# Do People Still Do Old Drugs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 8, 2009, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-still-do-old-drugs/520456 "2009-12-08T15:23:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2009, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-still-do-old-drugs/520456/41 "2009-12-13T21:46:33Z")
> [@Astroboy14](#): > > The vast majority of LSD was manufactured by Clyde Apperson and William Pickard. > > I emphasize: [_was_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard). > > Apparently there isn’t a lot of acid floating around these days… LOL, yeah Acid isn’t coming about much anymore. I can always get it, and it’s not that difficult, but you’ve gotta be connected to the scenes that still like it. Opiates are still popular it’s just that vicodin and oxycontin are pretty easy to get, so why bother with heroin or opium? Opium is rare because it’s mostly grown overseas in places like Afghanistan, domestic production is usually put toward medical purposes like morphine and other medical opioids. Heroin is MUCH MUCH MUCH easier to ship and is far more valuable than Opium. The same weight of opium that would cost $ 500 is worth millions in heroin so there is little incentive to ship opium around the world. Most people who have opium get it because they are connoiseurs. IE, people travelling or people growing it themselves. Mushrooms are as popular as ever because they are really easy to procure. It’s easy to grow them in your closet, or to pick them in the forest. The idea that hash is rare is news to me. I get hash practically thrown at me. I like pot better than I like hash, but people seem to think Hash is the beezneez. The only people I ever knew who did PCP were a bunch of really crusty Ravers from a Satanic gang out of South Brooklyn. There was a crowd involved in the terrorcore and hardtechno scene that liked the PCP. I can’t even stand the smell of it and don’t really want to try it. But it’s around. Never been around Quaaludes ever in my life. Ketamine is pretty popular in New York, or at least was for most of this decade. As for the ‘NEW’ drugs, I doubt most of you have even heard of them or would have any idea as to where you can procure 2cE or 2cB or 2ct7 or any of the like. If you don’t know who Alexander Shulgin is…well…you don’t know what the new drugs are. 😉 Ayahuasca is becoming popular with the ‘Mayan Shaman’ tourism to Central and South America. But like Mescaline it’s kind of limited in scope. DMT usage is pretty rare even amongst psychonauts. ---
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2009, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-still-do-old-drugs/520456/42 "2009-12-13T22:30:33Z")
**Randy Seltzer** , I was pretty dubious myself. But that’s what her mother claims and since I know absolutely nothing about drugs, just figured it was easier to take her word for it. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2009, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-still-do-old-drugs/520456/43 "2009-12-13T22:39:33Z")
> [@faithfool](#): > > **Randy Seltzer** , I was pretty dubious myself. But that’s what her mother claims and since I know absolutely nothing about drugs, just figured it was easier to take her word for it. Yeah, PCP smells horrible. One of the ways it’s done is by dipping the tip of a cigarette into the solution kept in a vial. You can smell it twenty feet away, it’s horrible. You know that look in someone’s eyes, that half deadened look where they look at you like they want to do you harm, or get one over on you, and the only reason they haven’t is because they haven’t figured out how? Well, that’s how a dusthead looks. ---
**Author:** ![wierdaaron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eada6e/32.png) [@wierdaaron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wierdaaron)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2009, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-still-do-old-drugs/520456/44 "2009-12-13T23:11:30Z")
People have been smoking marijuana since Ancient China, five thousand years ago, so I don’t think you can find anything much older than that… ---
**Author:** ![Obsidian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/51bf81/32.png) [@Obsidian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Obsidian)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-still-do-old-drugs/520456/45 "2009-12-14T01:14:09Z")
I smoked opium once in college, but it was a big event that someone had gotten some and a bunch of us gathered around to try. Hash was less common that pot but not uncommon. I knew where you could get PCP. But nothing identified a speaker as “out of touch clueless grown-up” quite like mentioning Qualuudes in drug lecture. No one I knew had ever seen one or heard of anyone who had. One of my friends (he who got the opium) went on a quest to find some, since we’d all heard about their evilness in high school. Never could. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-still-do-old-drugs/520456/46 "2009-12-14T03:48:33Z")
> [@wierdaaron](#): > > People have been smoking marijuana since Ancient China, five thousand years ago, so I don’t think you can find anything much older than that.. There’s evidence of hemp use that’s very old. I know of no evidence for smoking marijuana that goes back that far. Or as Una said in another thread: > [@Washington, Jefferson & hemp](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-jefferson-hemp/520887/19): > > As a general sidebar, in helping to research this column I found it almost a point of ironic despair that most all of the same websites, blogs, and whatever dedicated to showing how useful hemp could be for everything _except_ smoking (you can like, make clothes, and paper, and, um, hovercrafts out of it) go out of their way to claim without strong evidence that two of the early backers of hemp as a non-drug _must_ have been smoking it to get high. ---
