Back in my day, weed was bought from shady characters standing on the corner, or at a weed spot where shady characters gathered. There was none of this ordering on the phone and having some aspiring male model type roll up to your front door on his bike to deliver your quarter ounce. That's that bullshit. Just another sign of dwindling grittiness, like getting our tattoos in malls. So it's no surprise that our city's weed dealers have morphed from streetwise hustlers posted up in the shadows to fancy-free longhairs who give interviews about their business to the Observer under their real names: Stefan Fitzgerald is a bike delivery guy for a large weed operation who was only too happy to bitch to the Observer about his boss:

Crystal (which we hear the clubgays are calling "Bristol," although maybe that's just a tipster pulling our leg) is fast replacing cocaine in New York City, reports UPI. Why? It's cheaper, as the price of snow is going way up. Parties are about to get a lot more paranoid and chattery, with far more "shivering messes" than usual. Unless.... well, public-service messages are usually annoying, but we figure that this one might actually work for looks- and youth-obsessed New Yorkers and gays: before and after pics from Faces of Meth campaign. Problem solved.

"Feel the music... the music... the music... oh my God, your aura, it's purple! Your aura is purple! My hand feels so weird, look at my hand!" Ohai! Just rolling on Ecstasy. Would you like to see a snapshot of 99 differently-branded X pills? There's even an Apple one for the lifestyle fetishists. Also, Honda. (But what about GM? Oh, right, better not to brand a pill with an auto company whose stock is at its lowest level since 1950.) [Full array at Erowid via Kottke]

More cheerful symptoms of the recession: Based on the number of prescriptions filled in the first eight months of this year, people appear to be scrimping on their medications in order to save money as they're increasingly forced to choose between gas, meals and drugs. But the pharma companies aren't panicking just yet: The US still spends around $286.5 billion on prescription drugs, more than any other country in the world. [NYT]

Cole Puffinburger, the six-year-old who was abducted from his house on Wednesday by drug dealers who had been ripped-off by his grandfather, was found wandering the streets a few miles from his Las Vegas home last night. Police say he's in "extremely good condition." Cole was taken Wednesday when three men claiming to be cops showed up at his mother's house and demanded cash from his mother and her fiance. When they said they didn't have any, the men ransacked the place and made off with the boy. An Amber Alert was issued—the first in Nevada history—but it was called off yesterday even though Cole was still missing. Police said the alert had run its course. Meanwhile, Federal Marshalls arrested Cole's grandfather, Clemens Tinnemeyer, 51, in California early Saturday, hoping he would lead them to the child's kidnappers—Mexican drug dealers from whom he'd stolen money.

Guillaume Depardieu, the estranged son of renowned actor Gérard, died today from complications relating to pneumonia at a hospital outside Paris. He was 37. An actor himself, Depardieu received acclaim early in his career for the 1995 film The Apprentices. He costarred with his father in several films, most notably Aime ton père (A Loving Father) in 2002. Though, dark clouds seemed to often occlude his successes. Depardieu had problems with heroin in his early 20's, serving a year-long prison sentence for smuggling. Also, a year after he won the César Award for Promising Newcomer for Apprentices, he badly injured his leg in a motorbike accident. In 2003, suffering from years of pain due to a bacterial infection, he decided to have the leg amputated. It was the same year that he had a public falling out with his father, writing a tell-all book in which he called Gérard a drunken miser, essentially. He also revealed that he'd once acted as a prostitute in his teenage years, partly to rebel against his father. There's no evidence yet to suggest that his death was related to either his injury or his drug use. Either way, a difficult, scrutinized life ended too soon. [AP]

Everyone in the Australian ad industry is a drunk cokehead! Well, not quite everyone. But according to new survey, "Asked if they knew of work associates who had an alcohol problem, only 7 per cent of those working in media agencies were able to answer 'no.'" Thirty-six percent of the Aussie ad industry said either "yes" or "possibly" when asked if they drink too much. And a fifth said they've used drugs at work. This raises four very important sociological questions:

Earlier, we called for Brit teen socialite-cokehead and It Child Peaches Geldof's firing, deeming her a menace to society. And then there's her friend, Internet phenomenon Cory Kennedy, famous for, um, being an "Internet It Girl" and dating that Cobrasnake dude? Anyway, when they are not "writing" and "modeling" for Nylon, Peaches is spilling the beans on what drugs certain co-workers at the downtown fashion mag—who might actually have to work!—are usin'.

