ROCK'S TAKE ON DRUGS

Wow, like, man -- it's like, Jungian synchronicity! Two British music mags,
both dated February, and they're both devoted to drugs! MixMag flashes "The
Drugs Issue" on a silver cover (a possible homage to the cocaine mirror),
and another prominent British music mag, Q, shouts: "On Drugs: The greatest
drug albums ever made/the sickest drug stories ever told."

Q's package includes the five best cocaine albums (David Bowie's Station to
Station leads the pack) and five best acid albums, ranging from the
Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967 to the 1997
compilation Deep Trance and Ritual Beats.

Also in the issue, music and illicit substance expert Harry Shapiro tries
to explain "why Axl Rose takes drugs so we don't have to." A few pages over
is a feature on how LSD "was supposed to change the world. Instead it gave
us the three-hour guitar solo."

While Q's special issue focuses on drugs from a historical perspective,
MixMag takes an empirical approach to substance abuse: Its second drug
survey reveals bad habits getting worse from its last oh-so-scientific
data-gathering session.

This year, the average clubber takes 3.7 tablets of Ecstasy in a session;
in 1999 it was 2.82. Out of all respondents, 67.5% took their first E
before reaching the age of 20. When asked, "Why do you take E?" 34.8% said
"to feel high and euphoric" and 8.6% said "to help you dance." Revelations,
to be sure.