ABSTRACT
This chapter refers to the social and cultural processes that made it possible for the young heroin users to take into their systems what is, in Douglas's words, the 'impure' substance, heroin. It begins by looking at the product's symbolic nature, prior to the sociocultural preparation, in order to study the transformation process the substance undergoes in order to become desirable. The modern aims at explaining and rationalizing existence, but death cannot be explained and therefore we pretend it does not exist. The early experiences of heroin cannot be fully explained without paying attention to how it was framed with symbols and rituals. The chapter describes the frame of the ritual, in the form of preparation and the relationship to the outside, that is the world outside the ritual and against whose borders the ritual defines itself. Playing with the foil, that is, getting the foil ready for basing, is an important part of the ritual.
