MSTed: LSD, CIA, MST -- OH MY! pt 3/5 NEW!!!
Lisa D. Jenkins
Part 3
MiSTied by Lisa Jenkins
DISCLAIMER:
_Mystery Science Theater 3000_, its characters and situations are copyright
1994 Best Brains, Inc. This publication is not meant to infringe on any
copyrights held by Best Brains, Comedy Central, its employees or the
originators of the material for this post. This article is free to distribute
as long as its contents and this notice remains intact.
[Continued from part 2:]
[Satellite of Love Theater]
[MIKE walks into the theater. TOM and CROW are already seated.]
MIKE: No fooling Gypsy anymore, guys. She's wisened up to you.
TOM: Kinda strange, that....
CROW: Never would have figured that, myself.
> Colonel Sheffield Edwards, the chairman of the BLUEBIRD steering
> committee, consistently pushed for
TOM: --an automatic shift transmission vehicle.
CROW: Manual steering was such a pain.
> a more reliable speech-inducing
> substance. By the time BLUEBIRD evolved into Operation ARTICHOKE
TOM: Now wait a minute. How does a BLUEBIRD become an ARTICHOKE?!
MIKE: Composition and decay, Servo.
CROW: That's gross, Mike.
> (the
> formal change in codenames occurred August 1951),
CROW: Although they had been calling it ARTICHOKE a year before because
smoking drugs made them cough and choke a lot.
> Security officials
> were still searching for the magic technique -- the deus ex machina --
> that would guarantee surefire results.
MIKE: Oh, man! Tell me about it!
TOM: Give it up, Mike.
>
> The whole concept of a truth drug was a bit farfetched to begin with.
MIKE: Pisha! Truth drug! There is no such thing!
> It presupposed that there was a way to chemically bypass the mind's
> censor and turn the psyche inside out, unleashing a profusion of buried
> secrets, and that surely some approximation of "truth" would emerge
> amidst all the personal debris.
MIKE: Then they realized they were living a lie. They looked deep into their
retched miserable souls and died in their own depressed vile misery.
CROW: Mike, you've GOT to learn to CHEER UP!
> In this respect the CIA's quest
> resembled a skewed version of a familiar mythological theme from which
> such images as the Philosopher's Stone and the Fountain of Youth derive
TOM: In other words, by this time, they were out of their stinkin' minds.
CROW: [spaced-out voice] "I'm so high, man."
> -- that through touching or ingesting something one can acquire wisdom,
> immortality, or eternal peace.
MIKE: Or one really nasty child molestation case.
> It is more than a bit ironic that the
> biblical inscription on the marble wall of the main lobby at CIA
> headquarters in Langley, Virginia, reads, "And ye shall know the Truth
> and the Truth shall set you free".
ALL: [sing] "We shall overcome...."
>
> The freewheeling atmosphere that prevailed during the CIA's early years
CROW: --caught up with them as the LSD effects began violent flashback
episodes.
> encouraged an "anything goes" attitude among researchers associated with
> the mind control program.
MIKE: [dorky voice] "Hey, dude! If we can get high on LSD, we can get high
on glue, too!"
CROW: "Let's do it, man!"
[MIKE and CROW giggle.]
> This was before the Agency's bureaucratic
> arteries began to harden,
TOM: [sings] "I'm gonna harden my heart. I'm gonna swallow my tears."
> and those who participated on Operation
> ARTICHOKE were intent on leaving no stone unturned in an effort to
> deliver the ultimate truth drug.
TOM: No stone unturned! Ha ha! That's funny!
MIKE: What are you talking about?
CROW: Oh, I get it. [sings Bob Dylan-style] "Everybody must get stoned!"
> A number of agents were sent on
> fact-finding missions to all corners of the globe to procure samples of
> rare herbs and botanicals.
MIKE: They were in for a surprise when they found that all of the growing
areas had been slashed and burned for crop land and livestock.
