What Drug Names Mean to Me

Do you ever just think of shit? I'm always, like, thinking of shit. It's always shit that doesn't matter too. Here is something I've thought of when I was just kicking it and thinking about shit for no reason. It's an obvious thing to think of and you've probably thought of it already too. Nomen est omen is Latin for, "Your name is your destiny," and I think that there is perhaps a special and purposeful moment when any drug is named. A drug is, at some point, christened like a child is christened. And all the good fortune that is wished upon an infant is also wished upon a drug. Whether it's from the street or from the pharmacies, at some point, there is the giving of a name to every substance. I realize that there is a chemical nomenclature involved in there as well, but it is bent in ways to make the name of the drug sweeter to the ear so that the drugs are more easily swallowed, more easily adopted into your life. Give a drug a poetic and pleasant-sounding name and people will be more comfortable with taking the drug. Think of it as a title, like to a book. A good title will get you reading. Everything is in a name. Here's what some drug names mean to me, what the names evoke. I think there is a poet at the offices of Pfizer or wherever who gets paid to name drugs as pleasantly as possible without crossing the line.

Adderall: This one is pretty easy. It's practically a battle cry. Adderall!!!!!!!!! Sounds like you're saying "Add her all!" or "At her all!" which are all positive, productive, and encouraging things. The name makes me think of getting shit done. Like, here is a list of my shit I have to do to live. Let's get at this list. Add all the things on the list up. Add them all up. Add her all up. Adderall. Or it could be more like "At" as in "Get at it, kid," or "Get at her." Get at that shit and Get add er all. Take on the world! Take on all of it!

Percocet: The name of this drug has always made total sense to me because, for me, it nails the buzz. For some people, pain-killers slow them down and make them groggy. I, on the other hand, have one of those brains that caffeine has no effect on but that something like Percocet will wake up. "Perc" is obviously related to "perk" which has two definitions, both positive. "Perking up" is good and so is a "perk at your job." The end of the drug's name "cet" just sounds like "set," so together, you get all perked up and you're set. You're perked, so set back and let yourself be perked. In your set. You're ready, set, and going. Pretty easy.

Valium: To get the first and most obvious out of the way. "Val" brings to mind the words "valley" and also "valor" and also "value," which are all pretty nice things. The second part of the drug's name is very easy. Ium. Yum. So, you have Valium and it sounds nice and they make you feel nice and not unhappy. The word together is just such a phonetic piece of cherry pie that you'd be dumb not to start popping them if that need ever arises. Yum!

Ecstacy: Obviously the person who does the naming was on top of things with this one. It is clearly the best drug name as of yet. Pretty sure they may have even thought up the name before they even invented the drug. Who wouldn't want to take something called "ecstacy"? Much better name than acid (the worst name for a drug that can actually be pretty great).

MDMA: I don't like the term "molly" because it reminds me of some burned-out hippy girl who has chewed her lips purple and the corners of her mouth have started foaming from eating too much of her name. (Except there is some cool girl I follow on twitter called @molls and she kind of saves the name of that drug for me a little.) But that's when people call it molly. I know that MDMA are the initials of the chemical compound but it turned out, serendipitously, as a more beautiful and much, much better named drug to take. When you say MDMA it sounds like you're saying something pleasant in a foreign language. Like in a language between Italian and French and Japanese. Em dee em ay. Or Em dia may. Sounds like, in this hybrid of languages, that you might be saying, "He really loves you," or "I am here and I am alone," or, "You'll see, life ends nicely." It could be a number of beautiful things to say. It's up to you, really.

Xanax: This might be a little personal, but when I hear the word Xanax, I instantly think of Xanadu. Samuel Coleridge and his drugged out fugue (look it up), and that movie Olivia Newton-John was in. She was a roller skating muse in that movie and I had a childhood crush on her big time. She played the muse Terpsichore who, in fact, the name of the street I use to live on in New Orleans was named after. Terpsichore is the muse of choral singing. I know it seems faggy being into a movie like Xanadu, and that it is considered one of the worst movies ever made, but I was little when I first saw it so didn't have my, "Hey is this cool or not?" guard up yet. So it's not my fault. I was very impressionable. Plus, E.L.O.'s Jeff Lynne wrote some pretty sweet tunes for the soundtrack. He apes Coleridge in some of the lyrics on the track "Don't Walk Away." The lines: a lonely room/where empty days/are gathering to meet me/ when you're gone. That shit is so good. Pure Coleridge. I'd maybe even say it was better than Coleridge if you asked me and it was playing in the background really loud and we were fucked up together.

