Exorbitant Student Loans
Most importantly, they make extremely good E. As Keith Bowes, an ex-manufacturer now in prison, wrote in his (ill-advised) E-letter, “this is twice as good as anything you’ll get nowadays. Please respect this stuff as it is pure. No heroically munching half a gram, because you will die.”
This quality issue might sound like a side dish in the rather more pressing concern of youths exploiting the gift of knowledge to bend the minds of their fellow students, but in fact it is key. This is not a case of students wilfully breaking the law to flex their little biceps. It’s not a case of criminals approaching the weak and vulnerable, and bullying them into illegality with the judicious use of a Tony Soprano face. It’s a job being undertaken by the people who will do it best.
It makes perfect sense. It’s about a million times better than the American way, whereby poor students pay off debts by cleaning for rich ones. If you were going to go out and take an E, who would you want it made by? Someone with four years of experience? Or a pair of jokers with some coke, some toothpaste and a pill machine?
In the early days of E, everyone used to talk wistfully about Amsterdam, where every club had a little chemist booth, manned voluntarily by people who could break down the composition of your pill for you – if it was mainly aspirin, you’d know about it (although the point was the preservation of clubber health, it wasn’t like a consumer rights organisation). If those volunteers were actually making the E, imagine how much more efficient it would all be. Plus, it would make us even more progressive than the stories about progressive Holland, which are all made up anyway, and only people like me believe.
Naturally, far from applauding this solitary good thing to come out of the iniquitous student loan system (well, kind of), this will spark outrage, probably enough to result in universities having to station dogs in laboratories.
The good E will disappear from the streets and everyone will reacquaint themselves with the rubbish E that does nothing apart from give you a vague sense of unease and make you want to run for buses. People will take five at a time; then some rogue good Es, of the type made by Keith, will appear on the market, someone will take five of those and die, and the police will say “well, there you go, E kills.” Read the rest of this entry »

