Citation Needed - The Edgewood Experiments

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

From 1948 to 1975, the U.S. Army Chemical Corps conducted classified human subject research at the Edgewood Arsenal facility in Maryland. The purpose was to evaluate the impact of low-dose chemical warfare agents on military personnel and to test protective clothing, pharmaceuticals, and vaccines. A small portion of these studies were directed at psychochemical warfare and grouped under the prosaic title of the "Medical Research Volunteer Program" (1956–1975). The MRVP was also driven by intelligence requirements and the need for new and more effective interrogation techniques.

Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts. Because this is the internet, that's how it works now. I'm Eli Bosnick and I'll be your platoon leader tonight, but I'll need some drugged out privates. Give it up for Cecil, Noah, Heath and Tom. Drugged out privates? Sorry, sir, I took a hit of flaccid.

Fl-flass. All right, so mouth stuff? Drugged out privates. Sorry, sir. I took a hit of flaccid. Flaccid. All right. So mouth stuff. That's kind of my wheelhouse anyway. I only keep my drugs privates, so I don't have to share. Right. Yes. And I'm as publicly drugged out as one can be. So that's true physically.

Yeah. Before we begin tonight, I'd like to take a moment to thank our patrons. Patrons, as you'll learn tonight, far too often, the price of freedom is higher than we'd like. But sometimes, it's as little as a dollar, so you get a commercial-free version of every show. And also, access to our bonus episodes, where we read fan fiction and black belt magazine articles, all just for you.

And if you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, be sure to stick around till the end. You forgot about the black belt magazine article, All just for you. And if you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, be sure to stick around till the end. That's so stupid. You forgot about the Blackmail magazine article, that's right. And if you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, be sure to stick around till the end of the show. And with that out of the way,

tell us Noah what person, place, theme, concept, phenomenon, or event we'll be talking about today. Today we're gonna be talking about the Edgewood experiments. And Tom, you justified something your wife walked in on with a citation needed essay on you. Ready to put a lock on your office door or what? Hey, hey, hey, no shame, Eli.

If she doesn't want to see, she can wear the cowbell I bought for just those situations. Exactly. So tell us, Tom. I'm going to be fine. I'm going to be fine. So tell us, Tom, what were the Edgewood experiments? All right, so back in high school.

Straight to the point again. Jeez. And completely on a lark. And just really to get out of math class, I took the ASVAB, that is the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. And because it was a test, I did well on it, which meant that for the next several months, I was absolutely mobbed with every imaginable

military recruiting promise. And while I never really intended to join the military, after a while, their promises began to sound rather appealing and college sounded very, very expensive. And I will say if my dad hadn't resoundingly forbid it, I may have joined up. And I thought about that narrowly dodged bullet as I researched today's topic. Because when you join the military, you don't just gain access to the GI Bill, but you relinquish many of your rights and legal remedies.

Which is why sometimes the Army consults with former Nazis to develop incapacitating psychoactive chemical weapons and test them on American soldiers at a little place called the U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center. Okay, I know you're describing that as a bad thing. I get that. This citation needed. This goes badly, I'm sure of it. But if the Army used the right phrasing with me when I was 18, I would have been like, new European designer drugs for free. Here's my soul, whatever. I don't care. Yeah. Based on my experience, the army was screwing themselves out of a profit.

No, it's a fear drug that may give it to me. So following the Second World War, a bunch of Nazi scientists were granted visas to come to America and work with our scientists so that a peanut butter and chocolate collaboration of evil master-minding could take place. And as a result, US military researchers gained access to three nerve gas agents developed by the Nazis. That's Taboon, Salmon, and Sarah. They sound like Lord of the Rings characters to me.

They absolutely do. And they conducted experiments using these gases at the Edgewood facility. And at first, the scientists were focused only on the lethality of these gases. But after observing that the gases also had psychological effects and in conjunction with the CIA, the fine folks at Edgewood began to shift the focus of their experiments from creating more efficient clouds of poison gas meant to kill you to working on creating more efficient clouds

of poison gas meant to drive you mad. Yeah, for the record, oxygen has really done the trick on me. I see this shift away from lethality as the primary objective was advanced by the technical director of the facility. That's one Luther Wilson Green. And Green believed that, quote, throughout recorded history, wars have been characterized by death, human misery, and the destruction of property, each major conflict being more catastrophic

than the one preceding it. I am convinced that it is possible, by means of the techniques of psychochemical warfare, to conquer an enemy without the wholesale killing of his people or the mass destruction of his property." And so began the search for psychoactive chemicals the military could use to debilitate the enemy by destroying his mind while leaving the body relatively unscathed. Because that's better. Better? Yeah.

