“What the fuck are these people talking about?” my attorney whispered. “You’d have to be crazy on acid to think a joint looked like a goddamn cockroach!”
I shrugged. It was clear that we’d stumbled into a prehis toric gathering. The voice of a “drug expert” named Bloomquist crackled out of the nearby speakers: “. .. about these flashbacks, the patient never knows; he thinks it’s all over and he gets himself straightened out for six months . . . and then, darn it, the whole trip comes back on him.”
Gosh darn that fiendish LSD! Dr. E. R. Bloomquist, MD, was the keynote speaker, one of the big stars of the conference. He is the author of a paperback book titled Marijuana, which – according to the cover – “tells it like it is.” (He is also the inventor of the roach/cockroach thoery . . . )
According to the book jacket, he is an “Associate Clinical Professor of Surgery (Anesthesiology) at the University of Southern Cllfcruia School of Medicine” . . . and also “a well known authority on the abuseof dangerous drugs.: Dr. Bllomquist “has also appeared on national network television panles, has served as a consultant for government agencies, was a member of the Committee on Narcotics Addiction and Alcoholism of the Council on Mental Health of the American Medical Association.” His wisdom is massively reprinted and distributed, says the publisher. He is clearly one of the heavies on that circuit of second-rate academic hustlers who get paid anywhere from $500 to $1000 a hit for lecturing to cop crowds.
Dr. Bloomquist’s book is a compendium of state bullshit. On page 49 he explains, the “four states of being” in the cannabis society: “Cool, Groovy, Hip Square” – in that descending order. “The square is seldom if ever cool,” says Bloomquist. “He is ‘not with it,’ that is, he doesn’t know ‘what’s happening.’ But if he manages to figure it out, he moves up a notch to ‘hip.’ And if he can bring himself to approve of what’s happening, he becomes ‘groovy.’ And after that, with much luck and perseverence, he can rise to the rank of ‘cool.”‘
Bloomquist writes like somebody who once bearded Tim Leary in a campus cocktail lounge and paid for all the drinks. And it was probably somebody like Leary who told him, with a straight face, that sunglasses are known in the drug culture as “tea shades.”
This is the kind of dangerous gibberish that used to be posted, in the form of mimeographed bulletins, in Police Department locker rooms.
Indeed: KNOW YOUR DOPE FIEND. YOUR LIFE MAY DEPEND ON IT! You will not be able to see his eyes because of Tea-Shades, but his knuckles will be white from inner tension and his pants will be crustedwith semen from constantly jacking off when he can’t find a rape victim. He will staggerr and babble when questioned. He will not respect your badge. The Dope Fiend fears nothing. He will attack, for no reason, with every weapon at his command – includtng yours. BEWARE. Any officer apprehending a suspected marijuana addict should use all necessary force immedately. One stitch in time (on him) wil usually save nine on you. Good luck.
The Chief.
>Indeed. Luck is always important, especially in Las Vegas . . . and ours was getting worse. It was clear at a glance that this Drug Conference was not what we’d planned on. It was far too open, too mixed. About a third of the crowd looked like they’d just stopped by, for the show, en route to a Frazier-Ali rematch at the Vegas Convention Center across town. Or maybe a benefit bout, for Old Smack Dealers, between Liston and Marshal Ky.
The room fairly bristled with beards, mustaches and super- Mod dress. The DAs’ conference had obviously drawn a goodly contingent of undercover narcs and other twilight types. An assistant DA from Chicago wore a light-tan sleeve less knit suit: His lady was the star of the Dunes casino; she flashed through the place like Grace Slick at a Finch College class reunion. They were a classic couple; stone swingers.
Just because you’re a cop, these days, doesn’t mean you can’t be With It. And this conference attracted some real peacocks. But my own costume – $40 FBI wingtips and a Pat Boone madras sportcoat – was just about right for the mass median; because for every urban-hipster, there were about twenty crude-looking rednecks who could have passed for assistant football coaches at Mississippi State.