Experts estimate that if state and federal prisons released half of all their non-violent offenders, it would save the government nearly $17 billion per year.

From Our Partners: The Funniest Sports Mug Shots

Kerry King + Nicolas Cage = Awesome.

Pretty much anything + Nicolas Cage = Awesome.

HEROIN

Opioids like morphine and codeine are among the oldest therapeutic and recreational drugs known to man, predating recorded history by hundreds of years. But during the late 18th century Western scientists were beginning to realize that the addictive qualities of these medicines often outweighed their usefulness as painkillers.

Supervisors at Aktiengesellschaft Farbenfabriken (later the gigantic Bayer pharmaceutical corporation) hoped to find a less dangerous opiate by acetylating morphine in 1897, resulting in a compound that researchers labeled "heroin" for its apparent "heroic" effects on test patients.

Unfortunately for Bayer and for generations of popular musicians, heroin turned out to be the exact opposite of what they wanted. It metabolized much faster than morphine, was twice as potent as morphine, and was in almost every way easier to market as a recreational drug than its chemical antecedent.

Heroin resulted in some of the United States' earliest narcotics laws, predating even the Prohibition. It remains as a modern health crisis as well as the foundation of some of the best Velvet Underground songs.

CUPPING

Cupping was one of the very first examples of Chinese alternative medicine that made the transition to Western medical practice, first appearing in the writings of Hippocrates in 400 BCE.

Basic cupping involves creating a vacuum or low-pressure area within a glass cup (usually with a small fire) and then clapping the cup onto the patient's flesh, creating a disfiguring bruise scientifically referred to as a "hickey" but without the fun of making out with somebody.

Cupping practices vary between "dry" cupping (just the hickey effect) and "wet" cupping (where the vacuum cup is applied to a minor incision, drawing out more blood than usual) but neither technique has ever been shown to produce effects better than a placebo.

Because science and reason have never been that popular as a way to determine public policy, cupping continues to be popular in the Third World.

LOBOTOMY/LEUCOTOMY

If you were starting to think that all these weird and barbaric medical practices were restricted to ancient societies outside of Europe, please consider the early history of psychosurgery, where subtle mental disorders were "treated" by an icepick to the frontal lobes of the brain.

Beginning in 1935, lobotomies (occasionally referred to as leucotomies) were a significant part of national-level health initiatives that also employed eugenics and sterilization as part of a horrifically misguided and frequently racist attempt to improve the genetic stock of the human gene pool.

Even though the supposed benefits of lobotomy were never proven, the popular support of this hideous surgical technique was so powerful that Portuguese surgeon Antonio Egas Moniz, founder of the lobotomy technique, was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1949.

MALARIA AS A MIRACLE CURE

During the early 20th century, medical scientists were still trying to put together different pieces of human physiology, and in many cases they thought that they had figured out the human body when they had actually just determined vague relationships between different parts of the body.

One of the most popular examples of this half-baked scientific tradition was the idea of "pyrotherapy," where a high fever was regarded as a universally positive example of the human body successfully repelling disease.

There's some merit to this idea and it is related to the beginnings of immunology, but scientists and doctors like Nobelian Nazi Julius Wagner-Jauregg insisted that infernal fevers were the foundation of any good treatment of disease, willfully ignorant of the many scientific immunological advances that had been made during World War II.

Even today "malaria treatments" are regarded as miracle cures by medical celebrities as renowned as Dr. Henry Heimlich, who claims without any supporting evidence that "malariotherapy" strengthens the immune system to such an extent that it can resist the AIDS virus.

ELECTROTHERAPEUTICS

On their face, electrotherapeutics and similar electricity-based mental treatments are fairly logical answers to mental disorders. After all, neurological problems are ultimately the result of bad mental wiring, right?

As it turns out, neurological disorders can't be solved by just swapping a couple of neurons around, and the brute-force approach to neurological rewiring tended to damage more brains than it cured.

After years of dedicated and misguided research, it was determined that ECT and similarly traumatic electroshock treatments were at least as damaging as lobotomies and resulted in even worse impaired patients.

THE TAPEWORM DIET

Often cited as an urban legend, stories of desperate women deliberately ingesting tapeworm eggs in order to keep off those pesky may have some basis in fact. several mail-order companies in the early twentieth century advertised tapeworm heads or eggs as weight and appetite suppressants, but patent medicine at the time was completely unregulated and full of frauds, raising the disturbing possibility that instead of parasite eggs and body parts you would be ingesting something that wouldn't slowly eat your intestines at all.

