Resist!

VIVE la résistance!

RESISTING. Resisting ~ it's the thing I'm absolutely worst at. Every decision, pledge and scheme; every about-turn I've made or promised to make: nothing has worked.
And it's all been down to "brown" ~ that Afghan brown crap (illustrated) that's swilling about the streets of Britain like pigs' diarrhoea.

Heroin... what is this stuff that's captured me, impaled my heart?

There are three types of street heroin in the world, from four places: Columbia, Mexico, Afghanistan and the Union of Myanmar (Burma).

Burmese heroin is pure white ~ so-called Grade 4. When years ago, I had some grams of it, this stuff snorted up my nose like purely driven snow. No smell and barely any taste. But a clear, warm, highly refined heroin feel.

Afghanistan supplies well over 90% of the world's heroin trade. Their gear is brown heroin "base"; the so-called Grade 3. Unlike the white stuff it's smokeable. It looks, feels, smells like the organic poppy-derived product that it is. Not designed for injection, it requires citric acid, vitamin C or lemon juice to break it down. The resulting hit contains codeine, morphine and all the poppy alkaloids on top of diamorphine ~ a syrupy, drowsy, intoxicating opiate cocktail. I used to look at the muddy powder with its oriental earthy smell and think, this is what I'm chained to; I'm tied to the very earth itself.

The last heroin ~ Grade 2 ~ originates in Mexico and is called "tar" or "mud". It looks just like hashish and is the main gear of California and the Western United States. I've only encountered this on British streets when our ordinary supply has been droughted. Not necessarily weaker, it is however sticky and tougher than ordinary "B" and demands more citric to break down for injection. The resulting concoction rapidly corrodes veins ~ and if you "miss" the vein; so I've heard, this stuff can fester into the most spectacular abscesses.

So that's heroin. Why take it? Why indeed (he asks regretfully!) One first-time user likened it to a "second-rate sleeping-pill". Most people, in fact, when they first abuse it, feel hot, dizzy, itchy & and more often than not so headily nauseated they rapidly end up with their face in the toilet.

Only when it's already addicting you does the full effect of heroin kick in. And then it seems magical, soothing, glowing; spreading impermeable warmth around body and soul.

Over months and years the inexorable law of diminishing returns kicks in. And though the drug service leaflets will claim that in the end, "the drug must be taken purely to remain 'normal'", this isn't quite 100% true. What always remains is a residue, a tantalizing glimpse or promise of the old magic that, every now and then the drug still delivers.

Each drug you experiment with opens a different door. Some ~ like magic mushrooms ~ can be enchanting and marvellous (perhaps frightening ~ perhaps laden with delight)...

The heroin door is the biggest, stoutest and most mysterious of all. Usually it is furthest back and swathed in shadow, difficult to get to ~ and perhaps all the more intriguing for that.

However much they talk, nobody will ever satisfactorily explain what lies beyond it. Or just why you do not want to open this portal to a life unknown.

Just trust me, and take my advice:~

You really do not want to know....

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