methadone monde Twelve years ago I would wait an hour or so on the corner of Market y Valencia each morning, every day. Waiting for the two Mexicans from San Mateo to drive up and exchange money for stuff looked like pieces of rabbit shit. Something to fix my sucking central nervous system wound: twenty-five dollars bought relief for a few hours at most. The dealers were clean-cut kids from Mexico, who didn't ever use it. They would send the money home to their families back there. They would stare at the junkies like they were weird, pathetic zoo animals who would trade their souls and all else they owned for this tarry goop - just to sit there slackjawed, head bent over, staring. You could see it was beyond all logic to them. Now I wait in line at the clinic: a facility on the Polk block of Geary Street, where I will be dispensed a cup of cherry soda that keeps me from needing or wanting the tarry goop. It lasts me for a day, two sometimes, and I don't have to use a needle. Every week I have to spend an hour with my counselor, who is new at this, is half my age, and who has never taken a single drug in her life. I sometimes see on her face the same expression as on the faces of the Mexican runners. That "why do you do this to yourself" look. After she spends a few months on the job she'll start understanding. They all do. Being addicted to opiates isn't something most people stop just by wanting to. It's the only drug that habituates your body so much that you literally cannot function unless it is provided. I was very lucky to get on methadone. People scorn it a lot for being a substitute drug, but it's one that lets me function without heroin, and makes the jones not even be there. 030405 ... cube Question: What is "the jones"? ³ 030405 ... monde "the jones" slang noun for a severe craving i am not aware of what its origin is 030405 what's it to you? who go blather from