Opium is a beautiful drug. It smells, tastes and looks like just what I think a drug should be.
Last night, I bought 2 grams of a red crystaline substance that I had previously no experience of, for $15/gram.* That alone was a pretty harrowing experience. The dealer was a friend of a friend, who lived in the dorms, and had just come to acquire a large stash of various illicit substances. He had ecstasy, pot, cocaine, and opium. (Possibly more, but I didn't ask.) When I first arrived in the dealer's room, there were about seven other people already there, either hanging out or buying.
Several of the people were just leaving, after having telling the story of their R.A. catching them with drug paraphenalia. The dealer warned them to clean their room, which was wise since there have been several publicised busts in that dorm this year.
My friends and I had just finished making our deal, when one of those previous fellows came back into the room, saying that another had just been arrested. This caused a gret deal of confusion and alarm, so we hurried ourselves out and ended up not paying for some of our drugs.
After rushing to the relative safety of our home, we decided we must smoke our spoils. I dusted a bowl of pot with some of the powdery crystal and proceeded to smoke. I knew before hand that opium doesn't burn, it melts, so in order to smoke it, you just hold a flame nearby.
The smell and taste were what hit me first. It was such a delicious smell, like that of Mystic Temple incense, and the taste perfumed that of the marijuana very well. The high ensued very quickly and powerfully.
Suddenly, virtually anything was entertainment. I watched television, listened to afternoon nap streaming from live365.com, and drank excellent coffee and enjoyed every bit of it all.
We played on everything for a while, mostly reading and the nodes we created were both voted down, although we thought them to be very funny and creative. Figures.
We ended up smoking quite a bit more, and I eventually went to sleep at about 3:00am. Much like marijuana, the opium made for very heavy sleep, but without the grogginess in the morning. Contrary to pot, however, I felt entirely lucid for much of the time. I had no trouble communicating through speech or writing. I had a few very strange dreams throughout the night, or they could have been hallucinations, because sometime I wasn't quite sure if I was awake or asleep.
* I've heard there are other colours, but I don't know anything about them. If anyone else knows more about the types and prices, please add to this writeup.