HENRY, HARRY & LOUIS

HENRY

(noun British)

1 Heroin. A personification used by addicts in the 1970s, perhaps influenced by the use of the name 'Henry the Horse' in the song 'For the Benefit of Mr. Kite' on the Beatles' 1967 LP, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club Band.

See also HARRY*.

2 An eighth of an ounce (of cannabis). A drug dealer and user's jargon term of the later 1980s inspired by King Henry VIII. (A LOUIS** is one-sixteenth of an ounce.)

*HARRY

(noun British) heroin. An addict's term from the 1960s, personifying the drug in the same way as CHARLIE for cocaine.

**LOUIS OR LOUIE

(noun British) 1 one-sixteenth of an ounce (of cannabis). This is the smallest quantity of the drug that can normally be bought by weight in Britain. The term was first heard in the late 1980s and is derived from Louis XVI, the king overthrown in the French revolution, in the same way as HENRY for an eighth of an ounce.

'OK, make it a louie.'



from The Dictionary of Contemporary Slang by Tony Thorne