Gun Juice

[Kat1970]

What is the drug referred to as "Gun Juice" in Uzodinma Iweala's Beasts of No Nation?

[Quizmonster]

Click here for a web-page about (Microlon) 'gun juice'. I suspect it is not a drug in the usual sense but rather an intoxicant. That is, a liquid that makes you drunk in much the same way as British alcoholics used to drink Brasso, also a metal polish.

[PhilBy]

The only reference I can find is the following:

Iweala's account of Agu's time as a soldier is unsparing and unflinching. Agu encounters brutality, privation and hunger. He is goaded by his officer - 'the commandant' - into taking part in executions, and he learns to kill in battle, helped by a drug known as 'gun-juice' given to the rebel soldiers to loosen their inhibitions.

[PhilBy]

A little bit more but still doesn't tell you what the drug is:

Before each attack, the soldiers fortify themselves with "gun juice," a hallucinogenic drug that makes them feel stronger and braver. "I am like leopard hunting in the bush," Agu describes the effect. "I am liking to kill."

[Quizmonster]

The Urban Dictionary website has no record of the phrase 'gun juice'. Given that it has pretty well everything else in the way of underground/drug-related slang, the absence of 'gun juice' is possibly evidence that it is not a recognised nickname for any actual drug.
If you click here the link will take you to a chapter from the relevant Iweala book. Scroll down to the paragraph which opens with the words: "There is not enough..." for a description of 'gun juice'.
It still sounds to me as if it is simply gun lubricant which just happens to have hallucinogenic effects. But, if anyone can come up with convincing evidence otherwise, I'll be happy to accept it.