Supposedly jockeys were particularly fond of the tapeworm treatment, but no medical record has been found to support this theory and given the many dangerous side effects of a tapeworm infestation it's more likely than not that anybody using the worms would be visiting a hospital early and often. Nevertheless, a 2009 episode of "The Tyra Banks Show" featured several guests who admitted they were still willing to eat worms in the pursuit of physical beauty.

COLLOIDAL SILVER

Silver has mild antibiotic properties and is generally non-toxic, so it was occasionally used in the early 20th century in dressing and preparing wounds. But as more effective antibiotics and dressings came into being, medical silver became less and less common.

Then in the early nineties there was a sudden inexplicable resurgence in colloidal silver's popularity in the alternative medicine community, and what had once been a minor antibiotic and hygienic aid was now being touted as anything from a vital dietary supplement to a cancer cure.

Like many alternative medicines, colloidal silver had no immediate adverse effect (or positive effect) on its users, but after enough time swilling the metal something unexpected happened: people began to change color, ranging from pale grey to a surprisingly dark blue.

Silver isn't easily passed and tends to accumulate in the body over time, resulting in a condition called argyria that was previously only seen in silver miners. Amazingly, many argyria sufferers continued to use and advocate colloidal silver treatments, arguing that while their appearance may seem unusually Smurfy they are otherwise perfectly healthy.

MAGNETS

As a great poet once remarked, "F-kin' magnets, how do they work?" The science surrounding magnetism is sufficiently abstract and confusing that people can make nearly any claim about a magnet's capability and if they make it sound scientific enough people will believe them.

Naturally, the alternative medicine movement was drawn to magnets like iron filings to some sort of attractive force, with many quacks using the fact that hemoglobin is weakly paramagnetic to argue that covering yourself in expensive magnets in various configurations would improve blood flow and vascular health.

While electromagnets of a particular size and strength can have a minor effect on hemoglobin, the energies and field strengths involved are way beyond what you can buy out of SkyMall-which is fortunate, since if blood was magnetic in the way magnet therapists claim, you would explode every time you went in for an MRI scan.

Jennifer Lawrence

Is there anything she can't do?!

Blake Lively

Not that long ago (2005), Lively was leading cheers for her high school football team, the Burbank Bulldogs.

Halle Berry

Of course she can do the splits; she was Catwoman.

Megan Fox

The future April O'Neil was waving pom poms long before she was getting into fights with Michael Bay.

Related: 23 Fun Facts About the 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' Movie

Brooklyn Decker

Decker was also a cheerleader as recently as 2005, for Butler High School in North Carolina.

Cameron Diaz

Just a few years after hanging up her cheerleader outfit, Diaz would appear in the movie "The Mask" and become one of Hollywood's hottest stars.

Kirsten Dunst

Dunst used her cheerleader experience for her role in the 2000 film "Bring It On."

Meryl Streep

She was always the most-nominated cheerleader to yell into the stadium horn.

Olivia Munn

Munn looks a lot different as a young cheerleader, but that probably won't stop director Brett Ratner from claiming that he slept with her back then.

Sandra Bullock

In late June, former cheerleader Bullock can be seen with Melissa McCarthy in one of the most highly anticipated 2013 summer movies, "The Heat."

Will Ferrell

All right, so he wasn't a cheerleader in real life, but we couldn't resist putting this one in here.

Can someone get me a Black Cocks jersey for Christmas?

Click here for more hilarious closed captions fails.

Worst: If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

"Sure, my mom doesn't know about my secret aspirations to be an edgy stand-up comedian, but that doesn't mean I can't figure out a way to follow her advice AND my dreams. Nothing yet, though. I don't know the term for what comes after "awkward" silence, but I've seen it in the eyes of the audience members of the entire club. Every Tuesday night. For the past three years."

Best: Never go to bed angry.

"I'm a sleepwalker. Have been since I was a kid. I'm also a sleep eater, sleep snorer, and sleep farter, but that's beside the point. Worst of all, though, I grind my teeth, and it's become somewhat of a nuisance. Every morning I wake up having ingested more and more goose feathers from my pillow. You probably think that the easy solution would be a mouth guard, or at least a more difficult pillowcase to chew through. Well, I don't know how you sleep at night, but I prefer luxury, thanks. So I decided to follow my mother's advice instead and simply stopped listening to Slayer right before bedtime. I've saved 70 dollars a month on restuffings alone, and I feel so much better in the morning. You're the best, mom!"

Worst: What Susie says of Sally says more of Susie than of Sally.

"My friend Susie once told me that my longtime crush, Sally, had a thing for me. Look, it got really confusing, and it ended up being a nightmare. You can pretty much fill in the missing pieces yourself and jump to the same logical conclusion I did: If you have two friends named Susie and Sally, only listen to what Sally has to say about Susie, and don't try to make out with Susie in front of Sally. Or at least I think that's right. Maybe I need mom to explain this to me again."

