Opium For The Masses

Where the fuck did opium go? He might have been 14 when his parents sent him to Lawrence, Kansas to live with his friend Nick for the summer. 14 would have made it 1996. He didn’t remember too much from that time, but there was a shitload of 7-11 Big Gulp sodas, blunts, 40oz’s… which was what had had grown accustomed to from being 12-13 years old living in Connecticut… but was something of a surprise to see that same thing carrying on in some ‘hick state’ a thousand miles away.

He didn’t know a goddamn thing about Kansas before heading out there. All he knew was he had a chance to hang out with Nick - which was, in retrospect, the last time he actually had a chance to hang out with a person he had once considered his best friend - for the rest of his goddamn life. 24 years after this story and they never hung out much more than that 3 times over a month-long period when in their 20's when they both lived in Boston’s Allston neighborhood. Nick came out to hang with him at the bar he worked at, and came to a show or two that he was booking at the Middle East and Church. After that, their temporarily rekindled friendship just kind of dwindled off and faded into a mostly forgotten memory. Nick was a good kid, he will be missed. Whoa, weird tangent.

So Opium. That’s where this was heading, that’s what we’re talking about here. He was used to blunts and 40’s at that point, not much else to do in Connecticut for a 13 year old. They got into some shit for sure, but that’s an entirely different story. Anyway, he was used to what seemed to be the ‘normal’ drugs, but at that young age had yet to be exposed to anything beyond that (still had a year or two before he really started getting weird).

They were at some big music venue in downtown Lawrence Kansas for an MXPX and Blink 182 show. As they were walking towards the venue they were approached by a few employees of the music hall, handing out flyers. They got to talking, and out of nowhere the employees offered a gig to work security for the venue for the show the next night.

We said we were 14.

They said they just need to stop people from jumping off the balcony.

We said what kind of show features/encourages people to jump off the balcony?

They said, Slayer.

Fucking Slayer? Seriously? You want two 14 year olds to work security for a Slayer show?

So yeah, they ended up working security for a Slayer show, at 14 years old, in Lawrence Kansas, and actually had to stop a few people from full-on balcony-diving into the pit that loomed below… which honestly, at that elevation difference, likely would have killed more than one person per jump. Got paid $100 at the end of the night, and got to see a Slayer show, minus parental supervision, at an extremely young age - which has to be considered a victory… even if most of the show was spent with back turned to the band.

But hey cool there’s another weird tangent. Anyway, there was a lot of opium in Lawrence, Kansas. Apart from the time we spent downtown for that snotty punk rock show and the Slayer security ridiculousness, we really spent the vast majority of their time in a fairly suburban environment.

Nick’s basement in Lawrence, KS was the first time either of them ever saw Big Trouble In Little China which would spark a love affair persisting decades later, ensuring that movie would remain both of their favorite for all time.

WANG!

From what he can remember, it seemed like he might have tried opium once or twice prior to 1996, but nothing more than that - it was a rare occurrence in rural CT to find anything other than weed and beer at that point.

But it seemed to be everywhere in suburban Lawrence Kansas. And it seemed to be a known factor that everyone smoked it, no matter where we went. Wasn’t even taboo, any more that cigarettes or beers or shitty malt wine or schnapps for the girls. So he smoked a lot of it. And then when he went back home, he barely ever smoked it again, just so rare in the Northeast.

Until freshman year. Worcester Massachusetts, 2000. Mostly in the latter half, maybe a bit into 2001. But he was never actually sure that was opium. That might have just been a big ball of weed resin with a dash of patchouli pinched in. He didn’t remember what the opium he smoked back in Kansas really looked like, but he was pretty sure it didn’t look like a big squishy ball of hippystank black goop.

Whatever, he made a shitload of money selling it to idiots. People who thought they were smart, and were otherwise extremely smart (academically), but never had to match wits with someone on a similar intelligence level who had also lived a life on the other side of law and order. They never knew what hit ‘em.

They’d stop buying from one guy to buy to me, I’d just go to the guy they used to buy from, buy from him at a lower price than he was charging them, then go sell to them for a higher price than they were paying when they were going directly to the source.

Well done, fucking morons.

That shit stunk. Smoking a single bowl of it in a piece you cared about resulted in that piece reeking like Nag Champa for every subsequent bowl of any given substance. Fuck that shit. But weird it showed up in 1996, maybe made 1-2 appearances in 1998 (Scary West Hartford Ben with the Ready Rocks?), but other than that nonexistent on any scene he had ever found himself around (which was already an impressively varied number of scenes at that point.)

It was all gone by 2001. Not really sure it even made it to the end of Spring semester before everyone got sick of it. Can only smoke a big ball of hippy fudge for so long. I don’t really even remember getting high off that shit, just a headache. Fuck it. Fuck opium, I got no reason to fuck with any of it ever. Glad it gave me the perspective early on so I would be incentivized to avoid heroin, oxys, perks, vics, or any other bullshit opioid that took so many of my friends, and continues to ruin more lives across the country each and every day.