Talking about DRUGS in English

Did you do drugs today? No. But really, did you do drugs today? Everyone says "no". Maybe

you did. But I need you to double check. I need you to look at this list of drugs and

tell me honestly. Look me in the eyes, and tell me. Did you do drugs today? I did drugs

today. I do drugs every day. But the drug that I do is caffeine. Do you know that caffeine

was a drug? Are you aware of that? Do you also know that alcohol is a drug? So the next

time you say, "I don't do drugs", over a coffee, over a beer, or over a cigarette, guess what?

You're doing drugs. Welcome to the drugs lesson. Do drugs, people. Makes your life more interesting.

As I told you, I do drugs every day. Mine is caffeine. I drink coffee every morning.

Every morning, I wake up, and I do drugs. How about you? Do you do drugs in the morning?

Afternoon? Caffeine is a drug. Slang -- also known as coffee, tea, Red Bull and chocolate.

In today's lesson, I'm going to teach you some slang words about different kinds of

drugs. I don't think you should do these drugs. I don't recommend them. If you want to, go

ahead. But again, teaching you slang vocabulary will help you understand things in movies.

So let's go with the list.

As I said, we have caffeine, which is found in coffee, tea, Red Bull, chocolate. A lot

of soft drinks add caffeine as well. So basically, colas or Cokes. In Canada, we call it "pop".

Then, we have probably the most common drug ever: alcohol. The slang for alcohol could

be "booze". Also, we call beer a "brew". We also call beer "suds". So all of these words

are slang for "alcohol".

We're going to get into some hard drugs now. These ones are pretty, pretty terrible. One

of the most tragic and very common drugs, unfortunately, is heroin. The street name

or the slang name is "H", "junk", or "smack". There's also, like, "brown tar" and all these

different slang words for "heroin", but these, I think, are the most common. When you watch

movies like Trainspotting or -- a lot of movies deal with heroin addiction. A lot of famous

rock stars did heroin, and now, they're dead. Bye-bye. This is what we're talking about,

"H", "junk", and "smack".

A really popular drug, all the way from Colombia, of Pablo Escobar fame: cocaine. So many songs

have been written about cocaine. In the 1980s, probably the most popular drug in the world

ever -- short form or slang, we call it "coke" -- that makes sense, "coke", "cocaine" -- "blow",

"Charlie" -- I guess that's his name -- or "nose candy" because you sniff the cocaine

in your nose. So it's like candy for your nose.

There's a drug that was really, really popular in the 90s called "MDMA", also known as "ecstasy"

or just "E". And ecstasy comes in a pill form. Cocaine is actually a powder. Heroin is a

brown powder. Alcohol is a liquid.

And caffeine is a liquid, or it can be in solid form like chocolate.

The next drug that is really, really common -- and all too common nowadays -- is this

big long drug called "methamphetamine". You may have heard the term "meth". Now, people

who do meth or methamphetamine, they can inject it, which means they put it in a needle in

their veins. So it can be injected. And it is a powder, like heroin. Oh, heroin is injected

or smoked. But methamphetamine or "meth" or "crystal meth" or "crystal", as people call

it, is a really, really big problem in America and Canada. It's causing something called

"meth mouth", and "meth mouth" causes the people's teeth to rot out and fall out. So

the basically lose all their teeth. How attractive. Also, meth heads have a lot of scars on their

face. There are a lot of open sores, and they have no teeth. Beautiful, beautiful people.

Good idea. So methamphetamine -- street name is "meth" or "crystal". Very, very terrible,

terrible drug, like most of them.

Something that was popular in the 1960s, 1970s was amphetamine. Amphetamine is called "speed".

When you do speed, you talk really fast. Everything is really, really fast. So when you do amphetamine

or "speed", also called "uppers" because if makes you -- whoa. They're called "Bennies"

and also "Billy". I don't know why drugs get people's names like "Billy" and "Benny" and

"Charlie". I don't know why. But all of these words mean the same as "amphetamine" or "speed".

