Substance ‘R’

There has been an awful lot of talk of substance ‘R’ in recent months and there have also been – as usual – lots and lots of horror stories running on social media. The media loves horror stories, as we know. So do the authorities of course – that makes it all easier to bring in draconian measures. Show me a central authority that won’t jump at the chance of bringing in draconian measures, right? Those boys love it – they don’t love anything more than they love that. I reckon it’s sexually exciting for them, something like that. Something sick. That’s how they get their jollies. It’s power, isn’t it? The drug of power – for those deeply fucked-up individuals who need it so bad.

 

Anyway, I made my mind up to try it as soon as I could. Substance ‘R’, that is – not power. Power is for assholes, as we all know. It’s an adornment for assholes – assholes always need adorning, after all. Wouldn’t you say? You need as much adorning as you can get when you’re an asshole. Anyway I was determined to score myself some substance ‘R’ and that didn’t prove to be easy – none of my regular dealers could get their hands on it. They tried to fob me off with other shit but I wasn’t having any of it. They were afraid to get caught with this most illicit of substances of course; the penalty for possessing it being years and years in a correctional facility, never mind actually supplying the stuff! You’d be crucified for that. ‘This man was caught dealing substance ‘R’, your honour. Need I say more? He was found trying to sell it to kids in the school playground, in broad daylight. No punishment is too severe for him, your honour. We ask that he receive a penalty that is befitting his crime. We ask that he feel the full weight of the law, right where it hurts…’

 

The judge doesn’t need much encouragement anyway. You can see that straightaway. He looks like he’d personally love to throttle you to death. He would do if he could get away with it. After gouging your eyes out with his bare hands, that is. He’s practically having a fit just looking at you. You’re not feeling the love from that direction and that’s a fact. Of course, this is just pure fantasy on my part. I’m just letting my imagination run away with me. So as I’ve just said, I was having a hard time even meeting someone who had themselves tried substance ‘R’. No one knew anything, or if they did then they weren’t admitting it. Anyway – to get back to the point of my little story – eventually I made a connection. You know how it is – if you want something badly enough then eventually you will always make the connection. I eventually found myself scoring a little paper wrap off a shady-looking geezer in a dark alley in bad part of town. It has to be a shady-looking geezer in a dark alley in a bad part of town, doesn’t it? It wouldn’t be the same otherwise.

 

It actually turned out to be the proper stuff, surprisingly enough. No question about that. There was a problem though, a problem I very quickly found out about. It was cut with something, something toxic. There was always this thing about acid when I was younger – people always came out with the informed opinion that the current crop of street acid was ‘cut with strychnine’. Folk never tired of saying this, and with the greatest authority, too. This always got to me – why the hell would anyone in their right mind cut anything with strychnine? That’s a poison, for God’s sake. Why would you do that? You could use glucose powder or Mannitol. Anyway, that’s what they used to say. Why – I don’t know. Be that as it may, however – this gear was cut with a toxin. I got a buzz alright but it was a bad buzz. It was the ultimate bad buzz. They say that substance ‘R’ gives you a wicked trip but in this case it turned out to be literally true. After feeling that I had been stuck in a supercharged psychedelic spin-dryer for several eternities, I eventually passed out and when I came to after an indeterminate length of time I found that I had been reborn as a human being on the planet Earth, subject to the appalling indignities that are inherent in this squalid and deeply degraded form of existence. I had to spend many, many lifetimes there, and it was no fun, I can tell you. I can tell you that for nothing. It was no fun at all…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

0 thoughts on “Substance ‘R’

