Click here for info on the Print Journal (and to purchase your copy)!

The Answer My Friend, Is Blowin' Ritalin

By Chris FARA1

---------------------------------------

God created Ritalin on the first day.
That’s how he finished the rest of the world in only six.

My first line of Ritalin went up these worn nostrils somewhere between academic probation and high honors. That was almost ten years ago, and I can still remember the virgin taste of brilliance dripping from my tonsils. I remember it because it tasted exactly like the ten milligrams that I blew just before firing up my Macintosh to crank out this declaration of degeneracy.

With the possible exception of college acceptance letters and my first paid writing assignment, my first methylphenidate (the generic name for Ritalin) prescription was the most powerful piece of paper that I've ever held in these visibly shaky hands. It was more than just the back sheet of a triplicate form - it was a script for success and a compass pointed toward a destination of decadence. I spent the next few days punishing my sinuses and making up for a term of bad grades. Actually, that's how I've spent most of the past decade.

It was only after wasting a year’s worth of boarding school education that I made the semiconscious decision to start painting my lungs with powder and devouring my academics. The transformation didn’t take long, as I went from stoner to speed addict over a few sleepless nights. Within a matter of days, I was tearing through the books that had forever fallen outside of my attention span and trampling over the geometry problems that used to bend me out of shape. It was all proof that I was sprinting down the path of excellence. My driveway had never quite made it to the street, but now it was completed, paved with blow every step of the way.

Throughout high school I remained submerged in Ritalin culture. I bought, sold, and exchanged meds on a barter system in which Ciba Geigi ten-milligram pills were worth a lot more than their weight in gold. People traded riddies for compact discs, meals, money, movies, stereos, and even sex on a few notorious occasions. Whoever said that “the hand that stocks the drug store shelf shall rule the world” wasn’t joking – particularly when that hand is wrapped around a fresh bottle of uncrushed Ritalin.

There were a thousand ways to get pills, but the most common sources were public school friends who were clueless about the blowmines they were sitting on. Most kids I knew would trade a bottle of meds with a four-digit black market value for a twenty sack of weed. Everybody was happy, and these relationships flourished over the course of a four-year lesson in supply and demand. Then there were the lucky few who had the real pharmaceutical connections, needless to say that they were the players who called the shots and fluctuated the prices according to their greed. But the most consistent sources were those whose bottles were held hostage at the school’s infirmary. Luckily, we had visitation rights three times a day.

Those of us who received meds at the infirmary had a specific duty: to deceive the nurses and smuggle the Ritalin out after breakfast, lunch, and dinner (It was always good to get a meal in your stomach before the jam sessions began). Amateurs hid them in their lips and cheeks, while experienced med-heads evolved more sophisticated capacities. One prodigy I knew could swallow it halfway down his throat and cough it back up through his nose. Some veterans even tucked doses away in their stomachs, and fished them out of finger-induced vomit puddles back in the bathroom sink. You had to have the dedication to the medication.

The school infirmary was the only place in northwestern Connecticut that resembled pre-Giuliani 42nd street. Younger students had no chance of getting past the older, addicted hawks who lined the paths like guerillas; willing to bullshit, bully, and even bust heads to get their nightly fix. One junkie even devised the ultimate scheme to infiltrate the safe, which held prescriptions for the entire school, better known to fiends as Fort Knox. His plan entailed having one sucker enter the infirmary for his nightly dosage, with a club-carrying comrade waiting for a cue that the safe was open. On the cue, the bat man would knock out both the nurse and the patient, who would willingly take one for the team. I backed out once they decided that I would be the martyr. Needless to say, none of us ever got desperate enough to carry this out.

Violent plots to rule the Ritalin kingdom aside, blowing was actually more of a sport than a status symbol. Like any other drug habit, there was excitement in the process. We spent hours crafting and gutting the ideal blowing devices, and sunny days were designated for sifting through yard sales for the perfect crushing apparatus. Of course paperweights and hollow Bic pens did the trick, but blowing was only half the battle. Setup and execution were as critical as the high, and almost as satisfying.

There was a select group of kids who took its blowing more seriously than the occasional user. For them, the slower, delayed routine of sniffing lines couldn't compare to the blast of a “pyramid,” which was nothing more than a crushed few pills skillfully shaped into a single pile. The result was a nasal blast that measured up to the bathroom activity at a 1970's Saturday Night Live after-party. The group’s theme song was "Blow Like an Egyptian," and I always enjoyed touring the pyramids with my hard core guides every once in a while.

I’ve heard of kids at other schools who catered custom routines to meet their blowing needs and agendas. The most original had to be the guys at a nearby boys school, who crushed and funneled their fuel through cone-shaped pages of loose leaf paper. Though not the most discreet methodology I’ve ever heard of, it’s certainly one worth mentioning.

As the kings of fiends, we also embarked on some creative endeavors, usually involving mirrors, razors, straws, and a myriad of other odds and pens. On celebratory occasions, a popular gesture was to present a friend with his or her name spelled out in meds. For crunch situations, one popular device was a custom blower with a med reservoir for mid-examination boosts which put an end to the long lines at the bathroom stalls. The creative opportunities were endless when my blown-out buddies got to brainstorming. They even got me a sixteenth birthday cake that looked like a time release twenty rock.

I've blown meds in classrooms and bathrooms, on planes and trains, and off of any countertop that's ever gotten in my way. We've partied at weddings, funerals, carnivals, and even on holidays (I dressed up like a tenner for Halloween one year and blew the competition away). My bottles have been to Florida, Mexico, California, Colorado, Montreal, and Martha's Vineyard. And in my travels, I've acquired the skills to crush, cut and blow inside, outside, mountainside, and even ringside. There's just no stopping a soldier with meds in his corner.

I've thoroughly fingered through hundreds of accusatory articles that attack both the doctors and patients involved with prescribing this drug. Outlandish and speculative claims have been made concerning the detrimental effects, values, and uses that it's spawned in stimulant culture. These accounts typically focus on perceived negatives and neglect to acknowledge the positive influence that attention deficit medication has had on thousands of scatterbrains. What the "investigative reports" never identify is the academic successes, organizational skills, exponentially increased alcohol consuming abilities, and even ejaculation controls that keep millions of satisfied customers swallowing, sucking, and snorting into the early hours of success.

Outlaw speed addicts have developed superiority complexes over those who seek physician-prescribed fixations. Referring to Ritalin as "Diet Coke," many cocaine and crank constituents consume a much more dangerous remedy for their daily dilemmas. And while the glamorous perks of their habits are recognized, they bring upon themselves a financial, legal, and health burden that insured med-heads don't have to worry about. Some say that “China white blow” was the best invention since sliced bread. But sliced meds have yet to meet their match.

---------------------------------------

Chris FARA1 has written for various underground hip-hop magazines, as well as some of the more audacious New York independents willing to publish his work. He can be reached at FARA1ANDONLY@netscape.net.

© 2003 Me Three