rugs in Iraq? Are you crazy? We’re a very conservative and religious society. Almost nobody does street drugs. Getting high in Iraq is more about pharmaceuticals. The preferred drug is Rivotril (the same thing as Klonopin), which is prescribed for epilepsy. It’s called
abu issaleeb, which means “the one with the cross.” This is because the pill is shaped like a cross to make it easier to break into smaller doses.
Valium is another popular choice. Ex-soldiers say almost everybody in the army took Valium during the Iran-Iraq War in the 80s to make them numb so they could go into the battlefield, or sometimes just to sleep. One of my friends took the pills regularly, and he said it helped him be less scared and made him somewhat careless to the fact that death was so close.
Then there is alcohol. People used to sell it on the street out of coolers, but militias started shooting them on sight. Still, hard liquor is always served in certain restaurants, where they camouflage it by serving it in juice bottles or in dark glasses that hide its contents. The most famous hard liquor in Iraq is arag. It is basically diluted ethyl.
The world of street drugs, I don’t know too much about. There is hash and there is opium, but my friends and I never did it. I witnessed one of my friends take LSD—some American journalist gave it to him on his last night in Baghdad. He was crazy for a day or so, and is even a little different now, afterward.
Lastly, you have glue-sniffing. You are not an Iraqi street kid if you do not carry a gasoline- or glue-soaked rag under your nose.
TO BE CONTINUED:
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