I’d heard of Ludes as a kid but this thread is my first real knowledge of them. Just read the Wiki to get some info. So apparently Methaqualone produces a calming effect and was prescribed for insomnia quite a bit. Does this fit with experiences for all you dopers in the know?
Bromo-DragonFLY, computer duster and jenkem, is what I hear. Bad time to be young.
(Pharmacist here) I had never heard of vomiting being a side effect; were you also consuming alcohol or other drugs?
I was a teenager when they were in their heyday, and while I never took them, I knew people who did, and they, combined with alcohol and/or marijuana, reduced sexual inhibitions. They weren’t necessarily a “date rape” drug; people knew what they were doing but didn’t really care.
Colleagues who practiced in the 1970s said they weren’t even a controlled substance at one point! There was even discussion about making them OTC because they were thought to be “safe”, because people had attempted suicide with them and couldn’t do it. (This was the case with thalidomide too.)
I agree that the news sources need to explain what Quaalude is. It’s the brand name for methaqualone, whic interestingly was available in some countries until recent years.
I heard about them when the news reported Freddie Prinze’s death. That was sad. The talking heads (or related news articles - it’s been awhile) explained that they were often used to come down from cocaine.
Why?
Another slang term for them was “714”, because that was the number stamped on the most common tablet dose. “712” was the other one.
Quaaludes are to calming as an adult alligator in your bedroom is to disquieting…
It was a prescription sedative and muscle relaxant that was pulled off the market in the 80s due to abuse.
While I have zero experience with it, I don’t think it was commonly used for date rape. My impression was that it was used consensually.
A lot of the recent reporting concerning Cosby seems to be by people who don’t know what quaaludes are (not that I’m defending Cosby).
I saw a report where they played a bit from one of his old albums where he was talking about being 14 and talking with his friends about girls and spanish fly. The commenters seemed to think spanish fly was something that caused unconsciousness and that this bit showed his budding propensities. Of course, that is not what spanish fly does or is even claimed to do. Not that it does as claimed.
Back when, if you’ve watched The Big Chill, you knew about them. I don’t think Wolf of Wall Street produced the same generational memory.
Isn’t that the truth!!
In my high school, they were also called “Sopors,” or “Panty Droppers.” :eek:
I know what they are but did not know they were no longer being made.
I’d only heard of them through coverage of the Roman Polanski rape case (where he drugged his underage victim with part of one, before raping her).
I’m 54, and have only the vaguest idea what Quaaludes are.
Oh, I’ve heard ABOUT them since I was a teenager. I saw jokes about “ludes” in National Lampoon. I heard Rodney Dangerfield quip “My son got arrested for lewd behavior. Kid took 20 ludes!”
So, I’ve always know that Quaaludes are some kind of drug. But I’ve never known what they looked like, how one consumed them (swallowed, inhaled, injected?) or what effect they had.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s, so I know of them, but I never knew anyone to use them. They’re kind of filed away in my brain with drugs like angeldust/PCP (though their effect is quite the opposite), that I remember hearing a lot about back then, but never really knew of anyone taking in the 90s and beyond, when I was in college and since (as opposed to coke, pot, LSD, shrooms, X/E, heroin, meth).
When I heard this story this morning I thought "whatever happened to “ludes” ? It kind of made me giggle that this story goes so far back that Cosby was drugging his women with them. I also don’t remember them being all that strong; maybe I took some weak ones or I just had a huge drug tolerance (entirely possible). I also thought “Quaaludes? To knock someone out?”. Again, it was a long time ago; was that used as a rape drug back in the day?
No shit!
I had one in college about 1975. We were sitting around drinking just a few beers and I was offered one.
When it kicked in I was no longer able to even sit in a simple chair. I kept melting out of the chair into a pool on the floor. It wasn’t psychedelic, that was just the way I felt. My muscles were so relaxed that I couldn’t even sit in a chair. There were no longer any bones in my body.
After several amusing attempts at climbing off the floor and sitting in the chair I was poured into my bed for the night. Walking was impossible. Sex (I’m a guy) would have been impossible too.
And if some guy were to give these to a woman for use as a date rape drug, her resistance would be futile too.
I was born in 1970. I’ve heard the word a few times, but (without looking at the rest of the thread) don’t know what they are. I’d guess from the context that I’ve heard them mentioned in, that they were some type of powerful tranquilizer.
This is why they were combined with alcohol for recreational use.
Very late 60s we moved to a different state and I started 11th grade. “Sopors” were very popular. I was going through a clean phase so I never bothered with them personally. I had never heard of them before we moved. I recall one girl, who later became a friend, who, if you mentioned any amount of money $10 or over, she’d quickly and verbally calculate how many sopors you could buy for that.
And I grew to become very annoyed at people on sopors who felt they had to explain something to me. Because no matter how many times you completed their sentences, they just had to keep plugging on.
I’m a young dude and I don’t associate with degenerates so I don’t know a lot about drugs
I knew what quaaludes were when they talked about the Cosby case because I knew about them from the Roman Polanski case. but when I was reading about that I didn’t know what they were and had to look it up