From: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (marvin the martian)
Subject: Re: Drugs
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Date: Fri, 6 Nov 92 22:40:43 GMT

In article <BxAtA1.487@dcs.ed.ac.uk> I hate people mailing me. writes:
|I'd love to know what sort of drugs are going on in America just now.
|I don't mean Crack, I mean nice ones like E, Trips, Speed and Coke?
|(ie. Party drugs). How much does it cost? Is it easy to get? Are drug 
|dealers dangerous people over there, shooting each other in the street?
|
|Is it accepted that if you go to rave you take something?

Here in America, crack is looked down upon by the general society as
well as by most general casual drug users, and coke and speed are
generally considered "hard rugs" and thus looked down upon as well.. 
America seems to associate coke with the greed of the 80s, heroin with
the darker 60s underground, and speed in much the same vein (no pun
intended)... And, of course, PCP and crack seem to also be associated
more with the "inner-cities", where one would get the picture from the
popular media that drug use is rampant and unctrollable....

The only drugs (other than caffeine, prescription, etc.) that are
judged less harshly are extacy (we usually call it X over here - bunch
o crazy yankies, I guess....or MDMA), lsd, and maybe nitrous (but the
unfortunate deaths of some users have curtailed abuse of it, thank
God)... Oh, and pot of course - drug of choice for most Americans....
These drugs are more popular not only in inner-cities but also in
suburban and rural communities, typically among teenagers
(stereotypically)...Oh, and other inhalants and "cheap-homemade" drugs
are popular among suburban youth as well...Some friends of mine have
died from doing *stupid* shit like paint thinner and fire
extinguishers, and freon (don't ask, please)....

IMHO, LSD is probably more popular than pot these days, at least in
the community I live in....LSD seems to be enjoying an amount of usage
not seen since the 60's.....

I'm not going to quote exact prices, since that implies a know more
than I should, but a friend-of-a-friend (FOAF) tells me that 1 hit of
lsd (gen. 60-100 mics) usually goes for around $2-4, a sheet going for
$70-80+....Pot is a rip and not worth it if you have to pay for it,
IMHO... The cost of extacy, in my community at least, is high (no pun
intended again) $20, and is more "unpredictable" (ie:  more foreign
substances present than LSD)....

Oh - I almost forgot - the most popular drug in America is alcohol...
Generally, teenagers to lower-30 year old people go out and at least
have 1 or 2 beers on Friday or Saturday nights...I go to school in a
popular suburban high school with 2600 students, 97% of whom admit to
having consumed a "considerable amount" of alcohol at one time or
another... (High schoolers are aged 14-18 [I'm 19]) and the legal drinking
age is 21 where I live....Oh yeah, and a lot of people smoke (regular
cigarettes) but that seems to be stabalizing or declining out of lots
of public pressure....

As far as drug dealers go, some of the heavily populated urban areas
have gangs, and in those areas you are likely to have hard drug use
and dealing, and one would not want to walk up to an individual who
fits the stereotype of a gang member and attempt to sell a lot of
crack or something....Most of the people in America, I would guess (at
least most of the suburban people we center our society around) if
they have any contact with drug dealers at all, it would be lsd or
pot, and maybe cocaine depending on who you choose to associate
with...

Despite the media's attempts to label the United States as a nation of
drug-addicted kids (usually African-American youth) who go around
shooting each other and strangers, that is simply not true.  Most of
America does not use drugs (excluding tobacco and alcohol and
prescriptions and caffeine).  

I hope this helps and I hope it dispells some myths as well.  The US
is not a playground for drug dealers, and in some instances the
country is very serious about winning the "drug war".  In other cases,
use of light drugs is frowned upon (meaning alcohol, tobacco, and
possibly marijuana) but enerally does not encounter the same penalties
as hardcore drug dealers dealing hardcore drugs.

And, again, this is not first-hand knowledge but FOAF info and what I
see in my own community - each community in America is different and
would have different availabilities of substances and different
morals, values, ethics about drug use/abuse and what is or is not
accepted, and what is the norm.  Also, everyone will have different
opinions regarding the media's perpetuations of drugs in this country.

|David

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