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EADD Heroin thread v.XXV -- a quarter centuary of threads if not yet a full decade since the 'drought'...

Are people aware of why the two major areas of heroin production have historically been referred to as 'the golden crescent' and 'the golden triangle'?

My understanding is the former is a not-very-subtle dig at the concept that it's people of the Muslim faith responsible for the vast majorty of the product, the latter because historically the Shan states modified the flag of Burma to produce a flag for Myanmar which has a triangle added to it. There may be many other reasons but be aware that the it was the CIA who used those terms (AFAIK).

Gold because much of the trade historically used gold in payment.

Let's not forget, the CIA issued agents with quite vulgar (and easily identified) gold bracelets, each link weighing some unit commonly used in a region. The theory was that a downed CIA agent could pay their way out if they had to.


The thing is, it quickly became known so anyone wearing one marked themselves as a CIA asset. Since the CIA played both ends against the middle, wearing such a bracelet likely was not a good idea.

Portable wealth still is very much 'a thing' but gold is subject to currency exchange laws while other forms are not.
 
Zopiclone bandit said:
@F.U.B.A.R.
Check the podcast above out, all Junkies are Cunts huh? This guy is like Lord Byron meets Thomas Penson De Quincey.

Credit due to @4DQSAR
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I still stand by what I said, but please note that I didn't say "all heroin addicts are cunts".

To me, being a Junkie is more a state of mind, than a dependence on opiates :)
 
Perkins : Reborn said:
De Quincey was basically a trust fund kid who was paid a 'shut up' allowance by his family until he behaved and went to Oxford. And once addicted, he depended on family money for the rest of his life.

Big fan of slavery too.
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He's certainly not the only one to depend on family money ! Burroughs was also floated by a trust fund although he made money on top of this as he became the celebrated dopefiend author. Arguably it's both De Quincey and Burrough's economic freedom which made it more practical to "out" themselves. And neither of them were characters likely to be embraced by today's progressive cultural critics. Burroughs made use of the sex trade for young men in Morrocco for "boy play" and he got into a very creepy situation with the young man he went on a mission to seek Ayahuasca with...
 
F.U.B.A.R. said:
I still stand by what I said, but please note that I didn't say "all heroin addicts are cunts".

To me, being a Junkie is more a state of mind, than a dependence on opiates :)
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Is the cunts quote from the 70's dope dealer then? I detect a love for the product as he talks about the French No 4 process which produced the "rice grain" H No 4....
 
DrPetro said:
Is the cunts quote from the 70's dope dealer then? I detect a love for the product as he talks about the French No 4 process which produced the "rice grain" H No 4....
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Oh yes. Until the mid 1970s most H in the UK was SE Asian white heroin and as the author explains, the various warlords would brand their products with the goal of protecting buyers. Put simply - if you rip this person off, I WILL return the favour.

Rice Brand, Elephant brand, Double UO Globe brand, Dragon brand, Lion Brand, Skull brand and Red Eagle brand and so on.

You could actually work out roughly where it had been produced. On one hand it was safer since you cannot get much strnger than the 95% pure* product that was expected. This was before synthetics were an issue and it could be snorted thus avoiding use of pins.

*The 5% was caffeine which lowered the melting-point so it could be smoked.

In the last few years a couple of people have asked me about white SE Asian H and I tell them the small amount I know. Typically it is only sold in grams (£120-£130 per) and it's favoured by users who may be professionals. I don;t know much about cocaine beyond the fact that it can take many physical forms and still be considered high quality, thus I suggest the social acceptability OF cocaine means users can consume white heroin without anyone else knowing.

But with synthetics, it's simply impossible to be sure what you have and so the circles the users of white heroin move within are a world away from other circles where heroin is consumed. Where trust is required and so someone new would struggle i.e. it's more or less a closed shop.
 
Perkins : Reborn said:
Oh yeah, Burroughs lived off the proceeds of the Burroughs Adding Machine for years. Had to steal for his habit eventually though, which De Quincey never did.

Perhaps Herbert Huncke would've been a better example.
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Huncke was quite a character, someone I know online spoke to him for a few minutes after a poem reading.
You ever read Jack Black - You can't win by any chance.
 
Zopiclone bandit said:
Huncke was quite a character, someone I know online spoke to him for a few minutes after a poem reading.
You ever read Jack Black - You can't win by any chance.
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Wasn't he known as 'The Night Mayor of Times Square' or words to that effect.

