Authors: William S. Burroughs
APPENDIX 1
CHAPTER 28 OF
THE ORIGINAL “JUNK” MANUSCRIPT
At this time I read
The Cancer Biopathy
by Wilhelm Reich. Reich says that Life is a charge, and the charged particles on which life depends
he calls “orgones.”
When your “orgone” charge gives out, you die. Orgones are everywhere in the atmosphere, and in all living and dead matter. An orgone envelope surrounds the earth, and orgones charge the sunlight. Orgones give off a blue color.
Philosophers have been talking for a long time about “life-force” and “cosmic energy.” But Reich's orgones are a definite force that can be measured, concentrated and used. He claims clinical results in treating with orgone therapy cancer and other “biopathies.” By a “cancer biopathy,” Reich means the whole cancer set-up which is established long before the symptoms of cancer appear. Reich devised a method for concentrating orgones based on the experimental finding that orgones are absorbed and retained by organic matter, but pass freely through metal. He built a box with organic material on the outside and a lining of sheet iron inside. The orgones are caught and absorbed by the outer layer of organic matter and pass freely through the sheet iron to the inside of the box. The passage of orgones from the inside of the box out is retarded by a layer of organic matter behind the sheet metal lining. So orgones are coming into the box faster than they can get out and the result is a concentration of orgones inside the box. Reich calls this box an accumulator. The accumulators designed for orgone therapy are constructed with several organic-metal layers to increase the concentration of orgones, and shaped like a steam cabinet so the patient can sit down inside the box.
Cancer is rot of tissue in a living organism. In junk sickness the junk-dependent cells die and are replaced. Cancer is a premature death process. The cancer patient shrinks. A sick junkie shrinksâ I have lost up to fifteen pounds in three days. So I figured if the accumulator is therapy for cancer, it should be therapy for the after-effects of junk sickness.
Accumulators are manufactured by the Orgone Institute in New York. They do not sell or rent accumulators. They allow you to use one if you contribute ten dollars per month to the Orgone Institute. I sent three months' contribution in advance and asked them to express collect me an accumulator. They sent back three forms to be filled out and signed. One was a we-are-not-Âresponsible-for-anything affidavit. There was a pledge for me to sign that I would not let anyone else use my accumulator and would report to the Institute if I saw anyone building an accumulator, and a questionnaire to be filled out by my physician what was wrong with me and why did I need an accumulator. I did not want to explain about orgones to some croaker who would take me for a lunatic. Besides, I did not like the way the Orgone people were coming on. Why say “contributions” when you mean rent? And the pledge was ridiculous. So I wrote them to send my money back and here are your forms.
I bought sheet metal, wood and a roll of rock wool, and built an accumulator about the size and shape of a small outhouse. I located it outside (it was not movable), so it would get all the orgones available. Constant use of junk over a period of years has given me the habit of directing attention inward. When I went into the accumulator and sat down I noticed a special silence that you sometimes feel in deep woods, sometimes on a city street, a hum that is more a rhythmic vibration than a sound. My skin prickled and I experienced an aphrodisiac effect similar to good strong weed. No doubt about it, orgones are as definite a force as electricity. After using the accumulator for several days my energy came back to normal. I began to eat, and could not sleep more than eight hours. I was out of the post cure drag. I bought some books on pharmacology to find out what I could about allergy, shock and the antihistamine drugs.
Withdrawal symptoms are allergic symptoms: sneezing, coughing, running at the eyes and nose, vomiting, diarrhea, hive-like conditions of the skin. Severe withdrawal symptoms are shock symptoms: lowered blood pressure, loss of body fluid and shrinking of the organism as in the death process, weakness, involuntary orgasms, death through collapse of the circulatory system. If an addict dies from junk withdrawal, he dies of allergic shock.
