Speed
Powdered speed is only about one to three per cent pure by the time it reaches dealers at street
level. Ironically, it is often mixed with bicarbonate of soda which helps counter the stomach acid
and lessens the harmful effect of speed on the stomach. It's no insurance policy, though: the speed
you buy could be cut with anything, not just bicarbonate of soda.
Some ravers use another way of taking speed without snorting it, with a dodge dubbed 'whizzy water'.
They put a gram of speed into a bottle of water. The speed dissolves and you're left with what looks
like a bottle of normal water, but which gives you the effects of the amphetamine. At happy hardcore
events, you often see people with two bottles one normal water, the other whizzy. "You can tell
which one has the speed in it, because the neck of the bottle is all chewed up," commented one wry
drugs advisor.
"The trouble is that unless you do it yourself you don't know how much is in there," says Alan Haughton,
of Lifeline. "There could be a gram, there could be half an ounce. Given all the current stories about
people having their drinks spiked, this isn't funny."
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