Puffed out
Jeremy Clarke
‘e’re getting closer to a new vaccine. W Can you help finish it off?’ Below this, a red, white and blue archery target with the word ‘Flu’ superimposed across the bull’s-eye. Guy’s Drug Research Unit, said the advertisement, is looking for healthy 18to 50-year-olds to help in a clinical study. Ladies must be surgically sterile or postmenopausal. The study will involve a single admission of ten days, plus eight subsequent outpatient visits. Ten days secluded from the outside world in a clinical research unit being injected with experimental vaccines is just the kind of opportunity I’ve been looking for. If accepted, I’d use the clinical trial as a contemplative retreat.
A couple of years ago I stayed at a retreat for Buddhists. The food was rubbish, the conversation non-existent, the kneeling medi tation position torture. My stated aim at the beginning was to consider what my spiritual priorities were and then perhaps to reorder them. After nearly a week on my knees, staring at the same hairline crack in the wall in front of me, I realised I didn’t have any worth mentioning. But asceticism militates against spirituality in my case. Monastic cells or hermit’s caves aren’t for the likes of me. I think most clearly about life’s priorities when I’m ill in bed watching daytime telly. A ten-day clinical trial could be a perfect retreat for the indolent cheapskate. I reached for the mobile and tapped out the number.
I was through to Guy’s Drug Research Unit, Todd speaking, said a friendly Australian voice. I want to help finish off flu, I said. With typical casual Australian efficiency Todd led me through a questionnaire designed to save everybody’s time by screening out the patently unsuitable at the first contact. He asked me all the usual stuff: how old I was, how heavy, how tall, and did I suffer from epilepsy, diabetes, asthma, allergies or take prescription drugs, to all of which I gave a confident negative. Piece of cake. I’m a healthy specimen — in spite of it all. They ought to jump at the chance of experimenting on such pristine material as me, I thought, already mentally packing my sponge bag.
Then Todd said, ‘The terms of the trial require that you use only a barrier method of contraception for the duration of the trial. Would you have any objections to that, Mr Clarke?’ I said that as all the ladies in the experiment were either surgically sterile or postmenopausal, wouldn’t barrier contraceptives be completely unnecessary? I never use them anyway, I said, hoping this might increase my approval rating with an Australian male, unless it’s a strict condition. And so, between him, me and the gatepost, did he think we’d all be at it, then? I asked. Spin the Bottle? Blowing the Feather? Nude Twister? My contemplative agenda was receding so fast it was already a dot.
I’d let my mask slip. If I wasn’t careful Todd might get the wrong idea and mark me down on his form as fundamentally unserious. I’d better be careful.
Todd said that his question about my willingness or otherwise to use barrier contraception referred to the five-month post-trial period, during which there would be eight outpatient visits when my health would be carefully monitored, and referred to sexual intercourse at home with my wife or partner. From now on, I said, Featherlite is my middle name. The next raft of questions was about my occupation, and about my availability, and my answers went some way to re-establishing my credentials as an homme sérieux. Todd inquired interestedly about which publications I contributed to. He hadn’t heard of The Spectator, but made sympathetic, understanding sort of noises when I used words like ‘political’ and ‘libertarian’ to describe the content and outlook of the magazine. It was in the bag after this, I felt. I was intelligent and available as well as in perfect health. What more could they want? As a visitor, Todd must be continually amazed at the high calibre of people in this country willing to be experimented on.
‘Oh, and one last thing, Jeremy,’ said Todd, wrapping things up. ‘You haven’t taken any illegal drugs in the last month, have you?’ I cast my mind back. Had I? I couldn’t remember taking any. Wait a minute! I had. I’d had a puff on a joint, at a party, just to be polite. That’s all. The only puff I’d had for months, if not years. I don’t even like pot. Makes me paranoid. Surely it wouldn’t matter. If anything, he’d respect me for admitting it when I could have said nothing. So I told him, laughingly, genuinely embarrassed that a single puff was all I could muster.
‘Sorry, mate,’ said Todd. ‘That rules you out. Cannabis stays in the blood for two months. It would affect the trial. Thanks anyway.’ And down went the phone. I was stunned.
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