Street Logic and Substance Use
What’s in a name?
“If the streets haven’t named it, then I won’t take it”
This is my favourite perspective on drugs, despite not holding it myself. I love the idea that a drug only gets welcomed into the pantheon of casual consumption if it’s been anointed with a name. It needs a pseudonym if it wants acceptance. Its alethonym, a collection of letters and numbers describing its structure, is treated like a coded message meant for somebody else.
It’s not real if “we” don’t name it. We. Not the scientists, but the people.
It doesn’t matter if it’s deadly – heroin has a street name.
It doesn’t matter if it’s relatively safe – 2FDCK didn’t get one.
It’s no different from the kids at school who got a nickname and ascended to the top of the hierarchy. Some of the bullies became revered, so did some of the innocent kids.
The street name is a crown. It wins the people over. It has a legacy. It teaches you that it’s worth your attention. It gets mythologised. A substance still being refered to by its pharmacological name feels academic. It feels too serious to be fun. It feels like staying to watch the credits to a film you know won’t have a end-scene.
I like we choose the wisdom of the crowds. It connects us. And it shows how much we fear these substances. That fear is good. Even if some substances are seen as scarier than they really are because they have their scientific name, the decision to avoid it shows a limit to some people’s recklessness. It dials us back into humanity, and acts as a barrier between curiosity and life-preservation.
For further critical discussions on substances, culture, and medicine, check out my physical magazine, Existential Horror. This is a 250+ page publication designed to be a critique and celebration of psychedelia and substance-use culture. Vol 2 is out now!
