and thinking about
the odd things that happened in Kodiak during my stay there. I just had a
thought about the seamier side of the drug world.
Every now and then huge batches of some drug or another
would hit town and be sold on the street for bargain prices. Two drugs come to
mind although there were others. They are Quaaludes and mushrooms.
When a huge batch of Quaaludes or other doggie downers
hit town it seemed that a lot of women would be stumbling around ‘Luded out and
in a daze. Downers seemed to be more of a woman thing but there were a lot of
guys eating them, too.
Dealing with these zoned out people kind of sucked. They
ran around acting and talking like an old 78 rpm record being played at 33-1/3
rpm. It only took a sentence out of
their mouths for me to know that it was time for me to make my excuse to leave
and split. I hated being around people
when they were like that.
Half of them didn’t know what they were doing. They
didn’t call Quaaludes ‘panty droppers’ for nothing. If you had half a brain you
didn’t go home with a woman whacked out on Quaaludes no matter how willing she
was. Mornings could often be rough on a guy as the woman would occasionally
wake up with buyer’s remorse.
More than one unlucky guy woke up to headaches and one or
two guys were charged with sexual assault. The DA would generally throw it out
if he found out Quaaludes were involved. It was hard to get a conviction.
What was interesting is that women would often come to
some guy’s defense and be willing to testify that they saw the purported
‘victim’ groping guys at the bar on the night in question.
There were a number of decent women in that town that had
a sense of right and wrong and didn’t like women like that because it made them
look bad.
It got worse when the user had a few drinks to go along
with them. A lot of people would pass out in the bar.
The strippers in the club would slow down, too. Sometimes
that was funny to watch. It was about the only time I’d wander in. Between that
and the fact that there would be passed out patrons to scrape up the manager of
the club told me he hated it when Quaaludes came into town. I told him I felt
the same way. I hated being around the effects of Quaaludes.
I do remember one guy that got into Quaaludes. He was a
troublemaker and when he had a couple ‘Ludes in him someone bought him a couple
straight up Crown Royals and it wasn’t long before he passed out. He woke up in
a Dempsey dumpster much to my amusement as I didn’t like him much, either.
Magic Mushrooms were another thing entirely.
I remember when one guy got on an airplane headed for the
cow fields of Whatcom County, Washington where psilocybin mushrooms grew on cow
pies regularly. He left with a small bag of clothes and an empty 5 gallon pail
and returned with the pail nearly stuffed full.
He wasn’t a capitalist. All he wanted out of the pail
full of mushrooms was to get his expenses paid. He practically gave them away
and a good chunk of the town got pretty toasted for the few days the pail full
lasted. He kind of considered it a public service to get half the town stoned
out of their minds.
I do have to admit that dealing with people whacked out
on mushrooms was often entertaining. They make a lot of people laugh
uncontrollably. After a while it becomes contagious. I would be sitting there
talking to someone that was laughing and pretty soon I would be rolling on the
floor with him.
For someone whacked out on ‘shrooms just about anything
could be funny. Tell someone their house burned down and you were more than
likely to be treated by gales of laughter.
Mushrooms didn’t affect the body the same way the downers
did. People on mushrooms were coordinated and maybe a bit animated.
Of course, cocaine was a constant as it was a huge
moneymaker for drug dealers and pot was pretty much a staple.
The local police generally didn’t bother too much with
drugs so long as it was kept away from the high schools. Every now and then
there would be a pro-forma bust and the dealers that were getting greedy, out
of hand or advertised too much would generally get carted off. A day or two
later it would be business as normal.
The police were reluctant to put a lot of effort into
victimless crimes and generally overlooked gambling and drugs. Personally I
avoided the drug scene for a few good reasons. While getting busted took some
doing, you never knew if you’d get picked up accidentally in a raid and become
collateral damage.
A drug bust of any kind was and is a bad thing to have on
one’s record. It can cripple a person’s career and life. There are other
reasons I avoided the drug scene, too. I have posted them in an earlier post.
I have had people ask me why I know so much about life on
the streets and it is simply because I lived on the streets for a while and saw
things firsthand. When you live in a camper/trailer or a sailboat in a fishing
port you see all sorts of things.
Prostitution was controlled
in town simply by tacitly allowing one madam to have a monopoly of sorts which
she guarded with an iron fist. Maybe I’ll do a post on this sometime. It was
interesting how that system worked. It actually made sense and I have to give
the police credit for the way they handled it.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
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