Now it's hard to judge NYC police of the 1940s-1950s but apparently they would sometimes just arrest him to get him OFF the street for a few days!

But whatever else, he was able to form friendships based on mutual respect and in his dotage it was the friends who ensured he had a home to live in, food on the table and warmth. In short, some sort of stability.
 
4DQSAR said:
Wasn't he known as 'The Night Mayor of Times Square' or words to that effect.

Now it's hard to judge NYC police of the 1940s-1950s but apparently they would sometimes just arrest him to get him OFF the street for a few days!

But whatever else, he was able to form friendships based on mutual respect and in his dotage it was the friends who ensured he had a home to live in, food on the table and warmth. In short, some sort of stability.
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Yes, Hunke certainly made some great friends amongst the beats. As you mention, it was these friends who helped Hunke have a safe place to live. He was another dopefiend who managed to live to a ripe old age I believe. I'm guessing that, like Burroughs, he quietly had the assistance of Methadone Maintenance- I dont think these guy's would reference Methadone because it's definitely never been "cool" ! There used to be some obscure stuff on Youtube which he'd had a role in.

White heroin has never been widely available in the UK since the Shah fell and a lot of brown H started to some here. I'm guessing that after a few years the Triads left H to other criminal interests but that's absolute guesswork. I'm sad now that when the darknet markets were still just about useable I didn't take advantage of a couple of dealers on there who were apparently sourcing through Lao. 4DQSAR-when you mention profesionals paying higher prices for grammes of No 4 it brings me back to something I've always wondered about-are there high end dealers who sell No 4 H to a select clientelle. Sadly my long experience with the dope scene in the UK has never brought me into contact with anything which could really be called a "select clientelle" :ROFLMAO:
 
DrPetro said:
I've always wondered about-are there high end dealers who sell No 4 H to a select clientelle. Sadly my long experience with the dope scene in the UK has never brought me into contact with anything which could really be called a "select clientelle" :ROFLMAO:
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I'd be extremely surprised if there wasn't, put it that way. They won't be 'dealers' as such I'd imagine, more like facilitators. Usually family / longstanding family alliances with contacts in source countries who share the love with small family groups etc.

Again, I have never encountered such but would be astonished if it didn't exist. I have encountered similar scenarios as it happens but with different drugs, not heroin, and in the past, not presently (which I'm perfectly happy about tbh, am past all that, but I sure did appreciate the super-purity for all that time, but it was definitely a double edged sword too)
 
Zopiclone bandit said:
Huncke was quite a character, someone I know online spoke to him for a few minutes after a poem reading.
You ever read Jack Black - You can't win by any chance.
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Yeah, I've read You Can't Win. Excellent read. Must revisit it soon.
DrPetro said:
Yes, Hunke certainly made some great friends amongst the beats. As you mention, it was these friends who helped Hunke have a safe place to live. He was another dopefiend who managed to live to a ripe old age I believe. I'm guessing that, like Burroughs, he quietly had the assistance of Methadone Maintenance- I dont think these guy's would reference Methadone because it's definitely never been "cool" ! There used to be some obscure stuff on Youtube which he'd had a role in.

White heroin has never been widely available in the UK since the Shah fell and a lot of brown H started to some here. I'm guessing that after a few years the Triads left H to other criminal interests but that's absolute guesswork. I'm sad now that when the darknet markets were still just about useable I didn't take advantage of a couple of dealers on there who were apparently sourcing through Lao. 4DQSAR-when you mention profesionals paying higher prices for grammes of No 4 it brings me back to something I've always wondered about-are there high end dealers who sell No 4 H to a select clientelle. Sadly my long experience with the dope scene in the UK has never brought me into contact with anything which could really be called a "select clientelle" :ROFLMAO:
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Burroughs was definitely on methadone for most of his later years. Breakfast for him was boiled eggs and methadone. A lot of the time he didn't need to score because he had a stream of acolytes bringing him heroin. And of course Grant Hart gave him his last score as he was lying in his coffin.

There's a story somewhere of him giving a small dose of methadone to a house guest with a hangover, but I can't for the life of me find it right now.
 
ageingpartyfiend said:
I'd be extremely surprised if there wasn't, put it that way. They won't be 'dealers' as such I'd imagine, more like facilitators. Usually family / longstanding family alliances with contacts in source countries who share the love with small family groups etc.

