Earl Monroe recounts the time that he accidentally smoked angel dust at Bubba Smith’s house

This is altogether more lighthearted news than the story Eric Freeman brought you earlier this month about Earl Monroe’s dalliances with the ABA’s Indiana Pacers. While promoting his new book "Earl the Pearl: My Story," Monroe told Sports on Earth’s Will Leitch about a harrowing encounter with a very, very illegal and dangerous drug: PCP, commonly known as “angel dust.” Earl the Pearl apparently ingested the stuff at a party at former Baltimore Colt (and future Police Academy repertory player) Bubba Smith’s house. Unaware of what he was smoking, Monroe did not enjoy his experience.

If you don’t have time to listen to the podcast, The Washington Post’s Sarah Kogod thankfully transcribed the discussion for all to see, and we very much appreciate her putting these words on HTML record. Not that Monroe could see anything, after getting wet. Here’s Pearl’s tale of woe:

But Bubba was a great guy, and he was one of the only athletes that I knew that lived in downtown Baltimore. And so, he had a great apartment and he threw a lot of parties. And this one particular evening, I was at his party and there was this guy who came up to me and asked me…he said, ‘Hey Earl. Do you wanna do this?’ I said, ‘What is that?’ He said, ‘Aw, man. Just take a toke. Don’t take to much.’ And I said ‘Alright.’

So I took a toke, and the next thing I know I was in so-called la-la land. Everything seemed to be going along in slow motion. It seemed like all those psychedelic films that I had seen prior to that, it seemed like I was in it.

“And for all the time that I was there, it seemed to be a couple of hours just from that one little toke, I was very, very out of it. And for me, I’m kind of a control freak. And for me, I couldn’t control myself. There was women who looked like women that were naked, and crawling on the floors, and all those type of things. And somehow I got out of there and got back to my house and got in bed and woke up the next morning. And one of the things I promised myself was that I’d never put myself in that position again. And I haven’t. It was a lesson well-learned, and fortunately, I survived it.”

It is well worth pointing out that not only is PCP illegal, but it can be extremely dangerous in either one-time or repeated uses. Stories abound of otherwise innocuous (and rather boring) marijuana users that were goaded into violent fits of panic after unknowingly smoking pot that was laced with the stuff, and these aren’t apocryphal tales. This is not a good recreational drug, boys and girls, even if it did magically disrobe the people at the party that Earl Monroe was attending.

Don’t toke. Do your homework. Properly vet the names of all friends of your pal “Bubba.” Just the facts, ma’am.

That goes for you too, Bob Cousy. Watch what you light up.