HOPHEAD CONFESSIONS!!! A DISEASE OR A CRIME???!!!

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." "All things are subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth." "The advantage of a bad memory is that one can enjoy the same good things for the first time several times." "A little poison now and then: that makes for agreeable dreams." -F. Nietzsche Recreational narcotic addiction. This subject is as welcome in polite company as recreational pedophilia I suppose. But here I write from the the eye of the hurricane, no longer in the belly of the beast. Perhaps this is a privilege of age and white skin and a little luck. But still I must suffer the financial toll of the gray and black market. And the little HepC bugs gnawing on my liver. I've used narcotics for pleasure since 1971, opium was my preference, or chemical narcotic drugs whenever opium was not available, which is now virtually all the time. The "drug world" has changed over the years that I have used, or "practiced" as the old timers used to call it, and not for the better. The available "street" narcotic, heroin, has declined in quality terribly over the decades. At least the junk that comes from Mexico, which is now the primary heroin source for the U.S. it appears. Despite the government inflicted propaganda that both Cannabis and heroin are both now much "stronger" or of a higher quality than we "baby boomers" had access to when we were young: think Vietnamese black, Cambodian red or the ultimate moonrocket weed, Thai. And Double U-O Globe brand #4 "China white" heroin smuggled from Vietnam and Thailand (90-99% purity). This was 40 years ago. Don't let my generations always narrow minded and often duplicitous career social engineers bullshit you. Street heroin is and has been cut with just about everything under the sink over the last couple decades. When I was young heroin was cut with lactose. Too far down the "junk pyramid" some might be cut with procaine in the west, or quinine in the east. I lived in L.A. during the 80s when crack profits funded the rapid proliferation of criminal gangs. After a period of drug abstinence, in 1994 I went to score near 6th and Union, an old open heroin street market in L.A. Once inhabited by independent dealers, the area had, in my "absence" been claimed, tagged off and monopolized with armed force, as 18th Street gang turf. And the 18th Street gang was cutting their dope with shoe polish. The drugs induced delirium and a near death experience for me. Others were not so lucky, I suppose. I've only dabbled in junk over the last 20 years, the quality and/or cut of the junk has been so bad, even for strong dope of high "purity" that I believe I flushed a good 20% of all the nasty stuff I've purchased over the last 20 years. Todays veinless junkies carry the brown recluse spiderbite like scars of the filthy junk that is contaminated with flesh eating bacteria. And the veins go fast using the shit on the street these days. Thank God and the pharmaceutical companies for all the nasty pills people mix like inept alchemists, or maybe lemmings. But save the pantapon and dilaudid for me. I suppose. You can have the OC. That little hook takes too long to shake off. And the "cures" for narcotic addiction, addiction to the narcotic drugs methadone and buprenorphine. I think I'll pass on that too. Highly educated academic addiction specialists with the insight of virgin sex therapists, armed with reductionist and social pseudoscience, tell me I suffer from a disease of the brain. This disease forces me against even my own will to desire and consume opium. Help I cry. A huge mutliizillion dollar addiction recovery complex is now in place to help the newly painpill addicted avoid, allegedly, the suffering of drug withdrawal. O the Horror! I recently read that some addicts may need to be addicted to buprenorphine or methadone for life in order to medically recover from addiction. Orwellian medspeak? Others say that I am merely a criminal in need of incarceration or worse in order to save society from itself. Personally I think I just have an acquired taste for a forbidden fruit. But truthfully, to ask me to abstain from this passion permanently is no more reasonable than demanding lifelong sexual abstinence. That conformity is part of your moral code, not mine. This acquired taste runs deep. I practice temperance and self restraint in my use of narcotics and it is no more reasonable of you to hold me responsible for the actions of criminal or terminal addicts than it is of me to hold social drinkers responsible for the actions of criminal or terminal alcoholics. I've kicked many times and always on my own. I do not relapse. I freely choose to use narcotics with eyes wide open. Opium is best suited for use by very mature and stoic individuals. Paradise is temporary and fleeting. Agony is the price exacted for lingering in this paradise. And payment is due in full immediately at the exit when the ride is over. I'm personally fine with this price tag, thank you. Those who wish to avoid agony and suffering should steer clear. Don't you suppose? "O mother of pearl, I wouldn't change you for the whole world". -B. Ferry