Again, I have never encountered such but would be astonished if it didn't exist. I have encountered similar scenarios as it happens but with different drugs, not heroin, and in the past, not presently (which I'm perfectly happy about tbh, am past all that, but I sure did appreciate the super-purity for all that time, but it was definitely a double edged sword too)
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Yes, I think that long established friendship, cultural and family connections is what I would imagine to be more accurate. In Hollywood, according to various journo's there was a high end dealer scene for celebs which got Mat Perry his K-my guess is that they're more commonly known as Vet's/Doctors ;-)
 
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Wow-never seen Artifacts before, lot's of cultural history. Here's Brigid Berlin on high society doctors, sounds like in the 60's NYC.
 
DrPetro said:
4DQSAR-when you mention profesionals paying higher prices for grammes of No 4 it brings me back to something I've always wondered about-are there high end dealers who sell No 4 H to a select clientelle. Sadly my long experience with the dope scene in the UK has never brought me into contact with anything which could really be called a "select clientelle" :ROFLMAO:
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Yes, there certainly are. Years ao I was approached by a BLer who had family in Shanghai who had noted that there was a huge profit to be made buying 1Kg of China White for ¥80000 from 'home', using family as mules and selling it for £120,000 (retail). 1500% is a LOT but in practice unless you also have extremely pure cocaine (and possibly extremely pure ketamine so users can make their own CK1) then you don't have the products common in that ivory tower milieu of stockbrokers, finance directors and other professionals. People who can afford the sort of legal defence that means they never see a courtroom from the dock.

I pointed to two simple facts:

1) If (when) caught, the mules would be subject to capital punishment but grassing on everyone else involved MIGHT get their sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
2) Unless said BLer had buyers, it would be almost impossible to sell. Or at least not at a high price as synthetics have made those buyers extremely careful in who they trust. There are many 'pathways to trust' but it's a case of 'it's not what you know, it's who you know'.

I didn't detail how much blood is associated with the illegal trade of heroin since ethics did not appear to concern them. But I told them to PRESUME a long term in jail and possibly extradition for MORE jail time. They sort of lost interest at that point. I hope so because I stongly suspect that anyone caught with real China White would be made an example of in any court in the west. I am reliably informed that in certain places in SE Asia, there are diasporas of many western nations but within each, there is only likely to be one or two people who can serve the customers AND themselves afford robust legal defence.

Funny thing, it must be over thirty years since I've obtain a dry amp of medical diamorphine hydrochloride (which we still use in the UK) but I was disappointed. In fact MOST people accustomed to brown heroin prefer it to real diamorphine which they say is 'too subtle' or 'too clean' or even 'not very euphoric'. Don't forget that although uncut Afghan heroin has a mean purity of about 78%, the remaining 22% isn't inactive. It's other, related compounds such as 3-monoacetyl morphine, 6-monacetyl morphine, morphine and papaverine. I suspect it's that last one that changes the character of the drug the most and may serve to modify the subjective experience. If the brown is made in a more rough-and-ready manner, codeine, thebaine and oripavine may also be present and again, may modify the action.

I don't make moral judgements on well informed adults choosing to put whatever chemicals they wish into their own bodies. But synthetics mean people are becoming less and less informed. I would guess that the people who do sell premium products are people who see proper instrumental analysis as a part of 'the cost of doing business'.

But as things stand, Grisham's law dictates that the most potent compound will be at a huge advantage. Just make it all legal and have the DEA or whoever as the experts who check the licenced reailers so people ARE informed. At the end of the day, I suspect most people join the DEA because they truly believe they can save lives but after decades of service, they know it not to be true but they still have families to provide for. So any solution must ensure that nobody gets their rice bowl broken. I don't think that pragmatic, I see it as the best solution.
 
The dull, throbbing pain in my back and legs was so bad, just got relief from it with a smoke.
How you get from feeling like Flu mixed with bone pain to being normal in a few lines always shocks me, the release from discomfort to feeling good shows the power of Heroin.
 
4DQSAR said:
I've obtain a dry amp of medical diamorphine hydrochloride (which we still use in the UK) but I was disappointed. In fact MOST people accustomed to brown heroin prefer it to real diamorphine which they say is 'too subtle' or 'too clean' or even 'not very euphoric'.
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100% agree with you, I found medical morphine very different to street Heroin for the exact reasons I quoted above.
 
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