If there is a drug (which I doubt) that adds something to the mind instead of just taking away, then it’s cocaine. If I ever went the drug route again, that’d be my choice.”
“Again?” Gun asked quizzically, indicating the pot paraphernalia.
“Pot is a plaything,” Saul averred, “a frivolity, a social lubricant to be classed with tobacoo, coffee, and the other tea. When Anslinger got Congress to classify it as—for all practical purposes—a hard drug, he really loused up the development of American society and the mobility of its classes.”
“As much as that?” Gun began skeptically.
“It’s certainly not in the same league as alcohol,” Franz agreed, “which mostly has the community’s blessing, at least the advertising half of it: Drink booze and you will be sexy, healthy, and wealthy, the ads say, especially those Black Velvet ones. You know, Saul, it was funny you should bring paraldehyde into your story. The last time I was ‘separated’ from alcohol—to use that oh-so-delicate medical expression—I got a little paraldehyde for three nights running. It really was delightful—the same effect as alcohol when I first drank it—a sensation I thought I’d never experience again, that warm, rosy glow.”
Saul nodded. “It does the same job as alcohol, without so much immediate wear and tear on the chemical systems. So the person who’s worn out with drinking ordinary booze responds to it nicely. But of course it can become addictive, too, as I’m sure you know. Say, how about more coffee? I’ve only got the freeze-dried, of course.”
As he quickly set water to boil and measured brown crystals into colorful mugs, Gun ventured, “But wouldn’t you say that alcohol is mankind’s natural drug, with thousands of years of use and expertise behind it—learning its ways, becoming seasoned to it.”
“Time enough, at any rate,” Saul commented, “for it to kill off all the Italians, Greeks, Jews, and other Mediterraneans with an extreme genetic weakness in respect to it. The American Indians and Eskimos aren’t so lucky. They’re still going through that. But hemp and peyote and the poppy and the mushroom have pretty long histories, too.”
“Yes, but there you get into the psychedelic, consciousness-distorting (I’d say, instead of -enlarging) sort of thing,” Gun protested, “while alcohol has a more straightforward effect.”
“I’ve had hallucinations from alcohol, too,” Franz volunteered in partial contradiction, “though not so extreme as those you get from acid, from what they tell me. But only during withdrawal, oddly, the first three days. In closets and dark corners and under tables—never invery bright light—I’d see these black and sometimes red wires, about the thickness of telephone cords; vibrating, whipping around. Made me think of giant spiders’ legs and such. I’d know they were hallucinations—they were manageable, thank God. Bright light would always wipe them out.”
“Withdrawal’s a funny and sometimes touch-and-go business,” Saul observed as he poured boiling water. “That’s when drinkers get delirium tremens, not when they’re drinking—I’m sure you know that, too. But the perils and agonies of withdrawal from the hard drugs have been vastly exaggerated—it’s part of the mythos. I learned that when I was a paramedical worker in the great days of the Haight-Ashbury, before I became a nurse, running around and giving Thorazine to hippies who’d O.D.’d or thought they had.”
“Is that true?” Franz asked, accepting his coffee. “I’ve always heard that quitting heroin cold turkey was about the worst.”
“Part of the mythos,” Saul assured Franz, shaking his long-haired head as he handed Gun his coffee and began to sip his own. “The mythos that Anslinger did so much to create back in the thirties (when all the boys who’d been big in Prohibition enforcement were trying to build themselves equal narcotics jobs) when he
“Again?” Gun asked quizzically, indicating the pot paraphernalia.
“Pot is a plaything,” Saul averred, “a frivolity, a social lubricant to be classed with tobacoo, coffee, and the other tea. When Anslinger got Congress to classify it as—for all practical purposes—a hard drug, he really loused up the development of American society and the mobility of its classes.”
“As much as that?” Gun began skeptically.
“It’s certainly not in the same league as alcohol,” Franz agreed, “which mostly has the community’s blessing, at least the advertising half of it: Drink booze and you will be sexy, healthy, and wealthy, the ads say, especially those Black Velvet ones. You know, Saul, it was funny you should bring paraldehyde into your story. The last time I was ‘separated’ from alcohol—to use that oh-so-delicate medical expression—I got a little paraldehyde for three nights running. It really was delightful—the same effect as alcohol when I first drank it—a sensation I thought I’d never experience again, that warm, rosy glow.”
Saul nodded. “It does the same job as alcohol, without so much immediate wear and tear on the chemical systems. So the person who’s worn out with drinking ordinary booze responds to it nicely. But of course it can become addictive, too, as I’m sure you know. Say, how about more coffee? I’ve only got the freeze-dried, of course.”
As he quickly set water to boil and measured brown crystals into colorful mugs, Gun ventured, “But wouldn’t you say that alcohol is mankind’s natural drug, with thousands of years of use and expertise behind it—learning its ways, becoming seasoned to it.”
“Time enough, at any rate,” Saul commented, “for it to kill off all the Italians, Greeks, Jews, and other Mediterraneans with an extreme genetic weakness in respect to it. The American Indians and Eskimos aren’t so lucky. They’re still going through that. But hemp and peyote and the poppy and the mushroom have pretty long histories, too.”
“Yes, but there you get into the psychedelic, consciousness-distorting (I’d say, instead of -enlarging) sort of thing,” Gun protested, “while alcohol has a more straightforward effect.”
“I’ve had hallucinations from alcohol, too,” Franz volunteered in partial contradiction, “though not so extreme as those you get from acid, from what they tell me. But only during withdrawal, oddly, the first three days. In closets and dark corners and under tables—never invery bright light—I’d see these black and sometimes red wires, about the thickness of telephone cords; vibrating, whipping around. Made me think of giant spiders’ legs and such. I’d know they were hallucinations—they were manageable, thank God. Bright light would always wipe them out.”
“Withdrawal’s a funny and sometimes touch-and-go business,” Saul observed as he poured boiling water. “That’s when drinkers get delirium tremens, not when they’re drinking—I’m sure you know that, too. But the perils and agonies of withdrawal from the hard drugs have been vastly exaggerated—it’s part of the mythos. I learned that when I was a paramedical worker in the great days of the Haight-Ashbury, before I became a nurse, running around and giving Thorazine to hippies who’d O.D.’d or thought they had.”
“Is that true?” Franz asked, accepting his coffee. “I’ve always heard that quitting heroin cold turkey was about the worst.”
“Part of the mythos,” Saul assured Franz, shaking his long-haired head as he handed Gun his coffee and began to sip his own. “The mythos that Anslinger did so much to create back in the thirties (when all the boys who’d been big in Prohibition enforcement were trying to build themselves equal narcotics jobs) when he
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