This post was originally published on November 13, 2014.
Let’s talk about drunks and drug users that get arrested while wearing funny t-shirts, because it’s happened again—of course. This time, a Kentucky woman was arrested for crystal meth possession while wearing a T-shirt that reads “I Love Crystal Meth.” Ironic and unfortunate. Regretful. Kind of funny, sure. Also, it happens all the time.
There was the “DARE Role Model” who pled guilty to drug possession and, just last month, another guy wearing a DARE t-shirt that was busted for drugs. Earlier this year, a man in a t-shirt that read “Dope” got busted after driving his car into a tree. A quick search of his car uncovered 2.4 grams of powder cocaine, 21.1 grams of crack cocaine and three grams of heroin, as well as undetermined amounts of ecstasy and $1,715 in cash. Also, “a strong smell of marijuana emanated from the car.”
Then there’s this guy that was arrested while wearing a t-shirt that proudly proclaims “I have a drinking problem.” He was charged with a DUI after driving his pick up truck into a house.
“I’m not an alcoholic, I’m a drunk. Alcoholics go to meetings” reads the t-shirt of a man arrested for crashing into a police car while driving under the influence. Then there was an Oregon man wearing a shirt that read “Got Beer?”—also arrested for a DUI. And you might remember the love letter I wrote not too long ago to the “Drunk As Shit” guy—a 21-year-old motorist arrested for an assortment of crimes, including reckless endangerment, strangling his girlfriend and of course drunk driving.
But seriously, alcoholism is no laughing matter. Driving drunk kills. Crystal meth is about as bad as it gets. It not only can induce psychosis, rhabdomyolysis and cerebral hemorrhaging but it also adversely changes the brain’s structure and functioning. And the place where the mug shot was taken of the woman who modeled the “I Love Crystal Meth” t-shirt is, apparently, one that’s being decimated by meth. “Addiction is destroying so many families in Laurel Co, where I grew up,” some wrote on the Laurel County Sheriff’s Facebook page. In 2013, Mother Jones featured the town in a photo essay called “Chasing Meth in Laurel County,” an honest and unflinching look at how addiction and the War on Drugs is impacting one of the poorest areas in the country.
While I’m no fan of the criminalization of drugs, it’s just not true that— in the words of this fashion-victim felon— “it’s all fun and games until the cops show up.” Addiction a complicated issue, and addicts, alcoholics and heavy users are complicated people. Of course this is an increasingly hard case to make when they continue to make a joke of themselves.
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