All the symptoms of shock can be produced by an overdose of histamine. Histamine is produced by body tissue wherever injury occurs. Histamine enlarges blood vessels so that extra blood comes to the place of injury. When a blood vessel is enlarged, its walls are stretched thin and porous and so fluid escapes. Loss of blood leads to lowered blood pressure. Excess histamine leads to a lowering of blood pressure and shock, as occurs in serious injury. Adrenaline is the body's defense against excess histamine, and before the specific antihistamine drugs, was the only chemical antidote for histamine poisoning.
Most animals have been addicted to junk under experimental conditions. After receiving the shots for a period of ten days or so, the animal reacts to the hypodermic as if it were a food plate, rushing eagerly forward to get his shot. When junk is withdrawn, the animal shows withdrawal symptoms: No other substance has produced this syndrome in animalsâthat the animal eagerly seeks the substance as if it were food. When the substance is withdrawn the animal shows definite physical symptoms. It would seem that junk is the only habit-forming drug. Cats cannot be addicted to morphine, as they react to an injection of morphine with acute delirium. Cats have a relatively small quantity of histamine in the blood stream. It would seem that histamine is the defense against morphine, and that cats, lacking this defense, cannot tolerate morphine. Perhaps the mechanism of withdrawal is this: Histamine is produced by the body as a defense against morphine during the period of addiction. When the drug is withdrawn, the body continues to produce histamine.
If you have no histamine-produced symptoms, antihistamine drugs produce no effect. I bought some ampoules of an antihistamine drug and shot a double dose. I experienced nothing but a slight depression (the depressing effects of some antihistamine preparations are “side effects” which chemists intend to eliminate). A shot that felt exactly like morphine when I was sick now produced effects that were barely perceptible. It seems that a user does not get a positive kick from junk. What he gets is relief from withdrawal sickness. Possibly all pleasure is basically relief from a condition of need, or tension. Junk is the medium in which the junk-dependent cells live. When junk is cut off junk cells die, and excess histamine is produced to carry away the dead cells. The function of allergic sneezing, running at the nose and eyes, vomiting and diarrhea, is to get rid of something. During addiction, junk is a biologic necessity, like food, water or sex. There is no other substance that becomes in this way a part of the biologic rhythm of the body. When you are junk sick you dream about junk. A curious fact about junk dreams is that something always happens to prevent you from getting a shot. The cops rush in, the needle stops up, the dropper breaks. Anyway, you never get it. I have talked to other users, and I have never known anyone who ever got fixed in a dream. Junk seems to displace the sex drive. When you are on junk the sex drive virtually disappears. When you start to kick you experience sex feelings of adolescent intensity, often spontaneous orgasms.
Junkies live a long time and often look younger than they are. When you stop growing you start dying. An addict never stops growing. Most users periodically kick the habit, which involves shrinking of the organism and replacement of the junk-dependent cells. Scientists recently experimented with a worm that they were able to shrink by withholding food. By periodically shrinking the worm so that it was in continual growth, its life was prolonged indefinitely. A user is in a continual state of shrinking and growing in his daily cycle of shot-need for junk-shot.
Perhaps the reason for the short life of the American business man is that he experiences no cycle of shrinking and growth. He does not exercise, he is never hungry. His life is a one-way process. When his organism reaches maturity it can only start dying.
Opium is formed in the unripe seed pods of the poppy plant. Its function is to protect the seeds from drying out until the plant is ready to die and the seeds are mature. Junk continues to function in the human organism as it did in the seed pod of the poppy. It protects and cushions the body like a warm blanket while death grows to maturity inside. When a junkie is really loaded with junk he looks dead. Junk turns the user into a plant. Plants do not feel pain since pain has no function in a stationary organism. Junk is a pain killer. A plant has no libido in the human or animal sense. Junk replaces the sex drive. Seeding is the sex of the plant and the function of opium is to delay seeding.
Perhaps the intense discomfort of withdrawal is the transition from plant back to animal, from a painless, sexless, timeless state back to sex and pain and time, from death back to life.
