2:45am Relapse

I KNOW THIS MIGHT HURT SOME OF YOU, my old friends. But I HAVE TO BE FRANK, BECAUSE RELAPSING IS WHAT I'M DOING. Going backwards.

My normal dealer would not serve me tonight, said he had something to do, not back till MONDAY AFTERNOON... Junkie Horror!

So I rang a distant 2nd choice who normally comes good in a drought. First called around 00:40 hrs. Couldn't understand what on earth he was trying to say. Went in a phonebox to call back on my mobile. Still no sense. I assumed I was messing me about (no mutual respect. He thinks I'm soft or stupid or// whatever he thinks. I think he thinks junkies are idiots who will pay anything, wait any time for rubbish. I've known him since he was 16. His original "boss man" is doing life for a shooting. What lovely people.

First he says come to one tube station. Then he says go to flats far nearer another. Giving benefit of the doubt I thought, well maybe he's cabbing for what Anna Grace calls a "booty call" (I would call it casual sex of a friend fck). I stood about under some freezing, shadowy trees well after 1:30am, for a good half hour, on the verge of hypothermia.

2 calls later and my phone credit is down to 22p. Not at all good.

Then I check my calls and realize my MAIN MAN II rang me at 1:45am. I sent an urgent text.

Told Mr Disrespect I'm not waiting any more. Main man said he has the same B as Mr Disrespect, he did me 2 for £15 + one white, which was pink. Pink crack is nearly always good. It was only little because he wanted £25 and I specified, "big darks please and a little white, you'll do THAT for £20, won't you?" (Big crack tiny B I cannot stand. I'm a B-punter, as they call it.) I got da stuff around 2:30.

So I've lapsed back onto crack. Even my lighter wouldn't play ball until I got wrapping paper from a 1 ml syringe, set fire to that and my pink crack piped beautifully.

I love drugs. I know a lot of you, who are my true friends, with cats and gardens and lives and hopes for me will be really upset. I'm despairing now that I will ever attain your kind of normality. As I told my Mum, you KNOW why I went on heroin. "Yes it's because the antidepressants didn't work," she likes to think. Truth being I have been unhappy and I mean desperately unhappy sincd age 8. At 10 I had what a counsellor called "the childhood form of a breakdown" (thought I was dying, washed hands obsessively. In winter they chapped and bled.)

Lots of people have had far worse lives than me. Some never took heroin or crack or drink. Others did and still came off. There is hope. As I've said before I do have willpower. I might seem a bit soft sometimes and people mistake kindness for weakness. I try to be kind, despite everything. TRY. I don't always succeed. I have been called "hard" a few times (always by women), always with a note of disappointment. Who is nasty? Who is nice anyhow? We're all a mixture, by degrees.

I have tried to put in a good word for people who could do with some support. I am not a saint. I'm just an addict trying to be the best person I can be despite it all.

I often feel badly misunderstood.

My biggest revelation in counselling, about 12 years ago was SO WHAT?! So what if the world doesn't understand. People will always think what they please. Live your own life.

I still wish that life could be drug free, even though I have a fully loaded pipe right by me. Night night everyone.

Please, my deepest fear is that some impressionable kid will read this and think drugs are cool. They have inflicted more misery than you could ever imagine. If you're miserable without heroin/crack/crystal/drink/whatever your life will only get ten, twenty, a hundred times more intolerable, more chaotic. And if and when you do finally kick those chemicals (and it's not like giving up smoking, it takes a lot of motivation + professional help) whatever made you so unahppy to start with will still need addressing.

I'm writing for everyone, everywhere. Perhaps I over-explain some slang or aspects of the life but this is so that any English-speaker, however far-flung their location, and addicted or not, will read this and hopefully learn something. I only "preach" in terror that some vulnerable person might think I'm condoning this life. I condone nothing. I try only to describe.

PLEASE STAY SAFE, FRIENDS.

ILLUSTRATED: my life.

DO Y'ALL LIKE MY MOLECULE? No it is not diamorphine. It's a DIAMOND. Well it's been the worst day. No energy. No will for anything. I tidied up a bit, but only because I'm 99.9% sure I lost a good 0.2-0.3 of that benzo-gear. I could really do with some right now and who knows where it's gone. I was so slaughtered 3 nights ago I hadn't the faintest idea where it could have got to. Not in my arm/leg/foot. I have the memory of a chess grand master when it comes to what I have and have not taken stash-wise.

Pregnant girl please email back I didn't get it: hammynutter@lycos.com that applies to anyone else wanting to get in touch. Please bear in mind my track record of email response hasn't always been the "best". So if you write and I appear to ignore you, send a comment; I'll check carefully where that "darn" email got to.

Take it easy peeps. Monday tomorrow. Can't be any worse than Sunday. (Or can it??) Things can always get worse. Simple fact. If anyone knows what's up with Melody Lee please comment or email. Thanks. Melody I'm worried about you, you know.

PS don't envy me having lost a bag. Probably cat in hell's chance of ever finding it.

Dunnarts

FURRY FRIDAY ~ SATURDAY


Dunnarts are the tiny warriors of the Australian outback


There are 10 species of Dunnart. This is the fat-tailed dunnart Sminthopsis crassicaudata


Although they're tiny and shy, they love fighting with deadly spiders!


Their favourite breakfast is a "juicy" scorpion, sting bitten off


They also love biting human fingers, the swines!


The dunnart breeding season is so intense ... lasting about 2 weeks ...


That afterwards the males die of exhaustion. A new generation replaces them!



Some idiot introduced the European Red Fox to Australia. This, and the common house cat, are hunting the poor little darlings almost to extinction.

WISHING Y'ALL A CHEERY WEEKEND.
IF IT CAN'T BE CHEERY THEN MAY IT BE PAINLESS.
IF NOT PAINLESS THEN MAY IT BE TOLERABLE.
TAKE CARE EVERYONE ;-)

Waiting for da man

MY MUM SAW ME YESTERDAY.

Note the phrasing. I didn't see my Mum. We were there together. She saw me. She said I reminded her of when she first saw me on the gear, about 5 years ago. Lank hair. Pushed self into shower. Probably nowhere near as clean as I'd have liked to think. Pinpoint pupils. The B ain't that good, but it's chock full of benzos. (I know this because I tested my piss.) I felt Valium'd out of my brainbox.

It's interesting that she rang my druggiworker in despair. I do not feel that she forced my hand in this, as I was planning to steam in and tell the unacceptable truth about me and my addiction and this crappy methadone ANYHOW.

This is me on methadone. No showering. Barely bothering to do anything, unless absolutely essentual it's done NOW.

Endless depresssion. Aged 10 I was depressed enough to believe I was dying. I have never felt the same, ever again. Parents' divorce. Parents' remarriage. Both parties wanted me to live with them. I loved my Mum. But my Dad's was the place to be. Had I insisted on going with Mum I would have torn my family apart. How selfish would that be?

I am still depressed. Clinic barely ever ask why. I could go on. Suffice it to say, if this is "therapy" it ain't working on me. I do WAY better on heroin. Sad, you may think. But true. Absolutely 100% true.

I wish it weren't that way. But that's how it is.

The could-be's, should-be's, ought-to-be's. All these I have pondered and indulged. I "should" feel some other way. "Should" do it that other way. I have tried and tried. It just does not work.

If only somebody in power would put forward a therapy that actually works. I'm not talking 1 and 2 year habits where methadone might work. Subutex might well work. I'm talking decades lost to ineffectual methadone. And every spare penny STILL going on gear. If methadone worked so well, no-one would feel the need to use on top. Ever.

Such drugs are out there. The government just do not have the balls to give effective Therapy. Injectable diamorphine. Morphine tablets. Morphine and hydromorphone (dilaudid) amps are also available. Somebody, somewhere, use some imagination. PLEASE!

Rant over.

I despair. I look like a homeless. Lank, greasy, dirty. Haven't been near a laundrette in over a month. Yes a lot of this is down to me. But a half-decent therapy might push me half-way to "normality". The other half would of course be up to me.

Opinions, please! Just say what you think. I'm sure a lot of you disapprove anyhow... :-(

:-) I'm waiting on da man for a G. He's taking ages.

VELVET UNDERGROUND: I'M WAITING FOR THE MAN

Under a bridge

WHAT DAY IS IT? Isn't it Thursday?

What have I done since Monday?