**Author:** ![wierdaaron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eada6e/32.png) [@wierdaaron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wierdaaron)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-still-do-old-drugs/520456/47 "2009-12-14T04:08:15Z")
**An archaeological and historical account of cannabis in China** HL Li - Economic Botany, 1973 - Springer > [@](#): > > From a historical vantage, Cannabis has been found in China since Neolithic times, about 6,000 years ago, with a continuous record of cultivation down to the present. > \<…\> > The fruits, leaves and roots were used in medicine in ancient times. The medicinal uses of the plant diminished in later ages. The plant was also used as a hallucinogenic drug. [http://www.springerlink.com/content/36u70w3m63323884/](http://www.springerlink.com/content/36u70w3m63323884/) and.. **History of cannabis as a medicine: a review** AW Zuardi - Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatría, 2006 - SciELO Brasil > [@](#): > > The use of cannabis as a medicine by ancient Chinese was reported in the world’s oldest pharmacopoeia, the pen-ts’ao ching which was compiled in the first century of this Era, but based on oral traditions passed down from the time of Emperor Shen-Nung, who lived during the years 2.700 B.C. Indications for the use of cannabis included: rheumatic pain, intestinal constipation, disorders of the female reproductive system, malaria, and others.2 [http://www.scielo.br/pdf/rbp/v28n2/29785.pdf](http://www.scielo.br/pdf/rbp/v28n2/29785.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-still-do-old-drugs/520456/48 "2009-12-14T04:27:40Z")
Other than your cites not saying one single word about the ancients smoking (your word) marijuana, I have to point out that ancient oral traditions in China are not worth the paper they’re printed on. It is worth quoting the very next paragraph from your own cite: > [@](#): > > The Chinese used mainly the seeds of cannabis for medical purposes; therefore, it may be assumed that they were referring to that part of the plant when describing its medicinal properties. Until today, cannabis seeds continue to be used as a laxative by Chinese physicians. It is acknowledged that the seeds are practically deficient in Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC), which is considered the plant’s main active constituent, and is mainly composed of essential fatty acids and proteins. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-still-do-old-drugs/520456/49 "2009-12-14T08:33:36Z")
> [@Astroboy14](#): > > As for the ‘NEW’ drugs, I doubt most of you have even heard of them or would have any idea as to where you can procure 2cE or 2cB or 2ct7 or any of the like. Never could find 2C-B. 2C-I is fun. ---
**Author:** ![wierdaaron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eada6e/32.png) [@wierdaaron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wierdaaron)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-still-do-old-drugs/520456/50 "2009-12-14T16:03:20Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Other than your cites not saying one single word about the ancients smoking (your word) marijuana, Ok, maybe _smoking_ it wasn’t the first thing they did with it in the history of the universe, but they took it as a drug. This thread is about drugs. Medicine is drugs. They took cannabis as a drug. DRUGS! > [@](#): > > It is worth quoting the very next paragraph from your own cite: Yeah… and then the one after _that_… > [@](#): > > The first reference to the use of cannabis, as a psychoactive drug, is also in the pen-ts’ao ching, as observed in one of its phrases: …ma-fen (the fruit of cannabis)… if taken in excess will produce visions of devils … over a long term, it makes one communicate with spirits and lightens one’s body…4 In spite of this reference, there are scarce citations of the use of cannabis as a hallucinogen in ancient Chinese texts. One possible explanation is that such use was probably associated to shamanism, a religion of the people from Central Asia. During the Han dynasty, this religious practice started to decline in China, and became disbelieved and increasingly restricted. Ancient texts rarely mentioned shamanism and, thus, there is no reference to the use of cannabis as a hallucinogen. Selective quoting and trying to discredit my whole argument because I said people have smoked weed for centuries, but actually at first they were only eating it, seems kind of representative of an agenda. People consume marijuana today (pot brownies anyone?) and it’s stil considered “doing” it. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-still-do-old-drugs/520456/51 "2009-12-14T16:30:04Z")
This won’t work. Nobody was ever denying that marijuana has been around for a very long time. Nobody was ever denying that it was used in some cultures before it became known as something to be smoked in America. What I was pointing out is that you said people were smoking marijuana 5000 years ago. There is zero evidence for it. There is zero evidence for it in your cites. All the evidence points to smoking as a later development in the history of cannabis use. All the evidence points to hemp growers using the fabric without commonly using it as a high. The paragraph you use as a riposte give one solitary reference and then says “there are scarce citations of the use of cannabis as a hallucinogen in ancient Chinese texts.” If you wanted to talk about the history of cannabis use, you could have done that. You didn’t. Instead you made a bald statement that is almost certainly not true in any sense and then gave citations that didn’t back it up in the least. Your “what I really meant to say was something totally different than my actual words” defense doesn’t cut it. That’s my defense. If you want to talk about what cultures did 5000 years ago I’d be fascinated to hear about it, because I’ve never seen an actual cite. Oral traditions don’t count. If you can provide 5000 year old text that would be praiseworthy. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-still-do-old-drugs/520456/52 "2009-12-14T17:14:39Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > Never could find 2C-B. 2C-I is fun. They both are. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Krebbs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5fc32e/32.png) [@Mr.Krebbs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Krebbs)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-still-do-old-drugs/520456/53 "2009-12-14T17:20:32Z")
Although [this cite](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28034925/) doesn’t refute either **weirdaaron** ’s or **Exapno Mapcase** ’s assertions, it is semi-relevant. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-still-do-old-drugs/520456.md?page=2)