# Was there such a thing as illegal drugs 600 years ago? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 30, 2011, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-such-a-thing-as-illegal-drugs-600-years-ago/604625 "2011-11-30T23:29:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-such-a-thing-as-illegal-drugs-600-years-ago/604625/1 "2011-11-30T23:29:37Z")
In Europe, specifically, but input on other areas is always welcome. Assuming you were fortunate enough to have a few extra hours a week not spent toiling or rolling around in muck seeking tubers missed by wild hogs, was there any general prohibition against wolfing down some psychedelic mushrooms, or ingesting some other sort of mind-altering substances apart from alcohol? Assuming your neighbors weren’t inclined to burn you for a witch, that is. When did The Government start taking an active role in prohibiting that kind of stuff? ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-such-a-thing-as-illegal-drugs-600-years-ago/604625/2 "2011-11-30T23:37:57Z")
Apparently there were (tobacco) smoking bans in some places as early as the 1500’s. > **[Smoking ban](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_ban)** > > Smoking bans, or smoke-free laws, are public policies, including criminal laws and occupational safety and health regulations, that prohibit tobacco smoking in certain spaces. The spaces most commonly affected by smoking bans are indoor workplaces and buildings open to the public such as restaurants, bars, office buildings, schools, retail stores, hospitals, libraries, transport facilities, and government buildings, in addition to public transport vehicles such as aircraft, buses, watercraft, a... ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-such-a-thing-as-illegal-drugs-600-years-ago/604625/3 "2011-11-30T23:58:07Z")
The only reference I can find to early opprobrium of opium is from here: [http://opioids.com/timeline/](http://opioids.com/timeline/) > [@](#): > > 1300s > Opium disappears for two hundred years from European historical record. Opium had become a taboo subject for those in circles of learning during the Holy Inquisition. In the eyes of the Inquisition, anything from the East was linked to the Devil. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-such-a-thing-as-illegal-drugs-600-years-ago/604625/4 "2011-12-01T00:20:17Z")
The Ottoman empire would have prohibited Alcohol as far as I can tell and includes parts of Europe. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-such-a-thing-as-illegal-drugs-600-years-ago/604625/5 "2011-12-01T02:06:44Z")
IIRC, coffee was illegal in most of Europe until late in the Renaissance era. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-such-a-thing-as-illegal-drugs-600-years-ago/604625/6 "2011-12-01T02:56:53Z")
Couldn’t using some drugs could get you charged with witchcraft (literally, _pharmocopoea_)? ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-such-a-thing-as-illegal-drugs-600-years-ago/604625/7 "2011-12-01T03:58:01Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > The only reference I can find to early opprobrium of opium is from here: [http://opioids.com/timeline/](http://opioids.com/timeline/) > > > [@](#): > > > > 1300s > > Opium disappears for two hundred years from European historical record. Opium had become a taboo subject for those in circles of learning during the Holy Inquisition. In the eyes of the Inquisition, anything from the East was linked to the Devil. I can’t get your link to work, but, frankly, any source that claims that, in the 1300s, the Inquisition held that anything from the East was “linked to the Devil”, and that implies that they could have enforced such an opinion, is full of shit. I very much doubt that the Inquisition (whose heyday, anyway, did not arrive until the late 1400s), or their masters in the Church, held any such opinion, but if even if they did, they utterly failed to get the populace to pay any heed to it. This is the era when the story of the travels of Marco Polo were enthralling Europe, and when oriental spices, silks and other goods, brought by Muslim traders along the Silk Road, commanded huge prices, leading, in the following century, to the age of exploration as European sailors desperately sought to find a sea route to the Orient in order to be able to trade with them more easily. I don’t know whether opium was amongst those trade goods, but if it was not, that certainly was not because stuff in general from the East was banned or distrusted.