Drug Etiquette for British People in 2014

Collage by Marta Parszeniew

Etiquette has been breaking down across our society for a very long time now. First, the Beatles with their long hair and wide-lapelled suits, then Johnny Rotten with his unconscionable language. Next came Janet Street-Porter, getting lippy. And then the other day Jonathan Edwards was in the 'papers, telling everyone that God doesn't exist. As a direct consequence of these social outrages, today manners have broken down so much that it seems people can't even take drugs in a way that their old schoolmasters would approve of. Sit down at your average squat-rave nowadays and people causally reach across you without so much as a "please would you mind passing the ketamine". There is very little concern about the difference between “the coke, which I stole” and “the coke that I stole”. Even dealers no longer understand whether fist-bumping is most appropriate before or after the deal.

So it is that we are having to step into the breach for the second time, to remind you all of where your manners are. They’re here. They’re written down. So take a long hard look at yourselves next time you're staring point blank into a stranger's mirror.

RETHINK YOUR APPROACH TO BANKING
Chopping up your cocaine with a Barclays card, are you? Nice one for propping up the hegemony of the big-four banks. From the allegations that HSBC laundered money for Mexican cartels, to the drugs straws that all banks shamelessly pump out into the world, to the cards they provide for the chopping, it sometimes seems as though banks are set up purely to ease the passage of powders formerly known as cocaine into your nostrils. From nose to tail, a street-level cocaine deal is perhaps the purest transference of greed in society today.

So, why not show that you believe more ethical alternatives are possible? At least get a card that makes a small charitable donation to Oxfam or the WWF every time you book another easyJet. After all, you may not be able to give up the gak, no matter how many Colombian villagers are executed by FARC, but it’s nice to know that you can repair some of the harm done by helping posh kids get soft jobs in NGOs.

ACCEPT WHEN THINGS ARE OVER
Face it: No one is going to "bring the mephedrone era back". That would be like bringing WWII back. It would require a confluence of people and places that is far above anyone’s ability to organise. Just accept the fact that, like a historical re-enactment society in Cavalier wigs, when you indulge in druggy nostalgia, the only thing you're really bringing back is how embarrassing and sad you are.

When plumbing the depths of the internet for new designer drugs, remember the risks: never take anything with a name that will sound ridiculous when it's quoted in a Radio 1 Newsbeat report about your tragic death. (For similar reasons, never take any kind of drug at a Hardwell show.) Avoid peer pressure: whatever your friends say, if Gemma Cairney has already done a BBC3 "special investigation" into it, it is uncool and you should not be taking it, no matter how much cheaper it is than real ketamine.

MAKE ADEQUATE TRAVEL ARRANGEMENTS
On the subject of ketamine: do not fall into a K-hole if you do not have a planned ride home. Few people want to share a taxi with someone whose pockets they have to raid to avoid a beating from the driver. If you are the sort of person who tends to get carried away to the point of total incapacitation, simply leave a crisp £20 note and a scrap of paper with your home address in your top pocket before you spin out. Nowadays, this is known in the language of the street as "doing a Paddington Bear".

(Photo via)

GET YOUR REHAB GAME ON POINT
The social rituals around interventions are complicated, but the best advice is to happily agree to go to rehab if the people asking you to do so all seem to possess the Shimmering Holy Face of True God.

Unfortunately, some rehabs are now places of iron discipline where you barely get to talk about your feelings and blame your parents at all. Make sure you avoid those ones by asking the right questions upfront. The rehabs you want are still the ones that are basically like the 4AM moment when you do a load of good bumps and put Definitely Maybe on the stereo, and suddenly the things you did when you were 14 come back to dance before your eyes, wet with meaning.

In fact, some of the more expensive rehabs will let you bring your own copy of Definitely Maybe in if you ask in advance. In truth, this is the only tactic that works in terms of reform: allowing people to let their narcissism hang out in a context that's divorced from the drugs they have come to associate it with. "See, John? Look – you didn't need all those expensive chemicals to be a vain, selfish bastard, after all. You were perfectly capable of it sober all along."

