did you know the d.e.a. maintains a helpful little photo gallery of drugs and drug related ephemera? oh yes indeedy. presumably it’s meant as a public service to help, oh i don’t know- concerned parents and middle-school principles let’s say, identify illicit substances. it is hard nowadays with so very many illicit substances and so very many approved substances all mixing about out there. who can tell the difference anymore between a wholesome desperately needed psychological remedy and a filthy, evil, potentially society destroying leisure drug? (more below)

i mean how, at a glance, do you tell an unprescribed mdma tablet from a prescribed ritalin tablet while rifling through someone’s drawers? a tough business that. anyhow, they helpfully offer up a whole slew of images from ecstasy, heroin, oxycontin, steroids, and methamphetamine, to tai sticks and lsd (4 tabs of which is are pictured in the thumbnail above). i especially like the pill shots. they also offer a separate drug description section with facts, news releases, and many stats on seizures and the like.

one particularly thoughtful aspect of all this is that in many of the photographs they include a penny to help you understand the context of what you’re looking at, like so-

in that a pile of powder or dried leaves is scaleable and can in fact technically be of any size putting a penny next to it would seem a random choice… unless of course the the context they are trying to help the viewer understand is not one of scale at all but rather one of motivation, as if to remind the viewer, “this is what it’s all about biznatch! awww yeeeah!”

one last note: anyone else notice the lsd blotter is covered in cavorting elephants? seems odd. never thought of elephants in terms of hallucinogens. i was always under the impression that republican’s preferred coke.

ah, that’s better! as for that “straight from the glue factory owner’s mouth” title… hell, i don’t know. what would you call it if you’re so clever?