> The results of one such trip were recorded
> in a heavily deleted document entitled "Exploration of Potential Plant
> Resources in the Caribbean Region".
CROW: First they deleted it, then they deleted it again! Boy, it was fun!
> Among the numerous items mentioned
> in this report, a few were particularly intriguing. A plant called a
> "stupid bush",
CROW: --also known as George Bush--
> characterized by the CIA as a psychogenic agent and a
> pernicious weed,
TOM: It's a psychogenic agent!
CROW: It's a pernicious weed!
MIKE: Boys! It can be those and a whole lot more!
> was said to proliferate in Puerto Rico and Saint
> Thomas. Its effects were shrouded in mystery. An "information bush"
> was also discovered.
TOM: This was known as Barbara Bush.
> This shrub stumped CIA experts, who were at a loss
CROW: --for brain cells due to their drug use.
> to pin down its properties. The "information bush" was listed as a
> psychogenic agent followed by a lingering question mark.
MIKE: I was followed by a pestering exclamation point once.
CROW: You don't say?
MIKE: Look! There it is again!
TOM: ARRRRGGGGHHH! It's got me now!
> What type of
> information -- prophetic or mundane -- might be evoked by this unusual
> herb was unclear.
CROW: Which probably explains the question mark.
> Nor was it known whether the "information bush" could
> be used as an antidote to the "stupid bush" or vice versa.
MIKE: Did Barbara Bush ever try to stop George?
TOM: Oh, lots of times, but some people think Barbara Bush was worse.
> [grin grin
> grin]
TOM: Oh, look. It's the Cheshire Cat.
CROW: Kitty!
>
> The CIA studied a veritable pharmacopoeia of drugs with the hope of
> achieving a breakthrough.
MIKE: What they failed to realize was they were becoming dependent on each of
the new drugs they tried.
> At one point during the early 1950s Uncle
> Sam's secret agents viewed cocaine as a potential truth serum.
CROW: Wait a minute. We've been here already.
> "Cocaine's general effects have been somewhat neglected",
TOM: Except for the part we ALREADY COVERED in this text!
MIKE: Calm down. We might learn something new.
> noted an
> astute researcher. Whereupon tests were conducted that enabled the CIA
> to determine that the precious powder "will produce elation,
> talkativeness, etc." when administer by injection.
CROW: Knew that.
> "Larger doses,"
> according to a previously classified document, "may cause fearfulness
> and alarming hallucinations."
TOM: Read that.
> The document goes on to report that
> cocaine "counteracts... the catatonia of catatonic schizophrenics" and
> concludes with the recommendation that the drug be studied further.
MIKE: Copy that.
>
> A number of cocaine derivatives were also investigated from an
> interrogation standpoint. Procaine, a synthetic analogue, was tested on
> mental patients and the results were intriguing.
TOM: The patients' relatives started taking an interest in the patients and
demanded the CIA explain its actions.
MIKE: That WOULD be unusual for the '50s, wouldn't it?
> When injected into the
> frontal lobe of the brain through trephine holes in the skull, the drug
> "produced free and spontaneous speech within two days in mute
> schizophrenics".
CROW: Drilling a whole in my skull and pouring illegal drugs on my brain would
make me want to speak out and say something, too.
> This procedure was rejected as "too surgical for our
> use".
MIKE: Oh, come on! It would be so EASY to drill open someone's skull and pour
drugs right into them! Heck, you can do it right there on the street!
Nobody would notice.
TOM: Sarcasm sequencer a little tight there, Nelson?
> Nevertheless, according to a CIA pharmacologist, "it is possible
> that such a drug could be gotten into the general circulation of subject
> without surgery, hypodermic or feeding."
TOM: Oh? Then pray tell how it "could be gotten"?
CROW: I think the CIA pharmacologist was slipping a few stray pills into his
palm here and there. What do you think?
> He suggested a method known as
> iontophoresis, which involves using an electric current to transfer the
> ions of a chosen medicament into the tissues of the body.