APPENDIX 2
“INTRODUCTION” TO
THE ORIGINAL “JUNK” MANUSCRIPT
In this book I have written what I know about junk and the people who use it. The narrative is fiction, but it is based on facts of my experience.
When I say junk I mean opium or derivatives of opium; morphine, heroin, pantopon, Dilaudid, codeine are the opium derivatives generally used in the States.
I would not write about junk unless I had something special to say on the subject that had not already been said. The action of junk on the user is generically different from the action of any other drug. I think that junk is transitional between living and dead matter, between animal and vegetable life. You cannot avoid the feeling that junk is in some way alive.
I can walk around in a strange town and say, “This is a junk neighborhood.” I don't have to see junkies waiting around for the connection to spot junk territory. When I pass a place where junk has changed hands the junk in my cells ticks like a Geiger counter. My junk counter is generally accurate, but sometimes I spot a place that used to be junk territory and is no longer in use. The counter tells me: “Junk here,” but does not say when. Why doesn't the counter tick when I pass a drugstore? Junk needs a host before it can take on its special junk qualities, because junk is a parasite that can live only in the blood of a user.
The dependence on junk is not confined to addicts. Many narcotics agents and non-using peddlers are as much hung up on junk as any addict. They may not use it, but they need junk, and not just to make a living. The zeal of some agents derives from a special relation to junk. They are addicts at second-hand, and for that condition there is no cure.
Anyone who has ever been an addict will always look like junk to anyone who can see junk. He may not have used it for ten years, but the junk is still there.
Official propaganda opposes any factual statement about junk, so that almost nothing accurate has been written on the subject. When newspapers, magazines and movies deal with junk they seldom deviate from the officially sponsored myth. I will go over the main points of this myth.
1.
All drugs are more or less similar and all are habit forming
. This myth lumps cocaine, marijuana and junk together. Marijuana is not at all habit forming and its action is almost the direct opposite from junk action. There is no habit to cocaine. You can develop a tremendous craving for cocaine, but you won't be sick if you can't get it. When you have a junk habit, on the other hand, you live in a state of chronic poisoning for which junk itself is the specific antidote. If you don't get the antidote at eight-hour intervals, and enough of it, you develop symptoms of allergic poisoning: yawning, sneezing, watering of the eyes and nose, cramps, vomiting and diarrhea, hot and cold flashes, loss of appetite, insomnia, restlessness and weakness, in some cases circulatory collapse and death from allergic shock.
The junkie needs junk like the diabetic needs insulin. Junk creates a deficiency so that the body cannot function without more junk at regular intervals. It seems that junk takes over the function of certain body chemicals, and that the body does not produce these chemicals during addiction. Withdrawal of junk creates a deficiency condition which continues until the body gets back in production on the chemicals that were replaced by junk. When I say “habit forming drug” I mean a drug that alters the endocrine balance of the body in such a way that the body requires that drug in order to function. So far as I know, junk is the only habit forming drug according to this definition.
2.
A drug habit is formed instantly, on first use, or at most, after three or four shots
. From this notion derive the stories of people becoming addicts after using a few “headache pills” given them by the Sympathetic Stranger. Actually, a non-user would have to take a shot every day for at least a month to get any kind of habit. The Stranger would go broke handing out samples. But a cured addict, even if he has not used it for years, can get a new habit in a few days. He is allergic to junk.
3.
Once the habit is formed escape is almost impossible
. Actually, a habit is easily cured. The usual cure takes from ten days to three weeks. You don't need any “will power.” If the cure is done right there is very little discomfort.
4.
Addiction ruins the health and leads to early death
. As I read in a magazine article, “Morphine addicts have numbered days on earth.” Who hasn't?
The addict enjoys normal health and lives as long, or longer, than the average. Junk conveys a considerable immunity to respiratory complaints. During the “flu” epidemic of 1918 junkies were found to be immune to flu and some addicts were let out of jail to help care for the sick. On the other hand, all users suffer somewhat from constipation and loss of appetite. Most of them lose weight, often running from ten to twenty pounds below normal weight during addiction.
5.
Addicts never get enough
.
They have to keep raising the dosage. They need more and more. Finally, I quote from a recent movie called
Johnny Stool Pigeon.
“They tear the clothes off their skinny bodies and die screaming” for more junk
.
This is preposterous. Addicts get enough and they do not have to raise the dosage. I know addicts who have used the same dose for years. Of course, addicts do occasionally die if they are cut off the junk cold. They don't die because they need more and more. They die because they can't get any.
6.
Addicts want to get others on the stuff
. This silly idea seems to be universal. Every time I take a fall the laws say to my wife: “It's a wonder he didn't get you on the junk.” Why in hell should I? I have enough trouble keeping up my own habit. Of course, a peddling addict wants to get other people on the stuff so he will have more customers.
7.
There is a clear line between addict and peddler. The authorities pity the addict and are out only to get the peddler
. I have never seen an addict who did not sell, or a street peddler who did not use. There is no line at all. The authorities make no distinction, and the penalty for selling and possession are about the same.
8.
Peddlers try to get high school children on junk, or marijuana. A recent magazine article depicts peddlers slipping laudanum into the Coca-Cola of teenagers.
This is utterly ridiculous. No peddler wants kids for customers. They never have enough money, they talk too much and they cannot stand up under police questioning. The best customers are the old-timers. They know all the angles and generally have some source of revenue.
9.
There is a connection between junk and insanity. Addicts turn into maniacs when they cannot get junk.
Actually, I have never seen or heard of an insane addict. For some reason, the two conditions do not occur together.
10.
There is a connection between addiction and crime. Marijuana, especially, is supposed to cause people to commit crimes.
There is no direct connection between crime and drug intoxication that I have ever seen or heard of. The people who talk about drugs causing crime never seem to follow through and take into account the vast number of crimes committed by drunks. Alcohol is a crime-producing drug that outclasses all others. Of course, a lot of junkies steal to keep up their habit. It isn't easy to get up $10â15 per day, which is what the addict has to pay out for a day's supply of junk in the U.S.
Any anti-narcotic legislation is considered a good thing by the public. For this reason the field of narcotic legislation has become a testing ground for a type of law new to this country but familiar in police states. In the states of Louisiana and Kentucky it is a crime punishable by imprisonment (La., two to five years; Ky., one year) to
be
an addict. This is police-state legislation penalizing a condition or state of being. In the Louisiana law, no time or place is specified, nor is the term “addict” defined.
A cure is now available for addiction in the antihistamine drugs. Withdrawal sickness is an allergy, and the new anti-allergic drugs relieve its symptoms. The old-type reduction cures all use habit forming drugs, and withdrawal symptoms return after the drug is finally cut off. But antihistamine drugs are not habit-forming, and when these drugs are used there is no return of withdrawal symptoms. The antihistamine cure is not in general use. I have seen no mention of it in any medical publication. It would appear that this cure is being deliberately withheld from the public. Federal and state narcotic authorities put every obstacle in the way of addicts who want a cure. No reduction cures are given in city or state institutions. Two hundred dollars is minimum for a ten-day cure in a private sanatorium. Hospitals are forbidden by law to give addicts any junk. I knew an addict who needed an operation for stomach cancer. The hospital could not give him any junk. Sudden withdrawal of junk plus the operation would likely have killed him so he decided to skip the operation. Lexington and Fort Worth are the only two public institutions in the U.S. that give reduction cures. Both are usually full. According to bureaucratic regulations, anyone seeking admission to either hospital must send an application (in triplicate, of course) to Washington and wait several months to be admitted. Then he must stay at least six months. In Louisiana a man could be arrested as a drug addict if he applied for the cure.
I do not intend to correct popular misconceptions about junk by presenting the facts that are already known to anyone informed on the subject. I am using the known facts as a starting point in an attempt to reach facts that are not known.