Howard Marks' Book of Dope Stories (37 page)

As Blake said, ‘Everything that lives is holy.’ Every act is a sacrament. Incidents which in the ordinary way would check one or annoy one, become merely material for joyous laughter. It is just as when you drop a tiny lump of sugar into champagne, it bubbles afresh.

Well, this is a digression. But that is just what cocaine does. The sober continuity of thought is broken up. One goes off at a tangent, a fresh, fierce, fantastic tangent, on the slightest excuse. One’s sense of proportion is gone; and despite all the millions of miles that one cheerily goes out of one’s way, one never loses sight of one’s goal.

Diary of a Drug Fiend
, 1970

A
FTER A NIGHT
of sexual prowesses, compared to which the seven labours of Hercules were a mere nothing,
I
fell asleep, only to be immediately awakened by the renewed demands of my insatiable partner. I was able to verify on myself the degree to which cocaine renders women incapable of achieving sexual relation. Orgasm follows orgasm, each one further increasing the intensity of the desire. The most sexually potent man must eventually give up the hope of satisfying such a woman. There was nothing to do but flee in self-preservation.

1926. From:
Cocaine by Dominic Streatfield
, 2001.

CHAPTER THREE

LEGALISE IT

R
ECREATIONAL DRUGS ARE
substances consumed for purposes other than medical treatment or sustenance.

Recreational drugs are capable of changing the way we feel, think, perceive and behave. They change one’s state of mind. One’s state of mind may also be changed physically by making oneself dizzy, bungee jumping, parachuting, hang-gliding, climbing mountains, racing cars and horses, walking tight-ropes and fasting for several days. One’s state of mind may be changed spiritually. There are those who get high on Jesus, confess to priests, talk to gurus, undergo purification rituals such as baptism or
puja
and go on pilgrimages. One’s state of mind may be changed psychologically. Psychiatrists practising hypnotism, psychoanalysis and time regression remove neuroses and phobias.

It seems that the activity of changing states of minds, generally, is permitted, if not approved and encouraged, by the powers that be. Authorities have no problem with my getting a high from jumping off a cliff, or getting a buzz from being zapped by a witch doctor, or being mesmerised by a hypnotist.

And one could be forgiven, perhaps, for inferring that authorities might be equally approving of changing one’s state of mind by taking recreational drugs. And authorities were so approving. A hundred years ago, any respectable person could walk into a chemist in Britain and choose from a range of cannabis tinctures, hashish pastes, cocaine lozenges and opium extracts. He could immediately purchase morphine, heroin and a hypodermic syringe.

Recreational drugs exist, and some people want to take them. Authorities have attempted both to persuade people not to take recreational drugs and to rid the planet of them. The persuasion has been ineffectual and it appears that God or Nature or some equally significant entity has done a good job of furnishing the Earth with all manner of recreational drugs.

There is no society anywhere in the world, nor at any time in history, that has not used an intoxicant.

T
HE
H
UMBLE
P
ETITION
and Address of Several Thousand of Buxome Good-Women, Languishing in Extremity of Want . . .

That since ’tis Reckon’d amongst the Glories of our native Country To be A paradise for women, it is too our unspeakable Grief we find of late that our gallants are become mere Cock-sparrows, fluttering things that come on with a world of Fury but in the very first Charge fall down Flat before us . . . all these qualities we can Attribute to nothing more than excessive use of the most pernicious Coffee, where Nature is Enfeebled and our men left with Ammunition Wanting; peradventure they Present but cannot give Fire . . . Certainly our Countrymen’s palates are become as Fanatical as their Brains. How else is it possible they should run a Whoreing to spend the money and time on a little base, black thick, nasty, Bitter, Stinking, Nauseous, Puddle-water (also known as Ninny’s Broth and Turkish Gruel), so that those that have scarce twopence to buy their children bread must spend a penny each evening in this insipid stuff . . .

Wherefore we pray that drinking
COFFEE
be forbidden to all Persons under the Age of Threescore and that Lusty Nappy Beer and Cock Ale be Recommended to General Use . . . so that our Husbands may (in time) give us some other Testimonies of the being Men, besides their Beards, and that they no more shall run the hazard of being Cuckold by Dildos.

In Hopes of A Glorious Reformation, London, 1674

The Devil’s Cup
, 2000

Rudyard Kipling

T
HAT THE MANIFOLD
abuses of this vile custom of tobacco taking, may the better be espied; it is fit that first you enter into confederation both of the first original thereof and likewise of the reason of the first entry thereof into this country; for certainly as such customs that have their first infiltration either from a godly, necessary, or honourable ground, and are first brought in by means of some worthy virtuous and great personage; are never, and more justly holden in great reverent estimation and account by all wise virtuous and temperate spirits; so should it by the contrary, justly bring a great disgrace into that sort of customs, which having their original base corruption and barbarity, do, in like sort, make their first entry into a country, by an inconsiderate and childish affectation of novelty, as is the true case of the first invention of tobacco taking and the first entry thereof among us . . . it rests only to inform you what sins and vanities you commit in the filthy abuse thereof:

First, are you not guilty of sinful and shameful lust (for lust may be as well in any of the senses as in feeling) that although you be troubled with no disease, but in perfect health, yet can you neither be merry at an ordinary, not lascivious in the stews, if you lack tobacco to provoke your appetite to any of those sorts of recreation lusting after it as the children of Israel did in the wilderness after quails.