So they were like, yeah, okay, firebombing Dresden, that was great. But here's the thing, we were thinking, I don't know, more like, well, like Benny Hill at the end was in our heads. Can you do that? And Nazi chemists were like, yeah, I guess that's not good. See, who knew that high rents and not raising the minimum wage for 15 years was the real way to crush the soul of the nation? See?

Right, yeah, or a hot or not website that lets you poke people. raising the minimum wage for 15 years was the real way to crush the soul of a nation. See? Right. Yeah. Or a hot or not website that lets you poke people. What we're saying is that the Nazis way over. It just took Twitter. The US Department of Defense agreed that perhaps it was publicly stating that many quote forms of chemical and allied warfare is more humane than existing weapons. For example, certain types of psychochemicals would make it possible to paralyze temporarily entire population centers without damage

to homes and other structures." And quote, while testimony in front of Congress in 1959 from General Creasy, former chief chemical officer, indicated that provided sufficient emphasis is put behind it. I think the future lies in psychochemicals. A view which was not without detractors. Harvard psychiatrist E. James Lieberman noted that quote, there are moral imponderables such as whether insanity, temporary or permanent, is a more humane military threat than the usual afflictions of war. Get the fuck out, nerd.

Borell and blah blah blah blah. That's you. And get a first name, E. Fuck you, nerd. Well, look, I mean, the metric here is more humane than nukes. I feel like you sign off on a lot of fucked up shit when that's your message, right? Okay, I know this is bad, but you're not a shadow. Right? Right. Why are you crying? when that's your message, right? Okay, I know this is bad, but you're not a shadow, right?

Right? Right? Why are you crying? All right, so here I do want to jump in and say that there is literally no reason to believe that the military gives any shits at all about finding out how to conduct war in a less than lethal way out of some like

humanitarian concern for life and suffering. That is just patently nonsense. And this story will actually prove that point, but also just… just no. The point of these debilitating chemical agents is to allow the military to capture territory without damaging high value infrastructure with conventional munitions and to capture intelligence targets without having killed them. Anyone trying to sell the idea

of a kinder, gentler military misunderstands the point of the military. Yeah, which is to make our nation's hottest women fighter pilots, exactly. Tom gets it. I mean, those would be onesy. You're being too damn cynical here. The military has all kinds of humane reasons not to kill enemy combatants. Like, as it stands, we have to test our psychoactive chemical weapons on our guys, for example.

They could be humanitarian. Okay, you got me. Moral imponderables be damned because in the late 1940s and early 50s at the interrogation center at Camp King in Germany, the US Army worked with Harvard anesthesiologist Henry Beecher to see what happens when you give Nazis mescaline and LSD and then interrogate them. You get the Joe Rogan show. That's it. It's a fold up shop, gentlemen. We did it. The pack up. We're it? That's depressing. It's really sad. All right.

If giving Nazis, Mescaline and LSD sounds pointless, just remember that these were relatively new and novel. Not to Spotify at the time. And $250 million. No, right. And America was convinced that the Soviets, well, they were way ahead of us on the development of truth serums and psychoactive chemicals as weapons of espionage and war. They weren't, but we thought they were. And that red scare arms race shit was enough to accelerate the interest in developing our own weapons of chemical psychoactive warfare. Fun fact, The reason that we thought that they had truth

there and stuff was because our spies kept giving up our secrets and turning over his double agents. But they just did that because it's bad here. We literally believed in magic potions rather than admit that maybe people wanted to fight for the share stuff side of the Cold War. That's why we thought that. Maybe people wanted to fight for the share stuff side of the Cold War. Yes. Why we thought that.

And of course those weapons, they would need to be tested, which the folks at Edgewood were only too happy to facilitate. So from 1948 to 1975, human experimentation took place on U.S. soldiers to try and discover the perfect incapacitating chemical cocktail. Over 7,000 soldiers and 1,000 civilian subjects had 254 known chemicals used in the US Army search for something to debilitate a human population at their whim. Substances such as LSD, THC, benzodiazepines, and BZ

were experimented with as part of this program. Wait, hot. One of those is THC? Yep. They just fucking got... You can watch videos, by the way, of the Edgewood, but a lot of this is like video that has now been declassified.