Oxycontin: Now for this one, the poets at the pharmaceutical companies got tricky with us. Say out loud the word as it is spelled. Go ahead, do it. Sounds unnatural, doesn't it? Is that how you hear people say it? No. They say, "Oxycotton." The name of the drug is structured so that what should sound like "Con-Ten" ends up sounding like "Cotton" instead. The human mouth automatically turns contin into cotton because, after time, mouths automatically take a word and try to get it out in the easiest manner possible. Cotton is soft and pillowy, much like the effect of the drug. I could make a stretch here with the "Oxy" part of it by relating it to the relief of acne. I had terrible acne vulgaris through high school and college and the word "Oxy" makes me think of that OTC zit-medicine, something that heals (even though that shit didn't really work on my zits because they were too strong and big and fucking everywhere). So, do you not think that when the drug company was naming the drug they didn't consciously make it sound like you were saying Oxycotton rather than the more difficult pronunciation Oxy-con-tin, It's just feels difficult in the mouth and like, hell yes, pass me one of those "cottony" things. I'd like to feel cottony.

Vicodin: "Viking" would be the most obvious go-to in figuring this one out. A pill of great strength (Vikings are strong) to conquer the pains of your life. And then the "din" part of it could refer to the den where they hang out or the dinner the Vikings eat. I don't really know about this one. Kind of pulling shit out of my ass at this point.

Morphine: The drug morphine was named after the Greek mythological character Morpheus, the son of Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep. He is also the nephew of Hades and Persephone. Morpheus sends images and dreams or visions, and is responsible for shaping dreams, or giving shapes to the beings that inhabit dreams. Now, I know not everyone can be a Greek Mythology scholar like myself, but for those who are, it doesn't hurt that this drug you have been offered is named after a pleasant part of Greek mythology. If it sounds academic, it must be good for you.

Codeine: Cody and Dean are pretty cool guy names who you could easily consider as friends. Some other things that come to mind when hearing the word codeine are codependent, the code to the inside, or the secret. Also, it kind of sounds like coping which you might be in need of doing if you have great pain that the doctors have given you codeine to deal with.

Heroin: Well, heroin is undeniably a beautiful word. But heroin could be called TERRIBLESHIT and people would still be hooked to it. Probably even more than they are now.
Methadone: Eh, this one's a little tricky, but I can still dig some shit out of its name. Methadone is mainly used to help heroin addicts kick their habit. It is a "methad (method)" to help be "done" with heroin. Bit of stretch? Maybe, maybe not.

Acid: Acid confuses the shit out of me. Who in the hell gave LSD this terrible name and then perpetuated the use of it. LSD can be such an enlightening experience, but I guess people can also have "a bad one" when taking it so maybe the name was perpetuated fairly, maybe as a warning of possible "bad ones" that may occur to one who has taken the drug. Acid. Just sounds like something I wouldn't want to do.

Soma: This is so pleasant sounding it doesn't even need to be dissected. Hell, it even works as a simple mantra you can say while trying to go to sleep drugless. And if there's a pill by that name to take before getting in bed to say your mantra and try to sleep then, well, all the better.

Salvia: At first, this word looks like a misspelling of saliva which is just kind of gross. But on closer inspection it appears as something similar to a salvation, or a salve. Something of a balm, a healing thing.

These are just a few examples. The possibilities are endless. Think Lunesta, Ambien, Wellbutrin (so obvious), Vivalan, Concerta, Focalin, Endep, Adapin, and on and on. I know this isn't some great revelation and it's quite an obvious conclusion to draw. But I'm actually surprised that the FDA hasn't kept the pharmaceutical companies from giving drugs such pleasant sounding names. You know how they took Joe Camel away from the kids who might have potentially one day been Camel smokers? Seems like this isn't too far off from that whole deal either.

GIANCARLO DITRAPANO