SLANG HELPS KEEP DRUG TRADE IN THE DARK

Do you have friends named "Scotty" or "Old Steve?"

If so, are they on "interplanetary missions?" Do they "scuffle" at
"shooting galleries?" Do they build "snowmen," shoot "bazookas," fish for
"square mackerels" or pitch a mean "softball?"

If your answer is yes to any of those questions, the police may want to
talk to you.

According to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy Web
site, those slang terms are among more than 2,000 of the latest dreamed up
by drug dealers and users to disguise their wares and habits from cops,
parents, educators and others who may want to upset the illicit drug trade.

Although the site is a serious effort to keep the public current on the
lingo of the drug culture, it also shows just how strange pet names for
drugs can be.

"Scotty," the Web site says, is the high achieved from smoking crack cocaine.

"Old Steve" is heroin, while an "interplanetary mission" is a door-to-door
search for a well-stocked crack house.

A "scuffle" is a dose of PCP. "Shooting galleries" are drug houses or other
gathering spots for users. "Snowmen" are doses of LSD. "Bazookas" are
homemade cigarettes of crack cocaine, tobacco, coca paste and marijuana
rolled into one. "Square mackerel" is marijuana, and "softballs" are
depressants.

None of the names surprise 46-year-old Fred Hagedorn, a 23-year veteran of
the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department and captain of the department's
drug enforcement unit.

After all, he was a cop when PCP was "angel dust," and LSD - to a select
group of Beatles fans - was "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."

"This level of imagination isn't surprising at all," Hagedorn said.

Dealers use the lingo to protect themselves from undercover cops and
rip-off artists. It's like a password, Hagedorn said.

"They're concerned about somebody robbing them, somebody who's not a
customer finding out what they're doing. . . .," he said. "It makes drug
dealers nervous if you're not speaking the same lingo."

So what's the emerging drug slang in Milwaukee?

"In the past two or three years around here, a brick, kilo of coke - 1,000
grams of the drug, they'd call a 'bird,' " Hagedorn said. "I have no idea
where that name came from or why, but it's common."

Tablets of the rave-party drug ecstasy are called "rollers," he added,
explaining that ecstasy users often describe their high as "feeling like
they're rolling."

Not every illegal drug street-term is that easy to interpret.

Sylvester Stallone would probably be surprised that in different circles
heroin is known as "Rambo," the White House list says, and crack cocaine is
called "Rocky III."

"Each generation kind of creates its own names for the drug of choice that
they're using, said Cleon Suggs, a north side Milwaukee drug abuse
counselor for Aro Counseling Centers Inc. "Each generation improvises and
gets a little more clever for their drugs."

In spite of how humorous some of the names may seem, the ramifications of
drug dealing slipping under the law enforcement radar are extremely
serious, Suggs said.

"We're not just talking marijuana here," he said. "Names on that list like
orange barrels and orange cubes (LSD) are just regenerated names for purple
micro dots and orange sunshine."

The White House list, with its good intentions, could prove to be a little
bit of a headache for law enforcement officials nationwide, Hagedorn said.

"There's some danger in putting out that list, because I guarantee you if
drug dealers see it, they'll just change the names they use," he said.