Used B+. That is, benzoated B (real B + benzos). Really yummmy, it has to be said. By favourite cocktail. Intravenous heroin + mystical sedatives.

These sedatives, I should add are NOT pills emptied into the B. Benzo pills have stuff in them that turns the resulting concoction into a viscous gloop. This stuff is probably added in Afghanistan, produced in Turkmenistan, Tajikistan/wherever, and added NEAT.

I'm can't say too much, far too woozy.

Well I've well and truly fallen off the waggon.

Eastenders is blaring in the distance. The dealer won't be by until this is finished.

I had a couple of goes at my groin earlier but was over-cautious (too far from the dangerous artery). So got noting.Sticking the needle in there wasn't as nasty as I'd imagined. Going in my groing was always a bridge too far, before.

Sorry to disappoint my friends. This is how I feel. Nihilistic. Sad (yes of course). And yet true.

Why can I not be like a n ordinary member of society. One who contributes more than he scrounges.

As for "scrounging". My American friend Pascal told me straight: if you were American, you'd be shacked up under a bridge now. And I know he's right. No question.

So this is it for today.

Take care, everyone.

Waiting...

I WOKE UP TODAY, late. In misery, bordering on despair. I had the darkest thoughts. Couldn't move myself for an hour, 2 hours. It felt like all day. Then the phone rang. FREEBIE! It was way better than anything I remember. Of course, standards have fallen.
That makes it v hard to give marks out of 10. Isn't it best; it's not as good as it was, but it's way better than what's been around. That's the best. B is a long-term business. Customers come back and back and back, over years.

That is what certain kiddie "shotters" (as they call themselves) need to understand. Just because someone glides past on a mountainbike. Nobody hands over £10 without a sample. If the gear is shyte or the bags are small, nobody comes back, except as a last resort. Trying heroin is a foolish thing to do. That doesn't mean addicts are fools. Addicts are stuck in addiction. If you're spending as much as many of us do, you want the best possible deal: Basic human nature!

I can give an example. Someone I have known for ages passed his phone over to someone else, who is full of smoothtalk and slang (even American slang, he said something to me I couldn't catch. Afterwards I realized he was probably saying "it's fire, innit?" (v. good). Well no, it was not extraordinarily satisfactory at all! Not "fire" as nobody says (do they?) this side of New Jersey! This guy, who sounds all smooth over the phone, was telling me it's "peng" (strong) ... etc etc etc. My feeling was right. He does not know what he is talking about. And his bags are well undersized. Everyone else says this too. Great way to lose all your customers. Put someone like that in charge.

If this seems a mush, o man... you really have to realize I was so so tired and woke up feeling like I'd fallen off a horse/bike/giraffe. Acheing all over. That's why a good 25 comments built at the DROUGHT NEWS: HERE.

RE this morning's comments on the heroin drought post, can I add, if you can't find any new ones it's because numbers have exceeded 200. At the very bottom of the form are words to click on: "newer/newest" that's how I got to them. Moderation is staying on, not as censorship, but so I know what people are saying. I cannot reply to every single person individually. I do very much appreciate that y'all have come here.

I am going to post this quickly, else it will never get done.

I am irritated with the government, for giving me and so many of us methadone. Yes it's FAR better than nothing, but still nowhere near as good as something else. Theoretically, "substitution therapy", as they call it, could involve any of the vast pharmacopea of opiates and opioids. Dilaudid/hydromorphone, "oxy", pethidine, morphine... fentanyl even (patches, lollies)... up to IV diamorphine. Yes it might be giving addicts a free fix or non-injectable pill. But what is worst? Rampant shoplifting and crime or cutting the dealers' market off? Making addicts suffer just does not work. To those not ready to give up, it just sends a personal message "I will never let this happen to me again". And when you're lost in addiction you tend to do that by carrying on using.

I don't want to go into just how bad I feel sometimes, because I know lots out there are suffering also. Suffice it to say: I really do find it difficult.

If only they could change the medication (not necessarily to an injectable) it might be x100 easier to stick to a script.

Me and Pads are waiting on a G, hoping it will come fast. The gear's not "normal" but it's far better than "TCP", not full of sedatives, doesn't block a works. I saw it, I know. What it does do is go cloudy on a foil (makes you cough), looks like orange juice in a works.

Re: being clean. I despair. I felt so bad this morning. Suicidally bad. I feel torn in two, it's never been this dire. Knowing I'm blogging to say what I think and feel, yet not wanting to (appear to) give blessing to some dangerous idea someone else might be contemplating.

I feel I have a moral responsibility to help or save from harm, not condemn. There are plenty others out there doing the condemnation.

Da man is taking ages.

Sorry to my friends who know me from before who are more used to a higher hamsters than herion quotient. There is crisis here. I am only doing what I think I can do to help.

(And what else can I do.)

Gotta dash. Alcohol-glugging way down. Which is v good, considering it's a Monday (drink day).

Illustrated: fake-looking B

I wish I were a pingpong ball...

WOKE UP at 3:30pm today, wishing I was a robo-hammy*. Somehow, if I could curl up, like a furry pingpong ball and have another hamster gnaw my fur for me, it might be OK. In robos being groomed means you are bottom of the pecking-order. I don't care about hierarchy; hamsters don't use heroin. Mass-grooming-wise, robos are the opposite of Russian hamsters, where the youngest smallest one washes the oldest biggest one. The old one died and the young one was there, carefully taking care of his body. It was heartbreaking. When Bashful robo died, Spherical, the last one, kept dragging her body across the cage to put in the nest. I moved it out. She knew this, and dragged it back. Perhaps she was trying to bury it. I kept it in there overnight. Perhaps this gives hamster-closure..?

Well this is crazy. First, on methadone I do not really feel inclined to do anything bar the utmost necessities. This is not what is "supposed" to happen. I thought people on methadone got their lives back. No glimmer of that, so far.

It took me so long to get up I missed Iceland, source of £1.50 Chinese chicken fried rice. So I went to the takeaway for £3, £3.50 mixed vegetable fried rice. It was to go with Iceland £1.50 Satay Chicken Curry. I could have done with a vegetable or two. But: CLOSED! They didn't used to close on Sunday. Maybe somebody has died.
NO!!

Then I hung about on the street corner. No gear! No Chinese!! This is beyond the pale.

I didn't feel cold when I woke up. I am not clucking. The methadone is holding me, though the time was approaching to take a second dose. But I still rang a dealer. I knew he would answer but would have nothing. I know him well enough. Nothing's going on, is it? No mate ~ you know I'll let you know. I know, well, take care. You too mate. Things must be rough! At least he's not trying to sell rubbish.

Dose 2 on methadone is drunk. I'm OK now. I don't get why the urge to use is eating at me. It was doing the same thing on Friday. I didn't score then. I have not tried to score since Wednesday. If I can get today out of the way with I will have spent just £12.50 this week on "B". A record low!

I'm still broke. Food (£40 maybe!!) Socks (£6). Andy Warhol book £10 (and it was 2nd hand! I felt really "clean" devoting this much to an old book!!) Whatever else... O I know what it was!! Cyder at ... quite a lot per day, considering it is 79p a can. My drinking has slidden downwards since the beginning of the week. Very high Monday. (High enough to impair my memory, reading and writing ability considerably.) A bit lower Tuesday... and down down down to maybe four cans yesterday. Every single one was mixed with fruit juice. This lowers to alcoholic content to that of pub beer, about 4.5%. But cocktail is like a very nice alcopop. Highly addictive!

OK I'm not going to any Chinese takeaway now. Something called "chicken tikka lasagne" is in the oven. The Chinese takeaway expedition was partially a mission hoping I might bump into a drugdealer with heroin. (Fat chance of that!) Or "heroin" (higher chance).

I found an article by the way, exploding the myth which anyone who uses will know isn't true, about glass, brick dust, curry powder, bleach in street heroin. To those not involved (good on you!) let me explain: if you smoke it, glass and brick dust will be left behind at the top of the foil. Real heroin runs in lines. It melts and the vapour is inhaled. (Not set on fire, as in smoking a fag.) Curry powder would smell exceedingly strong. Bleach would also reek, and probably go black and smoulder. In a spoon, again glass and brick dust would be left at the bottom. Nothing except truly microscopic particles would get through a filter and into a syringe. The 1ml insulin syringe most addicts use has an integral needle only a THIRD of one millimetre wide on the outside. The passage inside that needle would be minuscule. Curry powder would reek very strongly when cooked up. Bleach would also smell strong, plus it is alkaline and would mess up the reaction with vitamin C or citric acid, which breaks down brown (or occasionally white) base heroin.

Drought-wise, the word here is it's WORSE THAN EVER. Though I just heard from Bristol there's good stuff there. (Will it last?) The news is here.

People using in the 70s always told me you just had to put up with shortages that lasted a couple of days or so. In the 80s after Middle-Eastern "brown" became the norm (imported in much higher quantities than the old "Chinese" gear) there were more users, especially in the north where heroin hit large housing estates for the first time (v early 80s). I was told, incidentally, that because you could chase it from foil, some people really did believe that "brown" was some new kind of hash! Well you believe what you want to believe... Anyway drought-wise, point being, shortages were still more common than they have been lately, though they corrected themselves quickly.

The three great waves of heroin addiction in this country were:
1. late 60s/v early 70s, mostly middle and upper-class bohemian types. Main centre of the trade was in Soho. Also South Kensington (which, if you're reading on distant shores is very posh). Heroin was very much a minority interest. Outside London you'd be very lucky to find it, except perhaps in Liverpool
2. early 80s. Brown didn't hit Britain in any amounts until the Islamic Revolution in Iran (1979). Suddenly it was "all over the place" and people didn't know what to do with it. (Smoking heroin was unheard of, here.) If they couldn't get citric acid, or vit c for injecting, lemon juice was used instead, which really can cause to fungal infection leading to blindness (one rumour that is true)
3. Mid-late 1990s, the price of gear suddenly halved at street level. Bored or frazzled by uppers the rave generation turned to it as a comedown-soother or merely as a new drug. I am of that generation. With "ecstasy" pills appearing in all variations, some rumoured to contain heroin anyway (an almost certain lie). LSD made a resurgence in the early 90s. Cocaine, formerly the "rock star's drug" made its presence felt pretty much everywhere. Used to trying new things, to this generation, heroin seemed a logical next step, to those (like me) who were "just trying it once" for "the experience", then "just trying it again" ... and so on. Curiosity, as they say, killed the cat...

Now one last thing.
UNUSUAL HEROIN WARNING

If this drought doesn't sort itself out, there's a chance that heroin from other parts of the world than Afghanistan might make its presence felt here more than it has done recently.
The stuff I'm talking about particularly would be China White, Colombian White heroin and Mexican Tar.

If you encounter gear that smells of vinegar, it might be one of these.
Heroin comes in three basic forms, depending how far along the manufacturing process it is taken.

~In Britain our heroin is normally heroin base. It's normally brownish, as y'all know. Sometimes known (esp. online) as "Number 3". It smokes well from foil. Injecting this requires addition of a fruit acid, hence citric/vit c. White heroin base is also manufactured, and can be very pure.

~In New York City, and the Eastern United States, as well as Australia and other places the gear tends to vary from a very light blond/yellow/beige colour to pure white. This is heroin hydrochloride, aka "Number 4", designed for snorting or injection more than smoking. "China White" is usually from Burma. Most heroin in NYC is said to originate from Colombia. Cocaine, of course, is Colombia's most famous product = Coke is popular here = Heroin could make its way over in mixed shipments. This type of heroin is EXTREMELY STRONG with purities at manufacture in the high 90%s (good Brown is 70-80%). It can sometimes resemble crack. If it smells of anything, it tends to smell of vinegar. It is mixed cold in a spoon, or gently heated. If it needs vit C, it ain't China White!

~Mexican Tar appeared in Los Angeles in the 1980s. It's black and sticky and heavier than the gear we're used to. Has a strong vinegary smell. The hash-looking stuff we sometimes see is not "tar", which is stickier. Tar is banged up by cooking WITHOUT CITRIC. It's black (or brown) because the Mexicans cut corners in the manufacturing process, swapping chemicals, leaving steps out. UK dealers probably wouldn't know how to cut it, so if it hits the streets, it may do so at import-strength. BE CAREFUL. I have heard you can smoke tar from foil. It may spit and sputter more than ordinary Brown, because it's damper, but it's still supposed to smoke. Far safer than banging this into your veins.

~Lastly there is a gear called MEXICAN BROWN (powder). Smells of vinegar. Said to melt into a tarry substance when hot (e.g. kept all day in jeans pocket, as ordinary B wouldn't). Doesn't require citric for injection. Sometimes snorted. May not smoke anything like as well as our "B".
IF YOU FIND UNUSUAL GEAR, TAKE CARE. GO EASY.

Please don't be tempted to inject, just because something won't smoke. It might not be one of the types of heroin just mentioned. Snorting is safer, but has still killed people. Contrary to popular belief, you can die chasing. A batch of 80% B killed a girl in Bristol in the 90s and she chased the killer dose from foil.

Bear in mind all our tolerances have fallen. Whether using on top of methadone or using just "variable" street gear, if anything of knockout strength comes back, that's what it might do ~ KNOCK YOU DEAD. Please take care.

Hope this isn't too much of a mess. If I edit, I'll never post

Sorry this goes on and on. Emails I should have got to by 9pm. I feel like a dr's surgery. Appointments, appointments. Everything behind time! Thanks for all the comments, I will answer as many as I can ...

*robo-hamsters are the tiniest hamsters in the world and curl up pingpong-ball sized. I used to have them as pets (see below)

MARIANNE FAITHFULL INTERVIEW ~ 1994, her autobiography had just come out

Pets, past and future ~

These are some pets I'd most like to have... and actually have had.

FURRY FRIDAY ON SATURDAY


Akitas are one of the oldest pure-breeds of dog in the world. The American Akita was taken back from Japan by American troops after World War II. It is bigger and furrier than its Japanese counterpart. Whenever I see one down the local park, I want to kidnap it. One came up and stared me right in the eyes. I was down on the grass, so we were eye to eye. She just stared into me. Very intense. Akitas are loyal and dignified and very Japanese. Similar in character to Alsatians or Rottweilers. They are used in Japan as police dogs. I have never heard one bark.


An idea of their size!


The puppies are well known for being savage and wild. This is pretty obvious when you take a look at one:


My favourite little dogs are Norwich terriers. If I got a small dog I wouldn't care too much about breed. The type I'm on about tends to show up in Rescue Home catalogues named "Scruffy". If you've seen "Scruffy", you know the dog I want. Every animal shelter has a Scruffy.


Chinchillas look like rabbits from Mars. They need a big cage, a huge wheel and a "marble", that is, a stone slab you can stick in the freezer for them to lie on in summer. Chinchillas come from the high Andes and do not enjoy temperatures much above 75F, 25C.


The best pets I ever had were roborovski hamsters. These come from Mongolia. They're a totally different breed to ordinary hamsters (2in/5cm fully grown, pingpong ball-sized when curled up). They are the smallest and fastest hammies in the world.


Unlike ordinary hamsters, which fight when kept together, robos are highly social. They sleep in a heap:


They do everything together. But they're easily startled, don't tame at all easily and don't like being handled. They ping off on the floor at the first opportunity, have taken me 2-4 days to recapture. Imagine a wild house mouse on speed and you're still not close! Aren't they cute ...

WISHING Y'ALL A CHARMING WEEKEND. IF IT CAN'T BE CHARMING, THEN MAY IT BE TOLERABLE.

When are you coming round again?

MARIANNE FAITHFULL: SISTER MORPHINE
She wrote, or at least co-wrote this.

Please, Sister Morphine, when are you coming round again?



AS TEARS GO BY

It is the evening of the day
I sit and watch the children play
Doing things I used to do
But not with you
I sit and watch as tears go by...

This is a more recent recording, when she truly understood the meaning of those words.
Nothing to watch. Is that the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem?



WELL THIS IS DEPRESSING. I wrote a long post on Things You Can Do In A Crisis, banging on about ways of detoxing, treatments, options, clinics, psych clinics but it goes on and on and sounds preachy, and I don't know if anyone would want to read it. I know I should post it up. It's not meant to be preaching, just a collection of ideas and some phone numbers. I don't know. Don't know. Don't know and do care. The thought of people sick and desperate out there was doing my brainbox in last night. Big time.

{The post is a dog's dinner!}

How long is it now? I have not bothered phoning anyone. Even on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/when was it? They texted me. Then the idea gnawed away at me until I phoned. Even then I hesistated saying I'll think about it. Dealer knew exactly what I meant. Could tell by my tone of voice I wasn't too bothered. When I saw him, his phone was going mental. So some comment I left about them making less money, even that's untrue. O how sad. I was hoping sales would go down on crack, but even that's not necessarily true. When I still did it, I wouldn't do crack without "smack". Lots of people would. So these bastards are still making money, out of thin air!

(And things that go blue on foil and things containing all manner of bashed-up God knows what... In the 2002 drought there was stuff called "the oil slick gear". I thought I'd left the old filter in by accident (was v scrupulous like that, back then). Something floating in it. Fished it out. The strong smell of myrrh ~ yes, as in gold, frankincense and... ~ was coming up. This was myrrh resin. And someone had cut multiple kilos with it, because it was all over the country from Birmingham to East Anglia. Someone must have walked into the bourgeois herbalist's and said "gimme some resin man, I need it for me B" and they said "resin? What resin? We have this wonderful myrrh. Look how golden brown it is. Just pestle and mortar it and it'll go down a treat."Yeammon, gimme dat, me gotta lotta B to jump on." Resin in gear. What the..!! Resin makes gear stick in the works. It is not good. If you have to stamp all over it, sugar is safer. Gloopy, but safer.) This paragraph was added later so back to :

CRAVING! Why why why is it eating at me the way it is? I feel like I'm being eaten from the insides out. I took more syrup just now. That might stop me. Might not, but it might just. I thought I felt OK earlier. There is food here. I don't want to eat it. It's not curry. Not Chinese. Spice is what I want. I can't be sick then. Spicy food + dying sick do not go together. Even spicy food + methadone not working full-on = no. I used to have big troubles surrounding gear and food. Hitting up by fridge, tearing into cooked chicken legs like Attila the Hun. Not good. Wasn't thin. Wasn't fat. But could barely eat without gear. That made rehab really difficult. Never known anyone with a problem like that. When heroin and food become intermixed, the person is usually female: girls tend to use gear not to eat. With me it suddenly gave din-dins 10 times more savour. (Never worked with sweets.) It took a long time to get round that one.

Is it normal to feel so torn? When I decide to do it (something non-sobriety-related, it has to be) I still have the gumption to do anything I really want to. If someone crosses me I will let hell freeze over before I give in or let them get the better of me again. (I am thinking in particular of my former druggieworker, Maple Syrup. I called her this bc I could never remember her name. Loathed the bitch, and sacked her. But it took a whole year for open hostilities to develop.) She thought I was weak-willed and could get the better of me. Really didn't know me.

I have heard of people testing opiate-negative (comments on this blog). If this is so, you are clean and free and very fortunate. I know it doesn't always feel like that, but it's true.

I have also heard there is a huge premium on Subutex on the street. I have never heard of people buying Subutex. I would have quite liked some at one time... But that's another story. My own involvement with Subutex was not pretty. Took it. Thought I was doing really well. Everyone thought I was doing really well. (Makes you feel clean.) Decided to cheat, hitting up gear in a bush. It was in a remote corner of a park, where no-one would have found me for a long time if I'd died. I did this a few times, waking each time about 4 hours later, cross eyes, barely able to walk in a straight line. Then I hit up where I was staying. BANG! Down like a felled tree. Straight down. Straight Girl went nuts. Not pretty, not at all. I had been overdosing every day. Or at least a borderline overdose. Maybe in that bush, an angel was giving me artificial respiration. The gear and the doses were the same on each occasion. As was the 4-hour unconsciousness, followed by extreme bleariness. On me, Subutex kicked most of my habit off my brain, so I could take a third of a ten pound bag and be happy. On two thirds was out of my tree, even a fortnight later. I don't know if I'm unusually sensitive to it, but anyone on the buprenorphine, be careful! Anyone testing opiate-clean, be ultra careful! If you really are opiate clean, just remember this is hard-won. How far back do you really want to go? See preaching again.

Well I have garbled on enough now. I'm off! Take care everyone.

The HEROIN DROUGHT POST with all the news in the comments is here.

On and on again

I CAN'T BELIEVE LAST NIGHT I actuallly sacrificed £7.50 on the altar of my own craving. (I am trying to behave: methadone.) I knew it didn't sound right, from the start. But dealers really do not know what they are doing now (I certainly wouldn't tell one he had good gear. Ever. Not nowadays. I use toned down language about "wasn't that bad, OK I spose" or non-toned-down language "What the hell was that?!?" (nowadays specially). It was dark, went black in the works. Person who took other half of 2 for £15 deal said "nothing in it. Possibly mild sedatives." But he is banging away at Suboxone, so perhaps no wonder. I tried it myself, well obviously. Left a bit on the filter (this is crucial, as you will see...) Bear in mind this was NOT "heroin #4" yet it cooked down without any vit C, and didn't look or taste like it had vit c in it. Tasted bitter (as liquid) but not bitter enough and not right. I could smell gear on it when I opened the bag. Afterwards I decided I must just have a sharp nose. Because there WAS some tiny bit in there. I got that when I did the filter and DID put vit C on it. The filter was x10 stronger than the hit! A flush of gear, then nothing. Like a 50p-£1 filter on very good gear. And considering my tolerance has inevitably fallen, that ain't saying much.
I put a shout out (I hope I was using the right words, Googleable words) in German, to anyone in Germany, Switzerland, Austria or anywhere else who could vouch the situation.
Germans, it took me ages to grasp, do not call a shortage a drought. Germans do not say something is droughted when it's not there. The word is Heroinmangel, as in going through a torture-flattener clothes wringer. Quite a good description in my view.
Was craving and craving away this morning. I'm glad I've left it. I have NOT been ringing dealers. I don't want to sound desperate. I enjoy tellling them I don't need their product now. They know me well enough to know IF IT'S RIGHT (in the past) I HAVE paid for it, so I'm burning no bridges by saying this.
That is my deepest fear, as an addict. Burning bridges. Ukh. Hate to do it. Was once advised in rehab to tear up phone nubers. No! What, so I can relapse and have to beg for them back? Pay higher prices for the same thing from other people. No. And the main ones (this was before mobile phones were almost universal as now) I remembered off by heart. I still know a good 3 or 4. 3 are still active. Or were, before this shortage. Apart from that, I do not know a single number off-pat. That's why I copy them again and again so obsessively. I know someone who lost a mobile phone with every main number in Hackney. No way of getting them back. NO!!
If there's no drought in Europe, there should not be one here and it will correct itself within weeks at the longest.
If there is a price-hike in Europe, there will be one here.

Britain is the strongest heroin market in Europe. I have known a lot of people (from the relevant countries) who told me facts that chimed again and again. I checked online and this is bourne out. In Britain gear is more expensive (nowhere near Swedish prices though) but stronger than in France (massively) Austria (massively) and still better than Germany and Spain. Even Holland at street level had a lower average purity, according to the website. The person I know who went there was in Dutch rehab, relapsed and, I suspect, in that state would be more easily impressed. He did say Dutch crack was way better (not difficult, nowadays. It's nothing like what it used to be. On a £10 pipe (one breath) I felt like my head was in a microwave on full power. My ears haven't even rung. And I haven't touched it in ... 2-3 weeks. That was only becuse I was helping out an annoying friend. The annoyance, stress, bad memories, vile feelings, wind-up ~ to the point of wanting to puke ~ etc etc outdid the crack high, even though I waited till I felt calm before doing it. Of course if he wanted it and was paying for it, I'd do it. I have not gone out of my way to get crack since I cannot remember when.
Well it's all gone drugs drugs drugs even though I'm not taking any.
For those of you looking, here's some dirty and clean blogs. They should all be on the sidebar, at the top with pictures is up to date. My side bar contains lists of every obsession I've had no matter how irrelevant to anyone else. Imagine you're poking through my diary/address book. That's the mess.

Now I'm out of here. 1.30 nearly and I haven't even been outside.
I'm tired of the day already.
To die, to sleep
perchance not to dream
Isn't that the ideal? Not to think/feel/remember/be thought of/felt about/remembered...
Or aware of in any manner or style of existence ever in past or future. And certainly not present.
No birth no death. No pain. Yes.

To any of you reading this with no script, not knowing what's going on, when it's going to change, you have my sympathy. The news is about 5 posts down, where all the comments are.


