Percocet Pigeons: The Alarming Rise of Animal Drug Addiction.

They came for your children with rainbow fentanyl. Dazzle the dog is strung out on marijuana cigarettes. And now, drugs are impacting America's wildlife.

Midtown, Manhattan. Editors are seated around the New York Times newsroom.

Dean Baquet: Who should we get to cover a story about sexual assault?

Editor two: Glenn Thrush is the guy for that!

Baquet: Excellent. Make sure he doesn’t interview any women affected by sexual assault for the story. Moving on. Last week, we reported on Dazzle the dog, who’s had to go to the vet 10 times because people keep leaving their weed on the sidewalk, instead of smoking it.

We’ve come across similar reports of dogs being addicted to meth from eating meth-laced feces they find on the street. A secret source—OK, it was the meth poop lady—claims San Franciscans are leaving the city en masse for Texas, where inpatient treatment for dog addiction is more affordable and the streets of the once pristine jewel on the Bay aren’t covered in meth poop from homeless zombies.

I’ve just received a classified memo alerting me to an increasingly serious problem. Bears, raccoons, maybe even elephants are getting drunk and high. Who’s our best drug reporter?

Editor four: Maureen Dowd?

Editor 5: Of course. But she’s writing a column on how John Kennedy Jr.’s singular style shaped the ‘90s.

Baquet: Ok, that takes priority. But let’s get someone from the health desk on this story, stat.

***

Central Park Zoo

Cub reporter knocks on the door. A zookeeper emerges.

Reporter: Hello. I’m from the New York Times. We’ve received credible reports that animals are getting drunk and high from discarded marijuana, beer, cocaine, benzodiazopenes, and other drugs users are discarding. Have you come across any bears or seals shooting up?

Zookeeper: I … don’t … understand … the question?

Later on, out on the street.

Drug user looks around and takes a bag full of drugs from his trench coat. He throws it on the ground and quickly walks away.

Drug user: I’ve been trying to get rid of all these drugs instead of doing them myself. If a pigeon gets into my stash, so be it! AHAHAHAHAA!”

A pair of pigeons start fighting over the stash just as the reporter emerges jotting down notes.

Baquet:: First, Dazzle the Dog, weed addict, and now Percocet Pigeon….

END

Seriously though, the New York Times did write a story about animals doing drugs. It’s slightly tongue in cheek, but still hilariously alarmist and overly credulous.