The Real "Gateway" Drug
by LaToya Prater

Cigarettes, pot and even our beloved alcohol all get a bad rap as "gateway" drugs. That's what adults tell you to scare you off of those things when you're a kid. But before you were off training wheels and maybe even out of training pants, you had probably already experienced the true gateway drug, a drug so sinister and obscure adults fail to see what's right under their very nose.

Gateway, thy name is FUN DIP.

That's right. These packets of delicious fruit-flavored sand you can eat with vanilla-flavored chalk have been the secret downfall of our youth since the 70s. Also known on the street as Lik-M-Aid and Lik-M-Stix, Fun Dip seems like a benign penny-candy treat kids might enjoy on a lazy summer afternoon.


Nine out of 10 Narcotics Anonymous members agree: Don't be fooled by the modern packaging; the old 70s Fun Dip (right) hasn't changed much.

But when you're five, high as a kite on the uncut shit flowing through your veins, you don't realize it's a feeling you won't be able to live without later in life. When you're a kid, all you have to worry about is whose pool you're going to swim in, how much sugar you're going to shovel down and where you're going to enjoy your glucose-induced afternoon nap.
Then you get older. Suddenly, kid stuff isn't cool. You're in junior high and you need a fix. One packet of Fun Dip hasn't done the trick since the album Danger: High Voltage was a popular Christmas gift. Where do you turn?

Eddie Rabbit rocks.

One day you get stuck going with your mom to her Elaine Powers aerobics class and you see a large African-American man selling something on the corner. They are called Pixie Stix, but not the small lame ones you get in your trick or treat bag. These are GIANT! Enough Pixie Stix to get you high for at least an hour.

Already you're thinking of having that monster all to yourself later when you sit in your room burning stuff for fun.
That's step two. By high school, no matter how much Kool Aid or Country Time powder mix you eat it just isn't enough. You need something to make the sugar taste extra specially awesome. Something that will make the now-boring flavor of a Pixie Stix, Twinkie or grape jelly, chocolate syrup and pickle sandwich really worth savoring for hours.

Congratulations. You're now a pothead.

You see where I'm going with this. I mean, I love Fun Dip as much as the next addict, I'm just saying, there are far more dangerous things out there than heroine, meth, straight moonshine and crack. Don't think the government isn't aware of this and possibly even responsible for it. If you look at the back of your Fun Dip packet it says "Say No to Drugs."

Ah, the irony. Ah, the humanity.

- www.KCDrinker.com - 2006 ©

LaToya "GfV" Prater  is a free-lance drinker and writer. A native of New Jersey, she got hammered in Hoboken a few years back and woke up in Kansas City tied to the passenger seat of a '77 El Dorado with Ed Asner wearing nothing but the hand puppet Lambchop. Now a resident of KCK, Prater indulges her overwhelming addiction to editing other people’s copy to earn a paycheck and spends the rest of her time focusing on her three dearest passions: alcohol, writing fiction and acting (Japanese balloon fetish porn).