THE BLOGS
Anna Grace: I hate my face, I hate this place and I'm strung out again. I love Anna. She loves me. She crazy?? Went junkie-methadone-Suboxone. Declares she still wants to use. I tell her if she wanted to that much she'd do it and she hasn't so ...
Melody Lee is Damned: hasn't updated for ages. Not ODd and dead, so I hear (contrary to rumour). Bitch-fight, crackhouse etc stories v entertaining
Journey to the Nods. Noah. Black tar and Colombian white (heroin) user, central USA. Last post about driving the Tar Man to motels and various shacks for a free eighth (I don't think most London dealers would be so generous for one evening's work)
Memoirs of a Heroinhead: Shane in France. Who comes from London. Most recent post about doing gear and crack with his Mum is very "vivid"
Australian Heroin Diaries: not so much personal as a news blog. From Australia. About drugs. Well-researched. Terry is lucky enough to get morphine pills on the Aussie NHS. Says they're way better than methadone
Normal Life on Methadone: Mina. In Austria. Who is normal now and actually does normal things
An Addict in Our Son's Bedroom: has to tie with "Broken-hearted Mom" as alltime best parent blog-title (of 20somthing, not underage teen). If you want to read about the other side of addiction, praying to God your kid doesn't overdose in an alleyway, sick and tired of being hit for money, etc... the links are here. The Family Contract (at least most recent one) as well as giving in all wages to Dad, no association with old friends, ie treating their son like a big baby (but then again what else works, I think they've tried everything and found nothing) also included turning in dealers' numbers which will then go to law inforcement. I commented advising caution. (Surely as head of house, first responsibility is safety and wellbeing of household, not performing public service of giving police numbers/"names" they probably know anyway thanks to blabbermouth crooks. Decision was made so I did not bang on about ins and outs of it.)

BODYSNATCH: JUST 4U LONDON

Anyone remember this crazy tune?

e e e e !

The little person doesn't start dancing till around 55secs.

Drought goes on (am I bovered?) And the evil GREEN*.

*UK methadone is usually green.

I HAVE TAKEN NO GEAR today or last night and don't intend to.

Yesterday I ran into 2 brothers. We got talking on the inevitable topic ~ huge heroin shortage all across UK. I said I couldn't be bothered and was drinking instead. At least it is legal and therefore 100% safe, 100% respectable. Nobody has ever died because of alcohol, because the govt. allow it, we all know this. Anyway, they asked where I found the rubbish I found, and I told them. Then I asked them where they got their rubbish and they told me. They said one person had "decent gear" (ie it was rubbish), I didn't know them and didn't ask for the number. I did have money on me (was carrying huge Andy Warhol Diaries back), but sensed they did not. I have one of their mobile numbers and will not be ringing asking for an introduction. Their parting shot after the good gear mention was "I bet everyone's saying that" and that said it all.

It is 11am and I've had just over half a can, mixed down with fruit juice. This is way down on yesterday and especially Monday's consumption. Bearing in mind I get up at 6 to 7am and usually guzzle it down then (if I'm carrying on) drink more smoothly just supping it from there on.

The govt. (and what do they know about any real life? The rubbish MPs spouted about casinos was a case in point. If they knew anything about gambling, they'd have seen that every local betting shop has at least a couple of roulette machines and I've seen people feed the best part of a month's wages in there every half hour. Staff have to empty them several times a day, they collect so much money. + roulette is now on ITV! That, is channel 3 of old-fashioned television, every night!)... what was I saying? O the government. They want to increase the price on alcohol per unit ~ ie 8g or 10mls of neat booze. It's easy to work out units per can. Mine are half a litre at 7.5% ABV so that's 3.75 units per can, 7.5 units or 75 mls alcohol in each litre. They want to make my cyder something like four times more expensive. What is this if not a tax on the poor? All they will do is take food from poor kids' mouths. Make people with drink problems even more undernourished than they already are. And what doesn't come off the food bill will come off clothes, bills anything else, because to a drinker, drink comes first, and always will. If this policy is introduced, a huge market in bootleg liquor will spring up overnight, and I know exactly where to go to get it. Everyone will switch to spirits, thus causing themselves more harm because most won't bother mixing in lemonade or just water. All the profits will go to fund other criminal activities. So nice one, Tories. Just go ahead, see what happens.

Booze rant over. Actually just writing that has made me want a drink...

... Ha! It's right here and I didn't do it. Am I actually getting cleaner in my old age??

Was I really offensive yesterday? I had to edit what I said twice after posting, bc 2 particularly ridiculous things were in there. Proof if any is needed that less gear does not (instantly at least) bring more sanity. Opiates are antipsychotic. You can google this yourself, though you won't find much official research. First thing I noticed about heroin was a marked mood-stabilizing effect. It still is a huge antidepressant, especially compared to methadone. I think the clinics are (by and large) barking up the wrong tree with methadone. Morphine continus pills would work far better and can be taken twice daily. Injectable diamorphine is far safer than injectable methadone. It's only expensive bc the manufacturers are taking the pee-pees. (It costs £4.50 or so for a 100mg dry amp, about half what very good gear would cost. It just shows the "we profit from your pain" motto levelled at pharmaceuticals corporations is so true. Diamorphine is mostly used for terminal pain management here, NOT for addiction.) I fit the criteria for diamorphine treatment exactly. If they'd only given that several years ago, I might actually be clean now. What would not work about diamorphine therapy is making it really hard to get on to, or not letting people up the dose if it's dipped, or when people switch from injectable diamorphine to oral morphine, or actually come off altogether, not to let them back on. If they do make it seem so hard-won, as it is now, people will feel like they're onto a sure thing, to be prized and treasured. And they will not give it up. Basic psychology, but I'm sure the govt don't understand that either.

What they are saying now is that because methadone only has a 3% success rate (I haven't seen it to be that high), rehab style treatment is the answer. Well good luck paying for it in a recession. How many rehabs are they thinking of paying for for each client? They may well need 4 or 5 or 6 before they finally get clean. I've been in City Roads Detox once (horrible) and proper rehab/detox once. I left on day 3 both times. Couldn't do the detox. Too in love with heroin. Nothing else about life grabbed me. Not without heroin being there as well. In other words I was trying to exit into outer space, where there was nothing for me.

Stop smoking clinics like to compare nicotine to heroin, saying it's more addictive. Perhaps it addicts faster, but even that would be spurious. When I had no habit at all, I now know (only by looking back in confusion on a certain day when I decided to give up long-sleeved teeshirts forever because I was too hot/too cold/never right) that I got myself a mild one, and I do mean very mild ~ still but noticeable ~ within just five days in a row of smoking it from tinfoil. I can tell you this. Craving heroin and craving a cigarette aren't even in the same universe of comparability. Have you ever seen someone puking because they needed a cigarette that badly? Well then. Anyone who wants to enough can give up smoking without too much bother. Just use gum or something else that gives a nicotine hit, albeit tiny when you want it ~ I don't think a patch would work for me. I've given up twice, for months on end, and I used gum. Heroin is a totally different ballpark. Whoever they used to be, whatever they did, once people get a taste for it, they invariably go on and on and on taking heroin. Just the average habit is 14 years. These people aren't weaker than you or me. A lot of them are stronger. In fact heroin turns your strength against you. The more willpower you have before heroin, the more willfully you will use it, once you get addicted. Now that has to be an obvious equation.

The drug treatment system in this country (not to mention elsewhere ~ AMERICA, very good example) is totally corrupt. Run for the convenience of the staff. All about box-ticking, quota-filling. Workers being seen to work successfully. This actually makes them complicit in all the lying that goes on in-clinic. Typical pattern on methadone is: cut down heroin perhaps by as much as three-quarters. Give up crime, if you're tired of it. But then whenever money comes gear is what comes first. Crack usually goes out the window relatively early on. From my experience anyone in treatment still using crack frequently 6 months on is probably barely following the programme at all. Or has just been pushed into it because they got caught shoplifting. Lots of that about.

I have seen old age pensioners, who've given up "grafting" up money, been on methadone for years. And yet they still spend the best part of their pension on heroin. The image of an old lady injecting heroin, reading glasses on, is still emblazoned on my brain. Methadone does not sooth the itch for heroin. Unless the person is unusually motivated. Simple fact: it just doesn't. Keeps you OK. How anyone could possibly hold down a job on methadone I do not understand.