  1. rawgod

    Are you serious about not knowing why Acid was cut with Stychnine, or other poisonous substances! Get with the programme, zippypinhead1. Now, I cannot speak about Substance R, (“R” for Reality?), is that a real thing, or a made-up thing to make drugheads spend years searching for “the real thing,” and probably willing to spend a fortune to buy it. Sorry, I left the drug world 50 years ago, so Imhave no idea what is current anymore. But I do know what was current then, and I do know why they spiked the Acid.
    As you of course know, LSD was the first real man-made psychedelic drug, a total mind trip. It came as a drop of liquid LSD on a sugar cube. No way to spike it with anything. Pure as the wind-driven snow (real white ice-crystal snow, not that Mexican cartel shit. But how many drug nicknames did I fit into those brackets, pretty good, eh! For an oldtimer… At least someone still has their shit together, lol), unable to get any shit in it.
    But in order for Acid to reach and establish a large customer base, the drug needed something to keep the mind connected to the body, not that anyone would have thought of it that way. By letting the mind run free, Acidheads needed to have a partner, someone to watch over them, and keep them based on Earth. While that provided the best experience, it made the experience remain in little circles. One time you’re a user, next time you’re a guide. The manufacturers needed to find a way to keep all users grounded, and able to trip out either alone, or in unguided groups. Until this was made possible, Acid would never be profitable.
    Who was the first to succeed, I cannot and will not say. DMT (N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, a naturally-occuring psychedelic-similar chemical, was the first attempt I know that was developed to make Acid more popular. Possibly this is where the phrase “tryping on Acid,” or simply “tripping,” came from, but that is just a guess on my part) actually suceeded, but at a cost. The trip was more often bad, a freakout, than good, and created little desire to repeat it. Next someone tried STP (standing for “Serenity, aTranquility, Peace” but more properly known as DOM, 2,5-Dimethoxy-4-methylamphetamine), which was a second generation man-made psychedelic drug, but it was longer-lasting than LSD alone, and slower to influence the brain. It was a better trip as compared to a DMT/Acid trip, but it was still not what the manufacturers wanted. They knew LSD could be a popular and exciting drug, but they still needed something better. Strychnine, otherwise known as rat poison, was probably an accident, just like LSD itself was an accident itself. (Though developed in a laboratory setting, Dr. Sandoz was not looking for a mind-altering drug. But all this is available on the internet. Look up the origin of LSD. Maybe the internet can also tell you the struggle of making it a popular choice, but I doubt it would be complete or intensive. I’m doing what I can to correct that missing link.)
    Eventually, in some rat-infested LSD factory somewhere, we will never know where, the inevitable happened. Ssome acid powder was accidentally dropped on the floor, and got mixed with a patch of rat poison. Whoever picked it up and put it back into the capsule filler (Acid delivery had by this advanced to the powder stage,) and gave the resulting Acid/poison capsule mixture to a test subject is the unknown hero. I highly doubt anyone but he or she knew what had happened, and it probably took a while to backtrack and find out. Anyway, the only thing now left was to figure out how much strychnine the human body could tolerate without damage, and safe tripping wss discovered. The test subject would have immediately noticed that the mind stone was somehow tied to the body stone by the verystill unknown poison that was attacking the body. This was the Acid that made LSD available to all, and very popular AT THAT TIME. (Later, users went back to the pure form of liquid LSD dropped onto a piece of blotter paper, but by then I had l left the industry, and cannot speak to that part of its history.)
    As it was, Acid became a mind/body stone, and the rest of that is now history too. I’m figuring that you really didn’t want this information, but I have always wanted to release it in a way that was not self-serving. So thanks for wondering aloud.
    Now, about Substance R???

    Reply
    1. zippypinhead1 Post author

      I didn’t know that rawgod. Despite being involved as an avid if not necessarily overly knowledgeable acid enthusiast in the eighties and early nineties and very interested in anything to do with what was in the street acid or not in it, I never got the story of why that was. So thanks for the info. I heard of STP alright but dunno if i ever had any. I had stuff that people said was STP that lasted a long long time. People will say anything though. I think a lot of the stuff we were dropping was DOM and I heard the name. I remember people passing on rumours (in hushed voices) of something called ‘Strawberry Fields’ acid that was supposed to be the Real Thing (the 25 isomer) and it was like unicorns because no one ever saw any. Would have paid any price for it though, it’s true. Had some Hoffman acid blotter in 2000 which had a picture of Albert H on it riding a bicycle and that was very potent I thought. Substance R is reality, as you so rightly guess. The ultimate buzz and it takes you into some pretty weird places, right? That’s a trip that just goes on and on…

      Reply

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