Unfortunately, other people will often want to talk about their own feelings during rehab. This is annoying, chiefly because their feelings aren’t your feelings. They are different people. They see things from outside of your skull. Yes, they have also had experiences. Yes, they also enjoy strawberries and have birthdays. Understanding this is simply one of the many things you will have to get used to as you attempt to re-integrate with society. But if you still can’t do empathy, at least nod occasionally, as the more you pretend to understand, the less they will need to keep venting all of their ridiculous bullshit and the sooner you can get back to talking about you.

LEARN HOW TO SPEAK TO YOUR DEALER LIKE AN ADULT
Make sure to talk properly when you talk to your drug dealer. He doesn’t need to be patronised, but, at the same time, slang is a very fast-moving target to hit consistently. Just because this man spends his life on "the streets", doesn’t mean he's on urbandictionary more than you. In fact, he's probably on it far less than you, since most street corners have notoriously poor WiFi. Lots of people are constantly coming up to him with slightly different understandings of what these terms mean. Is "brown" heroin or hash? Is "white" cocaine or old dog shit? What the hell is "the shit"?

You don’t have to be Ludwig Wittgenstein to see that language use is essentially a game that has no value outside of a closed linguistic community. "I would like some cocaine and a bag of MDMA please," is a universally comprehensible sentence. "I want some snow and M-baby," however, just sounds like you're in charge of props at your local primary school's nativity play.

The fact that he is dealing drugs and you are buying drugs is plenty enough to convict either of you in a court of law, regardless of how many layers of torturous semiotic camouflage you fling on top of your transaction. Just make it easy on the poor guy. When your drug dealer gets home, he wants to be able to flip on Borgen and unwind with some hardcore Danish coalition politics. Not have to sit there wondering whether "the shit" meant crack or Rohypnol.

BE TASTEFUL
You should never joke about drug-related schizophrenia; it is a very serious mental illness that ruins lives. Rather, just emphasise the upside that it can make you as creative as Syd Barrett, and point out that madness is a relative concept when compared to the madness of contemporary society with its war machines and social inequality, etc, etc, etc.

BE CONSIDERATE
If a friend of yours has passed out with a needle in his arm, it is good manners to empty whatever is left into his bloodstream and bad manners to put it into your own.

Avoid quoting anything in this video

DON'T BE A NERD
If you quote Bill Hicks talking about mushrooms while you're on mushrooms, then it is commonly agreed that everyone else has permission to lock you in a side room until you come down, with nothing but a looped reel of al Qaeda torture videos for company.

REMEMBER THAT SOME PEOPLE WILL PAY FOR YOUR OLD SHIT
Possessions you can easily sell is a bracket that has expanded marvellously since eBay. Ten years ago, your local pawnshop wouldn’t give you anything except pity for that genuine View-Master and the half-kilo of Lego. But remember that this is a public forum, so hold back from attempting to flog anything that will get you upvoted to the Reddit homepage as "the guy who tried to sell his childhood judo trophies to fund his junk habit". At the time of speaking, this kind of internet fame cannot be converted directly into actual revenue.

FIND YOURSELF A DESIGNATED DRIVER
Times were when people were only sniffy about drinking-and-driving. But nowadays – thanks to a few bad apples ruining it for everyone by mowing down the odd crocodile of gaggle of school kids – "drug-driving" has taken on all kinds of negative connotations. Nowadays, no one wants to be demonised by Mail Online just because they hit a girl who happened to be cycling around in exactly the sort of gloomy, mist-sodden early-morning weather that makes people very hard to see after two grams of MDMA and a microdot.

Yet, on the other hand, you still have to get back home so you can take a 90-minute recovery shower and stare at the ceiling thinking about your parents. And therein hangs a dilemma. A dilemma that is easily solved by following the same basic method as a drinker: finding a designated driver. In your case, you’ll need one who is prepared to stay up until 5AM entirely sober while a bunch of wreckheads goggle at old clips of CD:UK and wax on at astonishing length about why My Vitriol are Britain’s great lost band.

BONUS POINT
Remember: No one wants to hear about your screenplay.

@gavhaynes