Your Tax Dollars at Work: Quail and Cocaine

I’m working on the final installment of my religious freedom series, but I just couldn’t pass this one up. Special thanks to the RVA Patriots (@RVAPatriots on Twitter) from my hometown of Richmond, Virginia for posting this story.

The National Institute of Health, in a surpassingly frivolous and mind bendingly irresponsible foray into the realm of the meaningless, gave a $181,000 grant to a scientist at the University of Kentucky studying the effect of cocaine on the sex drive of Japanese quail. This, according to CNSNews.com.

Now, I could understand this grant if the species of quail were American. But really? Exporting our tax dollars to determine how much more frisky a Japanese quail becomes after hitting the white stuff? Honestly.

The NIH justifies the study because drugs play a role in a sizable proportion of sexual encounters where HIV/AIDS is transmitted among humans. But given the difference in cultural customs between the Japanese and Americans, I have to question the prudence of testing on foreign animals. After all, courtship and marriage customs are noticeably different between the U.S. and Japan, so I cannot help but expect the results to be skewed.

Finally, after some basic math, I have determined that each taxpaying American (60 percent of the general population) will pay an average of one tenth of a cent for this study. That number is tiny, and it is inconsequential in the big scheme. What is important here is the absurdity of the expenditure.

Now, rather than continue ranting, I am pleased to open the floor for some good, old-fashioned, First Amendment-sanctioned free expression. What are some other expenditures that rival or top this one in ridiculousness? Can you possibly justify to me why I should care about the, um, “energy level” of Japanese quail after a little bit of cocaine? Something tells me that there are more cost-effective and worthwhile ways to study the transmission of HIV/AIDS.

That “something” is called common sense. Apparently our National Institute of Health misplaced theirs, along with their fiscal responsibility.