Thursday, Jul 24, 2008
Whoever came up with the "street" drug names in the White House drug office must have scored some radical Dinkie Dow.
Feb 15, 2001 | The drug culture has a language all its own, an underground dialect of slang and idiom familiar only to those in the know. But don't take my word for it. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, the nation's chief anti-drug agency, has compiled an exhaustive, and thoroughly exhausting, database of more than 2,300 street terms for drugs or drug-related activity, like, say, taking drugs.
"The ability to understand current drug-related street terms is an invaluable tool for law enforcement," intones the introduction, sounding like a cop with mirrored sunglasses giving a lecture about drugs, which may in fact be the original source. "A single term or similar terms may refer to various drugs or have different meanings, reflecting geographic and demographic variations in slang."
No wonder we haven't won the war on drugs -- the drug side has a different word for everything! Often, there are dozens of terms for the same substance. For example, marijuana, a popular "gateway" drug derived from the flowers, buds and leaves of the cannabis plant, is variously known on the street as pot, dope, grass, ganga and killer green bud. Already familiar with those names? How about baby, chocolate, Muggles, Dinkie Dow or Pretendo? Still with us? Try putting sezz, snop or splim in your pipe and smoking it.
According to the database, another street term for marijuana is "broccoli." Who knew? But it does throw an interesting light on former President George Bush's stated dislike of the green vegetable. Street-savvy druggies are also said to refer to marijuana as the "assassin of youth," not coincidentally the title of a 1936 anti-marijuana film (although back then, the enemy was "marihuana"). Already, discerning lexicographers will discern the promised geographic and demographic variations in slang starting to make themselves known. The assassin of youth is also known as "laughing weed" and "crying weed," suggesting a wide range of possible effects on the user, and as "Texas tea," which casts a sinister light on the true source of Jed Clampett's fortune. The green stuff also goes by the street names "indica" and "sativa," hinting at a subculture of dope-smoking botanists in white lab coats roaming our nation's broccoli-strewn streets.
Marijuana, of all illegal drugs, has inspired by far the greatest number of street terms, according to the database. Perhaps that's because the laughing weed is the most commonly used recreational drug. Or maybe it's because regular users have impaired short-term memories and have to keep making up new terms for their drug of choice.
But while Muggles assumes many disguises, so, too, does "the big C," or cocaine. The white powder goes by more than two dozen street aliases, including coke, blow, flake, nose candy, Carrie Nation, teenager and glad stuff. Another term for cocaine is "all-American drug," which sounds like the term a newspaper doing a five-part series on drugs would use to refer to the glad stuff. Cocaine is also called "gift of the sun god" by some clearly overexuberant users, and supposedly has been known to trade under the name "Bolivian marching powder."
Somewhere in the White House, there's a dog-eared copy of Jay McInerney's "Bright Lights, Big City" under lock and key.
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