canndo
Well-Known Member
I wanted to post a note thanking all of the good folk who inhabit this esoteric little site for reading all my stories, the ones that no one in "real life" is likely to find interesting, if I even dare to tell them at all. So many in my age group are unwilling to look upon their past, at least publicly, with delight, rather they will invariably say "well, that experimentation was bad, it was my errant youth to blame", or those who actually deny that they ever got involved with drugs at all.
Having been what I like to believe, enlightened by my drug use, I can look back and see the patterns, the fads, the vogue use of this substance or that and marvel, from this perspective at man and his propensity to want to alter his conciousness.
I've seen the rise of pharma-speed (benzadrine, dexadrine - in inhalers no less), I saw the fall of the barbituates. I saw and was involved in the rise of LSD use, for better or worse, I was involved in the later part of the marijuana revolution, smoking ditch weed from mexico and extoling the virtues of panama red, ohacan gold, Columbian gold, tai sticks, moroccan hash, nepolese hand rubbed balls, opium, and the second coming of cocaine. Poppers, good cocaine, and still mediocre pot in the early 80's. I saw the advent of mushrooms and mushroom culture. Mushrooms, back then were a dream, everyone wanted them but the methods for growing them had not yet been invented. Those were the days of peyote and even the very occasional mescaline. Then came the cocaine days where everything else but pot was set aside. I saw the advent of "sensemilla", and we didn't know what it was, nor did we know then that it would be a game changer for drug use.
Then there were quaaludes and all that surrounded that particular craze, valium, the pharm drug of choice back then. MDMA got big, got small, then got very big again. Fads and recurrence as we see LSD making a comeback. there were the old PCP days and "sherms" - sherman cigarettes dipped in pcp and later in Ketamine. I saw K make a flash splash then dissapear only to reemerge decades later. We were some of the first to experience isolated DMT. Back then it was sprinkled over parsely flakes and was passed around like wippets - nitrous made it's second comeback, the first being long before my time. I lived through the era when all drugs were labeled dope, or worse, narcotics. I lived through the time when pot was the ultimate horror, until it became the rallying element that separated our generation from all the others (save the beats). I saw LSD take on the same mantle - Life magazine did a cover story that, far from frightening non-users, made them fantasticly curious and spurred the craze along. LSD was, in many ways the precursor of modern culture, technology, music and art and those influences are with us to this day.
I got to see all that and wish now that I had known what I was looking at.
Back then I was aware of one of the peculiar natures of drugs, technology and culture. I feared that there were good properties in all of the wonderful drugs we were taking back then. I feared that eventually, science would issolate those properties in order to make medicine that might be good for treatments but become devoid of all of the "side effects" which were to us, the point of using them at all. I see some of that has happened but back then I never dreamed there would be such a profusion of new substances. I suppose like all the people of a certain period, we fell victim to the hubris of an age, that everything that could be discovered WAS discovered and that there were no new drugs because they all had been isolated or invented.
glad to see I was wrong.
Anyway, enough, I just figured I'd put this in print as I rattle on, under the influence of some gifts from friends that has me talking and typing and pontificating. What is it about opioids that has the user either curled up in a corner, or standing on a soap box?
And, btw - to those who see 61 as old, blink a few times and if you are lucky enough to not be dead, you will be 61 long before you think you deserve to be. Aging is not a linear process. It accelerates and that acceleration accelerates almost to the point of blinding speed. Plan for the future but don't worry too much, what ever you planned for is not going to be how it goes, and what you think will happen, will either happen faster than you thought, or far differently.
oh, and one more thing? to the young folk? I've taken lots and lots of drugs and don't look too bad for it. But if you want any advice from me I will give my most important, most valuable tip on life.
Don't forget to floss , i wish I had taken that advice.
Having been what I like to believe, enlightened by my drug use, I can look back and see the patterns, the fads, the vogue use of this substance or that and marvel, from this perspective at man and his propensity to want to alter his conciousness.
I've seen the rise of pharma-speed (benzadrine, dexadrine - in inhalers no less), I saw the fall of the barbituates. I saw and was involved in the rise of LSD use, for better or worse, I was involved in the later part of the marijuana revolution, smoking ditch weed from mexico and extoling the virtues of panama red, ohacan gold, Columbian gold, tai sticks, moroccan hash, nepolese hand rubbed balls, opium, and the second coming of cocaine. Poppers, good cocaine, and still mediocre pot in the early 80's. I saw the advent of mushrooms and mushroom culture. Mushrooms, back then were a dream, everyone wanted them but the methods for growing them had not yet been invented. Those were the days of peyote and even the very occasional mescaline. Then came the cocaine days where everything else but pot was set aside. I saw the advent of "sensemilla", and we didn't know what it was, nor did we know then that it would be a game changer for drug use.
Then there were quaaludes and all that surrounded that particular craze, valium, the pharm drug of choice back then. MDMA got big, got small, then got very big again. Fads and recurrence as we see LSD making a comeback. there were the old PCP days and "sherms" - sherman cigarettes dipped in pcp and later in Ketamine. I saw K make a flash splash then dissapear only to reemerge decades later. We were some of the first to experience isolated DMT. Back then it was sprinkled over parsely flakes and was passed around like wippets - nitrous made it's second comeback, the first being long before my time. I lived through the era when all drugs were labeled dope, or worse, narcotics. I lived through the time when pot was the ultimate horror, until it became the rallying element that separated our generation from all the others (save the beats). I saw LSD take on the same mantle - Life magazine did a cover story that, far from frightening non-users, made them fantasticly curious and spurred the craze along. LSD was, in many ways the precursor of modern culture, technology, music and art and those influences are with us to this day.
I got to see all that and wish now that I had known what I was looking at.
Back then I was aware of one of the peculiar natures of drugs, technology and culture. I feared that there were good properties in all of the wonderful drugs we were taking back then. I feared that eventually, science would issolate those properties in order to make medicine that might be good for treatments but become devoid of all of the "side effects" which were to us, the point of using them at all. I see some of that has happened but back then I never dreamed there would be such a profusion of new substances. I suppose like all the people of a certain period, we fell victim to the hubris of an age, that everything that could be discovered WAS discovered and that there were no new drugs because they all had been isolated or invented.
glad to see I was wrong.
Anyway, enough, I just figured I'd put this in print as I rattle on, under the influence of some gifts from friends that has me talking and typing and pontificating. What is it about opioids that has the user either curled up in a corner, or standing on a soap box?
And, btw - to those who see 61 as old, blink a few times and if you are lucky enough to not be dead, you will be 61 long before you think you deserve to be. Aging is not a linear process. It accelerates and that acceleration accelerates almost to the point of blinding speed. Plan for the future but don't worry too much, what ever you planned for is not going to be how it goes, and what you think will happen, will either happen faster than you thought, or far differently.
oh, and one more thing? to the young folk? I've taken lots and lots of drugs and don't look too bad for it. But if you want any advice from me I will give my most important, most valuable tip on life.
Don't forget to floss , i wish I had taken that advice.
