Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US tramp, also cubicles, risk cubes) in pl., dice.

1776		G. Colman Spleen I i: I would fain have been among the red ribbands and black legs at Hell in the evening, and tried my luck with tossing the cubes about.
1919		C.E. Piesbergen Overseas with an Aero Squadron 56: ‘Money-wild’ has the cubes.
1920		H. Wiley Wildcat 143: Gallopin’ a couple o’ risk cubes wheneveh I craves action.
1924		H.L. Wilson Professor How Could You! 338: We had some lively bouts with the hazardous cubes.
1939		W. Winchell On Broadway 18 Feb. [synd. col.] The other night Wingy lost back the last few hunded dollars, trying to woo the cubes again.
1948		G.H. Bean Yankee Auctioneer 122: The man handling the dice [...] must have had a lot of experience throwing the cubes.
1958		R. Frede Entry E (1961) 59: The great Bogard is gonna deign to wager on the cubes with us.
1966		‘Tom Pendleton’ Iron Orchard (1967) 67: I never seen such a run of luck. Them cubes was really listenin’ to me that night.
1968		H. Sackler Great White Hope I iii: Ole Doctuh Wishbone gwine ta roll dem cubicles.

2. (drugs) morphine, esp. 1oz (28g) (or what is sold as 1oz) of morphine [the shape of bulk supplies].

1915		G. Bronson-Howard God’s Man 39: We used to get seventy-five cents for a hundred cubes of the unrefined, ninety-five for the same in pressed hypo tablets, half-grains, that is.
1930		M. West Babe Gordon (1934) 183: There’s four two-and-a-half-grain cubes of morphine in there.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1959		Murtagh & Harris Who Live In Shadow (1960) 69: They dilute them [morphine and heroin] and package them in capsules, paper packets, pills or cubes.
1966		R. Giallombardo Gloss. in Study of a Women’s Prison 203: Cubes. Morphine tablets.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 233: cubes Morphine, natural alkaloid of opium.
1989		(con. 1920s) Courtwright & Des Jarlais Addicts Who Survived 184: All right, what does she want? Cubes or ...
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 7: Cube — 1 ounce.

3. (US campus) in pl., the testicles.

1967–8

Baker et al. CUSS.

4. (drugs) LSD [early LSD doses were often dripped onto sugar cubes for easy ingestion].

1969		R.R. Lingeman Drugs from A to Z (1970).
1971		E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).
1981		D.E. Miller Bk of Jargon 337: cubes: LSD soaked into sugar cubes.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 7: Cube — LSD.