A large red spider walked slowly on its eight legs towards Gaurav when he was partying at Goa some years ago. Earlier, under the effect of LSD, mostly he saw “cute” elephants and colourful trains. But the large red spider scared the wits out of him, he says.
That was not the first time Gaurav consumed LSD, nor the last.
“Albert Einstein said insanity is something where one is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” Kshitij Aggarwal explains the process of drug addiction in a nutshell.
Aggarwal, 22, was a multi-user who started with inhalants in school and ended up injecting smack (an impure version of heroin). Now he is two years clean. He comes from a `good home’, both his parents work, his father is in the army. He says the economic condition of people determines their choice of drugs and at times also how smartly they use it. A fashion photographer may not prefer smack over cocaine, and an addict beggar will pounce at the sight of smack.
Chemical drugs like cocaine, Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), methamphetamine, ecstasy, DMT (scientific name N,N-Dimethyltryptamine) are considered recreational or party drugs. Though most drugs serve as recreational products, these have much less potency for addiction than smack or crack. They are less readily available and often so expensive that they common people cannot consume them regularly. Hence, they are less abused.
These drugs are injected, snorted or smoked mostly at parties. They make you less dull and more energetic than alcohol can. Some of them are even psychotropic, the ones used for hallucinating for “fun”.
Nandon Saikia, 26, photojournalist, has been using chemical drugs to party since he was in college. He has used cocaine LSD, DMT, crystal meth and ecstasy.
“I don’t feel like taking drugs when I am not partying. When I go out for a holiday to music festivals which go on for 24 hours, I want to be awake and enjoy the music. At that time these drugs are fun,” says Saikia.
Twice a year, he goes to a music festival like Hill Top festival in Goa in November and Electric Mahadev in Himachal Pradesh in June – and that is the only time he uses drugs.
He says that different people use drugs differently. He believes he is never going to become an addict because he is not a regular.
“You get these drugs in the rave party you go to, or the festivals once you start being regular,” he adds.
One drop of LSD can cost up to Rs 1,000 at these parties, one gram of cocaine Rs 5,000, one gram of meth Rs 10,000 and one drop of ecstasy can cost up to Rs 1,500.
“The cost of the product depends on its quality and what kind of party it is,” explains Saikia.
Researching on the party drug before using it is common among users in this category. Movies, books and Google help users decipher what they are getting into. When they are more aware they feel less afraid.
After consuming alcohol for many years, designer Joby John, 25, tried ecstasy at a party in Delhi.
“You are so energised you can dance all night. You forget everything else, except the music. And towards the end of the high, one is extremely horny,” he says.
“Pleasures that a drug gives may be referred to as natural rewards. These rewards are detected with certain hormonal secretions like serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, etc,” says Aggarwal.
Today, he is a counsellor who volunteers at various rehabilitation centre for drug addicts.
He says that the same hormones are secreted in thrice the amount when a person induces certain drugs that initiate the secretion unnaturally. Most drugs, when abused, target the brain’s reward system by flooding it with dopamine, which is the hormone secreted during and after coitus.
Intrigued by so many stories of drug users, movies, and books, when Samudra Sarma got a chance to try LSD, he didn’t back out.
He says he didn’t hallucinate or see psychedelic visuals. “It was like four times the high of weed (cannabis sativa or marijuana),” he says.
He adds it could be because he shared one drop with four people and the ‘trip’ lasted for four hours after that.
The most widely found chemical drug is smack. It is a poor man’s party drug. It’s high in potency and addictive component, and available in most areas of the city, according to many users.
The little kid you see when you stop at a red light, holding a handkerchief or a piece of cloth close to his nose and running around begging for money, chances are that he or she is inhaling crack, smack, inhaler or a pain killer which you might have thrown in the dustbin.
“Smack is available for less than Rs 100 in most neighbourhoods,” says Suresh, 53. He started consuming drugs when he was 17 and couldn’t stop till he was 48.
“In my time, in the 80s, we used to get it from Daryaganj, Nizammuddin, Kasturba Nagar, Shahadra. I am sure now it’s available everywhere, because these drugs can be made at home,” he says.
He claims that one of the easiest way to get chemical drugs is by buying painkillers, using prescriptions found in the garbage outside rehabilitation centres. He should know: he was admitted there nearly every year for 31 years he was an addict.