Ts and blues

• tees and blues, tease and blues

Ts is an initialism of Talwin, a brand name for pentazocine; blues derives from the fact that tripelennamine tablets are usually blue in color.

Ts and blues pl (plural only)

1. (informal) The combination of the drugs pentazocine (an opioid analgesic) and tripelennamine (an antihistamine), used for recreational purposes due to its euphoric effect in the 1970s and 1980s.
   • 1990, Martin W. Adler, Alan Cowan, editors, Testing and Evaluation of Drugs of Abuse (Modern Methods in Pharmacology; 6), Wiley-Liss, →ISBN, page 272:

     […] was usually combined with the antihistamine tripelennamine (“Ts and Bs” or “Ts and Blues” pattern of combined intravenous drug abuse).

   • 1998 November 14, Markus, “Re: METH”, in alt.recovery‎^[1] (Usenet):

     Meth has to be the single most wicked shit I ever involved myself with. […] Could drink gallons of beer though, and, while I don't suggest this, but I would pop an OTC sleeping pill. Would do this only after having not taking a snort for a good 12 hours. Poor mans version of tease and blues I guess (meth and valium in a capsule).

   • 2006 July, Paul Kix, “Framed”, in D Magazine‎^[2]:

     west dallas in the 1970s was no place for two growing boys. Instead of front yards, Greg and his older brother Kevin had shattered glass and dirt. Drug dealers cruised the streets, pushing heroin, or “tease and blues” as they called it. The junkies itched their way through days and nights.

   • 2006 November 25, piglet, “Re: kookathon”, in rec.radio.swap‎^[3] (Usenet):

     People taking oral methadone apparently still get a hit if they shoot just cyclizine on top of it. […] It's also available on the internet without a prescription. In the US, Ts & blues was the same sort of thing. Tripelennamine in conjunction with Talwin. Then they reformulated Talwin with naloxone so you can't shoot it.

• Ts and Bs

• Dunstables