I was watching an episode of “House of Cards” Netflix show this evening and one of the characters snorted some white powder. The audience understanding that it was cocaine.
He genuinely snorted something white. So my question is: in all these Hollywood films where the characters either snort coke or smoke weed, what are they really doing? Looks real.
Since this is basically about movie props, let’s move it to Cafe Society. Thread title edited to better indicate subject.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
In a lot of movies, the snorting is faked so it just looks like something is going up their nose. Other times it’s:
Powdered milk
Crushed up vitamin B
Powdered sugar
Baking powder
Soy baby formula
Baby powder (I’m assuming this was just for show)
Baby laxatives
We used powdered sugar for my high school production of Macbeth set in a rave (don’t ask), although Lady Macbeth did it in a way that she could avoid getting the sugar in her nose, after discovering it’s not so fun actually.
For weed, it’s either actually cannabis or an herbal mixture, same as with tobacco.
I guess high school plays have changed since I was in high school. 
I knew a guy once who would crush up tylenols (as I recall) and snort them when he ran out of cocaine. He said it helped with the craving. I mean, it’s only kinda related, but still. You can stick a lot of shit up your nose.
I don’t think powdered milk is actually used-- I think that’s a misunderstanding of using lactose powder. You want something that’s water-soluble.
In Breaking Bad, the prop meth is actually rock candy, and sugar or rock candy is also what the actors have in their pipes and puff on in the meth-smoking scenes. Apparently, you’re not supposed to inhale it, as it’s pretty disgusting, although it’s good for eating as a snack.
Lady Macbeth: Yet here’s a snort. Out, damned blow! Out, I say! What, will this spoon never be clean? All the Peruvian in suburbia will not sweeten this little spoon.
Heh. One of the best productions of the Scottish play I ever saw was with a college-age cast, with the Japanese costumes, mannerisms and scenery of a Noh play, and with men playing all the female parts, and women playing all the male parts. Bizarre but very, very interesting.
“Under the auspices of Beardsley School, dramatics, dances and other natural activities are not technically sex play, though girls do meet boys, if that is what you object to.”
“All right,” I said, my hassock exhaling a weary sign. “You win. She can take part in that play. Provided male parts are taken by female parts.”
“I am always fascinated,” said Pratt, "by the admirable way foreigners–or at least naturalized Americans–use our rich language. I’m sure Miss Gold, who conducts the play group, will be overjoyed.
Nabokov, Lolita
It’s not for [DEL]eatin’[/DEL] smokin’. It’s just for lookin’ through.
CMC fnord!
There was a sketch in the first season of SNL where Chevy Chase, doing his Jerry Ford impersonation, was unsuccessfully trying to roll a joint. According to later claims, they used real marijuana in the scene.
i would bet that in some films they actually use real MJ.
Michael J. Fox made a movie called Bright Lights, Big City back in 1988, for which he used milk sugar (not powdered milk as posted on the IMDb trivia page) as he mentioned to the New York Times (supposedly suggested by Al Pacino, though the NYT article doesn’t mention that).
Back when I was young and innocent, I toured the backstage area of Miss Saigon here in one of the larger theaters of Chicago. Our guide, one of the actors, showed my family and me a table full of hand props used during the show, including a rather impressive bag of bud. He stammered a bit about how, uh, of course that was, uh, fake (as he hurriedly buried the bag of “fake weed” under the mountain of props) for the, uh, bar scene, just a bit of stage business, and uh…if we’d like to just step this way he’d be happy to show us the helicopter!
Many years later, I’m both a bit less young and a bit less innocent. That was some sweet smellin’ ganja, and a whole lot of it! 
In a movie, you can also use camera cuts to fake this sort of thing. Camera on actor, holding rolled-up dollar bill to nose, leaning down towards mirror. Cut to extreme close-up of mirror with a line of powder on it, and the powder being sucked up the end of the rolled bill. Cut to actor, putting down bill and wiping nose. Anyone who watches that scene will see the actor snorting up the powder, without ever realizing that the rolled-up bill wasn’t in the actor’s nose for the extreme close-up.
I remember reading an article on Mad Men which said all the cigarettes were some herbal blend. Smoking tobacco in the workplace is prohibited by California law.
First Google hit is from AskMen.com:
I would guess it’s the placebo effect of simply crushing up a white substance and snorting it, seeing as how cocaine isn’t physically addicting.
See also: