Immediately after his shot the heroin addict is cheerful, almost ebullient. This active response to the shot quickly gives way to the "nod" or "nodding out." The junkie's goal with each shot of junk is to "get the nod on,” to get into the detached state of twilight sleep in which the long reveries of the opiates can unfurl themselves. In this state there is no pain, no regret, no distraction, and no fear.
Junk yields a basic formula of ‘evil’ virus: The
Algebra of Need. The face of 'evil' is always the face of total need. A
dope fiend is a man in total need of dope. Beyond a certain frequency need
knows absolutely no limit or control.
Heroin addicts exist in a pyramid of total need, one level
eating the level below (it is no accident that junk higher-ups are always fat
and the addict in the street is always thin) right up to the top or tops as
there are many junk pyramids feeding on peoples of the world and all built on
the basic principles of monopoly.
Junk is the mold of monopoly and possession. The addict
stands by while his junk legs carry him straight in on the junk beam to
relapse. Junk is quantitative and accurately measurable. The more junk you use
the less you have and the more you have the more you use. All the hallucinogen
drugs are considered sacred by those who use them; there are Peyote Cults and
Bannisteria Cults, Hashish Cults and Mushroom Cults—"the Sacred Mushrooms
of Mexico enable a man to see God"—but no one ever suggested that junk is
sacred. There are no opium cults. Opium is profane and quantitative like money.
~William Burroughs & Terence McKenna~