MIKE: Ouch! Servo, you shocked me!
TOM: Heh heh. Just a little cattle prod, Mike. Nothing more.
>
> The CIA's infatuation with cocaine was short-lived.
CROW: A cute little lassie walked by, and they discovered a new infatuation.
> It may have
> titilated the nostrils of more than a few spies
TOM: Oh, I'd say so!
> and produced some heady
> speculation, but after the initial inspiration it was back to square
> one.
CROW: Ah. Square One TV. Mathnet.
TOM: This story is a fib. But it's short.
> Perhaps their expectations were too high for any drug to
> accommodate.
ALL: [sing] "I wanna new drug."
> Or maybe a new approach to the problem was required.
CROW: Okay, let's see. Injecting, no. Digesting, no. Smoking, no. What
about rubbing it all over our bodies? Would that work?
>
> The search for an effective interrogation technique eventually led to
> heroin.
TOM: All drug searches eventually led to heroin.
> Not the heroin that ex-Nazi pilots under CIA contract smuggled
> out of the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia on CIA proprietary airlines
> during the late 1940s and 1950s;
MIKE: That heroin was too old to use. The expiration date had already passed.
> nor the heroin that was pumped into
> America's black and brown ghettos after passing through contraband
> networks controlled by mobsters who moonlighted as CIA hitmen.
CROW: "We don't deal with anyone who isn't WHITE!"
> The
> Agency's involvement in worldwide heroin traffic, which has been well
> documented in _The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia_ by Alfred
> McCoy, went far beyond the scope of Operation ARTICHOKE,
TOM: The CIA was a wholesaler of illegal drugs to America's upper middle
class.
> which was
> primarily concerned with eliciting information from recalcitrant
> subjects. However, ARTICHOKE scientists did see possible advantages in
> heroin as a mind control drug.
CROW: Heck, they've seen possible advantages in injecting the drugs into
themselves! Why not add heroin to the list!
> According to a CIA document dated April
> 26, 1952, heroin was "frequently used by police and intelligence
> officers _on a routine basis_ [emphasis added]".
TOM: They had to. The withdrawal pangs were _too painful_ [emphasis added].
> The cold turkey theory
> of interrogation:
MIKE: Just stop CIA drug use. It's that simple.
> CIA operatives determined that heroin and other
> habit-forming substances "can be useful in reverse because of the
> stresses produced when they are withdrawn from those who are addicted to
> their use".
CROW: Which they ought to know about by now, being addicted as they are and
all.
>
>
> Enter LSD
MIKE: Stage right.
>
>
> It was with the hope of finding the long-sought miracle drug that CIA
> investigators first began to dabble with LSD-25 in the early 1950s.
TOM: LSD-25 was an isotope of the naturally-occurring LSD-23 strain.
> At
> the time very little was known about the hallucinogen, even in
> scientific circles.
MIKE: They just weren't invited to the really "hip" parties.
> Dr Werner Stoll, the son of Sandoz president Arthur
> Stoll and a colleague of Albert Hoffmann's, was the first person to
> investigate the psychological properties of LSD.
CROW: Wee! Look at all of the pretty trails!
> The results of his
> study were presented in the _Swiss Archives of Neurology_ in 1947.
TOM: He proved a Swiss Army knife was useful even during brain surgery.
> Stoll reported that LSD produced disturbances in perception,
> hallucinations, and acceleration in thinking;
TOM: Oh, now THERE'S a big surprise.
> moreover, the drug was
> found to blunt the usual suspiciousness of schizophrenic patients.
MIKE: Normally, I would be very suspicious of what you just said, but I'm
taking LSD today.
> No
> favorable aftereffects were described.
CROW: Um, something positive. Uh. Well, uh. Hmm. Gosh. I can't think of
any.
> Two years later in the same
> journal Stoll contributed a second report entitled "A New Hallucinatory
> Agent, Active in Very Small Amounts".
