GOTHIC DAZE OF IRONY AND ECSTASY

With the party season upon us, Simon Busch cautions those tempted to
moralise about drugs

I REMEMBER an erstwhile friend, Carlos, lamenting the loss from the
streets of the kind of ecstasy he was used to. They don't make things,
he complained, the way they used to. He had heard on the grapevine
that most of the Es around these days were mixed heavily with speed
and heroin, whereas he had tried the drug when it was new in this
country, imported from the US and pure. He felt moved to tell me, in
the pompous tones of a reminiscing grandfather, the following
instructive story.

For their virginal ecstatic experience, Carlos and his friends Miriam
and Wayne sought out the hallowed grounds of the University of Western
Australia, whose miniature sandstone battlements, clock towers, moats
and geometrical ponds cried out for the indulgence of a drug-inspired
medieval fantasy. Indeed, if one can use an art-historical term to
describe a drug, one would call ecstasy "gothic". It induces a sense
of wonder and reverence towards everything, except perhaps the cops.

Carlos had taken the drug an hour before, and, sloping towards the
university with his chums, it hit him in an instant. He was
transported as if by a tardis into Gormenghast or the realm of Lord of
The Rings. He fell into a kind of love with a nearby tree. Minutes
passed as he and his companions stroked its bark and murmured to it
what it was: a tree, just a tree.

After running, their arms out-flung, through a magic walkway
underneath a booming highway, the party sat down in a circle next to a
shimmering rectangular pond in the university's main courtyard.

OBSERVER

They bonded with the ducks and told them it was all right if they
couldn't talk. They kissed and hugged each other, proclaiming, perhaps
too often, that there was nothing sexual in it. They thought of making
overtures of affection to the guards clustered in the nearby control
room, which glowed with a soft light like a fairy's hut in a lonely
wood, but decided eventually that they might be too busy to disturb.

The intimacy they had forged between them was so precious that, after
they parted at midnight, Carlos kept one of Miriam's socks tied around
his wrist and one of Wayne's about his forehead. Yet their separation
proved too painful, so Carlos phoned Miriam when he got home and the
two composed and recited poems of exquisite poignancy about one
another. It was in this state, doe-eyed on the telephone, spouting
verse and with his socks appearing radically misplaced, that his
mother found him, at 3am, when she burst into his room on returning
from her own, no-doubt-less-monumental, evening out.

CARLOS's nude ambition brought his drug adventures to a halt some
years ago. I don't see him now, but I've heard he's clean, save for
alcohol and making a successful career in banking and finance. His
wistful narrative raises a number of points I'd like to contribute to
the drug debate.

For most people drug-taking is a stage, like acne or embarrassing
self-consciousness, that you go through and then grow out of, either
wholly or substantially. The greatest danger for most of those who
overindulge beyond their younger years is of becoming one of those
notorious types to be avoided at parties, the drug bore. The
censorious attitude to drugs adopted almost universally in the
mainstream media and by politicians is born of either ignorance or
hypocrisy.

To cure ignorance. I can't think of a single moralistic pundit who
wouldn't benefit from the consumption of the odd hashish-brown at
breakfast - it broadens the mind. Our politicians don't just need a
good shake-up, they could do with a sound freaking-out as well. As
regards hypocrisy, anyone who is sensible enough to pay close

attention to scandalous political rumours knows about the unorthodox
tastes of some of our most ardent prohibitionists. But the appeal to
public ignorance is almost as powerful and addictive as smack.

Of course, drugs can destroy people's lives: it's happened to friends
of mine. But it's also the case that the origin of such people's ruin
lies first in themselves - in their own, hidden self-destructiveness -
and that they'd probably find another means to achieve their goal were
certain substances not available. Spare a glance at other cultures or
past societies and you cannot avoid the conclusion that the
consumption of drugs is virtually a human universal. Neither
intrinsically good nor bad. It is certainly ineradicable.

At the same time, however, it must be said that, despite the earnest
proclamations of your average mystical drug bore, Aztec peyote
ceremonies are not evidence that drug taking offers a uniquely
transcendent spiritual experience. Drugs are most suited to
recreational use; they're about as valuable to our society as sport,
although arguably less dangerous. With time, they become monotonous
and boring, and are abandoned by most users for more grown-up things.
It is ignorance that lends them the magical allure of the illicit.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady