Manky Stuff

When I was a student, we used to play a boasting game. The rules were simple: all you had to do was list every drug you’d ever taken. The person who’d snuffled up the second-highest number of mind-altering substances would then, unofficially, win. Taking drugs is, after all, cool. Taking drugs makes you an adventurer. It means you’re open to the world, both the geographical outer world and the neurochemical inner world, in all its shades of weirdness. Lightly, sexily contemptuous of danger. A good person to know. But there is a limit. The person with the longest list would usually get some slightly concerned looks. There are other ways of taking drugs that aren’t so sexy. There are futures waiting for you. The hunched-over people under bridges with their frantic eyes.