Heroin Chic

When I was in college, the movie “Trainspotting” became
really popular among the underground hipster set at my
school. In it, we see the wacky and upsetting misadventures
of a bunch of young Edinburgh junkies. Totally failing to pick
up on the story’s criticism of their nihilistic and unhappy lives,
a small group of stoners I was friendly with decided that it
would be cool to do smack. After all, the people in the movie
did it and they were attractive and charming right up until the
credits rolled. It may have been mostly bravado and exagger-
ation, but they told me that they planned to spend the weekend
shooting up so that they could “better understand” the film.
This made perfect sense to them.

The punchline: this was the middle of Iowa and there was no
heroin to be found anywhere. All the dealers they knew told
them they were crazy and all the ones they didn’t thought
they were the most obvious narcs ever.