“There’s snuffin’ like it!” Well, at least, that’s what Snuff Tobacco UK has to say about snuff, which one would expect. This isn’t necessarily on topic, but after this experience, I swear this shit is pure evil.

So I walk into a bar in London with some people, and I see guys in suits passing around a tray of straws/business cards/and what appeared at the time to be lines of black powder.

I wasn’t sure what was going on here. Black coke? Heroin? And why could you just walk into this den of drugs? I was quickly alerted that the substance in question was quite legal, and was in fact snuff (not the porn, THAT would have probably made for a much more ridiculous story), just tobacco. Specifically, that Red Bull shit pictured above.

“What? You snort this shit up your nose?” My only interaction with snuff prior to Monday was a look at some antique snuff boxes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but that was it.

So we start doing “lines”, which apparently is a bad idea. You’re only supposed to inhale a small amount of this stuff at a time, whatever would fit in the gap between your thumb and hand. The problem with this bar was that you were served your snuff with a tray and all the instruments of evil, loud music is blasting, and the walls/ceiling are all mirrors. I expected to see these guys in the bathroom:

Anyways, I found the whole experience quite horrifying. Not only did the stuff not make me feel great, it made me feel like utter shit. I have never gotten the spins quite as bad as I did after my Nth line of snuff, and it ended with me in the bathroom admiring my dinner in the toilet. And this shit was MENTHOL, my god, I imagine you get the same feeling by grinding up a pack of Breathsavers and sucking those down. Why the fuck would anyone do such a thing? It burns like lye.

Furthermore, it’s fucking filthy. You know what chewed up tobacco looks like? Well, that’s what it looks like mixed up with your mucus.

Whoever had the stupid fucking idea to make tobacco in a snortable form is a complete fool. I started doing a bit of research on the topic, before my brain started to spin with flashbacks. Snuff has a rich history throughout the world, however, I am thankful it never really made its way into popular U.S. culture.

The above mentioned Snuff Tobacco UK site had some interesting takes on the history and culture of snuff. I found this particular quote to be significant:

The health affects of snuff are seen to be significantly less than smoking cigarettes and more and more people are turning to snuff to get their nicotine fixes.

Hmm. Seen to be significantly less? What does that mean? And why do you mention “fixes”? That sounds like crack addicts. Which is exactly what most of the bar patrons appeared to be in my fuzzy state.

Tags: drugs, fleetwood mac, london, snuff, tobacco

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 at 8:49 am and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.