Yesterday, while looking through the list of databases that Dalhousie provides I came across one called 'Street Terms,' which is maintained by the US Office of National Drug Control Policy. It seems that this resource, I don't think I would actually call it a database, provides drug related terminology and definitions. (To access the content you need to scroll down to the bottom of the page, they also provide a PDF version of the content).
Some of these are remarkably amusing. For instance, apparently 'juggle' means to sell drugs while 'mighty young joe' refers to depressants. I am pretty sure that you can use any of them in a sentence as I did, I can't imagine that there are regional variations or community specific terms (if there were they surely would have been noted in the source).
My first thought was how this could possibly be up to date. I would imagine that almost as soon as such data could be collected, compiled, and published that it would be out of date. How long is 'mighty young joe' really going to be used to refer to depressants? Providing a static list like this seems to be a little bit less than useful. It seems a much better tool might be the development of some kind of user moderated list that members of the law enforcement and prevention/counseling communities could access and update on a regular basis. The simple slowness of the current approach surely impacts its effectiveness.
Anyway, check it out so that you can be up to speed with the latest in drug related terminology.
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