Feelin’ Their Thizzle

For the last couple of years, residents in West Oakland have
been watching with trepidation the rise of Ecstasy use among the
hip-hop set. Formerly the domain of sensitive, starry-eyed ravers,
the drug has recently saturated the West Oakland scene,

Rachel Swan reports for East Bay Express.

Remembering the hole crack-cocaine punched in West Oakland in
the 1980s, residents have got a right to be ‘gun-shy.’ If one drug
could cause that much damage, the logic goes, then any drug done on
a similar scale should be shunned at all costs. Swan argues,
however, that these fears inflate the threat the drug poses. She
quotes University of California at Santa Cruz sociology professor
Craig Reinarman, who points out that ‘People who are hooked on
crack engage in increasingly violent behavior. But that’s not true
of Ecstasy. People use Ecstasy to have five to six hours of bliss.’
Or, in local parlance, they are ‘feelin’ their thizzle.’

With all this talk of ‘bliss’ and ‘feelings,’ is Oakland is
losing its edge? Probably not, Swan suggests, since crime still
looms and some Ecstasy users are bypassing the bliss stage and
‘freaking out.’ That, however, may be blamed on the quality control
surrounding the drug, which is non-existent. ‘A lot of dealers are
getting away with just selling whatever,’ Swan writes. There may,
indeed, be Ecstasy in the pill a dealer sells as Ecstasy. There
also may be the antihistamine Benadryl and a ‘speedy diet pill’
substance called phentermine. Call it a buffet or call it a
cocktail, but calling it Ecstasy is a lie.

Combination pills such as these may give users only a small
buzz, leaving their minds rankled and feeling like hell. But,
contrary to fears that Ecstasy is ‘the new crack,’ Swan reports
that ‘Ecstasy hasn’t yet shown up in the emergency room,’ and notes
that, in 2003 — the most recent year for data on the subject —
the Drug Abuse Warning Network didn’t record a single instance of
death resulting from using Ecstasy.

That’s not to suggest, however, that E’s social effects are as
beautiful as that universe its devotees spot betwixt overlaid
trance beats. Swan is quick to write that E ‘is figuring into [hip
hop’s] sexual politics and amplifying some of the scene’s sleazier
values.’ In a scene predicated on ‘bumping and grinding,’ a drug
like Ecstasy, Swan suggests, ‘starts reflecting the psychology of
the space.’ Yet, for Oakland, it must be a welcome change to see a
drug that, as Swan puts it, ‘is both sedative and euphoric, causing
people to dodder around smiling and hugging each other.’
— Nick Rose

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Feelin’ Their Thizzle

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