Street Names and New Drugs
Street names for drugs have a specific function. Selling drugs, legal or prohibited, is in itself a criminal behavior, so the network of people involved in selling drugs on the street use other names to disguise their activities, and they apply different titles to the drugs as well. When a new drug hits the street it may at first be known only by an acronym (the initials taken from a full name or title). Once the new drug has become established users and dealers will apply nicknames to the drug, creating a new street name.
New Drugs
New drugs appear on physicians lists as new drugs are developed, designed and licensed to target particular conditions all the time. Some will inevitably be attractive to drug addicts and drug dealers and will be sold on the streets. Prohibited and illegal drugs also undergo changes as the dealers find new ways to enhance the effects they produce or mix them together to make another drug entirely. Bizarre as it may seem, there are even ‘digital sound’ drugs being experimented with today. Street names drugs usually have a story behind them; the names may describe the formulation, the chemical name or the appearance of the drug, sometimes the street name will describe the user.
I-Doser is a very new and recently ‘invented’ drug. Digital audio drugs contain binaural beats, which the makers claim affect the brain of a listener in a manner similar to marijuana or heroin. The audio files are sold online, they are quite cheap and there is no legislation that prohibits carrying an audio file on an mp3 or other playback device. The claims that these audio file digital drugs can give listeners a true high are not yet fully proven and it is still unclear if an addiction can be formed to them.
Binaural beats are not consciously heard, but studies show that they are recognized by the human brain. For many years audio tracks designed and produced to help people sleep or concentrate better have been around. Whether they work or not is open to debate. Long-term studies are underway in several countries because if the brain can be aided to sleep or learn or even dream in a particular manner the potential for education and healing sleep disorders could be profound.
Some common street names
| Amphetamines | Benzedrine, Biphetamine, Black beauties, Bumblebees, Dexedrine, Footballs, Hearts, Pep pills, Plegine, Preludin, Pre-State, Ritalin, Sandrex, Speed, Uppers, Ups, Voranil |
| Methamphetamines | Co-pilots, Crank, Crystal meth, Crystal Methedrine, Cylert, Didrex |
| Cocaine | Big C, Blow, Coke, Nose Candy, Rock, Snow, Snowbirds and White |
| Crack Cocaine | Crack, Flake, Freebase, Lady |
| Tranquillizers | Amytal, Barbs, Blue Devils, Downers, Equanil, Jackets, Librium, Ludes, Miltown, Nembutal, Quaaludes, Red, Seconal, Serax, Sopors, Tranxene, Tuinals, Valium, Yellows. |
| Opiods/Opiates | Big H, Black tar, Brown sugar, China white, Darvon, Demerol, Dover’s Powder, Empirin, Fentanyl, Horse, Junk, Lomotil, Mepergan, MPTP, Mud, Paregoric, Parepectolin, Pectoral syrup, Percocet, Percodan, Pethidine, Smack, Talwin, Tussionex, Tylenol. |
| Nitrites/ Hydrocarbons | Aerosol sprays, Bolt, Bullet, Cleaning fluids, Climax, Laughing gas, Locker Room, Poppers, Rush, Snappers, Solvents and Whippets |
| Hallucinogens | Pot, Dope, Ganja, Grass, Hash, Mary Jane, Reefer, Skunk, Sinsemilla and Weed Acid, Angel Dust, Blue heaven, Hog, Loveboat, Lovely, LSD, Microdot, PCP, Sugar Cubes, White lightning, Buttons, Cactus, Mesc and Peyote |
This group of names is by no mean comprehensive, and changes frequently. Street names vary from country to country and state to state. There are club drugs, party drugs, designer drugs and boutique drugs. Street names are sometimes the brand names simply because the brands are so well known and their use as recreational drugs understood by so many casual users as well as addicts.
