Green peppers, bananas, peanuts and now STP.
This latest addition to the armamentarium of the underground messiah has become a legend almost before it was made available. Reputed to have been named STP by the Grateful Dead “because it lasts so long” this new drug is capturing the imagination of hippies everywhere.
It is said that the drug was created by an underground chemist who has camouflaged it with other ingredients to make it impossible to analyze and who has vowed never to tell anyone what the drug is. He feels that as long as the government can’t name it; they can’t make it illegal.
Whatever the chemical composition, we can be sure of one thing about STP—it is the most powerful mind drug yet developed. Word trickling out of Haight-Ashbury and the East Village leaves little room for doubt. Psychedelic chemistry has apparently entered the atomic age. At a time when we were learning how to steer under the old power we are now given nuclear powered LSD.
Subjective descriptions of the experience are still too inconsistent to make any sense out of, but there are a few things which seem constant. Anyone who has ever taken the drug is quick to warn potential users to be extremely careful. The effects are intense and last for as long as 72 hours.
STP is not for beginners. It has frightened veteran acid heads into discontinuing all drug use and even experienced travelers like Dick Alpert and Tim Leary shudder a little when they talk about STP.
“On LSD there was always some place to hide, but on STP there is nowhere,” according to Dick Alpert. He found that he became terribly frightened and called Tim from the next room for help. The same thing was repeated for Leary when he took the drug. He found himself calling to Alpert for comfort.
STP voyagers speak about intense energy vibrations—about the body being constantly in a vibratory state, and if you look at your hands or arms they are often shaking violently.
When it is pointed out that many of the phrases used to describe the STP experience are the same ones we have been using to describe LSD, the STP – head just smiles and talks about duration, intensity, and relativity.
Under STP one goes through 6 to 8 hour periods with his body being totally immobilized while his mind traverses the light years to new universes. It isn’t simply a matter of not wanting to move, like you may feel while on LSD, but rather a complete inability to move any part of your physical body.
STP is new and all we have so far are rumors, but there are a few things that seem apparent.
The experience is far more intense and long lasting than anything before. It has seemingly caused a fair percentage of people to reorient their thinking toward drugs. It is always sold with some additional advice—be careful. Only experienced acid heads are advised to even try it and anyone who is at all uncomfortable with LSD had best leave this new drug alone.
We know very little about STP at present, but more information is on its way. There is a readily available supply in New York and no shortage of people to try it.
The STP researchers are plentiful, but they aren’t to be found in the laboratories. You’ll find them barefoot in the parks and they’re more likely to be talking about the Kingdom of Heaven than interference with catecholamine synthesis. Their findings won’t be published in the medical journals, but will be written in the secret language of the birds and crickets and inscribed as esoteric markings on the bark of trees.