Opinions - Fear and Loathing.... What was the drug?

[Tortoise]

Howdy,

Swim watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas the other day and noticed that the main guy (Hunter) was breathing something in from a light-bulb whilst holding a flame under it.

Any ideas what he was doing?

Thanks

[Stuck]

SWIM has wondered this himself. During the Adrenochrome scene, he mentions the experience is like a mix of mescaline and methedrine(methamphetamine). Swim was thinking perhaps the substance in the lightbulb is meth, because at no other possible part in the movie is he using meth. Swim has heard of people using cleaned out light bulbs to smoke meth.

[yamman13]

homemade vaoporiser?

[chemlove]

good question i re-watched the movie and see the scene i thought maybe it was that damn ether but now i don't think so, I'd love to know what it is too, So if anyone knows please let us know./

[JapanHorrorUncut]

SWIM always thought it was crack or meth.

[Heretic.Ape.]

If I recall (it's been a while since I watched it) doesn't he lay back and close his eyes after taking a hit? Doesn't strike me as what one does after smoking meth.

[jayjohnson81]

Originally Posted by JapanHorrorUncut

SWIM always thought it was crack or meth.

Pretty sure that was pre-crack days.

Ape I hear ya' - but I don't know, a good blast from the ole zippy-dee-doo-dee can floor ya'...

I know you can smoke heroin that way. Hell, just about anything can be smoked that way. Maybe hash?

Ok - check the script to jog the memory, and just for my first post I'll be verbose and copy and paste too much:

DUKE turns on the TV. WHITE NOISE FILLS THE ROOM. He
collapses onto the sofa and lights up his lightbulb as pipe.

DUKE (V/O)
Ignore the nightmare in the bathroom.
Just another ugly refugee from the
Love Generation.

The WHITE NOISE snow storm on the TV is reflected in his
face. The camera pulls back revealing THE ENTIRE WALL
BEHIND HIM TO BE SWIRLING WITH THE FIZZING SNOWSTORM PATTERN.

DUKE (V/O)
My attorney had never been able to
accept the notion -- often espoused
by former drug abusers -- that you
can get a lot higher without drugs
than with them. And neither have
I, for that matter.

The pattern on the wall changes to A 60'S VISCOUS OIL
LIGHTSHOW PATTERN. With DUKE still sitting in the
foreground, the projected image widens to reveal the interior
of A HAIGHT ASHBURY DANCE HALL full of DANCING PROTO-HIPPIES.

Hell yeah - it's gotta be DMT. I remember that scene in the movie and it goes all trippy behind him like he's going `disassociated.`

The list from the begining:

We had two bags of grass, seventy-
five pellets of mescaline, five
sheets of high powered blotter
acid, a salt shaker half full of
cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-
colored uppers, downers, screamers,
laughers... Also a quart of tequila,
a quart of rum, a case of beer, a
pint of raw ether and two dozen
amyls.

The list doesn't confirm or deny - so I'm sticking with DMT

[Heretic.Ape.]

^ kind of what I was leaning toward.

[TMM]

Doesn't he advise his attorney to shoot some smack? I'd say it's heroin. Makes a hell of a lot more sense than smoking DMT before trying to sleep.

EDIT: Just read the post properly <_<

Okay, that makes more sense than I'd thought.

EDIT2: Still think it's heroin, though. I'd say the dissociation is partly for cinematic effect (effects of drugs greatly exaggerated in both book and movie), partly the unique dissociation that a good dose of an opiate provides.

[Stuck]

Originally Posted by TMM

Doesn't he advise his attorney to shoot some smack? I'd say it's heroin. Makes a hell of a lot more sense than smoking DMT before trying to sleep.

Notice he doesn't sleep afterwards. He stays up all night on his typewriter.

Perhaps he was smoking meth to give him the motivation to actually write the story he supposed to be in vegas for? Just an idea.

[jayjohnson81]

But the wall behind him disolves/dissociates into the next scene which is in the club with the dancing proto-hippies.

Maybe it isn't specified or even relevant because they just needed a way to go to the next scene? Possible...

Here's my question... what exactly IS a proto-hippy?