what was the speed in the mid-late 90's?

Cuz I remember you used to buy *XX* worth which was usually half a gram and it wasn't crystal, usually white and it really got you revving. Pretty sure it WAS cut with glucose most of the time but still of a very high quality. Some people seem to think it had a different base to all the ice/meth type speed available nowdays too.

Anyone know what it was? I did search and didn't find much, wrong keywords maybe? Be good to see some oldschoolers input.

[EDIT: Prices removed. hoptis]

Im guesing your refering to amphetamine as opposed to methamphetamine
Im no expert though......

i'm pretty sure it was still meth. It was just of higher quality. The crap of today is rushed because it is pretty much the most watched drug in the country.

dunno but it was better than all the speed I've had in the last ~5 years or so (which admittly isn't that much, but still). it was a lot more rushy and before anyone says thats the glucose the rush lasted for hours and hours. The comedown was a lot worse though...

I'm no amphetamine expert by any means but more rushs and a harder comedown sounds like purer or more potent product to me.

In the mid 1990s, amphetamine sulphate was more common than methamphetamine. This changed with the development of the box labs and the rise of base in the late 1990s, and now it's basically all methamphetamine.

^ Interesting. My first encounter with speed (in Aus) during the late eighties was with meth. I sometimes saw amphetamine sulphate crystal in NZ during the late seventies, probably because it was extracted from diverted prescription medications, although some weaker stuff (possibly racemic amphetamine) was reported to have been synthesized from scratch. But it could have simply been pharmaceutical grade "benzedrine".

The "box" lab style of pseudo reduction was also well known in Aus during the 90's and earlier. Prior to the use of a particular acid, red phosphorous was used to form the required halo acid reducing agent. As Red P became increasingly difficult to obtain, other methods were seen such as birch reduction. Somewhere in there the acid method was (re) discovered.

Apart from preparation time when using phosphorous, the reduction reaction conditions for the aforementioned acid are much the same. Also interesting to note, is that while methods for reducing ephedrine this way were documented in literature, the acid method became well established in Australia before it became popular in the US. As late as 1999-2000 there was virtually nothing on this method available online. The one forensics paper I did find which had a small piece on the subject, outlined that the process was already being used in Australia and fears were expressed that it would eventually be employed in the US, which of course it was.

^

My uncle was saying he was getting methedrine in NZ/70s, interesting to say the least. In 1993 - 1999 the NZ speed was ice or backyard meth and when I was in oz over that period I remember white, sometimes sticky wet looking speed circa sydney.. to nowadays just ice/nz, with the odd offering of backyard meth.. Sign o the times, heh.

n.b. memories of the duromine (sp?) years.

Yep! definately the grossest!!

v

I vote duromine as the grossest drug out there, it will never touch my body ever again.

ive always wondered what the speed was in the past too. Friends parents tell me they used to snort tiny lines and get totally trashed. These days if your snorting gear thats cut with glucose its usually massive lines. They had rocks too, no powder. and no it wasnt crystal.

If anyone is keen to write a huge page of info on aussie speed in the past, i will read it lol. that stuff interests me...also base, its damn hard for me to get any ice up here but base is everywhere, it sucks.

id like to see a history of drugs in aus too, particularly speed and x, being a relative youngster ive only ben in the scene for the last three years, and find the nineties stories really interesting.

Yeah I agree

I find the birth of rave culture in the early 90's as well as the rise of Ecstasy
very interesting


Comparative studies into what we had then to what we have now would be fantastic but highly unlikely...

Perhaps us bluelighters should start documenting current trends and drug avaliability so in 10years or so we will have an accurate profile on the rise and fall of various drugs.

But probably not

well lets do it then lol
ohh and hi and welcome myself to bluelight lol

Two things:

Although there were some Aus studies done in the 90's and earlier on drug user trends, most research of this type has been done over the past 8 or so years.

Check out the IDRS and PDI reports available at National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre.

Also, there's the BL survey proposal initiated by the-list and still under development (see Tronica's thread What do *you* want researched?

It is hoped that this survey will provide an unprecedented evaluation of user trends and drug availability. Together with past research, this will also hopefully provide answers to such questions/proposals raised here and thus would give a fairly good picture of changes in drug preferences, forms available and possibly even where some of these drugs originated

I remember in the aforementioned period of buying speed that it was always in 'rock' form. Definitely seemed more potent, but then again, I was new to it all ;-)

the_ketaman said:

I vote duromine as the grossest drug out there, it will never touch my body ever again.

ive always wondered what the speed was in the past too. Friends parents tell me they used to snort tiny lines and get totally trashed. These days if your snorting gear thats cut with glucose its usually massive lines. They had rocks too, no powder. and no it wasnt crystal.

If anyone is keen to write a huge page of info on aussie speed in the past, i will read it lol. that stuff interests me...also base, its damn hard for me to get any ice up here but base is everywhere, it sucks.

Click to expand...

I know this is a little OT, but duromine is fucking disgusting. This wanker tried to entice me 'with this shit like speed', having no idea that the active ingredient, phentermine, whilst similar in some of its effects, is in no way related.

It is fucking disgusting. Like really, really, really dirty speed that gives you none of the desired effects. My friends and I still laugh about the way we all reacted to this shit. Talk about paranoid.

My ex boyfriend used to talk about the quality of speed in the 90's and how much it is cut to shit these days. I am not sure if he was just confusing it with powdered meth, but he still maintains that this was definitely just stronger amphetamine. Still i hate lamentinng drugs of a bygone area, so i shall desist

I've never been a huge fan, but whatever it was it was a hell of a lot cheaper than it is now. The lads I know by it now for more than coke costs the same, where as before it was cheaper than pills...so what was it vs. what is it now?