From time to time you will hear people talk about legalizing drugs. They say
“It will make then cheaper and easier to get, it will take the crime out it”
This is usually pushed by those who are not riders or drivers on a bus I can promise you that.
Anyone who rides or drives a bus can tell you that people with zero income can’t afford anything! If that drug is thirty dollars illegally and you drop the price to ten, that’s still ten more dollars the druggies don’t have.
So the crime will continue.
The other questions is who is going to pay for your drugs and who is going to pay for your health care when you screw your self up with drugs. Something tells me that if you take all the money from drug sales it will not equal the loss of productivity and the medical bills for those destroyed by drugs.
I'm willing to give drug legalization a chance, we could test it!
Take a small state no one really cares about like Massachusetts, Have them legalize all drugs and see what sort of productive, cost effective wonderland ensues. This way when it fails, why it’s still Massachusetts, who really cares about them.
So many people are removed from the real street level of what is going on in the world. They believe that cheep available drugs would be good. Those way way down here in the streets know that for many addicted to drugs, available inexpensive drugs is a roller coaster ride into an early grave… yes but a very fun roller coaster ride.
Drugs are used by different people for different reasons and by a few people for made up reasons. Here is an example.
- Guy sprints across parking lot with loaded grocery bags and a dog
- Despite looking like he slept under a bridge, can’t do basic math, has never washed his hair, smells like a campfire dipped in a gym locker room. Despite his dirty 8-month-old pitbull with a bandana (They must be issued to pitbulls on the street) and a leash made of woven yarn.. he knows enough to say that his dog is a "service animal" and there is nothing we can do about him bringing it on the bus.
- He asked me to lower the bus because the 3” rise is too much for him he has “a bad back”
- This is after he has jumped parking curbs in the parking lot to get to me.
- He has an honored card so he is handicapped in some way and pays a reduced fair.
- Did I say sprinting! grocery bags! And handicap? yup I did.
- He then walks to the back of my bus and climbs the stairs to the raised back deck. That’s right 3” rise to get in my bus can’t be done but 6” steps no problem.
- Next he sits there and after a while lights up a joint.
- I tell him he can’t smoke on the bus.
- He tells me he has a marijuana card and has glaucoma
- I tell him he has a "get off my bus card" if he doesn’t’ stop
This is the kind of person who is crossing his fingers for legalized drugs. One more thing he can take advantage of. Ends up he didn’t have a card or so the police told me.
Now more Drugs on my bus
Crack Cocaine- Rock
Bus Driver Ranking
Sleep/Awake- 14 shots of espresso 2 shots of jack
Volume Control- Sister has the Remote and is watching 90210
Horde Multiplier- +50%
Touch Factors- -10%
Denial- 25%
Wild Card- Crazy on the bus
The High of Crack is so short lived that few people get on my bus under its active effect. If they do watch out. This drug takes your brain and dunks it into a high-speed blender with equal parts paranoia and back yard compost.
Crack is devastating not only to nerves but your reasoning skills as well. Crackheads are as fun to talk too as a car wreck. Even off the drug a crack user shows signs of their addiction. Under no condition believe any story a crack head tell you. They are all lies.
Had one get on my bus saying the man across the street chased her down and raped her. I told her I would call the police. She told me not to call the police that she would “take care of that” but could she get a free ride downtown. I told rape is a crime and I’m not moving until the cops get here. She ran off my bus and hooked up with the guy that “Raped her” and they decided to get on the max train for a free ride downtown.
Never never never trust them, never turn your back on them. Had one try to steal my computer pouch form behind my seat but I had looped the strap around my chair. He worked on it a half-hour but couldn’t find a way to get it. I knew what he was doing but I wanted to see A, how good my security was and B, how long he would try.. 30 Minutes. What’s funny is, it was so obvious and besides, I control the doors.
Ecstasy - (MDMA)
Bus Driver Ranking
Sleep/Awake- 3 cans jolt cola
Volume Control- Remote lost in the couch
Horde Multiplier- +10%
Touch Factors- -10%
Denial- 1%
Wild Card- Crazy on the bus
Good old X is a semi-synthetic psychedelic entactogen of the phenethylamine family that is much less visual with more stimulant like effects than most all other common “trip” producing psychedelics.
I’m always getting MDA and MDMA confused. One holds a Telethon once a year hosted by Jerry Lewis accepting money from random donors and the other holds a marathon of clenched jawed twenty something girls sharing cab rides from club to club downtown looking for random sperm donors. I never can keep it clear what one is what.
The only time I really get an eyeful of Ecstasy users is when something goes wrong, then they give up the cab ride life style for a trip on the bus. Gee thanks. People don’t take X to ride the bus, the bus is the fall back position of transportation when X goes bad.
