Historical drug question

Okay, don’t even ask why I need to know this, but does anyone know of substances that were actually -illegal- in the 17th century? Especially in Europe? I’m kind of assuming nothing fits that bill, as morality over substances really wasn’t much of an issue then…

Thanks in advance

I don’t know of any substances that were illegal per se, but I did find a very interesting 1604 law against tobacco that takes the tax-and-regulate approach. Evidently the concept of sin taxes existed even then.

To undestand how lawmakers felt about mind and mood altering substances back in the 17th century you’ve got to look at who was making the laws, and their relationship to everyone else. The lawmakers were the aristocrats, even in Parliamentary systems like Britain. They may have personally disliked the use of opiates from the Muslim world, tobacco from the new world, and alcohol, but they had no problem allowing the masses to tune out using these chemicals. As long as you weren’t in some sort of early Protestant puritanical society were everythingfrom red ribbon on up was tabboo, then getting inebriated was no problem unless you got into some sort of trouble, and then you’d face the terrible wrath of the law. I know by the late 18th century, gin was cheaper to get than milk in English cities, and the best way for a poor mother to stop her baby’s crying would be to rub some gin on its gums.

There’s also the question of law enforcement. The modern model of having a police force is new.

I don’t know about the 17th Century. I doubt that other drugs besides alcohol and marijuana were in Europe back then. Alcohol, marijuana, and possibly chewing coca by adventurous Spanish occupyers in South America. Marijuana has been around forever. George washington grew hemp on his farm for industrial as well as personal use.

Opium was legal in Asia until the 19th-20th century. Smoking opium was legal in Laos and Vietnam until 1975. Today, Laos grows most of the opium on the planet. The junkie in NYC first got his dope here. People in Indochina has been smoking dope for thousands of years, but it took western man and his hypocrisy to tell them that they are “addicts”, and convincing governemts to outlaw something the local people have found pleasurable and makes their meager life bearable and happy.

The 19th century was a golden age of sorts for addicts. Morphine, cocaine and marijuana were legal in the USA. We all know the story of the original coca cola having cocaine in it. Frued did cocaine and enjoyed it. Most medication had coca in it. The 1800s were a time of common sense, personal responsibility and freedom in the US. Imagine living and working in a society without SS numbers, income taxes, where one can choose to use substances to heal or cure pain without an intrusive parental governent saying no.

The income tax was enacted in 1913. Drugs were made illegal by the Harrison Act in 1914. Two horrible laws in history of the Republic.

SP

Opium use goes back to the middle ages in Europe:

here
Off topic, but more fun, is the tourism authority of Thailand’s new 40 acre HALL OF OPIUM/GOLDEN TRIANGLE PARK.

I vaguely remember reading somewhere that Hanafi Islamic jurists in the Ottoman Empire made fatwas that hashish was not covered by the Qur’anic prohibition on intoxicants. Because the Qur’an specifically prohibited “wine” (al-khamr), and that therefore—reading it in the narrowest possible sense—hashish as a nonalcoholic intoxicant didn’t fall under the prohibition and so was lawful. (This would of course be a minority opinion in Islamic jurisprudence, where all intoxicants are considered unlawful.) I have been searching but unable to confirm this about the Ottoman fatwa allowing hashish. Anyone know?

The etymology of the word Assassin, suggests the use of hashish by some muslim orders dating back to the 11th century. Whether it was generally allowed, and if so, by whom, is a tougher question.

The french banned an alcoholic drink called anocet , i believe

Declan

I believe you’re thinking of is anisette, which is related to a drink that was banned, absinthe.

No, the Assassins were Isma‘ili Shi‘ites in the 11th century, not even close. I was thinking of Hanafi Sunnis in Turkey in something like the 16th or 17th centuries.

I did come across one 17th-century text by the Ottoman author Kâtip Çelebi, a little book of little essays titled Mizan al-haqq (The Balance of Truth). One essay is about “Laudanum, Opium, and Other Drugs.” It doesn’t mention hashish, but that was all I could come up with. He discusses the difficulty of breaking addiction:

"If one manages to break oneself of the habit somehow, that is great good fortune and an opportunity to be snatched at. If not, it is dangerous to give it up suddenly. What method can one employ?

There is no sanction in the sacred law for abandoning it. To interfere with seasoned drug-addicts is folly and error. Our words are but a caution to those who have not fallen into the snare of the addiction, and a piece of good advice, lest they heed the friendly offer and importunity of the addict. As the saying goes, ‘Dear to the destroyed, the sight of others in like case.’"

As far as Islamic law goes, he thought it should leave opium addicts alone. While he was willing to advise against moral vices, he also thought the law should stay out of it.

A woman from Turkey told me that tobacco was illegal at one time back then, I dont know if she meant the 1700’s or 1800’s, and you could get your head cut off for using it/selling it - a capital offense.

Kâtip Çelebi also has an essay about tobacco in that book. He told how Sultan Murad VI outlawed tobacco smoking because of the danger of fires. Istanbul was always at risk for conflagrations and the fire of 1633 destroyed much of the city; tobacco was outlawed shortly thereafter. Even though the fire was not caused by a smoker but started in the shipyards where caulking was going on.

"People being undeterred … gradually His Majesty’s severity in suppression increased, and so did the people’s desire to smoke, in accordance with the saying, ‘Men desire what is forbidden,’ and many thousands were sent to the abode of nothingness.

While the Sultan was going on the expedition against Baghdad, at one halting-place fifteen or twenty leading men of the Army were arrested on a charge of smoking, and were put to death with the severest torture in the imperial presence. Some of the soldiers carried short pipes in their sleeves, some in their pockets, and they found an opportunity to smoke even during the executions." :rolleyes:

“After the Sultan’s death, the practice was sometimes forbidden and sometimes outlawed, until the Sheykh al-Islam, the late Baha’i Efendi, gave a fetwa ruling that it was permissible, and the practice won renewed popularity among the people of the world.”

Kâtip Çelebi is an interesting thinker. He hates the reek of tobacco — he calls it “the noxious effects of the corruption of the aerial essence”, which is the best description of tobacco smoke I’ve ever seen. He knows it’s bad for health. But he argues that the law should not forbid it. For one reason, experience has proved that it’s impossible to prevent people from smoking, so why make a law that can’t be enforced?

“In his own house every man may do as he pleases. Then, if the rulers interfere, they will be taking on themselves more than they should:
‘What work for the censors within a man’s home?’”

For another thing, he argues the principle in Islamic law that “permissibility is the norm.” He is for the maximum possible leniency in Islamic law:

"The following course is preferable: not to declare things forbidden, but always to have recourse to any legal principle that justifies declaring them permitted, thus preserving the people from being laden with sins and persisting in what has been prohibited." :cool:

An eminently sane and reasonable approach to legislation. I only wish the U.S. government, with their insane and destructive “War on Drugs,” could read this wonderful little book and come to their senses.