at the caricatures and absurd shapes in a hallucination’s rendition is very simpleminded.

Strange things nestled into familiar places have the ability to be funny because they defy

our expectation of normality; this is simple humor as it defies what we expect. “Jokes

work because they defy expectations.”ix Creating humor in the user’s inability to function

normally is done by means of ‘reverting back to reality’ to show how intoxicated the user

is. This too defies the expectation of the viewer. When the hallucinogenic drug user is

shown comfortably navigating their hallucination, we as viewers don’t expect to see them

thrashing on their back, foaming at the mouth, and mumbling incoherentlyx This is

satirical because of two aforementioned themes, the denial of expectation, and

schadenfreude.

The most successful satire’s that involve hallucinogenic drug use utilizes both the

colorfully bizarre renditions of the hallucination and the black humor3 directed towards

the user’s inability to function in reality in a series of back and fourth scenes. Like two

waves meeting at their crests, these two independent aspects of humor in hallucinogenic

drug use combine to form an even larger joke because of their concurrent timelines. Now

the viewer is able to relate the user’s underscored struggles in reality to the user’s

perceived challenges in the hallucination by creating situational depth where there

previously was none. Since both of these given scenes are occurring simultaneously

3 “Comedy, satire, etc. that presents tragic, distressing, or morbid situations in humorous terms; humor that is ironic, cynical, or dry; gallows humor.

boosts their funniness because the viewer is left not knowing what to expect next after

each scene change.

In South Park’s Major Boobagexi we are brought into a world where male scent

marking behavior in cats is being illegally harnessed as a means to hallucinate

recreationally via “Cheesingxii”. Neither Trey Parker nor Matt Stone (creators of South

Park) are known for their abilities to ‘pull-punches’ in comedy – in fact they “impale

every sacred cow they can reach”xiii Their limitless pursuit of humor is made clear in the

very administration of “Cheesing”; you have to have a cat urinate in your face to undergo

the hallucination. This is at its root, crude humor that fulfills the “foolishness” aspect of

my definition of satire.

The scenes in Major Boobage that involve Kenny and Mr. Broflovski having a

meshed hallucination encompass all of the aforementioned themes. As viewers we see

that ‘Cheesing’ induces a hallucination that brings about a surreal world (where the

animation is different) full of violence, breasts, and intergalactic space-travel. These

themes were taken from the movie Heavy Metalxiv, and maintained a South Park level of

potty-humor with such utterances as “Itty Titty Fairies of Mammary Mountain” and “the

Breastriary in Nippopolis”xv To make the absurdity of this scene even funnier, Parker and

Stone bring the viewer out of “Nippopolis” and into a public sandbox where Kenny and

Mr. Broflovski are coated in cat urine fighting in their underwear. Framing a hallucinated

breast-themed, ostrich-backed, jousting match with an elementary-schooler and a

respected member of the community wrestling in their unmentionables, too high on drugs

to function, is satirical to say the least.

One online work that utilizes these themes is a short cartoon “Pikachu on Acidxvi”

– with a total of nineteen million views, this certainly qualifies as “viral”. “Pikachu on

Acid” is a parody of the children’s cartoon Pokémon. This parody shows Pikachu (the

most notable of the Pokémon) accidentally getting dosed with LSD (a powerful synthetic

hallucinogen, commonly called ‘acid’) during a ‘Pokémon battle’. The children’s cartoon

centers around the training and battling of magical beasts whereas this parody just

focuses on Pikachu’s experiences and appearance while under the influence of LSD. In

Pikachu’s consumption of LSD (or “dosing”), it’s made clear that Pikachu is neither in an

appropriate “set or setting”. Pikachu fearfully gazes downward into his open hands, and

as he does this they appear to boil. This brings about a wave of nervousness Pikachu’s

eyes grow beady with uncertainty towards his “set”. As viewers we see the Pokémon and

characters that were battling Pikachu shift into eerie sharp-toothed villains. This is

indicative of Pikachu hallucinating in an uncomfortable setting; a battle. Similar to Major

Boobage’s fantastical world of violence, breasts, and intergalactic space-travel Pikachu

on Acid brings the viewer into a similar surreal landscape with magical flight, foreign

objects, and colors oscillating to distorted guitar riffs. This is of course, framed with an

ending shot of a very intoxicated and cockeyed Pikachu laying on its back with foam

oozing from its mouth. This dark “finishing shot” allows the viewer to laugh at the

chemically induced stupor created for Pikachu.