I think a better way of running things would be to give people an assessment but NOT put them on methadone, or anything else automatically, unless they really do want it. You could give them a card, and then when they actually want it, they can get scripted within one hour something that really will take them off street drugs. Ie probably not methadone.

Methadone is a tool, so I am using it. But it certainly is not the best, and absolutely not the most suitable tool in the pharmaceutical box.

Alprazolam (Xanx) + Subutex/buprenorphine (no!) found in UK heroin thanks to shortage:
http://www.talkingdrugs.org/benzodiazepines-sold-as-heroin
Thanks for the comment directing me to this; I had heard about the alprazolam (somewhere) and someone told me he tested Subtex positive, even though he doesn't take it.
Alprazolam is really weak compared to Valium and Subutex you would never in a million years mix in heroin. It has no hit, to any hardened junkie. It actually REVERSES the effects of heroin. Whoever did that has no clue...

Too much talk and no drugs!

I HAVE DECIDED that I talk too much. I am wasting my energy and giving nothing to anyone. Just boring them. So I’m giving up talking.
No heroin.
I missed NA last night because I was at a flat full of junkies. Hard-faced junkies. They smoke heroin on a crack bottle. Why would you want to do that? They smoked and smoked away. Nobody offered me a pipe on the crack they were doing like there was no tomorrow. Not in a million years would I have accepted. Crack without heroin is like butter without bread. Sugar without tea. Paint without a wall to go on. Useless. And that is why I don't do it anyway (the central uselessness of it, wether or not proper "B" is also there). But it would have been nice to have been asked. Also when these two came in they never said hello, it was instant dislike from word go. I never said hello to them either. One came in talking about a “drum”, which is burglary. This particular crime raises my hackles. I’m talking about domestic burglary more than commercial. Maybe that showed all over my face and put frost in the air. Who cares anyway.
Yes they had “heroin” but there was barely anything in it. 10% of the normal strength, if that. I’m on methadone. I have a constant level to measure against. I’m telling these people they’re being ripped off and they don’t like to hear it.
Also I don’t think they like the way I say I’m not interested, really can do without. I had on me £20 I’m not spending on drugs though I don't think they saw it; I say how I could do with a Valium, but I will not buy them. Because I don’t like the person selling them, will not give him my money and cannot be bothered to walk five minutes out of my way for it. I really felt like a Valium too because I felt ragged as hell. I shlucked back seven or eight cans (White Star, 0.5L, 7.5% if you really want to know how much I drink). This is far more than usual (these days). I used to get alcoholic blackouts, so I must have been drinking quite a lot. I often still drink for breakfast, but by late evening I’m soberer than most judges. (Which probably isn’t saying much.)
Sometimes, these days, I’d rather have a cup of tea.
But these people, I don’t have a downer on them personally just because not all of us got on; I’m thinking of them more as “types” ~ just go on and on and on taking crack, rubbishy heroin they’re incinerating on pipes (getting even less than they paid for, less than you get off tinfoil even, which is about half). Take any drug they can get and pay for. Or steal. Or take on “bail” (which is just a stupid way of saying tick). Drugs drugs drugs. And endless prison talk.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m as severely addicted to heroin as it is possible to be. In my worst days I needed heroin to sleep, to continue sleeping, to get up, to get through the day. And most especially, to eat. Without heroin life was intolerable, and still is utterly meaningless. Heroin was and still is interwoven into the very fabric of existence. I am a needle-wielding junkie.). If my body lets me down and I am determined to fix up I will happily spend an hour or more and I will find a vein that behaves. I will go in my groin when I have to (when meaning times future, not now. The deep femoral vein, which is on each side, by the crook of your top thigh. That is your groin. Girls as well as boys can do it. There I will go if I have to. I just don’t wanna stick a whacking great needle straight in (straight down, not at an angle, like a plane taking off) straight in the top of my leg. It’s horrible. But I will do it if I carry on. I have will power. I have will. And I have will not to continue the road I have gone so far down. If you’re wondering why I waver so annoyingly, all through life, that’s the nature of the beast. Heroin is life. It doesn’t feel dirty or sordid. It feels fluffy and clean as fresh towels. Everything is OK. When I used to be on it most intensely, the hit in the evening especially, when I came back sodden and rattling with change after begging for hours, was like life itself flooding back into me.
I came home with some. Got 0.1g for £5. Was complained at for getting “good deal” (it’s not a good deal, it is the bare minimum weight you should get for £5).
I didn’t use it. I fell asleep. Slept through the ordinary time I’d take my methadone (5am, so when I get up at 7:30 or 8 it’s full-on). Woke at 6:35 feeling like a block of ice. That’s about how bad withdrawal gets on methadone. It’s not sickness as such, just a lull in the body’s methadone level. And it is natural to feel cold in winter. Perhaps not with the heating on.
I don’t even know what normality is now.I do know that if I have methadone, I never wake up feeling cold.
Anyway I went for my drink. The walk got my blood moving a bit. Nothing to do with feeling healthy and warm. I wanted to bring a vein up. Got the vein more than an hour later, when on Everybody Loves Raymond, Deborah was being arrested for drunk driving, even though she just fell asleep at the wheel, waiting for a lift from mad lady’s bridal shower. This is the 2nd time I’ve seen that episode in a year.
I couldn’t tell whether I just missed or the “heroin” was rubbish. Bit of both. I did feel better 10 mins later, so there was something in it. I drank my methadone after 10am. Spent £10 on American (second hand) hardback Andy Warhol Diaries, not heroin. I’ve only been ringing one dealer who I know won’t answer.
I will not ring around asking and sounding desperate. No, no. Yesterday evening occurred after HE rang ME.
Phone rang twice today. First time ,I ignored it. Second time, a withheld number. O no, if it was a dealer I knew which one it was and all I could think of was the hassle of testing (free ~ of course) gear for him. No no no. If he’d wanted to sell it, I’m not sure I had the right money and haven’t looked. And didn’t want to be bothered walking to post office. No. Even if the drought gets better I cannot see that it’ll be proper stuff straight away. People will think it’s pukka because it’s strong and new and wow, actually has more than 2% purity. But I bet it will be weak. I’m getting far more money’s worth out of Andy Warhol. Though I gave up skimming it a couple of hours ago when the urge to die just engulfed me too much. I feel profoundly miserable and now I’m in bed.
Why do people hide in an alley, till a woman in high heels comes clopping through, and then rape and murder her and dispose of her body in mysterious ways? I always wondered why people do that. Is it because there’s nothing good on telly?
Must run. Cyder bottle empty.

Having Pakistani takeaway tonight. Not from tandoori house; from Iceland. Their Chinese chicken satay (masala-style, not on sticks) (£1.50) is really nice with their own chicken fried rice (£1.50) or egg fried rice (£1) ~ especially after an MSG overdose has been stirred into it, to make it especially “Chinese”. I’m trying the Pakistani without. Chicken bhuna (£1.50) and pilau rice (£1). Indian restaurant standards in the UK are far higher than Chinese, so the bar is high. But their satay chicken egg fry rice + MSG (1-2 large pinches in each container, stirred well and left at least 5 mins) is far better value + nicer than the local Chinese takeaway. + the staff don’t talk over your head assuming you don’t know they’re calling you a deadbeat smackhead. I know when I’m being talked about. Must ping. Pilau rice ready for oven.
Think I'm gonna try this one without MSG.

What's really happening in Burma?

BURMESE POLITICAL DISSIDENT Aung San Suu Kyi, as we all know, has been released from over 15 years' house arrest.

This event has been widely been viewed as a publicity stunt.

I'm not entirely sure. If they'd really wanted to, Burma's "ruling military junta" could have got rid of her forever. Poisoned her coffee.

But they didn't. They let her out.

Perhaps, like another key Burmese figure, Khun Sa, who ended his days in a luxury flat in Burma's capital Rangoon aka Yangon, having lived in luxury flats in Bangkok (before Thai police got on his case), as well as country estates in Laos, as well as his (adopted) home, Shan State in Burma, Burma's generals plan to retire in style, living out their days in assured opulence.

Khun Sa was born in China's Yunnan province to a Chinese father and Shan mother from the highlands of Burma's Shan State, key area of the infamous Golden Triangle where, before Afghanistan took the narco-crown, most of the world's opium was grown.