You can watch these people get a lot of this stuff and like... Just fucking rip a bong or something? They kind of, I actually... Sees see, seriously, have like a giant gas chamber. What they like make people like hot box. So they basically like sold me on this Edgewood thing. So, man. Put a fucking put a Nintendo 64 in there and Heath never leaves.

Dude, yeah. Never leaves. Imagine walking home with your buddy who got the fear drug and you're like, oh, what did I get? They got me a little high. They got me the munchies. I don't know. Do you have the munchies? You're tearing your skin off. So you keep hearing your dad tell you he hates you, huh? That sucks. I'm not an asshole And to the I don't know credit maybe credit they did find their holy grail of chemical evil

I hope that they announced the most evil one like a pageant show winner. That would be amazing Was it like I feel like 254 chemicals. That's overkill obviously They're including pot and shit in there just cuz they were trying to round out to a big number. Some in there, like somebody just got table salt, right? Right? Right. So the chemical they found is called BZ. And this shit is beyond your wildest nightmares terrible,

which is to say that it very specifically works by ensuring that you will live out your nightmares unrelentingly as you lose your mind in an unending bad trip for several days Jesus And so here we're gonna go down a little bit of a rabbit hole on what BZ is and what it does So the US Army originally called this stuff EA 2277 It's NATO that calls it BZ and the Soviets also used this horror show and they named it substance 78. Credit to the Soviets for always having the creepiest name for shit.

Oh, and I don't know, I didn't put it in the essay, but it is thought that substance 78 may have been the chemical that the Soviets used when the Chechens took over that theater. Yeah, oh Jesus Christ. Yeah, it's suspected that that BZ is what they used to incapacitate. Yeah, it's also what they wrapped on Raccoon City and fucking Resident Evil. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha of both physiological and psychological effects known as anti-colonergic toxidrome. The most incapacitating among these

is a state of delirium accompanied by cognitive dysfunction, difficulty speaking and concentrating, vivid hallucinations, temporary blindness, extreme anxiety and fear and tachycardia. The medical community, Pneumonic, to remember the symptoms of this toxodrome sums up its horrors as, quote, mad as a hatter, red as a beat,

dry as a bone and blind as a bat, end quote. For real, you can also use the Pneumonic, oh my God, what is happening to me? Sorry, when was that Pneumonic device gonna be helpful though? Why have like just a general walks in, what up evil nerds? Pop quiz time. Give me the order of operations in math, the planets in order, and the terrifying effects of our latest war crime all three go. When is that happening? Why would you need to know that?

Oh, so I'm picturing a doctor with a guy who's like, you know, throwing his own feces. He's blind and he's bright red. And he's like, hold on a second. Check and see if he's dry. I might be onto something. Also, Tom, if this essay ends with you telling us that BZ is the new way you wake yourself up in the morning, you have to tell us now. Okay, you have to.

All right. I should mention a few other things as well. BeZ takes a few hours to take its maximum effect, but once it has reached its peak effect, those effects last for 36 hours or more. Not less. Sorry, no, it's bad. It's bad. I keep thinking drug, but I get it. Go ahead.

Sorry. Yeah, it's terrible. I get it. So once you're exposed to this shit, You are locked into what is basically a very intense bad trip and an unrelenting panic attack For the next day and a half or longer With accompanying blindness and general, you know stagger around I guess she is this great in my day that was called acid, but I know I get it I get it and it is a In my day that was called acid, but I get it. I get it.

And it is a frighteningly useful and easy chemical to weaponize. It is stable in most solvents. It persists extremely well in the soil and on surfaces. It has a half-life of three to four weeks in moist air, and it easily disperses without being broken down, even when used in heat producing munitions. So what this is is madness and fear and panic and blindness in a bomb. And then it is weirdly durable. BZ was manufactured and made part of several weapons systems including US cluster munitions and it wasn't actually discontinued or destroyed until 1989 and even then only as part of a

larger effort to reduce our stockpiles of chemical weapons in general. Everyone's taken a vial home on the last day, having everyone say it. Puss-a-R-R-E-E. B-Z's? Me-Z's, stupid. Have a great summer? What?

K-I-T? Never change. To understand all of these effects, dozens of US soldiers were exposed to BZ. And this story here is bonkers as well because technically the soldiers did volunteer to take part in an experiment. But because the chemicals being tested were part of classified programs, they were not informed of which chemicals they would be dosed with. And so many didn't find out for years after they left the service.

