Zappa smoking the highly addictive drug tobacco.
 
In this video from 1981, Pennsylvania State Trooper Charles Ash discusses music and drugs with Frank Zappa at Manhattan’s Mayfair Regent Hotel.

The video was part of an anti-drug campaign developed for the Pennsylvania public school system. I’m not sure that Zappa’s comments about legalizing drugs is exactly what Ash was hoping for, but the Officer seems so pleased to be in Zappa’s presence he goes along for the ride.

Watching a cop in uniform telling Zappa “the LP you have out right now, ‘One Size Fits All,’ is a personal favorite of mine” is mildly jaw-dropping. Who are the brain police?

I’ve always found it ironic that Zappa was never into drugs and yet his 1966 debut album Freak Out! was a magnet for acidheads everywhere. How many teenyboppers burned that album’s cover into their retinal tissue while tripping on Purple Owsley?  It wasn’t until “We’re Only In It For The Money” that some hippies started to figure out that Zappa was satirizing the counter culture as well as “straights.” The joke was on everybody. “What will you do when the label comes off?”