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I Was A Teenage Terrorist (But The Superbowl Ads Changed My Life). By Stephen Elliott
I was ten years old the first time I smoked pot. Andy Lerner, an older kid, got me high at the Boone School playground in exchange for a snow cone. I’m not sure if he was working for Al Qaeda or if he was just a stoner. But I was too young to care. It was 1981. Reagan was in office that year. We didn’t know about the connection between drugs and terrorism in the 80s. Reagan declared war on drugs but everybody kind of thought he was kidding. We were funding the Afghan Arabs in their fight against the evil Soviets. We were also funding Saddam Hussein as he attacked Iran. Things sure were different back then. I guess Reagan was kind of a terrorist too. But I was only ten, not like that’s an excuse or anything. I smoked pot straight through my adolescence in Chicago. Most of it coming from American backed warlords in Columbia. Some of it probably coming from potfields in California and Kentucky. A lot of Columbians are terrorists, so buying drugs grown in Columbia makes you a murderer. I didn’t do cocaine until I was already fourteen. By then Reagan had been in office for four years and the CIA was bringing cocaine into the inner-city to fund the war against the Sandinistas in Nicauragua. So, in a way, I did my part. Like, sometimes I was supporting terrorism, but other times I was a full-on patriot fighting to liberate Central America. And I never had to leave my neighborhood to do any of it. I just wish they had labeled the stuff so I could have made a more informed decision. But it probably wouldn’t have mattered to me then, that’s how stoned I was. Crack became endemic. Way before the Soviet Union imploded many of my friends were addicted. They're in jail now where they can't support terrorism. My friend Tom, who started heavy drugs defending Freedom Fighters died last year from a heroin overdose. He had switched sides many times. While Reagan was whittling away his final years in a blissful stupor Tom was shooting dope grown by Osama’s henchmen in the poppy fields of the Middle East. By the time Tom died I don’t think he cared if he was a terrorist or not. Reagan and Osama were probably like the same person to him. I quit using drugs before I finished high school. A good thing too, I find out so many years later. While watching the Superbowl at my friends house this week I found out just how closely drug use and terrorism are interlinked. Really closely. And that marijuana leads to a lessoning of sexual inhibitions, as opposed to the munchies as previously thought. We were very drunk by the time that ad ran, sandwiched as it was between two spots for Anhueser Busch. It was a sobering moment. “I’ll never smoke pot again,” Jon said, pouring everyone a round of shots. “I wouldn’t want to accidently get someone pregnant.” “You can bet my daughter will be a boozer,” Ben chimed in. “There won’t be any drugs in my house. If my daughter wants to get high I’ll just tell her to crack a Bud. Nobody ever got pregnant while smoking Budweiser.” Yep. A lot has changed since my bomb-building youth on the north-side of Chicago. I have a lot of guilt associated with those things I did as a terrorism supporting child. I’m glad I’m more plugged in now. I try to live my life in a more constructive way these days. There’s lots of times I could walk somewhere but I drive instead, just to burn the gas. Since September 11 I buy more things than ever to support America’s economy. And I don’t question as much as I used to. And I’ll sure as hell never do drugs again, not knowing what I know now. Not ever. |
