Holy Drugged Out Monkeys Taxman!!!

When one thinks of government waste, what comes to mind?  Recently there have been reports of the government spending money to study running shrimp on treadmills, Jell-O wrestling in Antarctica and even the sexual behavior of drunken Argentinean homosexuals.   However, the newest report of government waste is the study conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which is a division of the government’s National Institutes of Health.


The study’s goal is to “examine the effects of sex and menstrual cycle phase on the reinforcing strength of orally-delivered PCP and METH, and a nondrug control substance, saccharin, as well as smoked cocaine, heroin, and METH.”  To test this, the government has spent over the past decade $3,634,807 of the taxpayers money to give drugs to monkeys.  The NIDA taught the monkeys how to self-administer the drugs and then later tested intervention techniques on them.   Currently the program is scheduled through March 30, 2012.


At a time when the country is going through economic hardships and Congress is arguing over raising the debt ceiling we as citizens must ask is this the best use of our tax dollars.  Wouldn’t it make more sense to use this money to help pay off our national debt or to lower taxes in order to help create jobs or allow Americans to keep more of their income.