Best: Always wear clean underwear in case you get in an accident.

"So I know the joke here is that a mother would be embarrassed if her son was seen by doctors and nurses wearing dirty underwear, and the lesson is to always be prepared for unforeseen events, but this warning has a deeper meaning in my life. In fourth grade my friend Dave and I both had a crush on Janine Vickers. Dave was a little more popular than me, though, and it was he who became her boyfriend and got to kiss her under the monkeybars. There was just one problem for Dave: he NEVER wore clean underwear. "Clean undies are for dorks!" he would always say. Then, one day, Dave broke his leg attempting a backflip off those same monkeybars to impress Janine. The paramedics had to come and cut off his pants, and sure enough, his dirty drawers were exposed. All of our classmates laughed, pointed, and mercilessly made fun of him. Janine broke up with him on the spot and started dating me. Today we are happily married, and I owe it all to my mother's advice. Dave went on to a life of crime."

Worst: Your Mood Shouldn't Dictate Your Manners

"Wait, so you're telling me this wasn't a metaphor for establishing dominance to the waiting staff at every restaurant I've ever been to? I always took this bit of advice as no matter how I feel (generally happy), I should act the opposite to show everyone I mean business. It's no wonder I get such filthy looks at the DMV. I'm high-fiving everybody in the joint from the moment I walk in!"

Best: A happy wife is a happy life.

"This was great advice that my mother gave me on my wedding day. It's a bit of an ominous warning, but definitely one to obey. Besides, I love my wife, so I enjoy making her happy. Sure, I haven't been doing a very good job of it lately, but we'll be fine. However, I do intend to get to the bottom of this postcard (pictured) that she sent me when she gets back from vacation. At the very least, explain to her that it only works for guys and the 'here'/'her' similarity. This one's just hurtful."

Worst: Apologizing doesn't always mean you're wrong; it just means that you value your relationship more than your ego.

"This advice made perfect sense to me until my buddy Derek decided he could jump off his roof and fly so long as he held as many helium balloons as how old he was. Something about the math didn't add up to me, and we got into a fight about it. But knowing that it wouldn't make me wrong, I eventually apologized and Derek went ahead with his jump. Well, I was right in the end, and we were lucky he landed on that pile of rusty shed equipment or he could have really hurt himself."

Best: You made your bed, now lie in it.

"This seems like a horrible phrase coming from your loving mother's mouth when you are a child in a jam, but perhaps the best advice when you are an adult who just had a long day of writing fake testimonials at work. It's all a matter of perception, and this one takes the cake depending on your mood."

JOHNNY CASH: FOREST FIRE

Was Johnny Cash the ultimate example of outlaw country? It's a tough call. While he died a very un-outlaw death in a Nashville hospital due to complications of diabetes (by way of comparison, Hank Williams died in the back of a Cadillac due to complications of booze, morphine, chloral hydrate, and being Hank Williams), Cash was also responsible for the destruction of close to a million dollars of government property after his pickup truck caught fire, which by any estimation is pretty damn outlaw.

While driving through the Los Padres National Forest in 1965, an overheated wheel bearing set fire to Cash's truck and over 500 acres of land, allegedly killing 49 of the forest's 53 endangered California Condors that were preserved there in one of the nation's first bird sanctuaries.

Johnny Cash grudgingly paid off a government lawsuit, famously proclaiming that he didn't care about "those damned yellow buzzards." Still and all, that cover of "Hurt" was pretty awesome.

LIL KIM: PERJURY

There's an undeniable cachet to criminal convictions and jail time in the hip-hop world, but in most cases these are for drug cases, firearms violation, and the occasional murder. Talented rapper and queen bee Lil Kim did time for a much less romantic offense, however: lying (in a fairly obvious and dumb manner) to a grand jury about her role as a witness to a 2001 shooting.

A trifling rivalry between two no-name rap groups distantly connected to Kim's label led to a shootout outside of Hot 97's Manhattan studio after she had just finished an interview.

Her manager and bodyguard were both involved in the shooting but she unwisely claimed not to know that the two men were at the scene. Security camera footage showed Kim quite clearly accompanying her co-defendants and the judge put her away for ten months in a Philadelphia prison.

Lil Kim's post-prison career has focused more on charity performances for AIDS benefits and much less on lying to judges.

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN: SUSPECTED VAGRANCY

Good old Ludwig Van was a man wholly committed to his craft, infamous for neglecting his appearance, hygiene, and household while he was busy working on a new composition. This was okay when he was just wandering around his estate mumbling about woodwinds, but in 1820 Ludwig woke from one of his musical fugues deep in the tangled suburbs of Vienna with no idea where he was.

