"Just Say No to Drug Hysteria" by William S. Burroughs (High Risk)
Lazy Bill Lee Pukes Out a Tedious Manifesto
Many popular authors coast on reputation. Stan Lee enjoyed decades as the Marvel Comics mascot. Neil Gaiman spent years churning out the same stories while using his celebrity to rape women. Allen Ginsberg followed up “Howl” and “Kaddish” with NAMBLA manifestos.
William S. Burroughs' post-classic celebrity was particularly audacious. Combining a John Bircher look with a heroin, college students couldn't get enough of his “language is a virus” blather. Bookstores still stock his work. Naked Lunch is one of the funniest most disturbing books of the 20th century. The Ticket that Exploded is random bullshit. The NYC punk scene was full of musicians who wanted to share his heroin, so much that he had to move to Kansas. David Cronenberg adapted Naked Lunch and somehow did not depict the talking asshole scene.
He did write a cute book about his cats.
Ira Silverberg was Burroughs' agent in the 1980s, so of course he was going to include him in High Risk. His name on the cover was enough to sell copies. It didn't matter what he wrote. He was William Fucking Burroughs, the least problematic beat (by default) and the godfather of outlaw literature. He could give Silverberg dirty limericks or a Scientology manifesto and he'd still sell books. Compared to what he produced, I can only wish for “there once was a man from Nantucket...”
This article is an essay on against punitive drug laws, basically the standard liberal argument against the 1980s War on Drugs. It could be written by anyone, with the usual rhetoric. Remind the reader that most illegal drugs were once legal; note how addiction is much worse when it's treated like a moral failing. Argue that treatment is more effective than prosecution. These are basic arguments.
What does Burroughs bring to the discussion? The same crap he wrote his entire career including:
Dividing the world into Johnsons and shits. The shits get into other people's business.
“Southern lawmen feeling their N---- notches”
“Decent churchgoing women with their mean pinched up faces”
Lazily comparing drug enforcement and Nazi Germany.
Paranoia about children turning in their parents.
Burroughs doesn't provide counter-arguments. As far as he's concerned, everything would be fine if we all ignored heroin addicts and crackheads. Every child who calls CPS is another Pavlik Morozov, a Communist who denounced his hoarding father to Stalinists. You should always be a Johnson – even when your junky cousin is stealing your car, even when the neighbor is molesting their kids. Just ask William S. Burroughs jr. how much he liked growing up with addict parents. Considering that he hated his father and drank himself into an early grave, he might have a different viewpoint.
This is a 12-page essay that gets repetitive on the fourth page. Toward the end Burroughs is throwing in excerpts from other works because even he's bored with his “anyone who wants to limit drug usage is a shit” thesis. He ends the essay by repeating the title, suggesting that there was a different title and Silverberg changed it. Either way, it’s a lazy ending.
If you want to read a decent late William S. Burroughs books, here’s his cat book.
Pretty much have to link to Naked Lunch
Confuse the Amazon Algorithm. Buy Rashi by Maurice Liber.