The latest business to report feeling the pinch? Pot dealing! A marijuana delivery guy for a New York service says that he's having to tempt buyers with value deals of lower quality weed, and that his biggest clients, Wall Streeters, are now buying eighths instead of ounces. Hey, maybe spending less time majorly stoned will mean a more acute grasp of how to play the markets? Just a thought. [men.style.com]

"Everyone in the New York gay scene is referring to "Oxycontin" as Cindy [McCain] and "crystal meth" Bristol [Palin]." But what happens if you combine Cindy and Bristol?

Perhaps bereft that her former lover David Spade has found fatherhood in the fulsome embrace of a Playboy Bunny, actress Heather Locklear was arrested Saturday afternoon in Santa Barbara on suspicion of DUI. Booked in a local jail and released hours later, the Melrose Place alum was also fingered for being under the influence of a controlled substance (Janet Charlton is claiming that the actress is in the grips of a 20-year Vicodin addiction). While we're certainly concerned about Locklear's health, we have to admit we're most curious about the dastardly pair of eyewear that apparently set the entire incident into motion:

Valerie Frankel—who last week totally nailed Sarah Palin's "pretty girl syndrome"—has a new book out, Thin Is the New Happy, in which she describes the anorexic culture at erstwhile Condé Nast title Mademoiselle. At the magazine, she says: "Self-starvation was a competitive sport... of the dozen-odd women in the articles department, three-quarters of us had some kind of eating quirk or habit that any shrink alive would diagnose as borderline pathological." Obviously the staff at surviving titles like Glamour were better at working while delirious from hunger. [Page Six]

The next time you need to beg/borrow/steal some pills for any reason, look no further than your nearest child. A new report reveals that American kids are being heavily prescribed psychotropic drugs for conditions like ADHD and bipolar disorder, with three times as many of them on some kind of psychiatric medication compared to children in European countries. Possible reasons given include the effectiveness of direct-to-consumer advertising, this country's high number of child psychiatrists per capita, a cultural emphasis on drug therapy, and the trend for children to want to make extra money dealing to their classmates. (OK, we made the last one up.)

Poor Lindsay. She finally just admitted to her relationship with Samantha Ronson, she has a meaty cameo in the in the season premiere of Ugly Betty tonight, and she even reportedly booked a gig as the guest judge for the premiere of Project Runway when it moves to Lifetime. Things were going so well. Not Mean Girls well, or even I Know Who Killed Me well, but about as good as they’ve been for her in months. And then along comes Star Magazine to burst her happy little bubble. That’s right, the tabloid is reporting that Lindsay is “on the fast track to another drug and alcohol-driven breakdown.”Though she’s only been out of rehab for a year, insiders are claiming that “Lindsay's been drinking, doing cocaine and causing all-around mayhem for the past few months…. She quit going to Alcoholics Anonymous and has absolutely never taken recovery seriously. She's gotten progressively worse, and everyone in her life is really scared." Even worse, she showed up at the VMA’s with red scratches all over her arm, leading people to fear she’s started cutting herself again. If you’ll recall, the last time she did that was back in 2006 when she claimed she’d hit “rock bottom.” Of course, Lindsay’s MySpace blog tells a different story. In an entry dated September 19th, the starlet writes (without using capital letters, just like e.e. cummings):