At one point, so it's rumoured, Khun Sa had at least ten brands of China White winging, floating and trundling their ways to international narcotics markets. The most infamous were 999 Brand, Lucky Strike (in 700g packets printed with same logo as the cigarettes!) and so-called "Double UOGlobe". This heroin was reputedly up to 99% pure.

Opium was, and still is, also grown by the Wa, another people fighting a resistance movement up in those there highlands. Poppies are still cultivated in Thailand, albeit on a small scale, and more significantly in Laos. Laos produces about as much heroin (so it is claimed ~ and I've looked into world opium/heroin production figures and find them highly spurious. I think they're massively underestimated in some countries) as Pakistan (1-5 tons heroin annually). Opium/heroin is actually sourced from at least 17 countries, including North Korea, Lebanon, Vietnam, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, India, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala and Mexico AS WELL as Afghanistan.

Khun Sa died in 2007 and Burma's trade in methamphetamine as well as heroin has since increased. The Burmese government would have us believe that the drug trade is all down to these troublesome border tribes, but expert observers are not convinced. Huge amounts of money are reputedly laundered through Yangon's banks. Anybody willing to pay a 40% "tax" can wash as much cash as they like through a Burmese account and have it officially declared legal. A huge boost to drug dealers and international criminals of all varieties.

My point being that the Nice Lady's release into notoriously unstable Burma may not necessarily be the best thing for her country, or the world.

Look at the former Soviet Union. Countries not used to freedom and democracy don't know how to handle it. That's how figures like Vladimir Putin arise.

As I say, perhaps Burma's generals, like Khun Sa before them, feel they've made their money and the time has come to retire in style? In their own country, in complete safety. If they do retire and indications arise that they are not safe, I'm sure they'd find safe haven in adjoining lands.

Perhaps they intend to go on as normal. Perhaps intend to be puppet-masters, directing future ceremonies from behind the scenes... who knows their real agenda?

In my view, the potential problems come not necessarily from the Burmans, the Burmese-speaking majority, but from Burma's massively unstable border regions. Here (for political, as well as cultural and linguistic reasons) many local tribes claim not to consider themselves "Burmese". They are fighting for what the media call "various degrees of autonomy". They also grow opium poppies.

Vast amounts of methamphetamine are also produced in Burma or Myanmar, as the current "junta" would have us call it. Myanmar is pronounced Mee-YAN-mar. Not MY (rhyming with high, as on China White + methamphetamine) -an-mar.

Opium production dipped so low at one point that even local peasants, many of whom were/are addicted couldn't get it in the early 2000s. Australia, which is primarily supplied by Burmese heroin, went through a 5-year heroin drought from 2001-2006. Purity plummeted while prices soared. Vancouver and Western Canada, which are also fed on China White, also experienced upheaval. But bordering the enormous US drug market, no heroin shortage there was likely to last for long.

In recent years opium production has increased in all major growing regions bar (so it is claimed) the South American Andes. The world market for heroin is bigger than at any point in history. Burma has the experience and expertise to fulfil this demand.

Burmese methamphetamine is usually stamped into pills and exported primarily to Thailand, where it is known as yaba ยาบ้า, the "crazy drug", after the psychosis "repeated administration" provokes. From Thailand it is exported to Cambodia and Vietnam, which also have significant drug problems. But this too could change. Burma is already suspected of being the world's biggest producer of methamphetamine. What would happen if they suddenly started shipping this drug to Europe, which traditionally hasn't been into "meth"? MDMA and similar Ecstasy-type substances and simple (and far weaker) amphetamine sulphate (as well as, of course cocaine and crack) have traditionally been the stimulants of choice here, but Europeans, especially the British, Germans and Dutch, have been notoriously willing to experiment with new uppers en masse, which is why Ecstasy made such inroads into the popular culture. Bored of low-purity coke, the populace may well turn to this far cheaper and longer-lasting stimulant, if it were made more widely available.

I did used to have a crystal ball, but I lost it when I got made homeless. So I'm afraid I've not a clue what the future might hold.

Yes change is afoot in Burma, but it's not necessarily all good.

Heroin drought UK 2010/2011 life goes on (reluctantly)

THERE IS A TERRIBLE SHORTAGE of heroin of even half decent quality here in London. When London can't get it, the drought is usually nationwide.

The first signs started maybe two months ago. The last two weeks have been worse and worse. Total drought. I knew one person with what I considered crap. Then I found out it was the best around.

Then I got stung four days in a row. "Heroin" that just swirled browny-black dye in the spoon, runs along foil, though I don't smoke it I'm willing to test a tiny bit. But not with the highly distinctive, slightly opiumy smell of brown heroin base.

In previous droughts, by using extreme discrimination and basically by asking around, I usually managed to get the best stuff that was going about. When I looked for it. And there was still good stuff going about, albeit in tiny quantities, amongst all the rubbish.

The normal gear we get looks light browny-beige. A lot of the best stuff used to look indistinguishable from cat-litter (grey) but that was a few years ago. I have seen heroin in every colour from stark white to near midnight black.

A few days ago I was almost happy with the situation. Oh good now's my chance.

I was getting fed up of sticking needles in the back of my knees, between my toes, down the sides of my hands, up the back of my thigh where I can't even see.

But now I wake up wailing to myself. I am living on methadone! How can this be! No heroin. All day! Even if I "get" it, I will just be injecting brown water with the faintest opiate teaser. O how can this go on. Why don't normal people just hang themselves and be over with? How can life possibly have any meaning without the Killer B-sting? Akh!

Now I've got to run. Desperate person at door.

Hartlepool Mail, 5 November 2010 "'dirty drugs' warning as heroin supply dries up"
http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/39Dirty39-drugs-warning-as-heroin.6614228.jp

ANYONE anywhere, tell me what's happening. Give us idea where you are (not too specific please as all comments have to be moderated). How is it, and if it's bad, how bad - and why you believe that is. I'm also interested in hearing from anyone abroad who can vouch how far this has spread. I think the cause has to do with poppy blight and a ruined harvest in Afghanistan pushing up the kilo-price here... and no doubt across the water too...
YOU DON'T NEED TO LOG IN TO COMMENT.
If you have a blog/facebook/myspace/etc click name/url
To comment under your name, click name url, you can leave url blank
Otherwise click anonymous and you can still comment. Cheers!

Only the 1st 200 are on the 1st scroll down. To get to recent news, click NEWER/NEWST, at v. bottom of comments form.

Sat 17th November 2010
WHERE'S ALL THE NEW COMMENTS GONE? WE ALL NEED UPDATES ON THE SITUATION, NATIONWISE. I WILL UPDATE COMMENTS EVERY 3-4 HOURS OR SO. (NO SLEEP PATTERN, HARHAR!)
MORE NEWS/COMMENTS, PLEASE.
ALL YOUR COMMENTS GREATLY APPRECIATED.

MADONNA-HUNG UP
Time goes by so slowly for those who wait...
I'm hung up on you...



4 February 2011

Here's some Classic Choonz from "my day" (those kids on pirate radio who call it "old skool" really make me feel ancient) anyone like/remember these?

THE ORB: LITTLE FLUFFY CLOUDS (DANNY TENGALIA MIX)
some beautiful scenery in this ...



FUTURE SOUND OF LONON: PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Lizzy I found the video!
i like the style of psychedelic montage here




URBAN SHAKEDOWN: SOME JUSTICE
DJ Mickey Finn was involved in this track. Video (little man armwaving bits) shows nearest I've ever seen to true acid tripping on film...
(anyone who knows a better example, please name it i'm interested also any ketamine films? other then Tron..?)




DROUGHT NEWS FEB 4 2011
far as I know gear is still rank by early last year standards, but far more reliable than a couple of months ago. i really can't be bothered with it, which is why i have to go on what i heard. a certain guy i know with a 30 yr plus habit who's on methadone buys the odd bit now and then and says today's stuff with one exception that came from Essex is SHIT compared to what it used to be, the Essex stuff sounds like a fluke...

to all you out there you have my sympathy, i know the life i lived it long enough i'm still a junkie just a juice-drinking one. and my veins had pretty much gone and i'm not into smoking it. (and for the record going on the needle is my biggest regret, after going on gear...)

To be or not to be?

Here's what Google Translate made of the famous speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet (English-Chinese Traditional, Back to English, into Thai and back to English again). I swear I never altered a single word, so how "pharmaceutical sciences" got in there I haven't a clue!