Second, it is as you use, or rather abuse, it a branch of the sin of drunkenness, which is the root of all sins; for as the only delight that drunkards take in wine is in the strength of the taste, and the force of the fume thereof that mounts up to the brain, for no drunkards love any weak or sweet drink. So are not those (I mean the strong heat fume) the only qualities that make tobacco so delectable to all the lovers of it? And no man likes strong heady drink the first day (because
nenia repentefit turpissimus
) but by custom is piece and piece allured, while in the end, a drunkard will have as great a thrill to be drunk as a sober man to quench his thirst with a draught when he hath need of it. So is not this the very case of all the great takers of tobacco which therefore they themselves do attribute to a bewitching quality in it?

Have you not reason to be ashamed and to forbear this filthy novelty, so basely grounded, so foolishly received and so grossly mistaken in the right use thereof. In your abuse thereof sinning against God harming yourselves both in person and goods, and raking also thereby the marks and notes of vanity upon you by the custom thereof making yourselves to be wondered at by all foreign civil nations and by all strangers that come among you to be scorned and held in contempt; a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.

‘Counterblast to Tobacco’, 1604

Charles Lamb

A
N OFFICIAL OF
the Spanish Inquisition, on a mission to Quito between 1623 and 1628, described the Dominican and Augustinian monks of that city in the following terms:

‘Sire, they do take coca in these two orders with the greatest abandon, a herb in which the devil has invested the most essential of his diabolic tricks, and which makes them drunk and out of their senses, so that being beside their normal selves they say and do things unworthy of Christians, and even less of ecclesiastics. I think that if the Inquisition does not use a very strong hand with such an infernal superstition, all this will be lost . . .’

We must next consider the effects which are produced by the use of hashish and distinguish between (1) acute hashishism and (2) chronic hashishism.

Taken in small doses, hashish at first produces an agreeable inebriation, a sensation of well-being and a desire to smile; the mind is stimulated. A slightly stronger dose brings a feeling of oppression and of discomfort. There follows a kind of hilarious and noisy delirium in persons of a cheerful disposition, but the delirium takes a violent form in persons of violent character. It should be noted that the behaviour under the influence of the delirium is always related to the character of an individual. The state of inebriation or delirium is followed by slumber, which is usually peaceful but sometimes broken by nightmares. The awakening is not unpleasant; there is a slight feeling of fatigue, but it soon passes.

Hashish absorbed in large doses produces a furious delirium and strong physical agitation; it predisposes to acts of violence and produces a characteristic strident laugh. This condition is followed by a veritable stupor, which cannot be called sleep. Great fatigue is felt on awakening, and the feeling of depression may last for several days.

The habitual use of hashish brings on chronic hashishism. The countenance of the addict becomes gloomy, his eye is wild and the expression of his face stupid. He is silent; has no muscular power; suffers from physical ailments, heart troubles, digestive troubles, etc.; his intellectual faculties gradually weaken and the whole organism decays. The addict very frequently becomes neurasthenic and, eventually, insane.

In general, the absorption of hashish produces hallucinations, illusions as to time and place, fits of trembling and convulsions. A person under the influence of hashish presents symptoms very similar to those of hysteria.

Taken thus occasionally and in small doses, hashish perhaps does not offer much danger, but there is always the risk that once a person begins to take it, he will continue. He acquires the habit and becomes addicted to the drug, and, once this has happened, it is very difficult to escape. Notwithstanding the humiliations and penalties inflicted on addicts in Egypt, they always return to their vice. They are known as ‘hashashees’, which is a term of reproach in our country, and they are regarded as useless derelicts.

Chronic hashishism is extremely serious, since hashish is a toxic substance, a poison against which no effective antidote is known. It exercises a sedative and hypnotic effect.

The illicit use of hashish is the principal cause of most of the cases of insanity occurring in Egypt. In support of this contention, it may be observed that there are three times as many cases of mental alienation among men as among women, and it is an established fact that men are much more addicted to hashish than women. (In Europe, on the contrary, it is significant that a greater proportion of cases of insanity occur among women than among men.) Generally speaking, the proportion of cases of insanity caused by the use of hashish varies from 3 to 60 per cent of the total number of cases occurring in Egypt.

M. Bourgois, speaking for the French Delegation, said: ‘From the medical point of view, there can be no doubt that hashish is very dangerous, and there is also no doubt that the governments wish to remove this danger. In France, hashish is treated exactly the same way as the drugs to which The Hague Convention applies. Each colony has its own regulations, based, in the first place, on local conditions and, in the second, on administrative possibilities. I would like to draw your attention to the difficulties encountered on both these points. Without going into the subject in detail, I may quote the fact that in the Congo, for example, there are several tribes of savages and even cannibals among whom the habit is very prevalent.’

From: Second International Opium Conference, 1924

T
HOSE WHO ARE
accustomed to habitual use of the drug are said eventually to develop a delirious rage after its administration, during which they are temporarily, at least, irresponsible and prone to commit violent crimes . . . a gang of boys tear the clothes from two schoolgirls and rape the screaming girls, one after the other. A sixteen-year-old kills his entire family of five in Florida; a man in Minnesota puts a bullet through the head of a stranger on the road; in Colorado a husband tries to shoot his wife, kills her grandmother instead and then kills himself. Every one of these crimes had been preceded by the smoking of one or two marijuana reefers.