We should give kids drugs more often if they're going to be this adorable. Thanks for nothing, DARE.
Seriously, I'll have what he's having, because that seems like fun, so long as you know what you're getting into. I sympathize with David as he asks, "Is this going to be forever?" because it's such a genuine response from someone who has no understanding that he is high.
No one explained to me that I was high when orthodontists gave me laughing gas a child. In fact, not until I watched this video did it occur to me that I "experimented with drugs" as a child. It makes sense, I reckon, since it would contradict with the anti-drug messages taught in school and home, particularly in the eyes of a child.
I loved my experience with laughing gas so much that I remember asking if I could do it again. I was a giggly mess. I can still recall the hygienist asking me a series of basic questions after administering the drug to verify that the laughing gas was working. I think I passed in record time. The best exchange went like this:
Hygienist: Do you have any brothers or sisters?
Laughing-Gassed Kevin: Just one.
Hygienist: Is it a girl or a boy?
Laughing-Gassed Kevin: Who, me or my sister?
At that point I realized how ridiculous I was that it probably took a full minute to recover my laughing fit. Oh what I would give to have some intensive dental work done again...
Laughing gas wasn't the only substance I used in my youth. On multiple occasions, I also recreationally used smelling salts. My friend had found them in an old first aid kit, and we were curious. It provided quite a rush: suddenly we would be alert yet loopy. The lingering sensation was fun, but it never occurred to me that technically I was abusing a substance. If you had asked me at that age if I had ever done drugs, I would have adamantly denied it, and believed it even. I entirely bought into the anti-drug messages, yet for a few month period I semi-regularly sniffed smelling salts. How could smelling salts be considered a drug when they put it in a medical kit? That much ammonia must have killed a lot of brain cells, not that I any notion of that, however naively.
A successful drug education program must branch out from the traditional marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol focus to include the real adolescent gateway drugs like laughing gas and smelling salts. This is why I am a meth addict today.
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