In order to survive or is this is a problem.
Whether it is a noble soul.
Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Or, armed with a sea of trouble,.
Opposition and end? Die: sleep;
Sleep and by sleep to say we end.
Heart - thousands of research in pharmaceutical sciences and natural shocks.
Texture those who succeed.
Pious hope that the dead sleep;
Sleep: maybe to dream: it is life threatening;
Death of a dream come true for sleep
When we roll this salad man,.
We need to stop: with respect.
This will cause a disaster for long life;
For those who would bear the whips and scorn of the time.
Oppressors wrong people proud of their disdain,.
Profane love, pain, the laws of the delay.
Office of arrogance and rejection.
The patient is not worth attention,.
But to make your own.
Simple small dagger?

High in the Chinese Hills...

This is my favourite Chinese poem, "To Tan-Ch'iu" by Li Po aka Li Bai 李白 † 762. Translated by Arthur Whaley:


My friend is lodging high in the Eastern Range,

Dearly loving the beauty of valleys and hills.

At green Spring he lies in the empty woods,

And is still asleep when the sun shines on high.

A pine-tree wind dusts his sleeves and coat;

A pebbly stream cleans his heart and ears.

I envy you, who far from strife and talk

Are high-propped on a pillow of blue cloud.


A little film. Highly Chinese. Highly entertaining. Worth a look if you've 10 mins to spare. Chinese, English subtitles. Includes more of Li Bai's poetry:



Incidentally the "star of Venus" 白星, after which Li Bai was named, literally means "white star" so the poet's given name, Bai (Li being the surname) really means white or clear. A lot of his poems are "celestial" in theme.

Anyone who speaks fluent Mandarin might like to watch a 40-minute documentary on my random blog, here. I think it will be quite some time before I have any hope of following this link ;-)

Here's a Burmese Poem, The Emerald Lake:
http://www.seasite.niu.edu/Burmese/literature/Poetry/Mrakan.htm

Burmese Poem: Emerald Lake:
http://www.seasite.niu.edu/Burmese/literature/Poetry/Mrakan.htm

Burmese short story (also in English): http://www.seasite.niu.edu/Burmese/literature/Short_Stories/Ma_Le

Red Squirrels

FURRY FRIDAY (ACTUALLY ON FRIDAY; FOR A CHANGE)....
In Continental Europe, squirrels are still red:


Here in Britain, our squirrels are American greys, introduced in the 19th Century most probably as "cute pets". I have only once seen red squirrels in the wild, in Regents Park, by London Zoo, when I was about eight years old. Almost all British squirrels are now the bigger and more aggressive greys.


Red squirrels are nowadays seen only in children's books and associated merchandise, like this Beatrix Potter teapot:


Forever lost in the UK:







WISHING Y'ALL A WONDERFUL WEEKEND~! :-)

NA and more drugs...

LAST NIGHT I went to an NA meeting. Two people I know from outside where in there. One was the crackhead who lived downstairs in the madhouse I was in when I started this blog (as opposed to the crackheads and B-smokers Matran the ratman + Laundretta, prostitute extraordinaire, his girlf. (Matran eventually got busted for crack dealing and got our house raided, which I was NOT pleased about and something told me NOT to mention dealing going on in my own home (even though it was a different locked room). But that was a good 3 or more years ago. And I think Matran got deported back to Jamaica. The last thing I remember about this guy was him turning his room upside down. I stepped outside, found the missing rock on our doorstep and ran upstairs to pipe it myself!

The other guy was on gear and crack. The last time I saw him he was in our (dead) friend Lucky's bathroom, sticking a needle in his neck. He is now 18 months clean.

He said one thing that prompted him to give up was dealing with kids on mountain bikes (all over 18, thank God. We did have a big dealer who was FOURTEEN, about 10 years ago. I remember watching my friend score her crack from him. Couldn't help but notice he was being shadowed by someone much older.


When I scored off this individual, which I didn't really want to do but it was after I'd found and consumed 10.5 grams of heroin (3.5g China White, the rest "brown" ~ I weighed the brown on post office scales, it came in at 7g!) over about 5 weeks and got myself (mildly) addicted. When I scored, I noticed a young black boy of about seven come round the corner and eye me up in an obvious way. The drugs are coming! I thought, and I was right. (It was Shamps, the actual dealer who served me, not this little boy.) At this point I had dabbled in heroin, mostly to be "naughty". Nothing to do with rebelling against my parents, who had a horror of drugs, but against my peers, so many of whom thought they were so cool snorting cocaine. And yet crack, which is basically the most efficient way of delivering coke to the brain (feels indistinguishable from cocaine injection) ~ and even more so heroin were utterly taboo. I was informed several times when I broached the subject (admitting nothing) that they didn't want anything to do with anyone who dabbled in heroin. Much less a heroin addict.


I befriended local street addicts who sold cut-price Travelcards each evening at the local tube stop. These cards got you all over London. A zone 1-4 card cost about £4 at the time and the going touted rate was £2 before 8 or 9pm, £1.50 thereafter and £10 £1! after 10.30 or so.

As I say I got to know these people well and found them surprisingly nonjudgemental and more accepting than any other group I had ever met. If I felt miserable I could talk about my woes without being called a buzz-killer, or being thought of as a loser. Because most of my life up to then I had been unhappy. Note I say most, not all. All these people were heroin addicts. One day, I was standing there shivering, because it was cold and someone I knew thought I must be sick. I had £10 on me and they offered to score for me.

I smoked the heroin off tinfoil, which is called running it, or chasing it, or "booting". If you've no habit, you get high within about 2 mins in this way, and you only need about £2.50 worth of top quality gear to put you into dreamland. London street heroin is ordinarily 20-60% pure. A £10 bag weighed 0.2g or a bit more if you're lucky. So £2.50 worth of B would be about 40mg 30mg diamorphine. The bioavailability of smoking from foil is said to be 60% (as opposed to 100% from injecting). So I was taking in about 24mg 18mg at a time. {My maths!} Considering a heart attack patient is ordinarily given 5mg (diamorphine, not morphine, which is weaker) that £2.50 was going a long way. This is one of the seductive things about heroin. Initially it seems to offer fantastic value, Especially compared to crack. And the high goes on for a good 4 hours. If you're "opiate-naive" you feel different even the next day.

I smoked my heroin alone and in secret. None of my "normal" friends knew anything about what I was doing. I was into heroin to get high. It wasn't an image thing and certainly had nothing to do with being "cool". I had two groups of "normal" friends. One lot liked party drugs, the other didn't. Ironically (or perhaps not) it was the straighter people with whom the friendships ran deepest. It was a long time before I used heroin with other heroin users. I did know a mad French girl who injected prescribed methadone amps and crack ~ £15, £20 worth in one hit. The crack at that time was 70-80% pure, so that's 200-300mg neat cocaine in one dose. No wonder she looked like a rabbit in the headlights afterwards. I smoked my crack with her. Because she didn't smoke, I learned the techniques on my own, myself.


When I eventually asked her to inject me with heroin, she insisted I cook it up myself.

Right from the word go I was scoring my own gear when I wanted it. Which was only occasionally. Heroin dealers expect calls every few days at least. So when I rang back a month or so later, I usually had to explain who I was.

The point to all this is that by the time I found that 10.5g stash ~ lying right on the high street in a shop doorway. I thought it was a bag of sweets! ~ everything was already in place. I was already an adept heroin smoker (though I had to snort the China white, it's heroin hydrochloride and doesn't smoke well). I already had a collection of dealers' numbers. I knew at least 6 or 7 heroin addicts who would score for me if I needed them to ~ not just one. So everything was set up for what happened next to seem rather inevitable.

My only reservation in all of this was that I utterly hated the process of scoring. Didn't like dealers. And was unjaded enough to feel the bad vibes that emanated from most of them.

And then I fell in luurve with a junkie. Who was like my twin. Like Kurt and Courtney were twins. And I fell in love with heroin ~ the only drug strong enough to make me genuinely not care about anything ~ more. And the rest is history.

And now I'm drinking cyder, shlucking down chill-pills on top of methadone (methadone has no buzz). And knowing that I probably will throw away at least £10 on the lousy gear that's been around, because I know who's coming to see me today. And this person always wants to score when he sees me...

It's not as bad as it was. But it certainly ain't over yet...

SONIQUE: FEELS SO GOOD