NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Lifestyle

Pingers, pingas, pingaz: How drug slang affects the way we use and understand drugs

Other
31 Jan, 2020 08:47 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

MDMA is one of the most common drugs taken at music festivals. Photo / 123RF

MDMA is one of the most common drugs taken at music festivals. Photo / 123RF

By Julaine Allan

Julaine Allan, Charles Sturt University

Slang names or street names for drugs are common. From pingers (MDMA), to fishies (GHB) to going into the K-hole (ketamine), slang use marks someone as an insider with knowledge and experience of illicit drug use.

The use of language around drugs is important because people using drugs referred to by slang names could misunderstand what they're getting.

At the same time, tuning into drug slang offers researchers and health workers an avenue by which to track patterns of drug use.



Read more:
'My friends are taking MDMA at raves and music festivals. Is it safe?'

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

A bit of history

Drug slang is part of music festival slang. Photo / 123RF
Drug slang is part of music festival slang. Photo / 123RF

Clinicians and people who study drug use have attempted to catalogue slang terms for drug use since the 1930s.

David Maurer, an American linguistics professor who studied the use of language in the American underworld, published the first glossary of drug slang terms in 1936. The aim was to guide law enforcement as well as to inform doctors, parents and teachers about drug use.

The definitions reflect the social and cultural values around drug-taking practices at the time. For example, Maurer's glossary featured the term "to vipe", meaning to smoke marijuana. The definition included how beginners were taught special smoking techniques by hostesses, likely sex workers.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Why is drug slang important?

The use of slang indicates a person uses drugs because they know the secret language of a subculture. With this in mind, researchers seek to identify drug subcultures through understanding language use.

In 1979, researchers created a drug slang association test to identify if the number of slang names people knew related to their use of a drug type. The authors found people in prison, who commonly used opiates, knew more slang words for heroin than college students did.



Read more:
How the dictionary is totes taking up the vernacular

More recently, one study analysed Twitter posts to identify new slang. Another study used slang terms in Instagram hashtags to document drug use patterns.

Discover more

Entertainment

New study reveals Beethoven may have not been deaf after all

02 Feb 05:35 AM

For clinicians and researchers, slang offers insights into drug users' beliefs and behaviours, which can in turn guide interventions. The slang words can be metaphors for the drug effects or appearance, giving health professionals an understanding of a person's drug use experience.

Researchers also believe they get better results from surveys if they use the same language as people using drugs.

Pingers

As we find ourselves at the height of music festival season, let's look at a timely example.

MDMA (3,4- methylenedioxymethamphetamine), or ecstasy, is one of the drugs people take most commonly at music festivals. The term "pinger" (or pinga) is thought to be an Australian creation used to refer to MDMA.

Not all countries use the same slang for drugs. Photo / 123RF
Not all countries use the same slang for drugs. Photo / 123RF

Most festival goers attend few events and are only occasional users of illegal drugs, so they may be unfamiliar with slang names and what drug they refer to. The drug they purchase could be completely different to what they expected.



Read more:
Explainer: what is nitrous oxide (or nangs) and how dangerous is it?

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The first reference to pingers is reported to be in the glossary of an Australian surfing book published in 2003. More recently the word pinger has appeared in several pop culture dictionaries with examples related to drug use. For example:

An Australian video game called Big City Earnez has players collecting "pingaz" – things that look like tablets – in different Melbourne suburbs and hiding from the police.

None of these examples refer to MDMA specifically, but there's an assumption people know what the word pinger means, including the drug's use and effects.

And the term's use has spread out of Australia. By 2012, Vice.com, a UK website that regularly reports on popular and emerging drug use, was using the term pinger to describe MDMA.

Buyer beware

A problem with relying on slang to identify drugs is meanings change over time. It took a few years for pinger to be used in the UK as slang for MDMA. In 2009 police in England and Wales were issued with a list of 3,000 words to learn so they could "stay ahead of criminals". Pinger was not on the list but ping-on was listed as meaning opium and pingus as the prescription drug Rohypnol (a sedative and muscle relaxant).

Slang terms are also culturally specific. Not all countries use the same slang even when English is the main language. In Ireland "yoke" is a word used to refer to MDMA pills or capsules while "molly" is a common word in the United States. Beyond the likelihood of embarrassment, misunderstanding slang terms can increase the risk of drug-related harms.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.



Read more:
History, not harm, dictates why some drugs are legal and others aren't

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Lifestyle

Premium
Lifestyle

What makes someone cool? These six traits it seems

07 Jul 01:08 AM
Premium
Lifestyle

I thought my stitch was from over-exercising. It turned out to be cancer

07 Jul 12:25 AM
Lifestyle

Weighing pros and cons of reuniting with long-lost pals

06 Jul 10:21 PM

Sponsored: Get your kids involved in your reno

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Lifestyle

Premium
What makes someone cool? These six traits it seems

What makes someone cool? These six traits it seems

07 Jul 01:08 AM

New York Times: Global study uncovers universal traits of coolness.

Premium
I thought my stitch was from over-exercising. It turned out to be cancer

I thought my stitch was from over-exercising. It turned out to be cancer

07 Jul 12:25 AM
Weighing pros and cons of reuniting with long-lost pals

Weighing pros and cons of reuniting with long-lost pals

06 Jul 10:21 PM
Premium
Why burnout in women spikes in their 30s and 50s – and how to get through it

Why burnout in women spikes in their 30s and 50s – and how to get through it

06 Jul 06:00 PM
Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper
sponsored

Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP