Cocaine: Miracle Drug?

There was a time, back in the "roaring twenties" that you could go to any corner drug store and buy just about every illicit drug that is on the market today. There was marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, just about any kind of narcotic that you could imagine, all in the name of "medicine." Everybody knows the story of how Coca Cola used to have a small amount of cocaine in it. It was meant to be a medicine, not a soft drink.

One of the things that was popular back then was called "chlorophyll parties." People would gather around a table with a big bowl of chlorophyll or ether on it. Pretty soon the fumes would make them giddy and then pass out. Eventually the stuff evaporated and everybody woke up. The party was then over.

The reason that illicit drugs were so popular in history and are still a problem today is that our brains are hard wired to receive them. We all have natural opiate receptors in our brains. Some say that people use drugs because there is a shortage of the natural brain chemicals that fit into those receptors. Others say that choice and environment play a role.

According to CNN:

"Long before drug cartels, crack wars and TV shows about addiction, cocaine was promoted as a wonder drug, sold as a cure-all and praised by some of the greatest minds in medical history, including Sigmund Freud." Some other regular users and promoters of the drug included Thomas Edison, Queen Victoria and Pope Leo XIII. "Bring me my holy spoon immediately!"

But don't think that the golden age of now-illegal drugs was all happy times. Like today, they caused a widespread path of misery and destruction, even for the most famous of users. At first Freud used it for "depression and bouts of indigestion" and eagerly wrote his wife that he had discovered a medical breakthrough that would be as important as the discovery of morphine for pain.

But Freud later went on to encounter greatly deteriorating health in his life because of the drug. The noted surgeon William Halsted started using cocaine in injectable form instead of ether to anesthetize his patients. The problem came when he started using cocaine himself. At times he was too high on cocaine to even operate.

Most of the problems with the drug were hidden back then. The drug became so popular that not only was it sold in Coca Cola but also in wine and as an ointment rubbed on the skin. It was even put into margarine at one point.

But by the early 1900's publicity for the drug slowly began to change. There were many reports in the news media of addiction and overdose. Many of the celebrities that once endorsed the drug gave it up.

The drug started being associated with "lesser classes of people" and the Blacks in the south. People began worrying about "cocaine fiends" running around and wrecking havoc. The drug was banned in 1904 and later, in 1989, mandatory prison laws were enacted. Some say the laws discriminate because it takes 500 mg of coke (used mostly by white professionals) to get a mandatory five year sentence while it only takes 5 mg of crack cocaine (used mostly in the inner city) to get the same sentence.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/07/22/social.history.cocaine/index.html?hpt=he_t4