Drug slang: the most popular expressions and their meaning

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:40

Each specific social group has its own slang. So, for example, a person who was in prison knows who a fraer is, a prostitute knows who a mother is. Those people who use drugs also have their own special slang. It appeared both as a disguise from law enforcement agencies and so that “ours” could be recognized everywhere.

The history of drug addiction slang

It appeared in the eighties in the Soviet Union in connection with the spread of prohibited substances that affect consciousness. The main carrier, of course, was young people - among older people, drug addicts could be found infrequently.

Features

Drug slang consisted for the most part of the concepts denoting the methods of obtaining substances and the drugs themselves. Some of the words came from English. For example, amphetamines are speeds, and this name comes from the English speed, which means "speed" (this drug enhances a person's physical activity). Dragstore is a "pharmacy" where you can buy substances, such a word came from two English words: drug - a drug and store - a store. The jargon of drug addicts is mostly caste-limited, and only a few words go beyond the limits of the social group using it. The main technique is the transfer of the meaning of a word based on the similarity of properties: for example, in drug addict jargon, LSD (a semi-synthetic substance) is a brand. Indeed, in the past few decades, it has been distributed on bright paper impregnated with the drug, visually similar to postage stamps.

Also, a rather interesting method of word formation in drug addict slang is the so-called secondary nomination. Most often, this method is used when naming various substances: Mary Ivanna - marijuana, Dima - diphenhydramine, Marfa - morphine, Katya - codeine.

Jargon functions: nominative

Slang is used to name any action, process (formerly as a cipher and a way to identify members of one's social group, now more due to linguistic tradition) or a phenomenon that does not have a name in the literary language. For example, what does “explode” mean in drug jargon? This one word describes the process of lighting a cigarette with a drug (for example, marijuana). In the literary language, for example, there is no designation of the state of drug intoxication in a long phase, when the user experiences detachment and does not react to what is happening around. Slang calls such a state of pig or pig.

Utility function

Slang words formed by stem truncation serve to shorten some long and overlyconcepts that are difficult to understand. For example, drugs with added chemicals are briefly called chemka, methamphetamine is called hair dryer.

Worldview and pseudo-aesthetic function

They are quite closely interconnected. The greatest value for a person addicted to substances is, in fact, the drugs themselves and the effect they have. Hence such concepts as buzz - drug intoxication, color music - a state of ecstasy. Side words, describing the state of drug intoxication as something positive, also perform a kind of agitating function.

Identification function

Its essence lies in the fact that with the help of specific words, drug addicts identify each other in society. Usually these are phrases that are not typical for the language tradition, for example, “buy dust” - buy a powder drug.

Conspiracy function

For this purpose, jargon is usually used by criminals and just drug addicts. Since the distribution and use of drugs is prohibited by law, drug addicts have developed special words that mask illegal activities. For people who are not carriers of drug addict slang, this vocabulary seems either completely incomprehensible, or is perceived in its direct everyday sense. For example, the phrase "buy flour" to a person who is not a carrier of slang will seem quite harmless, but for a drug addict it will mean the purchase of cocaine.

Slang in culture and media

Users of the social network Facebook in the comments to one post about the popular song "Watchmen"The Russian group "Boombox" came to the conclusion that this composition also has a hidden, not at all romantic meaning. In their opinion, the speech in the song is just about drug addicts. Indeed, in the song test there are a lot of words related to drug addict slang. Watchmen are people who give injections to each other in turn, buns are cigarettes with hemp or marijuana, chivawa, which occurs at the heroes of the song, is a narcotic substance produced in an artisanal way. Black dishes, according to some commentators, were smoky from the preparation of heroin (a well-known method is to heat a tablespoon with a lighter), and the phrase “lost the thread” was deciphered by many as “lost a vein.”

A lot of drug slang in David Gordon Green's film "Pineapple Express: Sitting Smoking". The film itself is about drugs and the effect that their use has on people. By the way, there is even slang in the name itself: “Pineapple Express” is a variety of marijuana.

Slang for types of drugs

Of course, there is a lot of jargon, and below is its basis:

• In junkie slang, flour, coke, coconut, dust is cocaine. A mixture of cocaine and soda is called crack.
• Heroin - its slang name depends on whether the drug is refined or not. In the first case, it is called white, and in the second - in contrast - black.
• Hashish is mostly called by proper names: Galya, Garik, "Gennady", Harrison. Solid is also called a stone.
• Marijuana is in drug addict slang uncle, shmal, Pal Palych, Mary Ivanna, Bach, Beladonna, ganjubas. If grasslow quality, it is called straw, bespontovka, drake. Fried in oil - frying or roasting.
• The name of cannabis can sometimes depend on the place where it grows. For example, from Afghanistan - an Afghan. Any herb is often also called dope.
• Smoking blends and mixes are spice, spicesuha, indusik, Jarash.
• Drugs in pills are called by analogy with the shape: wheels, disks, bagels.

• Crystal or gunpowder is a substance like methamphetamine (really has a crystalline structure). The same drug in drug addict slang is Vint or Viktor Palych. These names also denote pervitin and related processes: put out a screw - make a drug, screw - use it intravenously, and screw - just a person who uses this type of drug.
• By analogy with the consistency or consonant with the name, they call liquid ecstasy - sodium oxybutyrate. This is water or Oksana in drug addict slang.

Appliances and cooking process

• All items needed to make drugs are generally called apparatus. Each individual device also has its own name.
• Watch - scales needed to accurately weigh the dose.
• The needle of a syringe is called a string, and the syringe itself is called a machine, an instrument, sometimes a red cap (this name is derived from the drops of blood remaining at the end of the needle after an injection).
• If after the preparation of the drug there is something unnecessary, then such waste is callednipples.
• Various components such as iodine, phosphorus, vinegar anhydride are red, black and sour respectively.
• Unscrupulous drug dealers bodyate their goods - that is, dilute them with butor, increasing the volume of the substance. Such a drug is called, respectively, bodyaga.
• The process of making a solution for subsequent injection is called boiling.
• If we are talking about smoking mixtures or grass, then fill a pipe or a cigarette - score or nail.

Using drugs

There are both slang names for the process of drug use in general, and designations for the use of each type (smoking, injections, pills, powder).

General terms:

• Taking the drug again without feeling the proper effect of the first dose is catching up.
• Use drugs in any form - use (the same term is still widely used in computer slang in the meaning of "use this or that program")

Smoking-related terms:

• What does "explode" mean in junkie jargon? This is the first puff of a marijuana cigarette.
• When they want to talk about the very process of smoking a drug, they say “puff”, “puff”, “bludgeon”, “kill”, “fill up” or “get drunk”.
• You can inhale smoke with a peculiar method - a wig. It consists in the fact that one smoker takes a cigarette in his mouth with a lit end and quickly exhales air through it (the locomotive blows out). Thus, densea pillar of smoke that the second participant in the process inhales. If there is too much smoke and the person who inhaled it starts to cough, the exhaled smoke hammered a nail.
• To finish smoking a cigarette completely, without leaving a part of the grass in the bull, it can be rolled up in a special way. This method is called a heel.
• With an overdose of grass, a state occurs, which is called nakolotil or complete destruction.

Injection related concepts:

One of the most famous verbs for injecting drugs is to bang. The same process is indicated by such verbs as put, spread, poke, smear

• Use Pervitin or amphetamine - screw up.
• Blow out - allow the drug to accidentally get under the skin during an injection.

Concepts related to pill drugs:

Most often, when people talk about taking pills, they use slang words such as throwing up or throwing wheels

Slang terms for eating devices

A device for smoking marijuana is called a gun (consists of a plastic bottle and a pipette) or a parachute (it is made from a bottle and a plastic bag

• A joint or picket is a marijuana cigarette.
• An injection syringe is called a unit, apparatus, instrument, machine.
• A spoon used to heat up heroin is a paddle.

• Garage - needle cap.
• The point is the smallest division of the syringe scale.
• Furik - a test tube or any other small container for making a dose.

Distribution of substances

Here, too, there are distinctive words and expressions:

• The concept of "huckster" has moved from criminal jargon to drug addiction. Here it refers to a person who sells drugs.
• Pharmacist - a drug maker or the same huckster, but with a medical education.

• Runner, helped, berun - that's what intermediaries are called.
• Air is drug slang for money to buy illegal substances.
• Point or bank is a place where drugs are sold.

How the addicts themselves are called in slang

It depends a lot on what kind of drug is being used:

• A heroin addict is a heroin addict.
• Amphetamine user - upper.
• Smoking opium - frowning, blackberry.
• Words for drug addicts in general - junkie, apricot, user.

Of course, these are not all words that lead to drug addict slang, but only the main and most frequently used ones. Slang is in constant flux: some words appear and others fall into disuse.