In Favour of Drugs

With all the recent talk by Sir Richard Branson about decriminalising drugs, it made me think about the three big moments in my life which changed me, or even (if you like) opened my third eye.

In November 1988, I was in NYC with a friend who was doing some modelling work out there. She gave me a tab of 'Californian sunshine' acid, telling me it was from the Sixties.

Intrigued but not really thinking much more of it we took a half each - chaos ensued! She spent the night walking over cars in the Bowery before we ended up together in a white bath in a white bathroom. Of course, by 4am it seemed like a good idea to do the other half. By 7am I was having a religious experience on the floor as she cried her eyes out.

'Californian sunshine' acid I later found out was 25 hits of acid per tab - which makes a lot of sense as to be honest, I was never really the same again.

The same year a month later, I was in Manchester watching New Order and the Happy Mondays, and as always seemed to happen back then, I ended up in the basement of the Hacienda.

I was already well on my way, being two or three down, when I ran into one of Manchester's leading pop stars and asked if he had any Es. He pulled out a pill, opened it and poured half of its contents onto my wrist.

The next 15 minutes were berserk - the head of the girl I was stood talking to became a green diamond. Then, whilst walking to a quiet spot next to the Factory Records crew I spotted all these symmetrical shapes inside beams of lights. I was blown away. It soon passed and by 7am I was back to something close to normal, so I went off to find the girl with the green diamond head.

It was that night I got acid house - it all suddenly, post DMT, made sense.

The drug I took was called spectrum. Its main compounds were MDMA and molecules of DMT (Dimethyltryptamine). I took that drug and then, suddenly, I got acid house. That moment changed Creation Records. It was a gateway moment.

The third big drug experience was Christmas 1993. I had a load of pure MDMA and was snorting lines one after the other, like cocaine. It all soon spiralled into a massive, crazy night - which wasn't surprising at all when later I found out I'd consumed the equivalent of 35 Es to myself. I lived, but spent the next 10 days in bed.

The drugs only enhanced Creation Records, as they enhanced my ability to do my job and to choose the right bands. I cleaned up February 1994 and at 51 years old, I am now totally sober.

I now don't feel as if I would ever need a drug again, but I do know drugs increase your ability to access hidden realms. Without these things happening to me, I wouldn't have been successful with Creation Records - they changed the way I thought as a person.

What people ingest is up to them, but for me it gave me access to creative worlds whilst running Creation that I would never have got to without the helping hand of the gods.

You only live once, but just maybe you could be living and experiencing 20 other planets at the same time. The only thing that's certain is we don't know...

The TedX talk I did back in September can be found here. It's good so watch it...