TOM: Stoll just changed a couple of words around from his first report and
passed it off as a new article to the editor.
>
> The fact that LSD caused hallucinations should not have been a total
> surprise to the scientific community.
MIKE: What?! You mean LSD causes hallucinations?! Man, now I've got to
totally re-write my thesis and dissertation!
> Sandoz first became interested in
> ergot, the natural source of all lysergic acid.
CROW: Ergo, he was interested in it.
> The rye fungus had a
> mysterious and contradictory reputation.
CROW: Rye tasted good, but it looked gross!
> In China and parts of the
> Mideast it was thought to possess medicinal qualities, and certain
> scholars believe that it may have been used in sacred rites in ancient
> Greece. In other parts of Europe, however, the same fungus was
> associated with the horrible malady known as St Anthony's Fire, which
> struck periodically like the plague.
TOM: Oh! That explains the reoccurring need to make hit teen films
periodically.
MIKE: That must be it.
> Medieval chronicles tell of
> villages and towns where nearly everyone went mad for a few days after
CROW: --the local merchants had a sale.
> ergot-diseased rye was unknowingly milled into flour and baked as bread.
> Men were afflicted with gangrenous limbs that looked like blackened
> stumps, and pregnant women miscarried.
CROW: Dogs and cats living together!
MIKE: Total chaos!
> Even in modern times, there have
> been reports of ergot-related epidemics.
TOM: So many, in fact, that we decided not to document any here.
>
> FOOTNOTE: In 1951 hundreds of respectable citizens in Pont-Saint-Esprit,
> a small French village, went completely berserk one evening.
TOM: No one really knows why, they just did it. Strange, that.
> Some of
> the town's leading citizens jumped from windows into the Rhone.
CROW: They hadn't had a bath in ages.
> Others
> ran through the streets screaming abut being chased by lions, tigers,
> and
ALL: --bears. Oh my!
> "bandits with donkey ears".
MIKE: Oh, those are just politicians.
> Many died, and whose who survived
> suffered strange aftereffects for weeks. In his book _The Day of St
> Anthony's Fire_, John C Fuller attributes this bizarre outbreak to rye
> flour contaminated with ergot.
CROW: Cool. Mike, pass those rye chips, will ya?
MIKE: I think that would put me off rye bread for a while.
TOM: Well, I'm put off this post. Let's get out of here.
[Door sequence]
[Satellite of Love]
[MIKE, CROW, TOM and GYPSY stand around the control desk where they've dumped
bags of rye chips and RAMchips. They all speak as though they are drugged.]
MIKE: Yeah. Heh. That's is so COOL, man. Heh.
CROW: Oh, cool. Look at the cool colors, man.
TOM: Oh yeah, man. This is SO cool!
[There is a long silence. They don't sound as drugged anymore; more bored.]
MIKE: Is this cool or what?
TOM: Yep. Totally cool.
[There is another pause.]
GYPSY: This is boring.
CROW: You said it! Whose idea was this?
MIKE: Well, I said to bring out the rye chips. You suggested the RAMchips.
TOM: Don't blame each other. None of these chips are contaminated with ergot.
CROW: Do we have any ergot on board?
MIKE: I don't think so. Wait a minute. What IS ergot, anyway?
MAGIC VOICE: It's a fungus. You guys, if you REALLY want to get high, you
should check out the workshop.
[Everyone looks at each other.]
MIKE: I got the glue!
CROW: The marker pens are MINE!
[Everyone exits.]
MAGIC VOICE: [sighs] It's a good thing I didn't tell them about the medical
supplies in the infirmary. We'll be right back after
this...trip.
[Commercial sign lights flash.]
[To be continued....]
--
Lisa Jenkins "The 'information bush' was listed as a
jen...@mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu psychogenic agent followed by a lingering
question mark." --Martin A. Lee and Bruce
Shlain, _ACID DREAMS_