And then, of course, the whole program was classified, secret, so the soldiers involved were also unable to discuss with anyone even their own doctors what they had been exposed to even after they had found out. I'm not saying it's illegal. I'm just saying, are you read as a beat as a weird question to play the fifth about Say yes or no And BZ exposure does seem to have long-term consequences

But the army just was not interested in finding out what those consequences might be Despite telling the soldiers there would be regular follow-up There just wasn't. They just didn't do it. After they were experimented on, everyone just kind of washed their hands of these guys, and no efforts at all were made to look for downstream consequences of these chemical agent exposures. The Army just gave everyone a two-day waking night terror, decided, hey, we found the favorite chemical agent of choice, and then they went about weaponizing it with no attempt at chronicling the long or even medium-term effects.

And so soldiers exposed to BZ report flashback hallucinations and severe mental health problems, but then they couldn't gain access to VA benefits and disability because they were prevented by law from disclosing their involvement in the secret program. Okay, well while I remind Tom about the real dangers towards our troops like kneeling during our very special flag song, for some apropos of nothing. Private Smith. Yes, sir. I'm Dr. Bernard.

I'll be administering your test today. Okay, got it, doc. Nice to meet you. Well, great. Okay, so now I know you signed all the forms already, but you understand that everything we do today is totally confidential. Under no circumstances are you to share what I tell you today with anybody, not even your family. Yes, sir. Understood, sir. May I ask what are you going to do?

Well, Private, we are going to blow into your penis. I'm sorry, sir. You're going to what? We're going to blow into your penis. I mean, we've known about sucking on a penis for years. Damn good time. But blowing into a penis, nobody's ever tried it. That can't possibly be true. It's true. It's true. We asked, and while many have asked,

not one person has actually tried it. Well, okay, but what is going to happen though? No idea. Maybe your bladder will explode. Maybe it'll feel twice as good. We're about to find out. No idea. Maybe your bladder will explode. Maybe it'll feel twice as good. We're about to find out. Uh, shit, Doc, is there something else that maybe I could try? Are you doing any other experiments? Got anything else going on today? Afraid not, no. All right. Uh, well, I suppose if it's for the good of the nation, it is, it is.

Hello, Private Smith. I'm Dr. Jenkins. You're... Damn it, Bernard! Are you blowing into people's dicks again? You'll never take me alive! Forgive him. We gave him ecstasy last week and he's been trying to blow into someone's dick ever since. Oh. Okay, am... am I gonna get ecstasy? No, you're getting a fear potion that never stops hurting. But you're not gonna blow into my dick? No, I am not.

All right, let's gone quick do the ad let's do the ad right now. Oh, oh, yeah. Yeah guys. What why are we doing the ad? Well, he lives in the bathroom. Yeah, it's saying your pets. He's gotten out of control guys I told you that episode hasn't even aired yet. Nobody even knows who that is. Yup. You think we don't know that Cecil? If anything, that's only cemented senior pets more in his heart and mind. So who's the sponsor this week? It's Factor. What's Factor? Thank you, Noah. Factor's delicious, ready to eat meals, make eating better every day easy. Wherever tomorrow takes you, be ready with pre-prepared, chef-crafted and dietitian-approved meals delivered right to your door.

You'll have over 35 different options a week to choose from, including keto, calorie smart, vegan and veggie, and more. And there's even more to enjoy with over 55 nutrition-packed add-ons to help make your weekly meal planning even more delicious. I don't know Heath, I'd love to cook cook but not everyone has the time, you know? That's the things Heath, factors restaurant quality meals are ready to heat and eat whenever you are in just two minutes. Did, did what do you guys bring in this map of Armenia?

Map of, no. Oh, oh no. Heath, hurry, where can they sign up? Head to factormeals.com slash citation 50 and use the code citation 50 to get 50% off. That's code citation 50 at factormeals.com slash citation 50. Yeah, 50% off. The bathroom door is opening. I'll call Michelle Bachman's office.

Good thinking. Yeah. And we're back. We left off. Tom had left us with the shocking revelation that sometimes our government does not air for the troops after their service? Okay, are you ready to drop another bombshell on us Tom? All right, so obviously if the army is interested in these chemicals, remember too that the CIA loves itself some psychedelics.

