How To Lose Money And Brain Cells - A Petty Drug Dealers Guide PT 2

We’re Gonna Party Like It’s £19.99

It was early nineteen ninety nine and I was a little late for the drug and rave scene of the early nineties but I sure as hell was going to make sure I took full advantage of the tail end of it. Skunk had just exploded on to the scene in a big way. Up until that point skunk weed was a very rare and expensive treat. On occasion a mate would turn up with a small bud that he’d been saving and if we were lucky he might smoke some of it with us, other that all we were smoking was poor quality Moroccan soap bar. It was full of bits of plastic and God only knows what else, it barely got you stoned and to call it getting high would be a massive overstatement.

I was eighteen, living in a horrible little suburban town at my parent’s house, working a shitty job as a labourer with my friend Stuart and dating a girl named Carla, who was twenty six. I’d lost my virginity to Carla just a few months before, it was awkward and over in minutes but to me it was amazing. She had her own place, smoked dope and I thought I was in love. I’d get up at six every morning and get a lift to work with Stuart and start some heavy duty smoking, go home and continue the same thing back at Carla’s place with all my friends. After they’d leave we’d have semi awkward sex, I was at least getting better at it, and then go to bed ready to repeat the cycle again the following day.

To call it work would be laughable as the most work we ever did was take some power tools to the top of the nearest mobile scaffold tower and get on with the more serious business of smoking weed and sneaking off site every time our bosses back was turned. He knew we smoked but he didn’t mind so long as we turned up and left on time it was of no bother to him. When the older workers on the firm used to complain of our blatant drug taking he would erupt and yell in his deep husky cigar smoker’s voice
“Leave em alone, it’s like rocket fuel to these boys. It’s the only thing that keeps em working!”
He was wrong; of course, in reality it was having the exact opposite effect.

Around this time the price of skunk had dropped to around twenty pounds per eighth of an ounce and had become more frequently available. I’d made a contact, from the building site, who could regularly supply me.
All of a sudden I was having to get it for all my friends as they could only get soap bar and wanted something real to smoke.

This was ok for a time but after a while, it was becoming a real pain in the arse so I started buying it by the ounce at 120 pounds a pop, selling it on at street value and making my own for free. I figured that I could be the nice guy and pass it on to my friends at the same discounted rate I was paying but on the other hand I was the idiot who had to collect and deliver it, so why not get something in return? See rule #1

I’d already tried Speed, mushrooms and Cocaine a few years previous when I was sixteen but it wasn’t anything that I did frequently. Ecstasy had, somehow, totally escaped me until I drove with some friends to Brighton for a night out. We went out drinking in some bars and met up with some friends who lived there and found ourselves at an illegal rave in an old disused warehouse. One of my friends bought some E and asked me if I’d like to try some, reluctantly I agreed, I was scared, I mean we’d just had the whole Leah Betts thing all over the news, these things were meant to kill you right? Wrong, wrong, wrong, these little pills of euphoria were sent from the heavens to make everything much much better and take away all the boredom and bullshit of day to day living and I was hungry for more.

Life continued in a similar vein for the next few months, wake up get stoned, go to work, get more stoned, come home from work, get even more stoned, dish out eighths of skunk to my close friends and then have, by now, good sex with Carla and go to sleep. I only ever sold small quantities and to very small close knit set of friends and always from Carla’s place – see rule #6 – I started taking E’s every weekend and was always at pubs, clubs and parties. Life was good and I was enjoying every minute of it.

One weekend I went to a twenty four hour rave under London Bridge station with Stuart and two of our other friends, Darren and Will. We turned up and it wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen before, it was located in the old underground tunnels and had a market area, three main rooms, one playing Techno, another playing Goa style Trance and one pounding out dirty Jungle and Drum and Bass. There was a huge chill out area full of old sofas and mattresses and the smell of dope and incense filled the air, everybody had eyes the size of flying saucers and it all seemed so magical to me that I could hardly believe that it was real.

Stuart, who’s six years older than me, had obtained some acid and gave some to me, I was nervous and unsure, convinced that I would be propelled into some psychedelic nightmare but Stuart convinced me that I’d enjoy it so I obliged. He was right, I spent the night dancing and laughing so much that it hurt my ribs and that smile, that Cheshire cat grin that makes all the muscles in your face ache beyond belief. It is still to this day one of the best nights of my entire life!

After a few hours sleep on Darren’s floor I headed over to Carla’s place, she was now living in some scary council block and I was still feeling the effects of the trip. I struggled to make conversation and sat awkwardly not wanting to be there at all. She undressed me and straddled me and we began to have sex. After a few minutes I was still hallucinating and her face started to change and morph into some kind of evil Banshee. I jumped up, dressed made some rapid excuses and left to a resonating torrent of abuse and anger from her. That bit was awful but the night before had been so much fun that I knew I’d be doing a lot more of it in the future. That song by Prince may be a pile of shit but from now on I was definitely going to be partying like it was nineteen ninety nine and beyond!