Now that's a great headline. Those crazy Dutch.

from ajc.com
Dutch Talk-Show Host to Take Heroin on Air
By TOBY STERLING
Associated Press Writer

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — A television presenter on a new Dutch talk show plans to take heroin and other illegal drugs on air in a program intended to reach young audiences on topics that touch their lives, producers said Wednesday.

The show, scheduled to premier on late-night television Oct. 10, is called "Spuiten & Slikken," or the "Shoot Up and Swallow" show.

Even in the liberal Netherlands, where marijuana is sold and used openly, the proposed action by presenter Filemon Wesselink is illegal, and the idea was met with dismay by the governing center-right Christian Democrat party.

"This is dangerous and it sets a bad example," party spokesman Pieter Heerma said. "We're going to ask the justice minister for his view on what the law says about this, and his view on the dangers and risks involved."

Justice Ministry spokesman Ivo Hommes said it was not immediately clear whether Wesselink could be prosecuted. Possession of any amount of heroin is illegal, but in practice police usually do not have resources to chase after people with less than a half a gram of the highly addictive narcotic.

"The actual taking of drugs is a health problem, not a criminal act, though it's obviously hard to take drugs without possessing them first," Hommes said. "In any case it's not something we endorse, and doing it on television is undesirable."

The Shoot Up & Swallow show's main hostess will interview guests about drug use and abuse, while Wesselink and another presenter will carry out in-the-field experiments with sex and drugs.

Wesselink, 26, plans to smoke a heroin pill, said Ingrid Timmer, a spokeswoman for the show's producer BNN.

"It's not our intention to create an outcry. We just want to talk about subjects that are part of young people's lives," Timmer said.

In other segments of the show, Wesselink plans to go on a drinking binge in a series of pubs. He also plans to take the hallucinogenic drug LSD — on his couch under the supervision of his mother.

The Netherlands is known for its marijuana policy, where sale and use of the drug in small quantities are not prosecuted even though technically illegal. Other drugs, including LSD, cocaine, Ecstasy and heroin are outlawed and dealers are prosecuted. The legal age for the consumption of alcohol and tobacco is 16.

According to information from the Netherlands' Trimbos Institute, which monitors international drug use, the Dutch are about average. The institute says 6 percent of Dutch have used marijuana recently, compared with 8 percent in the United States, 9 percent in Britain and 9 percent in France. For cocaine, it was 1.1 percent in Holland — and rising quickly — compared to 1.3 percent in the United States, 1.5. percent in Britain and 0.3 percent in France. Comparable data for heroin use were not available.

BNN has drawn viewer complaints for programs in the past, including a sex education program called "This Is How You Screw." One segment discussed how to have sex in a nightclub and featured life-size mannequins with sex organs.

___

September 21, 2005 - 10:10 a.m. Copyright 2005, The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP Online news report may not be published, broadcast or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

You mean Limbaugh never did that?

Steve

Looks like there's hope for reality tv yet.

I'd love to watch this actually. Unless the guy OD's what the hell is this supposed to say to kids. Take this shit and go into a euphoric state?

he's not shooting up, he's smoking a pill.

so no big deal.

What you said, Derris, made me think of an interview I saw with a heroin addict when I was a teen.

He was describing what shooting up felt like and he said -"It's like your most powerful orgasm X 20." I was like SHIT I gotta try that!!

Steve

I would think watching a TV presenter take acid on the air would be the most hilarious TV ever. it would have to be like an 8 hour show though.

i already saw this on the pamela anderson roast.

Have you ever seen Madge?

And now, a special edition of Hardball with Chris Matthews...

Not nearly as good as taking acid myself and watching "American Gladiators".

What I found more interesting is Pepe' doesn't like blow.

only if he takes calls on the air. my friends husband is Dutch, maybe his fam will tape this for me.

This happened on the BBC in the 1960's. For a current affairs programme one of the presenters took acid on air (deliberatly as an on air experiment) and it was broadcast as he described what was happening to him to the TV public. It was even funnier than it would be now since the reporter was an incredibly posh aristocratic square - as everyone was on the BBC in the 1960's.

I couldn't stop thinking about this so I did some research on it. The reporter was Christopher Mayhew (an Member of Parliament no less!) he took mescaline as part of a Panorama investigation during 1955.

Here's the end of the transcript.

CLOSE-UP OF MAYHEW, AS BEFORE

MAYHEW
Well, er, Humphry Osmond said... that was the difficulty all the time... it was bound to be... of trying to find this bridge of communications between the two worlds of time in which I've been this afternoon, in your presence... and I've failed to do so... not for want of trying... I know, in my lucid moments, that I've failed... but, er... it's because I don't think it can be done, that's all I can say. I don't think it can be done. One can only live in one time or in another...

LONG PAUSE

...and, er... I think, er... (PAUSE) yes, I'm sorry, once again I'm coming back to what I've been trying to say - that I have seen a whole series of things happening, but not in a series. Er, they have been of equal reality, Humphry. Some have been more real, some have been less real, but no... of inequal reality, but they have neither gone in front of each other nor behind each other... there's been no time sequence at all in them. And, for all I know, what I'm saying now, I may have said before... it's obviously... (PAUSE, SHRUGS) ...and er, I'm now becoming tired as well... in, er... I can see, in physical terms... so that, I'm afraid I must disappoint to you again...


MAYHEW SUDDENLY SITS BACK IN HIS ARMCHAIR AND STARES AT THE FAR WALL, WITH A GREAT BIG BENIGN GRIN ON HIS FACE.

DIRECTOR'S VOICE (OFF)
Cut!

FILMING CUTS

You can find out more about it here http://web.ukonline.co.uk/sotcaa/sotcaa ... hew01.html

I read all of that transcript. Is the footage online somewhere?

I like to think everything is on the internet somewhere but I'm afraid I don't have a link for you.

I actually have clips from on video somewhere but since I never label any of my videos I can never find anything.