One of the few things me and the CIA have in common. They're even dark glasses, I guess. Why? So they collaborated with their friends at Edgewood in secret to secretly dose civilians with acid. A long time listeners will recall our MK Ultra episode and the Edgewood experiments were taking place pretty much at the same time,

including Operation Midnight Climax. Yeah, so you got to start in the air tonight at 11.56 and 40 seconds, and also you got to get the horn just right. And there you go. Perfect Midnight Climax. Saved you a bunch of money. CIA, idiots. So Midnight Climax was a study of what would happen if you gave non-consenting, unsuspecting

random dudes just a whole bunch of LSD. And so naturally, the CIA hired a bunch of prostitutes. Oh, I see the CIA uses the company card the same way I do. These prostitutes, now on the CIA payroll, were tasked with luring Johns to CIA-established and surveilled safe houses. And once in the safe houses, the Johns were surreptitiously dosed with whatever shit the CIA or Edgewood wanted to experiment with. This was often LSD, but sometimes PCP and possibly other compounds were used as well. And the CIA guys watched the action unfold behind

one-way glass, and then the prostitutes were instructed, no shit, by the CIA, on post-coital questioning techniques to see if the combination of prostitutional afterglow and acid would make for a decent truth serum. Yeah. And they realized you could just skip the truth serum and it's the afterglow pretty much mostly because truth serum doesn't exist, but also like the afterglow thing pretty much works by itself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We heard you the first 30 times. Time is a flat circle. We get it. Anything else you want to tell us? Come on. A bunch of one star reviews on aeros.com asked too much about fighter pilot specificities.

Not enough kissing. Of course, LSD and sex workers aren't a true story. So the next one is to see if they can feed the victim's subliminal messages and induce them to commit crimes such as robbery, assault, or assassinations. So failing in the truth serum business, the CA was like, maybe we can turn this fucking liar into a gun. Yeah, wait, they thought to themselves, well, you know, nothing helps in assassination quite like sweating uncontrollably and suddenly laughing at the carpet.

But the whole operation was awash in drugs and sex workers. And so pretty much what happened next was the spies just started fucking the sex workers and doing a bunch of the drugs, including two pounds of an African boner drug called Yo-Him-Bang by the chief aide to the top guy running the program. Big fight over either calling that spy agra or C-I-A-L. C-I-A-L! C-I-A-L! So good!

Keith, there are children down in the episode wrap up questions dying for lack of ponds and you're wasting them up here in the essay. That's all I'm going to say. That's all I'm going to say. The stated objectives. It's me. I'm the children.

I'm the children. We got that. For Operation Midnight Climax, aren't too much different than what you might expect. But I'm going to outline them for you anyway and I want you to tell me if anything jumps out at you. The CAA and Edgewood were looking for something that would incapacitate the enemy or brainwash them, or control them through mind control

or sexual behavior control, and they wanted something to induce amnesia, or find something they could use to take out everyone in an entire building by lacing the food and creating confusion, fear, anxiety, headaches, and ear aches. I'd like to circle the one that doesn't belong. I think it's the last one. We also made a hangnail serum on top of that. Okay, say what you will. Ear aches are by far the most incapacitating thing on that list.

Confusion, fear, nothing. Nothing compared to a good earache. They do really hurt. It's fucking scary. They really do hurt. They were also curious about the effects of LSD in combination with isolation. So naturally they conducted human experiments by just dosing the shit out of guys and then isolating them for months at a time dosing the shit out of guys and then isolating them for months at a time with limited food and water to see if the LSD accelerated their mental decline so they could be better interrogated. Tune in, turn on, drop dead? Is that the name of the... The results seemed to be inconclusive, which if I were kept starved and thirsty and alone and tripping balls for months and I emerged and then the head scientist looked at me as I blinked in the harsh light of confused

freedom and I so much as heard a whisper that sounded like the word inconclusive I would tear their throats out with my teeth. Yeah, I feel like they could find out that isolating you for months on acid made you lay golden eggs and I still wouldn't have been psyched about the process. teeth. Yeah, I feel like they could find out that isolating you for months on acid made you lay golden eggs and I still wouldn't have been psyched about the process. Yeah, right. It wasn't until 1975 that these human experiments at Edgewood were halted more than 25 years after they had begun. During this time, hundreds of chemicals of all types were tested on thousands of soldiers,

and none of those soldiers received follow-up care or had access to disability for their service. The director and founder of the program, Van Murray Sim, was taken to task by Congress for basically coercing young soldiers into volunteering for these programs and then refusing them that follow-up care and services. He was like, oh, really? Well, why don't we see if their buddies who we sent to nom have anything to say about that?

