the United States Pharmacopeia mescaline, Methedrine, Quaaludes, scopolamine, LSD, MDA, THC, barbiturates and Dex Physician's Desk Reference Quaaludes were for evenings of bumping into tables and warm, cuddly sex. Speed of the garden variety, like Dexedrine, was strictly functional: something for exam time. Methedrine, the speed that killed, had the shortest fuse you could find. THC was a marihuana extract, MDA was a midrange pseudopsychedelic, and nobody ever found out what the hell STP was. Mescaline was the war-horse hallucinogen; it was usually high quality, and you could take a good bit of it with no lasting effect. Acid was another story. Where mescaline just set you up for a good time, acid tore down the wall between you and what you were Looking at. People who took a great deal of it are still wandering around saying things like "I don't need to use the telephone--they can hear me." One of my older friends, a South African poet, practically lived on the stuff. He published a volume of poetry about "helium-flowers" and "original spin," his eyes began to bulge, and he went back to Africa.