THE CRACK STALLION

Anybody who has ordered drugs in Montreal recently knows what a
hassle it is. First, you have to get a legitimate drug dealer's number.

This requires you to contact the sketchiest of your acquaintances. It
is likely that the acquaintance you've chosen to contact is
shameless, and proud to be your go-to shadeball.

It's when you have to call the dealer that the potential for
humiliation begins.

The drug trade may be an international business, but drug slang is
highly regional.

Ask a dealer in the southern United States for a piggyback and he
will know instantly that you want to buy a blend of coke and heroin,
named for the way the energetic cocaine high seems to carry its
lazier counterpart. However, if you request a piggyback from a pusher
in Montreal, they will likely think that you are using some kind of
narc codeword or signal.

There is, of course, an exception to every linguistic rule. The
phrase "enough drugs to kill a small horse" transcends all geographic
boundaries. Nowadays, it is a universally accepted way to describe an
overdose victim's uncontrollable drug consumption, but the historical
origins of this seemingly universal English phrase are much more complex.

Following several hours of exhaustive internet research, I am
prepared to illuminate said origins here.

If prostitution is the oldest profession in the world, then drug
dealing is the fourth oldest, preceded only by giant mammal hunting
and licensed accounting. While whoring and licensed accounting have
changed little over time, the drug trade has adopted and repurposed
many technological advances, including the telegraph.

Today, slanging has become a science, requiring knowledge of hi-tech
tools like electronic scales and Ziploc baggies.

In addition to embracing new forms of communication, drug dealers
have also been on the cutting edge of transportation innovation
throughout the ages. Most notably, they were among the first
professionals to use horses in North America. Horses of all colours
became an integral part of the narcotics business, serving not only
as couriers and getaway drivers, but also as crude tools of measurement.

Long before human feet were accepted as a unit of measure, traders
weighed their goods willy-nilly, with whatever they could get their
nubbly fingers on. Currency speculators had the gold standard; drug
traffickers preferred the standard horse.

Prior to the invention of more sensical measurement, North American
drug equines were supposed to carry as much product as physically possible.

This arrangement had its snags.

If a horse arrived at drop spot full of energy, buyers would assume
that the filly was "light" and that they had been ripped off. After
much horse and human bloodshed, drug dealers and their customers
grudingly agreed that the system was inherently flawed. However, both
parties were reluctant to abandon horse scales entirely. The dealers
proposed that a species of horse be bred of uniform height and weight.

The Smythe brothers, two of the most powerful drug peddlers of the
era, enlisted the services of genius geneticist William Shetland to
create their race of homogeneous horses.

Shetland, famous for inventing Alexander Graham Bell, successfully
bred a species of miniature horses better known today as Shetland ponies.

Though their coat patterns do vary, these stallions rarely grow
taller than 40 inches.

Disappointed with their surprisingly wee stature, the Smythe brothers
could not deny that their little ponies were perfect for the job.

Today, the legions of horsies who died to provide otherwise repressed
North Americans with the quality shit are mostly forgotten.

Heroin, despite the plethora of North American drug dialects, is
universally referred to as Horse. Moreover, horses of all sizes are
still rountinely mutilated and placed in beds by drug-dealing
mobsters in an attempt to intimidate uncooperative Hollywood directors.

In the straight world, horses have also persisted as units of
measurement. Horsepower is used to measure engine speed. Horseface is
an approximate unit of ugliness.

A horsedick is an unusually large dick.

And what of the Shetland? In the modern world, they have become
fairground novelties and pets for the opulently rich. But for roughly
four decades Jonash's little ponies were essential to the North
American drug trade.

The "small horse" in the phrase "enough drugs to kill a small horse"
is actually a reference to the countless miniature horses that died in service.

Because they were so horribly flawed genetically, the tiny broncos,
loaded to capacity, would usually die shortly after completing a
shipment. Furthermore, the invention of the more reliable
steam-powered mule revolutionized transportation and narcotics
delivery as well.

As email threatens to replace the hand-written letter, so did the
efficient drug mule supplant the halycon days of itsy-bitsy horses.

Waiting impatiently for your neighborhood supplier, you might ponder
a far-off past, when men were men and horses were small.

As for this horsestorian, I long for the days when an exhausted
minature horse might've nayed quietly, then collapsed dead just
inside the door of my apartment.

- - with files from Holly Clement