Month: April 2003

Disclaimer: This is an April Fool’s Day Joke by veritas, who is a guest author on this blog. The owner of this domain is not responsible for the posts made by any guest authors.

I am actually Huai Bin. There is no guest author on sixthseal.com.
There is no veritas. veritas is the pseudonym I use to distance myself
from drug related postings. I’m surprised no one picked this up. The
writing itself should have tipped you off. The writing style, formation
of sentences, terminology, language quirks and favorite words should be
a dead giveaway. 🙂 It’s hard to change one’s writing, it’s like a
fingerprint. I’ve also made some mistakes that would give me away in
the past, which I thankfully picked up and corrected before anyone
could notice.

However, other than the language style (and what one my good friends
refered to as photography style) I’ve done well to cover my tracks
though. One example I particularly loved is the “veritas still in
Malaysia while killuminati is already in Melbourne”. I intentionally
posted the pill report late because there was suspicion brewing. I also
did little things like commenting on the veritas’s posts comments box
with my killuminati nick and then replying with the veritas one again
so it seems like two people are actually having a conversation. Got
tired of that after a while though, which is why I don’t do that
anymore. 🙂

There isn’t even an email address veritas@sixthseal.com. All of that
goes to a catch-all email address which is me@sixthseal.com, so I would
be hesitant to reply you unless I don’t know you personally and even
then I’ll have to caution you not to mention anything about it in the
blog because:

1 My parents read my blog
2 My girlfriend reads my blog
3 Law enforcement officers may stumble upon it

Numbers 1 and 2 are against recreational experimentation with
illegal substances and I don’t want them to worry about me. I’ve tried
educating them about the effects, risks and any dependency issues which
can arise from the consumption of various drugs, but the government
propaganda machine is sadly much stronger than me, despite my
references to research papers and studies done by distinguished
scientists and researchers of the field. I don’t want them to have to
worry about me, so veritas sprang into existence.

Number 3 is to protect myself against any raids from the police,
although without the amphetamine induced paranoia, I think that’s
pretty unlikely. Wasting the money and manpower just to bust some uni
student on possession charges isn’t very likely, although I’ve heard
horror stories about that happening. The risk factor is pretty low, the
time, money and manpower involved in coordinating a raid just to find 2
grams of cannabis isn’t a very likely scenario. Personally, I think the
chances of that happening are pretty low because their resources would
have been better spent on raiding drug dealers or underground chemists.
However, being safe is always better than being sorry. 🙂

Anyway, it also distances me from being associated with recreational
drug use, as the general public back home is being terribly misled by
the government propaganda machine and associates all drug users with
the “dirty junkie” stereotype. I don’t want to have the social stigma
of that hovering over me, because the uninformed public just look at
you and treat you like you’re some kind of scumbag. I find that even
some friends have subtly changed their opinion about me after a
disclosure. It’s like recreational drug use is the overriding factor in
evaluating my character, instead of more important things like honesty,
integrity, loyalty and any other more important characteristics that
you have.

Of course, the media doesn’t help either with their misinformed and
ill-researched articles, news items and shows. There are exceptions
though, I’ve read some mainstream magazines with well researched and
accurate articles about recreational drugs. Unfortunately, this is the
exception to the rule. In the media business, their bottom line is to
ultimately to draw in more viewers. What better way to do that than
sensationalist reporting? Which headline do you think sounds better?

a) KILLER DRUG ECSTASY CLAIMS ANOTHER VICTIM IN A “RAVE” LATE LAST NITE!!!
or
b) Excessive consumption of water lead to a water poisoning death at a rave last night.

b) probably won’t even make the news. Ecstasy doesn’t kill people.
Irresponsible drug use kills people. Not knowing contraindications
kills people. If you’re interested, there’s plenty of links to the left
where you can find out more about harm minimization and real facts
about illegal or legal substances. I remember reading a funny article a
couple of years ago in a Malaysian newspaper. This was a “Dear Abby”
type advice column where someone writes in. Anyway, this guy wrote in
and asked if taking Ecstasy is harmful to the body.

The reply: (paraphrased from memory) ARE YOU KIDDING???
Taking just one will hook you for life! It makes your head shake so
hard uncontrollably you won’t even be able to stop it and you’ll feel
like your neck is going to break off and it probably will.

