An older, euphemistic street name for heroin — the kind of cheerful-sounding label that early 20th-century drug culture used to cloak something dangerous in innocent packaging.
An older, euphemistic street name for heroin — the kind of cheerful-sounding label that early 20th-century drug culture used to cloak something dangerous in innocent packaging. The 'joy' half promises pleasure and escape, while 'powder' refers to the drug's physical form. Like many vintage drug slang terms, joy powder has been largely displaced by newer terminology but still appears in historical accounts of addiction, jazz-age drug culture, and noir fiction.
The detective's notes described the white residue simply as joy powder — a label the department knew all too well.
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Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
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(slang) Heroin.