So the LUTU Society is this super secret arm -- you might say arm pit -- of The Tobacco Cartel, which itself is this super secret joint venture between the tobacco industry and about a third of all US Congressmen not from North Carolina where, as the sign in the waiting room of Norman J. Watkins, President of the LUTU Society, they know how to name quote fucking cities end quote.

Project Zombie involved was a study on the addictive qualities of tobacco in comparison to some of the other stuff, known to be addictive -- stuff like heroin, cocaine and the benzodiazapines. To do it I was given what is known in the field as "a license to carry." This meant I could stroll through open air drug markets with a hypodermic needle sticking out of my pocket and a grocery sack full of the real kind of coke without being hassled by John Law. Needless to say this made me an extremely popular guy at parties and got me laid a lot, especially by super trashy sluts and even some decent women who were pimped out by their boyfriend/addict for a quarter gram of shitty black tar heroin (which we didn't use in the study -- no point in someone losing an arm to a staph infection -- I just bought it to attract the chicks.

Additionally, I was getting paid a ton in cash and stock options and Asian Retail Tobacco Futures to discount this whole "cigarettes are more addictive than heroin" rhetoric being spread by a bunch of Fanatics.

See, it wasn't what you'd call a real empirical study. I was supposed to debunk the so-called myths. Well, Norm Watkins and the rest of you chickenshitted crooks at LUTU, here are my true findings about cigarettes as they compare with heroin (the only drug we got top study -- in case you're interested, we did it by addicting one group of 13 year olds to cigarettes and another to heroin, with two control groups, one of which received a placebo, the other of which got both cigarettes and dope and were going to ultimately be given a choice as to which they'd quit, but we never got that far).

1. Heroin does no physiological damage to the test subject (omitting that whole overdose scenario which did prove to be a "problem" for LUTU); tobacco wrecks havoc with the human organism;

2. Now there's a difference between addicting as commonly used and the medical term. We used both, as the process seems to be progressive. Anyway, simply put, "addiction" does not necessarily involve dependence, which requires actual physical withdrawal symptoms upon cessation of the substance. We found tobacco to be far more likely not only to cause addiction (defined as compulsive use for the study's purposes), but that addiction was almost universally accompanied by dependence. Heroin, on the other hand, created only 10% addicts among the heroin exposed group, and of those 75% were dependent when the study came to an abrupt halt;

3. In terms of quality of intoxication, heroin has it all over tobacco. Although both tended to make those first exposed to it nauseous, the heroin crowd actually looked forward to what many called "a gentle pool of warm soul water," while the smokers just wanted to suck down enough vaporized gunk to stop an annoying array of withdrawal symptoms; and

4. While we only observed the withdrawal phase for 36 hours (the time it took us to pack after Hector the Dealer and the local Ralph's market both apprised us they had been told by some LUTU lackey that it was no longer going to pay our invoices), we noted that acute symptomology was far more extreme with the dopers than it was with the smokers, although, and this may indeed be the most important finding of all, Control Group A reported no trouble with early nicotine withdrawals and indeed, universally stated a distaste for tobacco as narcotic withdrawal commenced. Plus Control A actually smoked (or inhaled) about 75% less than did the smoking group during the study, although they did cause 759% more cigarette related fires.

So the verdict, International Tobacco Cartel? You are right. Those pussies should not compare the cigarette "addiction" with heroin addiction. Tobacco, on the whole, is a much more dangerous drug than is heroin if the mode of administration is left out of the equation. Even adding in mode of administration, the two only come close to being equal in danger when Mode 10 -- dissolving the heroin in unheated toilet water then drawing it into a blunt syringe found in the George Michaels Restroom in MacArthur Park without benefit of any sort of filter.

Mode of Administration had to be calculated mathematically, as we really didn't have time to do that since you pulled the plug after the fourth overdose.

Oh, one last dig, you asswipes at LUTU -- one of our techs decided to do a tiny, not very scientific study using crack -- yes, the tech, a regular Marlboro Man decided to embezzle some of the funds and spend it on those rocks of cocaine that Hispanic Youths offer to passing rush hour motorists as they make their crawling commute from Second Street to Wilshire Blvd, along a three block stretch of Alvarado between 6 and 8:45 a.m. and 4:30 to 7 p.m. Monday to Friday.

He stated that in his opinion, cigarettes had addictive qualities which resembled that of smoked base cocaine.

Conclusion

Finally, you may wonder what we did with our 13 year old test subjects. Well, four were left anonymously at the County Morgue with a note asking that autopsy results be mailed to Norm Watkins at LUTU. The rest were given their choice of a carton of smokes or the cash equivalent and were driven, in the dead of night, anywhere they wanted to go in Los Angeles County after being given a brochure entitled 101 Things for a Runaway Juvenile Delinquent To Do in LA . Over half the dopers (and 95% of Control A) opted to get donuts in the middle of the LAPD's famed Rampart District for some bizarre reason. Others in this group (oddly those who tested higher on the MMPI and/or standard IQ tests administered prior to starting the study wanted to see Hollywood and/or West Hollywood [Schwabbs anyone?] while the smokers tended either to want to go home or to the nearest 7/11 or similar store.

A follow up will be impossible, as I forgot to give them my card -- unless Norm wants to let us know, because I had a lot of his cards... all mailed to their parents ....

Some Boring Stats

At the time the study ended, the 350 (well, 346 remaining) heroin users were using a three kilograms of retail grade Mexican Brown Powder heroin with a lactose cut a week (or about a kilogram of the shit that comes across the border), while the 350 smokers were consuming 294 cartons of various cigarettes a week (these include the cigarettes smoked and the heroin used by Control Group A).

Employing the "Twice the smallest viable retail unit price = 'Street Value'" [2x SVRU] method favored for calculating costs by the DEA, Project Zombie was going through $446,000 worth of dope a week (actually, the patients were only using $392,000, with the other $15,000 pocketed by corrupt officials and used in some "side experiments" by the clinicians" while the smokers were costing LUTU $22344 a week. In reality these figures were $4.56 a day each (smokers) and $50/day (dopers) on average using the OMHINDEX -- SV for Southern California.