Recently, things had been looking up for singer George Michael: not only had he embarked on his first world tour in years, but his music received another moment in the cultural spotlight thanks to the whimsical ABC series Eli Stone. (Here at Defamer, though, we'll maintain that his most triumphant turn of late was leading the insurrection against a held-hostage Dr. Phil at the Forum in June). Alas, all good things must come to and end, and for Michael, that fluorescent-lit endpoint was once again found in a public men's room:

Poor George Michael. Just weeks after completing his first world tour in fifteen years, the singer was busted in a London public bathroom for drug possession. The police report doesn't name Michael, but sources confirmed to the British press that he was busted Friday for crack possession after a suspicious bathroom attendant tipped off the cops. This comes after his famous 1998 arrest by an undercover officer for lewd conduct in a Beverly Hills bathroom, and his 2006 adventure when he plead guilty to driving under the influence of drugs after being found slumped over the wheel of his car and was forbidden to drive for two years. This time, the law is taking it easy on the former Wham front man.

The Smoking Gun has documents concerning a cocaine dealer who added a $25 gas delivery surcharge to his orders. It's a perfect story: high oil prices have increased the cost of everything from trucked-in food to daily commutes to real estate. (Though they're not quite as high as they were.) There was even a flurry of lightly reported stories about how it's caused gaggles of girls to become strippers. Now, coke prices are increasing:

Actor Ryan O'Neal and his son Redmond were both arrested for drug possession this morning, the LA Times reports. A vial of meth was found in the Love Story star's bedroom, while the drug was found on his 24-year-old son's (his mother his actress Farrah Fawcett) person. The family that gets arrested for drugs together... Sadly this isn't the first drug-related arrest for the family this year. Ryan's daughter Tatum, with whom he costarred in the Depression-era con artist film Paper Moon, was nabbed back in June while trying to buy crack cocaine on a New York City street. Sigh. And Redmond has a history of heroin problems and Ryan was arrested last year after he accidentally fired a gun while fighting with another son:

The youth of today have it so easy! When they want to get messed up on drugs, they don't have to scrape together money, locate a dubious character to deal to them, and risk getting arrested: They simply go to their parents' medicine cabinet. Painkillers, tranquilizers and stimulants are frequently the drugs of choice for 12 to 25-year-olds, according to the federal government's National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

In case you didn't know, Cindy McCain is a recovering pillhead. Why is this news? Well, the doctor who lost his license for writing prescriptions for Cindy under the names of various employees just gave an interview to the Washington Post. Would you believe the whole sordid affair sort of ruined his life? Yeah so let's get to the real mystery: how did it not end hers? Because the available evidence suggests that Cindy was taking an unbelievable amount of painkillers as the height of her addiction. We went back and consulted the insane excerpts of the "Diary of a Madwoman" kept by her old employee (and registered — and convincing-looking! — Republican) Tom Gosinski. (Tom marked good days as "on Percocet" or "OP"; not good days were "NOP" but she seemed to enjoy Vicodin as well.) Did you realize Cindy had five doctors writing prescriptions for this shit? (Four of them didn't really know; Cindy just sorta hacked their DEA numbers.)Experts say she could have faced 20 years in prison if not for the whole centimillionaire heiress Senator's wife thing. But forget prison, how did she not die? Alternet estimates she was taking between 30 and 50 pills a day during the height of her addiction, but only the DEA knows for sure, and the sheer quantity of pills referenced in Gosinski's diary — in one case two prescriptions for 400 or 500-count bottles of painkillers written by the same doctor in two weeks — suggests, per the typical addict's "just-in-time" fulfillment policy, that she was probably up at least into the 70 or 80-a-day range around September 1992. 80 pills a day! Who lives through that? (Much less quits cold turkey, as Cindy allegedly did.) Well, this guy did, but he looks like he might have a somewhat hardier constitution than Cindy McCain. In any case, we have something newfound — respect? awe? complete bafflement?? — for Cindy McCain, who Gosinski described as a very hard worker in his early days working for her MASH-modeled charity team, before she turned into the Anna Nicole of the NGO community: