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Issue 01
January 2003

Helping America procrastinate since 1636

March 28, 2024
 
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Area Heroin Addict Blames Drug For Incessant Weight Gain, Threatens Legal Action

By Jake Vegas
ONTARIO, CA - In Ontario, California this week, area resident Stacy Conners announced her plans to initiate a unique law suit, directly strictly against the drug heroin, which she claims has been causing her to gain weight excessively. "I'm embarrassed to say this, but I've just passed ...[mumbled number]... pounds. I mean, in the past I've gained and lost a few pounds here and there just like anybody, but it's never been like this. It's been a steady increase, for several months now. And I'll be damned if it's a coincidence that it's been exactly several months since I started hitting up the smack."

Ontario District Attorney Ron Wittgrove told us, "This is the first time I believe that a drug itself has actually been sued. Granted, pharmaceutical companies are sued constantly over the supposed side effects of their many drugs, but suing Pfizer is very different than suing, say, Tylenol or cocaine, both of which are, by all legal measures, neither a person nor a corporation, and therefore not sue-able. I mean, I'm not sure exactly what she plans to gain by this, but then again, who am I to downplay what may become a profound legal precedent?"

When asked if she thought there might be any other reasons for her weight gain, the 25 year old Conners told us, assuredly, "No way. It's clearly the heroin."

Area Cardiologist Gary Friedman, Conners' primary care physician, was, as one might expect, quite skeptical. "Ms. Conners doesn't exercise, she eats high calorie foods with excessive saturated fat, and she has a family history of obesity, so I think it's frankly quite ridiculous for her to be claiming that her weight gain is due to a drug that's not only totally not at fault, but has been clinically shown time and time again to cause extreme and dangerous weight loss! If she's a fat heroine addict, then I'm Barbara Streisand."

Conners retorted, "Dr. Friedman is a nice doctor, but some times he says things that are just way off base. I mean, here, he's clearly just protecting himself against a malpractice suit. If he had been an actual competent physician, he surely would have warned me about the side effects. All he had to say was, Stace, "Get your ass off the smack, put the needle down and check yourself into rehab, or else you'll get really, really fat.", and I would have been on the 12 step program faster than Brett Favre and Robert Downey Junior combined. Hell, I'd even do 13 or 14 steps if it came to it. But noooooh, Dr. Friedman just kept quiet and told me not to worry about my weight...tried to be nice and said I was a healthy 25 year old woman, well within the range of normal. Now he's just trying to cover his ass so he won't end up on the stand."

"Malpractice? The stand!" screamed Dr. Friedman. "That lady's got a lot of nerve. I said it was ludicrous to blame her weight gain on heroin, but I wasn't finished. There's more. When she came in for her check up last week, I found no evidence whatsoever that she's actually doing heroine at all! She had no track marks, no bruises or puncture wounds near her veins, and aside from being just generally wacko, she showed absolutely zero symptoms of heroin addiction!" Calming down a bit, Friedman added, "Granted, we didn't run a full chem panel so its possible that she's doing some other drugs that are causing her to hallucinate the heroine experience, but she's clearly not shooting up any smack. Unless they've invented the Star Trek transporter, and beamed the heroine directly into her bloodstream, bypassing the whole "jamming the HIV/Hepatitis-infested needle into your vein" thing, then there's just no fucking way."

Wittgrove also expressed doubt over Ms. Conners' claims. "Now, I'm not a medical doctor, nor do I know much about any substance more complicated than a phat blunt of Humboldt county ganja, but it seems to me that there's just no way this claim will hold up in court. I mean what does she want for compensation anyway, money to pay for the rehab, or a replacement kilo of safer heroin without the side effects? It's not like the producers of heroin are accountable in any way. Oh, sorry ma'am, all we wanted was to charge you shitloads of money to trap you in your own addictive dreamworld that will cause your personal life to crumble, but Jesus, we never even considered the possibility that you might not fit into your favorite jeans."

"And that's not even the end of it." Dr. Friedman continued. "Now, Mr. Wittgrove hasn't seen her, but check this out...Ms. Conners isn't even fat! Seriously, I'm not making this up. She's 5' 8'' and 123 pounds, and I dare say, ridiculously good looking by any reasonable standards. Yeah she's gained a little weight, but we're talking like 3 pounds since last year's check up."

"I think this woman is so God damned crazy, that if some heroin decided to shoot her up, it would probably get high. And I haven't even mentioned that she wants to sue the actual drug. The drug itself! That's like suing a verb, or an adjective. Who the hell is that crazy ass lunatic bitch going to take to court?"

"He does have a point," remarked Wittgrove. "I don't think she's got a shot in hell, but I guess I've seen some strange things in my time and I've learned that its usually best to just keep an open mind and see how things play out. At least it will give the press something to go apeshit about."

After asking Ms. Conners if she thought there was anything futile or just plain stupid aboqut suing not just an inanimate object, but a whole class of inanimate objects, she remarked calmly, "It's just the principle of it all. I just wasn't told what I was getting into. Not by the drug makers, not by my doctor, not by my friends, not by anybody. I don't care if it's little pieces of white powder. Somebody has to pay. And that somebody is heroin. After what it did to me, it can rot behind bars for all I care."

"I just don't know what to say", said Dr. Friedman, now serenely putting his index and middle finger to his temple and shaking his head in a gesture that can convey only utter, profound disappointment. "I'm speechless."

Wittgrove added, "I guess we'll just have to see where it goes in the courts. Maybe the judge and jury will somehow redefine the law, find heroin guilty, and give it 15-20 years of hard labor in a maximum security prison. Granted, I think it's probably more likely that Elephants will learn to speak Russian, but what the hell do I know, it could make history."

Which Is More Likely? ...You Decide.

Upon being asked what she would do when all this was over, Conners expressed her intent to seriously look into rehab, maybe try taking up jogging, and hinted at her further plans to sue Mr. Wittgrove's tie and briefcase along with Dr. Friedman's stethoscope, sphygmomanometer, and gastrocnemius.  HSP 




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