One “visual work” which encompasses hallucinogenic drug use in American

Satire is the photo of four owls titled The Tripping Owlsxvii. The piece is a nature photo

with comedic dialogue added in to make the reaction of the third owl look as though it is

just beginning to hallucinate. The joke is pitted in a world of illegality and is centered on

humor that pokes fun at a market where the potency and purity of the product is never

guaranteed. Owl’s One, Two and Four are all discussing how they are unable to feel the

effects of the drug that they consumed while Owl no. Three is busy watching “a tree eat

the sky” – a statement saturated in satire because it is both absurd and impossible.

One short story that spans four decades of retelling is that of “Doc Ellis & The

LSD No-No.” Described as “the greatest athletic achievement by a man on a psychedelic

journey” this animated interview addresses Doc Ellis, pitcher of the Pittsburg Pirates in

1970, taking LSD and pitching a “no-hitter.” In June of 2012, out of the 363,842 Major

League Baseball (MLB) games ever recorded in the history of baseball only 235 were

“no-hitters”. This equates to 0.000646, or approximately a 1 in 1,548 chances – this is a

very rare event. Doc’s experience with LSD in this interview had a very interesting

ending given its rough start. Doc was so intoxicated before the game that he had to be

convinced by the date on the newspaper that his baseball game was in fact, that day. This

is a very “uncertain” mindset to be in. After being convinced of the chronological date,

Doc had to be convinced to leave his setting (on a 20min flight) and go pitch his game.

Zinberg and Dr. Leary would both agree that Doc was neither in an appropriate set or

setting for hallucinogenic drug use; televised athletic obligations and a stadium with

thousands of people staring at you in the center could have easily produced a myriad of

negative results.

The late Doc Ellis was light-hearted in his interview and seems to highlight the

things that he retroactively finds funny. There is a scene in this piece where Doc is

describing the tape on the catcher’s fingers and how the catcher would signal which pitch

to throw. To underscore his inability to communicate with his catcher at the time the

video has some Morris Code chatter fade in and out of the audio. This is the artist who

made the animations for the video (James Blagden) creating humor in the rendition of the

hallucination. Doc chuckles when he describes grabbing a ground ball and tagging out the

runner at first because he said at the time “wooo-weee! I just got a touchdown!” This

portion of the interview shows that Doc found humor in his inability to function normally

as an MLB pitcher; he was talking about football and playing baseball. Even in this

animated short composed of popping artwork and a pre-recorded interview we see the

traditional themes of how the hallucinogenic drug user is portrayed in satire. Doc’s

interview has both the rendition of the hallucination as well as the humor directed

towards Doc and his inability to act normally during the game.

William Powell, author of The Anarchist Cookbook played a small, but important

role in the countercultural movement of half a century ago. His book quickly gained

notoriety for its hallucinogenic recipes; instructions for at-home LSD synthesis and

layouts for psilocybin mushroom grow-boxes. Powell published his Anarchical how-to

during a peak in the Vietnam protests. The book is a guidebook for building illegal

weapons, making explosive compounds, and synthesizing/growing illegal drugs at home.

No well-minded librarian or bookkeeper would ever slip The Anarchist Cookbook into

the humor or comedy section; there is little room for humor in a technical manual. What

is humorous, through its own situational irony is that Powell’s stance on his book “It

should quickly and quietly go out of print.xviii” Powell, once a gung-ho countercultural

novelist is now a quite reformed Christian man who wishes he could ‘unwrite’ one of the

most notorious texts in the past sixty years. Before he had his religious revival, Powell

wrote of LSD

“LSD has never caused insanity. It does not have that power. Only man can distinguish between sanity and insanity. I have never seen an insane bird. Granted there are some individuals who shouldn’t take psychedelics, but this is, and must be, their choice.”xix

This quotation, from his early years, shows that Powell once had a humorous

outlook on hallucinogenic drug use. The DEA and any medical professional advise

against hallucinogenic drug use because it is 1. Illegal and 2. Hallucinogenic drugs can

exacerbate mental illnesses. Powell addressed the topic of hallucinogens and mental

health with the humorous quip “I have never seen an insane bird.” This is Powell

attacking the belief that hallucinogens have the ability to make someone “lose their

mind”. Powell is criticizing the belief at the time that LSD could have the power to

chemically induce lifelong insanity from a single administration of it to a normally

functioning person by saying that he has never seen an avian case of insanity.

The essay that I investigated was titled “LSD Trafficking and Abuse”, this is an

intelligence bulletin laid out as an informative eight-page packet by the US Department

of Justice. This LSD essay addresses who (demographically) abuses LSD, how LSD is

available, how LSD is produced, how LSD is transported and distributed, and an outlook

on what the trends of LSD use will be. This essay is very informative and talks mostly

about the trends of LSD use and a few LSD laboratory raids. This essay has very little

layover to satire or literary works, this is mostly designed to be a quick read about the

perils of LSD use.

“During the first hour after ingestion, the user may experience visual changes and extreme changes in mood. In the hallucinatory state, the user may suffer impaired depth and time perception, accompanied by distorted perception of the size and shape of objects, movements, color, and sound.xx”

Phrases like “extreme change in mood”, “suffer”, “distorted”, and “impaired” are

all examples of negative language. This negativity towards LSD consumption is starkly

different from Powell’s 1971 outlook on hallucinogens. The Powell who wrote the

Anarchist Cookbook would say that this Department of Justice Essay echoes the

draconian drug policy of roughly forty years ago.

Dr. Hunter S. Thompson was one of the most iconic American writers to ever

write about hallucinogenic drug use. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas takes

place during the countercultural movement in the late 1960’s. The narrative chronicles

Thompson and his attorney on their “trip” to Las Vegas for a large convention on the

perils of illegal drug use – taking drugs through the entirety of the journey. This piece

also embodies the themes of how the drug user is shown in satire. We laugh when we see

Dr. Thompson clinging to his hotel bar because he’s sweaty, clammy, speaking quickly

and just not making much sense because the drug has his mind operating differently. We

laugh when we see the patrons of the bar turn into lizards and engage in some strange

blood orgy. We roar with laughter when know that the shocked and blank expression of

horror on Dr. Thompson’s face is because we have just seen what he is seeing. We don’t

expect Dr. Thompson to act jittery. We don’t expect the bar-goers to turn into a reptilian

blood-orgy. These two coupled together makes for a very funny scene because both

Thompson’s mannerisms and perceptions defy our expectations of how things “should be

going

This fall, Sanho Trees, the director of the Drug Policy Project spoke at CU.

“Drugs are just minimally processed agricultural commodities, it’s time we treat them as

such”xxi The first half of this quote is why I chose to investigate the relationship between

hallucinogenic drugs and satire. The drugs themselves are just processed “things”. There

isn’t really anything “funny” about a pile of drugs. Funny things get tied in with drugs

when the origin of the humor at hand is narrowed down to a single high. Drugs are in

some sense, a satirical prop. A prop on stage possesses very little humor (depending on

what it is). The satirist, writer, actor, comedian, or person doing improve humor is the

source of the humor, not the prop. The prop can enhance the humor, but the prop is

nothing on its own without the human component.

This led me to my conclusion about hallucinogens in satire. Neither the

hallucinogenic drug nor the subject under it’s influence is satirical, it’s how they interact

in the world around them. We don’t laugh at the drug. We don’t laugh at the sober person

acting normally. We laugh at the intoxicated person trying to go “In” through the “Out”

at the supermarket. This falls in line with the notion of ‘defying expectations’, and the

drugs help make that possible.

A sober person isn’t going to defy what we expect of them. A pile of drugs on a

table isn’t going to make us laugh. An intoxicated person defies our expectations, and

that’s where the humor comes from, their slightly abnormal and illogically intoxicated

state. The inebriated state where people say “too much”. The level of intoxication where

people really “unload” their thoughts and feelings. The “unabridged” version of a

person’s character slips out when they start slurring. This is how drugs and satire interact.

Recreational drugs have all sorts of powers over a person’s mood. They can lower

inhibitions. They falsely inflate confidence. They inspire. They shock. They scare. They

warm. Drugs have a role in satire, and that role is to change the view or feelings of the

user in their given piece. This change moves the plot forward and towards something

else. In the case of hallucinogens and satire this change takes place so we can laugh at

how strange and foreign the world is to a hallucinating mind after we peer into how it

perceives the very world around it.

Works Cited

i Springfield: The Drug Enforcement Administration, 2014. Web. 3 Aug. 2014. <http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/schedules/>. Rpt. of List of Controlled Substances. 1970.

ii Oxford English Dictionary. N.p.: Oxford University Press, 1952. hallucinogen (n.). Web. 3 Aug. 2014. <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/83618?redirectedFrom=hallucinogen#eid>.

iii Oxford English Dictionary. N.p.: Oxford University Press, 1652. hallucination (n.). Web. 3 Aug. 2014. <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/83613#eid2239704>.

iv Oxford English Dictionary. N.p.: Oxford University Press, 1509. satire (n.). Web. 3 Aug. 2014. <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/171207?rskey=ZGBYlU&result=1&isAdvanced=false#eid>.

v Zinberg, Norman E. Drug, set, and setting: the basis for controlled intoxicant use. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984. Print.

vi Leary, Timothy. The psychedelic experience: a manual based on the tibetan book of the dead. New York: Kensington Publishing Corporation, 1995. Print.

vii Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1955. Print.

viii Oxford English Dictionary. N.p.: Oxford University Press, 1852. Schadenfreude (n.). http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/172271?redirectedFrom=schadenfreude#eid. Web. 3 Aug. 2014.

ix Humor, laughter, and those aha moments. 2nd ed. Vol. 16. Boston: Harvard University, 2010. 1. On The Brain. http://hms.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/HMS_OTB_Spring10_Vol16_No2.pdf. Web. 3 Aug. 2014.

x "Pikachu on Acid." YouTube.com. N.p., 20 June 2012. Web. 3 Aug. 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5Izm1LQfw4>.

xi "Major Boobage." South Park. Comedy Central. CC, 20 June 2012. Web. 3 Aug. 2014. <http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s12e03-major-boobage#source=f4764ee8-e5a9-4371-b02e-f8f5bc6d122d%3A25eebeec-ed8e-11e0-aca6-0026b9414f30&position=3&sort=%21airdate>.

xii Ibid.

xiii Tapper, Jake, and Dan Morris. "Secrets of 'South Park'." ABC News. ABC, 22 Sept. 2006. Web. 3 Aug. 2014. <http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Entertainment/Story?id=2479197&page=1>.

xiv Atkin, Harvey, Jackie Burroughs, John Candy, Eugene Levy, and Marilyn Lightstone, perf. Heavy Metal. Dir. Gerald Potterton. 1981. Columbia Pictures, 1981. DVD.

xv Trechak, Brad. "South Park: Major Boobage." South Park: Major Boobage. Huffington Post, 26 Mar. 2008. Web. 3 Aug. 2014. <http://www.aoltv.com/2008/03/26/south-park-major-boobage/>.

xvi "Pikachu on Acid." YouTube.com. N.p., 20 June 2012. Web. 3 Aug. 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5Izm1LQfw4>.

xvii Tripping Owls. 2009. Web. 3 Aug. 2014. <http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/65202/tripping>.

xviii Powell, William. "I wrote the Anarchist Cookbook in 1969. Now I see its premise as flawed." The Guardian. The Guardian, n.d. Web. 3 Aug. 2014. <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/19/anarchist-cookbook-author-william-powell-out-of-print>.

xix Powell, Willam. The Anarchist Cookbook. N.p.: Ozark Press, 1971. 39-40. Print.

xx "LSD Trafficking and Abuse." Department of Justice. Department of Justice, Sept. 2004. Web. 4 Aug. 2014.

xxi Trees, Sanho. "CU Fall 2014." University of Colorado at Boulder. Boulder. Sept. 2004. Address.