 |
A project to make businesses more aware of their customer experience, and how to fix it. By Mark Hurst. |
| About Mark Hurst | Mark's Gel Conference | New York Times Story on This Is Broken | Newsletter: Subscribe | RSS Feed |
Search this site:
Categories:
- Advertising
- Current Affairs
- Customer Service
- Fixed
- Food and Drink
- Just for Fun
- Misc
- Not broken
- Place
- Product Design
- Signs
- Travel
- Web/Tech
Previous: Fire station in Start, La. | Main | Next: AA.com title list
March 7, 2005 11:12 AM
Broken: Crack-smoking professor
The NYTimes reported last weekend on the Robert Blake trial, and included this bizarre tidbit:
Earlier in the trial, a professor from the University of California, Los Angeles, testified as an expert witness about the psychotropic effects of cocaine. He said that he had smoked crack cocaine himself and sat in a cage with monkeys to teach them how to smoke cocaine as well.
Did I read that right - UCLA is actually hiring professors who smoke crack and hang out with monkeys? Does anyone else consider this bizarre?
Here's the article (reg. required, link dies after a few days).
I misread the acronym and thought it said ACLU, which seemed entirely within reason in recent years.
Well give the guy a break. In order to teach monkeys to smoke crack first he had to teach himself to smoke crack. Its elementary. 'Course, once he taught himself I wonder if he could unlearn what he had learned.
How can anyone be surprised since we have moms who sit and teach their kids how to smoke crack. He is just demonstrating how close to monkeys we actually are.
I wonder if any of them died. You would think that with the smoke burning their throats they would not want to smoke it.
Duh! Why do think those chimps gnawed off that dudes foot and testicles? Its a message that the ape revolution has begun.
I don't know about you, but I am growing out my back hair again.
Without context it's impossible to know whether this is broken or not. It might be legitimate research to determine the biological effects of crack on primates.
Homer from Deep Space Homer: "The only danger is if they send us to that terrible Planet of the Apes... Wait a minute, Statue of Liberty -- that was our planet!! You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you! Damn you all to hell!"
I'm surprised that this surprises people. Most drug research is done on non-human subjects, not on human beings. I can assure you, for every human that has done any drug ever studied by science, the amount of non-humans who have taken the drug far outnumber the humans.
Google: UCLA crack cocaine "Ronald Siegel"
for more on this guy, but really.. it's nothing new that people do research like this.
Hellooo! There couldn't possibly be any purpose for teaching monkeys to smoke cocaine except to torture them. The last time I checked, smoking cocaine was illegal. UCLA should stop monkeying around and fire that professor immediately!
I was going to say "Monkey monkey MONKEY!!!" but now all I can say is those monkeys are going to turn into something that is crazy and out of control.
Once again we have the belligerent morons who somehow think this is normal practice. I don't think it's so much that the testing was done on animals that's broken. Animals are tested upon, it's the safe way of making sure the products are not harmful to humans, I concede that point.
The broken part is that the professor was smoking crack himself. Since when is substance abuse tolerated by a university?! It's one thing to say you're testing it on animals, but there's no excuse for personal use. And to actually use this guy in a trial is damning to whichever side called him. Drug addicts don't make for credible witnesses.
Ummm... has anybody considered the possibility that the professor in question had government permission, funding, even *supply* for his experiments, both on himself and on the monkeys? It does happen, believe it or not... have you never done one of those drug studies they advertise on campus for 300 bucks in chump change? I can't be the only one out here who's been paid to take dex.
I am a UCLA student and all I can say is at least this guy didn't try to teach students while on crack. I have suspected some of my professors of this on more than one occassion.
There's actually a long history of psycho-tropic drugs and the like being tested on the researcher him- or herself. The problem is that the drug's effects on a human subject need to be discovered, but no ethics committee is going to approve an experiment that involves getting people to smoke crack. However, the researcher does not need ethics committee approval to experiment on him- or herself. Thus, the researcher ends up taking the risk.
As for the monkeys, well animal research is a common practice and it is considerably easier to get approval to study the effects of crack on other primates than it is to experiment on humans. Thus, the monkeys needed to be taught to smoke crack. Otherwise it would have been impossible to study the effects thereof.
The general assumption seems to be that the researcher was smoking crack recreationally, I think that is highly doubtful.
Why would the monkeys revolt now that we're giving them free drugs? Isn't that what keeps the blacks in line?
"Why would the monkeys revolt now that we're giving them free drugs? Isn't that what keeps the blacks in line?"
If this was a video game, I would say "... .... ...."
Anyway, the summary of this type of research is on this page:
http://www.npi.ucla.edu/center/qeeg/research.html
Yes, that's the place where this guy used to work. No, he doesn't seem to work there anymore, Yes, you probably would get fired if you were caught ingesting controlled substances meant for non-human test subjects.
If this is indeed Ron Siegel, then taking drugs to experience the state of mind that his subjects experience is nothing new for him. Look for the book "WHISPERS: The Voices of Paranoia" in Amazon or your local public library.
Everyone's talking like he had a glass pipe in his hand and chalky-white lips like Dave Chappell. This from CNN.com:
For instance, he delved into his extensive background studying drug-induced behavior, including training monkeys in the basement of UCLA to smoke crack cocaine some 13 years before the term "crack" became part of the lexicon.
Siegel said that, at the time, he felt it was important that his methods were safe and practical, so he got in the animal's cages, "played monkey," and chewed the cocaine-based gum the researchers devised for their experiments.
Strange as it may sound, I had a high school friend who got his Master's in psychopharmacology. As a grad assistant his job was working in the lab trying to find a cure for cocaine addiction. So he gave rats a lot of coke in his day. Maybe in Cali they just want to make sure no one forces the drugs on the chimps?
Hello. I am the so-called "crack professor" that you keep on talking about. I assure you that my studies have been completely within reason. The studies I have performed regarding myself and the primates were very necessary expirements that could possibly benifit all of humanity in many more ways than in just a simple trial. Now, if you excuse me, I have more expirements which require me to have fun with marijuana, crack, cannibis, assorted steroids, LSD, and caffeine (the best of all drugs)
Thats nothing..... I recently smoked enbalming fluid up on a radio antenna along with at least 8 turkey vultures. That UCLA thing was at least a year ago.
I am now working on more expirements that deal with the increase in awsomeness by giving midgets weed and knives. I believe the already inherently awsome midgets will become significantly awsomer. Any volunteers?
I am now working on more expirements that deal with the increase in awsomeness by giving midgets weed and knives. I believe the already inherently awsome midgets will become significantly awsomer.
I am scarred for life. Thanks to you, professor, I will now have nightmares about going on this otherwise awsome website. Please, everyone who wants to get horny or have gay sex can go elsewhere. Also, I think his name is jbo.
WTF WE KiNDa Went oFf topic COmpleatly with the Crack smoking and the primates....What does jbo being horny have 2 do with anything?? take it somewhere else u 2...and in the last post by the "professor"...was that really the prof? or some goof mocking him? if some1 can please answer my questions, would be greatly appreciated...Can the primates talk after smoking crack? do the wanna take over the world for real?? and thats why we havent hada proper post in a week or more???
I smoke crack. It's not really that bad.
It's like going to vegas, you need to decide ahead of time how much you're willing to "spend". Cause you're always gonna want more. Seen it 10,000 times.
Comments on this entry are closed
Previous: Fire station in Start, La. | Main | Next: AA.com title list
Hey! This is California! Need I say more?
Posted by: Gary Edstrom at March 7, 2005 11:40 AM