Oh, what's that? No phone to have it? And we sent them to the jungle to die for a lie. Oh. It was the wind down that made that. I should note here that the army conducted a very thorough investigation of its own behavior, and they concluded that they didn't do anything wrong, and that none of these chemicals could

really hurt you and to just generally stop your belly aching. Veterans exposed these chemicals thought this was some bullshit, and after researching, they discovered that link between the CIA and the Edgewood facility, and this was important, because while soldiers can't sue the government if they get hurt or lied to while in service, they sure as shit could sue the CIA. I feel like the CIA is the government. They're not. It's not enough in this case. Oh, okay.

And in the 1990s, a class action suit was filed naming the CIA as the defendant. And they sued again in 2009. And the claimants wanted only to have their experience acknowledged so they could receive medical care as a result of the suffering they endured as human lab rats were enlisted. In 2013, 38 years after the experiments were stopped, the courts sided with the veterans, finding that the army had to pretend to give a shit even if they really didn't. And the army was then supposed to make efforts to track down the thousands of people experimented on so they could receive medical care But they pretty much haven't done shit So I guess if you or someone you love was experimented on with LSD BZ PCP nerve gas or

powerful psychopharmaconetic medications while enlisted you might be entitled for Tri-care, I guess. Yeah. This is not a good trend. It's a fucking tote bag as part of a settled business. Yeah. And if you had to summarize what you've learned in one sentence, Tom, what would it be?

There are easier ways to pay for college. Right. And are you ready for the quiz? It's stripping. Stripping is the easier way to pay for college. Yes, I'm ready. I was gonna say selling better drugs. That's what I'm doing.

Yeah. Okay, Tom, what's the best name for your sex worker weapon? A, an astro glided missile. B, C4, Nikator. C, two in the pink, one in the stink bomb. Or D, a clusterfuck bomb or D a cluster fuck. Oh cluster fuck That's so good. Sure sure sure nailed it. Sure

Hey weird energy guys weird Which of the following is the best title for a spy movie about their midnight climax honeypot operation a zero dark flirty the Come of all fears see Or an ultimatum or D is the one that caught Donald Trump pinkel Taylor

This is the one that caught Donald Trump. Tinkle, Taylor, Soldier's Park. It's got to be the one that didn't catch Donald Trump, which should have. Correct. Well done. All right. No way I'm going puns with have to come after fucking Cecil and Heath. So I'll go a different way with mines. As is so often the case when people talk about psychedelics, Tom, you only talked about the bad aspects of BZ. Which of the following is its best positive aspect? A. 36 hours on a single dose is a lot of bang for the buck. B. The effort to aerosolize and weaponize it was called Project Dork.

That's real. C. Dermal vasodilation is actually kind of relaxing if it doesn't lead to outright paralysis or D. Sometimes temporary blindness is the only way to shut out the ugliest of the world. All right. Well, this is hard because D has my heart, but A has my wallet, and I'm going to vote with my wallet. 36 hours in a single Dose instinct was cracked is D Unfortunately, no you are this week's winner. All right, so Eli you are next week's essay where you on BZ? Why don't you choose? All right? Why are there why would you say that? Blow the dust off here? All right. Well for Cecil Noah Tom and Heath. I Eli Bosnick. Thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week and by then, I, Eli Bosnick,

will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, Cecil and Tom might have shiny new podcasts like Talking Ship and Lawful Assembly, available wherever you get your podcasts. But Heath and Noah and I are chugging along on a few dusty old ponds you might consider visiting once in a while. Like, God of a movie is the skeptic writer.

Even a little ditty known as the scathing atheist. And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pod or leave us a five star review everywhere you can. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media, or check the show to be sure to check out CitationPod.com.

And then as you can see by having Dr. Barkin's pose as an escaped prisoner trying to blow into people's dicks, we got fear potion acceptance up by 120%. Oh man, that was great! We got fear potion acceptance up by 120% Dr. Jenkins question why'd you ask if you could blow into people's dicks why not like you know poison or something as the alternative Well, you know, what should you rather do? Yeah, no the poison is a good point. I get it Hey, what would happen if you blew into somebody nobody knows sure