They usually come on in some strange quest for hydration, sometimes foaming at the mouth.. no not like a rabid dog mind you but like my friend Scott used to get a little white in the corner of his mouth when he got talking too fast or got mad.
With one woman on my bus you could literally see her heart pounding in the veins on her neck.. now that can’t be right. She was very thirsty and anxious to get where she was going. The only problem was she was not sure where she was going, that is until she saw the water fountain, then she flew off my bus.. she may still be there drinking away for all I know.
MDMA on your bus is really nothing special. Sometimes people will feel like talking more under its euphoric effect but really thats rare. Only the bad trip is common on a bus and its usually female, slightly paranoid and dressed for the dance club. Sometimes you have to guard them from evil guys trying to take advantage of the situation. I went off route once to drop a girl off at her door because I was not sure about these guys on the back of the bus who had been watching her and all of a sudden wanted to get off at the same stop. I let them off the back door, then shut it and drove her right to her door step.
She lived two blocks from my route so it was no big deal and after all I' a father of a daughter so I had to do something.
LSD - Acid
Bus Driver Ranking
Sleep/Awake- Both
Volume Control- Any
Horde Multiplier- +50%
Touch Factors- -100%
Denial- 0%
Wild Card- Destructive
The first time someone asked me about LSD I told them I don't care about the book of Mormon and I'm an Atheist.... Wait that LDS.. once again I'm confused.
Like not bathing and left wing radicals, Acid is a left over from the 60’s where for a time people thought they could tune into the universe with LSD. Sort of a spiritual cable channel, the only show on that channel must have been telling them to stay away from showers and supply side economics.
LSD users that I have run into on the bus come in two flavors. Those that have tripped and those that are about to trip. Often when they are tripping it is accompanied by other drugs so they drink and take acid or they smoke some weed and takes acid. So usually you got a double whammy on your hands.
The funniest thing about people on Acid is how often then will tell you they are on acid. First it’s no surprise they are on acid from how they act but they just flat out tell you.
“Oh man I took some Acid and I’m going to OMSI for the Laser light now”
Thanks for sharing and enjoy your Pink Floyd.
Bad trips and sever mental disturbance are impossible to tell apart. Usually when you pull up to a stop and someone looks like they are having a yelling match with a phone pole and is ready to throw down, it could be Acid, To be safe just keep driving.
People on Acid do not like loud surprising noises. So getting on the PA in the bus and telling them to get down off the seats will often freak them out…
oh and yes it’s a bit fun.
Heroin- Smack or as I call it “Chicken Head”
Bus Driver Ranking
Sleep/Awake- five Pillow and a hide-a-bed
Volume Control- Shhhh baby sleeping
Horde Multiplier- +0%
Touch Factors- +30%
Denial- 50%
Wild Card- Random crazy if they are freaking out.
People don’t take drugs because the drugs make them feel bad, drugs make you feel good, hell it makes them feel great. I know that sounds strange to the anti-drug crowd but Heroin is like atomic orgasms to those addicted to it. You can’t argue with atomic orgasms!
People take drugs because they don’t equate the after effects of drug use, the addiction, destruction and depression with their drug use. They only see the upside and the downside they blame on the world. This cause and effect blindness creates a downward spiral ending in bad places or the number 72 bus late at night.
Ask any bus driver and they will be able to tell you what bus line has Methadone treatment centers. Every morning you scoop up the anxious, nervous and fidgety, deposit them at their “Clinic” and you pick up the relaxed, mellow and happy on your return trip.
The best thing about those on methadone is they become the enforcers for rules on your bus. You have ten methadone users on your bus going to the "Clinic" and all you have to say is “I’m not rolling until..” and they will yell at whatever violator you have until it’s resolved. They are getting to that clinic and don’t you make them late!
Heroin makes people pass out on my bus so I don’t like it. I have seen them near catatonic drooling, wet (not in a good way) bent over and passed out.
Police, fire and medical do what they can but there is no love for the drug head passed out on the bus. Pregnant woman who falls gets A+ treatment heroin users passed out gets the c- treatment. Still a passing grade but there is no love there for you druggie.
So this is the end of my drugs on my bus rant. Only doing two post for it not three. One last thing I would like to say. There are a few conditions I could accept for drug legalization and here they are.
- Those that prescribe to a “Drug card” cant do the following.
- Drive a car
- Ride on my bus
- Can’t make others pay for their medical care
- vote
- To get drugs you would have to
- Take a shower
- Brush your last remaining tooth
- After taking drugs, a taxi would take you to the house of the closest person who voted for legalizing drugs and they would have to take care of you until you came down.
It seems like some simple rules to me, simple rules we could all get behind.
Those that are for drug legalization should ride the bus with me on Saturday night and enjoy the fruits of their ideals. Hmmm hmm crazy.
Ok that’s it for me today
You roll easy….and stay clean you nuts
Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 7:59AM 