I would laugh, but I was too angry at this irresponsible and
misinformed reply. Oh, it’s worthy to note that most “Ecstasy” pills
(or feng tau yuen (literally: shake head pill) in the local dialect)
here are mostly meth(amphetamine) or ketamine. The “amphetamines makes
your head shake” myth stems from the local version of the Melbourne
shuffle. The users congregate around speakers and does a repetitive
horizontal movement (picture yourself while saying “no”) with just
their heads. I admit, doing that is fun while on amphetamines,
repetitive movements just feels right and it gets you nicely dizzy and
adds to the high. MDMA pills does exist but it’s not that common, since
the market is saturated with the cheaper (meth)amphetamine and ketamine
pills.

And don’t get me going about the government propaganda in Malaysia.
They actually print absolute fucking bullshit as “facts”. I don’t know
if it’s getting better now, but with the government’s “2003 War on
Drugs” campaign, I don’t think it would. Shock tactics like saying
you’ll die/go down an irreversible path to addiction/get brain damage
the moment you try a drug does not work. In fact it’s
counterproductive. The first drug I took was LSD was at a rave, and I
had an experienced group of friends with me and it was an amazing experience. I didn’t get irreversible brain damage, I didn’t go blind, I didn’t go psycho, I didn’t get addicted to it.

Instead, it opened my mind and at the risk of sounding clichéd, it
gave me a new and improved perspective on everything. After the
experience, I find myself being more open to new and unorthodox ideas
and this “thinking out of the box” mindset has been with me ever since.
🙂 This is contrary to the government propaganda I read, so like many
other people, I thought “Hey, what they’re saying isn’t true…hell,
probably all the things they say isn’t. I’m going to try another drug
now”. This is bad because some of the things they say are true, and
that deserves mention. I’m very much for a harm minimization approach
which gives accurate information (including the positive effects as
well as dangers) about drugs.

The government’s approach to dealing with the “drug problem” is not
going to change though, at least not in my lifetime. I have a friend
who was forced to go into a stay-in “drug rehabilitation center” (read:
prison) where you can’t leave the premises and visits are for family
members only. Guess what he was busted for? Nothing! There was no drugs
at his house, he just failed a urine test. He smoked cannabis a couple
of days ago, and that’s the sentence he got. Can you imagine that? Just
for detecting cannabis use in his urine test…he was a minor at that
time (17) so he was forced to go to rehab. It’s for his own good you
see. He’s an evil marijuana addict. Hey, I typed that without laughing too hard.

I’m sure everyone has heard of the drug laws of Malaysia [pemadam.org.my]. If you don’t read Bahasa Malaysia, here’s a short summary about the interesting bits (emphasis mine):

Section 10 Sentence for possessing drug paraphernalia like a bong (without drugs, just the equipment):
Jail sentence up to 5 years AND a fine of up to RM20,000 (A$10,000)

Note to self: Do not bring bong back

Section 39(A)(1) Possession of 20 grams or more of cannabis (marijuana):
Jail sentence not less than 2 years but not more than 5 years AND a MANDATORY caning between six to nine times.

You’ll fear the caning if you’ve seen it done before…

Section 15(B) Being in the same premises where drug use is
taking place (just being in the same place, it doesn’t matter whether
you’ve taken drugs):
Jail sentence not less than 2 years or a fine of not more than RM5,000 (A$2,500)

Ridiculous…

Section 15(A) Ingesting a scheduled drug (positive urine test):
Jail sentence not less than 2 years or a fine of not more than RM5,000 (A$2,500)

Very, very puzzling. I’m seriously mystified by this. Possessing a
bong gets a higher sentence than ingesting a drug? Who made up these
laws?

I’ve got a question for any Malaysian lawyers reading this. Do I get
to choose or is it the courts decision? How nice it’ll be if I can just
consume whatever and pay RM5,000 (A$2,500) for a “Get out of Jail Free”
card.

Anyway, despite my differing views regarding Malaysia’s (and just
about every country’s) drug laws, I still love my country. Home is
where the heart is, even though the draconian drug laws make me
paranoid every time I take any illegal substances back home. Oh well,
at least Xanax and other pharmaceuticals are OTC if you go to the right
pharmacists. 😉

Oh, and look at the date. 1st of April. April Fool’s Day.