Great Moments in Cocaine
By For no particular reason, I give you the Palm Beach Post, 16 April 1962:
At least one of the five Cubans seized here recently with a record supply of cocaine may have been a Castro agent sent here to spread addiction among local exiles and thus discredit them in the eyes of the United States, official sources said last night . . . .
Charles Siragusa, deputy head of the U.S. Narcotics Bureau, said the sudden influx of the hideous drug into this country has a threefold purpose:
- To damage U.S. morale by circulating a drug that incites its users to crimes of wild abandon.
- To accelerate the crime rate particularly among local Cubans so that the goodwill so hard won by refugee families will be broken and the exile population in general will be discredited.
- [No third purpose was actually listed]
Cocaine orgies already have been held here . . . . Wherever its use becomes widespread, cocaine parties are inevitable.
Cocaine users lose all sense of propriety and morality, and the gravest of crimes becomes a joke. It takes only a few minutes to feel its effects. One deep sniff of the sugary powder and the party is on.
Goddamn, I miss the Cold War.