Ah, Snowmass, where the air is thinner and the conspiracy theories are thicker. A few semi-hypoxic individuals up there have issued a warning to the rest of us.

Their warning is that the stuff in our drinking water that we call “fluoride” is actually poison.

It’s true that dentists and other medical experts say that fluoride is the reason modern humans can live well past their natural expiration date without the pain and inconvenience of losing their teeth. Have you ever wondered why Joe Biden’s teeth look like Christie Brinkley’s, but George Washington’s look like his horse’s? It’s fluoride.

But don’t be fooled, say the fluoridophobes. It’s a conspiracy. The CIA plotted the 911 attacks, the moon landings were faked in Hollywood and — drum roll — fluoride is poison.

Of course, most people don’t care one way or another about such things as the latest fashion in poison. We’ve been inoculated by poisons that come and go like hem lines. Remember eggs and butter? Rock ’n’ roll?

But the few who do care are passionate about it. And so they get lots of attention in the newspapers. They’re like the passionate woman in Houston who recently climbed on top of an 18-wheeler and took her clothes off. It made no sense, but it’s a good read.

It’s as if these Snowmassians were abducted by aliens who did things to them and told them things. Their alien abductors told them, and now they know — and believe! — that fluoride is poison. And that there’s a conspiracy amongst medical doctors and scientists to kill the rest of us with it.

Thank you, Snowmassians, for that information from beyond the grassy knoll. It’s good to know. But conspiracies abound. Why limit the discussion to just one?

Here’s a related one: Bear in mind that fluoride is never put into the plumbing by itself. It is always introduced with a diluent such as dihydrogen monoxide. That stuff is a powerful solvent. It’s been known to rot wood, dissolve stone, rust iron and leach through roofs. Accidentally ingested, it can cause bloating, belching and frequent urination.

When combined with an ion — like fluoride — dihydrogen monoxide literally conducts electricity. In fact, do you know what happens when a person in a tub of dihydrogen monoxide uses a hair drier to dry those stubborn wet spots that are under the water? They get electrocuted. Electrocuted to death!

In solid form, dihydrogen monoxide is notoriously slippery. That’s fine if slippery is what you want, but it usually isn’t. People slip on slippery things. Slip to death!

It’s a proven scientific fact that a mere teaspoon of the stuff in a person’s lungs can kill them. Kill them to death!

In its gaseous phase at elevated temperatures, dihydrogen monoxide is known to induce extreme perspiration. Patients may suffer social ostracizing and attendant anxiety and depression, as well as wardrobe destruction and a clinical condition called “acute malodorousness.” Think of the excruciating pain and embarrassment of malodoring to death!

You might ask, who’s behind this?

Round up the usual suspects. It’s Big Pharma and Big Ag, who want to kill us because they’re greedy. It’s the global warming deniers, who want to kill us because we’re not. It’s the people who were taking “organic chemistry” while we were taking “The Sociology of Miley Cyrus” who want to kill us because they can. It’s Republicans.

It’s basically everyone we dislike.

So here we are. Poisonous dihydrogen monoxide is in our rivers and lakes. It’s in our food supply and especially in our water supply. It’s in the vast ocean which we have a moral obligation to preserve for future generations along with the vast national debt.

Dihydrogen monoxide poison is particularly concentrated in cute animals like polar bears, especially the baby ones. (Have you wondered why you haven’t seen a baby polar bear in a while?) But it has also flooded the habitat of not-so-cute animals like fish who deserve some lovin’ too.

Our pipes are born free of dihydrogen monoxide, clean as a whistle, all shiny and coppery, containing nothing but good clean air. Later, dihydrogen monoxide is artificially introduced. It quickly overwhelms and displaces all the air till the pipes literally overflow with the stuff.

Let’s return our pipes to their natural, organic, pristine, airy state, the way they were born. No GMOs, no artificial ingredients, no dihydrogen monoxide.

Oh, the so-called experts tell us that dihydrogen monoxide is essential to good health and tastes good too. But isn’t that exactly what they would say if they wanted to kill you to death with it?

(Published Mar. 18, 2016 in the Glenwood Post Independent at http://www.postindependent.com/opinion/21192450-113/column-poisoning-us-with-fluoride-and-dihydrogen-monoxide?show=comments)