Category Archives: Drugs

A TASTE FOR THE EAST 1990

February 26, 2024 – 1:32 am

My first trip to the Orient was in 1990. A round-the-world ticket. One destination was Singapore. The Straits city was already undergoing its metamorphosis from a colonial port to a gleaming metropolis of skyscrapers. Raffles had been closed for renovations. I stayed at a cheap Chinese hotel in a decrepit godown. The walls climbed toward […]

By Peter | Also posted in 90s, semi-fiction, Thailand, Travel | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

A STORY OF O by Peter Nolan Smith – 1994

February 24, 2024 – 1:59 am

In 1994 Crazy Santa possessed a special guest card to the Russian Baths on East 10th Street. The steam room crew began to heat the river boulders at 6am. The two-ton stones glowed red by 7:20. The Schvitz opened at 8 AM, but Crazy Santa was in the dry steam room at 7:21. He was […]

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Junkie

February 22, 2024 – 9:11 pm

Back in the 1980s on several occasions I espyed Burrough’s walking corpse crossing Grand Central, his unpolished shoes slithering over the marble floor with an effortless gait. No hello. We knew not each other. I sometimes a drunk. He high and listlessly heading to score dope, his once elegant suit hanging off a scarecrow frame, […]

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Chasing the Dragon by Cops 2009

February 12, 2024 – 5:20 am

Drugs are illegal in Thailand. The police have squads of officers scouting the slums, discos, and bars for offenders. Suspects are piss-tested for ‘ice’ and ‘ja-bah’, the two popular speed drugs in the orient. Any trace of purple means a lock-up for months. Actual possession could earn years, but smuggling drugs gets the most time […]

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Free the Weed – Serge Gainsbourg

January 23, 2024 – 4:32 am

French chanteur Serge Gainsbourg appeared in the 1969 film CANNABIS with his English muse, Jane Birkin. In 1973 America responded to this Gallic challenge by adopting the Rockefeller drug laws, which set the penalty for possession of more than 2 ounces of heroin, morphine, opium, cocaine, or cannabis on the same level as 2nd degree […]

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