It makes you do things quite quickly. They've used this a lot in diet drugs because it makes

your metabolism work faster, and it makes you not hungry. So this is a pretty common

drug, and they use some different names for it. And a lot of places, it's quite legal.

One of the very famous drugs thanks to Rob Ford in Canada in Toronto is crack cocaine.

So crack cocaine is like cocaine except it's not as pure as cocaine. So there's another

chemical in it that makes it crack. I don't know what the chemical is. Crack cocaine is

also called "rocks" because it comes in a form of like a rock. I think it's like a dirty

white or gray color. Also known as "Rob Ford" and just by the name "crack". The full name

is "crack cocaine", but we just call it "crack". This is a really devastating drug, too. Not

as popular anymore as meth, but -- oh, God.

Back in the 1960s, 1950s, there were some crazy hippies that did this thing called "L.S.D."

L.S.D. is a psychedelic drug, man. It makes you see things. We call it, in slang, "acid"

or "blotter". L.S.D. is a psychedelic, so it will make you see things, like P.C.P. I

don't know the long name of L.S.D. or P.C.P. I think I'd be writing here for two hours.

So normally, we call it "L.S.D." or "P.C.P." P.C.P. is also called "angel dust". Now, this

is the drug that you've maybe heard about that people think they can fly. There are

stories of people taking P.C.P. and being, like, "I can fly!" But they can't fly. And

they die. So they go on top of a building, and they think they're Superman or Superwoman,

and they're not, and then, bye-bye. So drugs are pretty dangerous -- angel dust, especially.

Then, we have some other drugs. Marijuana, you've probably heard about. In slang, we

call it "weed" or "pot". I've also done a lesson for you about smoking marijuana. If

you want to check that out on the website, www.engvid.com. Smoke some marijuana. Marijuana.

Another derivative of marijuana is hashish, or we call it, in short form, "hash".

We also have something called "mushrooms". Now, you might think, "Uh-ho. I ate mushrooms

today. Nothing happened." "Mushrooms" are a certain kind of mushrooms. As you may know,

there are many, many different kinds of mushrooms. So these mushrooms or -- sorry. Spelling mistake

-- "shrooms", are actually -- another word we have for them are "magic mushrooms". "Magic

mushrooms" are a psychedelic like acid. The difference between acid -- one of the differences

between acid and magic mushrooms or "shrooms" is that acid is a chemical and shrooms are

grown in nature. They have different effects on your brain, but they're both psychedelic,

trippy, trippy drugs.

So we've got some shrooms. We have got some hash, some pot, some angel dust. You've got

acid. We've got some rock, made famous by this guy named Rob Ford. Rob Ford is -- maybe

not for long -- the mayor, or like -- you can think of it like the president -- of the

city of Toronto. He's been found many times on video smoking crack cocaine. The mayor

of my city smokes crack. That's not something I think that I'm proud of. A lot of people

think it's cool, though. I don't think crack is cool. Crack's not cool, kids. Just like

the mayor's not cool. Governments are not cool. So Rob Ford, as I told you, is the mayor

of Toronto, hopefully not for long. And he's been smoking crack cocaine on video. You can

watch it. Google that.

We have some speed, some Bennies, some Billy. We have a really, really common drug called

"meth" or "crystal" that is really devastating. We also have MDMA or ecstasy. And, actually,

the spelling of "ecstasy" -- I can't even do it -- is "e-c-s-t-a-s-y". So I spelled

"ecstasy" wrong. Bad, bad teacher. Commonly known as "E".

We've got "coke", "blow", "Charlie", "nose candy" for cocaine,

"H", "junk", or "smack", heroin,

"booze" -- probably the most popular drug.

And Number one in my list: cocaine. Have you done your drugs today? Not cocaine.

Number one in my list: Caffeine. Ta-ta.