The scruffy composer began peering into shops and windows to try and gain his bearings, attracting the attention of the local constabulary. The Viennese cops summarily threw the dirty weirdo in the lockup, but his constant whining about being one of history's greatest composers eventually led them to consult with the city's musical director. He confirmed that yes, this filthy hobo was in fact a brilliant celebrity musician who should not have been thrown in the drunk tank.

NORWEGIAN BLACK METAL: CHURCH BURNINGS

While wuss-ass punk rockers were busy saying mean things about universally despised institutions like the Queen of England and the Pope, the hardcore crazies of Norway's homegrown black metal scene were literally destroying 900-year-old historical landmarks and subsequently recording albums about them.

Renowned guitarist and homicidal Nazi madman, Varg Vikernes was indicted for the burning of four historic Nordic churches and popularly believed to be responsible for the destruction of a fifth: the Fantoft Stave Church.

He used a photo of the ruined building on the cover of his Burzum album "Ashes" and he was easily crazy enough to have done it.

Unfortunately, Vikernes was far from the only crazy pyromaniac in the Scandinavian metal scene, and over fifty church burnings have been connected to metal bands or fans.

IGOR STRAVINSKY: IMPROPER USE OF CREATIVITY

Igor Stravinsky was and always will be the original punk musician. He was a brilliant and unconventional outsider, whose compositions were so revolutionary that they literally caused riots (ask any Parisian from 1913).

Even after Stravinsky formally abandoned his native Russia for the United States, his boundless creativity still got him in trouble. A 1944 performance in Boston that featured his unique interpretation of the Star-Spangled Banner was so adventurous that the Boston Police Department mobilized the next day "to make sure he didn't play it again."

While recent events have shown that the BPD is prone to ostentatious displays of force, the police action against Stravinsky remains the only time an American police force has been called into action in order to suppress a potentially dangerous symphonic performance.

JOHNNY PAYCHECK: ATTEMPTED MURDER

Famous shover of jobs, Johnny Paycheck had a saying about his status in the "outlaw country" movement: "To me, an outlaw is a man that did things his own way, whether you liked him or not. I did things my own way."

A generally more accepted definition of an outlaw is someone who shoots another man in the head: a crime Paycheck was found guilty of in 1985 after a bar-room struggle ended when the musician grazed a man's skull with a .22 bullet.

Paycheck insisted that he acted in self-defense and the appeals process dragged on for years, finally convicting the singer in 1989 to a seven-year stint in prison.

Johnny Paycheck served only 22 months before the governor stepped in to pardon his sentence, freeing the musician to commence a reign of terror that spanned... actually no. Paycheck cut his dependence on alcohol and drugs and lived out the rest of his life performing small tours and concerts.

STALAGGH: KIDNAPPING, EXPLOITATION OF THE INSANE

Mysterious Dutch noise-metal band Stalaggh may have one of the most metal names possible, but they top that with their controversial policy of using vocalists taken from local asylums-and not always with the asylum's full knowledge or consent.

Allegedly, one of the anonymous collective behind Stalaggh's music worked at a mental institution and was able to check out some of the louder patients for recording sessions that the group excused as a form of scream therapy.

Several of the "guest vocalists" were homicidally violent, and the band claims that an attempted murder was caught on audiotape for their second album.

GAAHL: NEARLY EVERYTHING

Former Gorgoroth front-troll Gaahl lives the black metal lifestyle to the fullest. Already a controversial figure for his statements supporting church burnings, Gaahl staged a 2004 black mass/concert that was investigated by Polish police for being both a prosecutable religious offense and being an example of cruelty to animals (several sheep paid the ultimate price for Gorgoroth's art).

Gaahl and associates Infernus, Tormentor, King ov Hell, and... uh... Hat all plead ignorance of local law and shifted the blame to their local manager, but a bizarre incident in 2002 wasn't as easy to shrug off.

A 40-year-old man attending a party with Gaahl and company claimed that he was just trying to leave when some angry words were exchanged and somebody sucker-punched him from behind. He woke bound to a chair and confronted by Gaahl, who tortured him over the course of several hours, at one point collecting the victim's blood in a cup for later consumption.

Bizarrely, the typical sentence for vampiric torture in Norway was apparently only ninety days in jail, but the jury found Gaahl's violence so extreme that the sentence was boosted to a full year.

Since you can't keep a good torturer down, Gaahl was later found guilty of another torture incident in 2006, which he absurdly claimed to have been an act of self-defense.