Were your granparents junkies??

[guest123]

A friend lent me an interesting book recently that ive been perusing during breaks from trimming .. its called 'The Connoisseur's Handbook of Marijuana' by William Daniel Drake JR.
Its quite an old book , printed in 1971 in the U.S.A ...
ive found some things in there that may be of interest to others on the boards here and perhaps some good topics for discussion ..
here is one ......




Were your Grandparents junkies ???

There are quite a few vaild reasons why cannabis was not a popularly known drug in the early stages of American history.Prominent among these was the fact that Americans has access to so many strong drugs already, drugs which performed the tasks of intoxication and stupefication without the unwanted potential for clarifying thought and perception. Use of drugs on a large scale is not a new phenomenon in Western societies, nor is wholesale addiction. The current epidemic has yet to reach the proportions of the narcotic plague which peristed for generations in this country during the late 19th and early 20th centries . Conservative estimates of the addicted population of the United States at the turn of the century place the number at between one and two million living persons . This does not take into account the large number of people, namely children, who succumbed to toxic dosages of opiates. Given the population of this country during these years - around 75-100 million people - the chances are quite good that one of your grandparents was a junkie , or that one of your great uncles or aunts never survived beyone infancy to produce cousins for you.
One of the largest markets for opiates in the country was the sooting syrup trade, aimed primarily at infants who were giving their parents a hard time by crying and carrying on, or who made the mistake of appearing sickly. This genre of medicines included preparations which were known as baby syrups, colic cures, infants' friends, teething concotions and so forth.Parents were put at ease by lables which assured that the preparation "contains nothing injurious to the youngest babe" and that "MOther need not fear giving this medicine to the youngest babe, as no bad affects came from the use of it". Laws were passed to prevent suck claims appearing on preparations which did , in fact , contain addictive and toxic dosages of opiates , but then , as now , the laws were quickly circumvented by quick thinking entrepreneurs. A representative list of products offered to distraught parents of uptight infants looks something like this:

Dr James' Soothing Syrup Cordial - Herion
Childrens Comfort - Morphine Sulphate
Dr Fahey's Pepsin Anodyne Compound - Morphine Sulphate
Dr Fahrneys Teething Syrup - Morphine and Chloroform
Dr Millers Anodyne for Babies - Morphine Sulphate and Chloral Hydrate
Dr Fowlers Strawberry and Peppermint Mixture - MOrphine
Gadways elixir for Infants - Codeine
Dr Groves anodyne for Infants - Morphine Sulphate
Kopps Baby friend - Morphine Sulphate
Dr Moffetts Teething (Teething Compound) - powdered Opium
Victor Infant relief - Chloroform and Cannabis Indica
Hoopers Anodyne - The Infants Friend - Morphine Sulphate
Mrs Winslows Soothing Syrup - Morphine Sulphate

 

[qanabose]

Well, yes, but they held strictly to state authorised drug abuse

 

[BiG H3rB Tr3E]

No, but when I moved into my moms house she always had shady people over. I was too young at the time to realize these people were wierd because they were all heroin addicts. My moms best friend was this loser named frank who was full blown junkie. He had this dog I used to play with, a small little chiuahua called "shivers" because he was ALWAYS shaking. It is funny to think back at it now; a heroin addict with a dog that is constantly shaking, like dog like owner, huh? Thankfully that piece of shit is dead. Anyone want to guess cause of death? I remebered I was about 6 or 7 years old and I had been saving my chore money, and my grandmoms had just dropped me off at home from school and my moms friends was over and he was in my room "looking for boardgames". A few days later the ice cream man had come down our block and I ran to my room to get some quarters from my savings and found that it was gone. That moment I realized that frank had probably taken my money, either him or my moms. Either way I was so angry, even at the time I remebered thinking that I was surrounded by degenerate scum fuck losers. One day I just stuffed as much of my clothes as i could fit in my backpack and took a bus to my grandmoms and she raised me until I was 14 years old. I love my grandmoms and I have the utmost respect for her. She raised three kids by herself and worked two full time jobs to keep food on the table. She raised me, my cousin and now she is continue helping to raise my son and daughter and my cousins son. She gives and gives and gives and never expects anything in return but a hug and for you to EAT. She loves to cook for everyone. If I ever won the lottery or came into a large amount of money, I would give everything to her. I wish I could give my grandmoms the world......

 

[bagseed77]

damn big you almost made me cry, my parents were the junkies and my grandmother raised me pretty much too, i could knock on her door anytime any day and she would cook whatever i wanted and let me stay as long as i wanted, shes passed now and she was the only one besides my dogs that has loved me unconditionaly ever.

god bless you grandmother, she insisted i call her nothing else but grandmother.

 

[PazVerdeRadical]

wally, great post indeed... there are official reports of such medicines in south america as well, many of the medicines also contained cocaine and were advertised as vitalizers.
there is a book called La Parabola de Pablo (pablo´s parable) about Escobar´s life, written by a colombian journalist, where the issue is discussed as well. i have the book somewhere in one of the book shelves, tried to find it to get the name of the author, but could not find it, perhaps someone borrowed it...
peace

 

[indifferent]

Some products sold before the Harrison Act banned opium and cocaine:



Pharmaceutical giants soon muscled in on the act. By 1900, German giant Merck (who, incidentally, also synthesised MDMA or ecstasy) were producing over 1.5 tons a year of pure cocaine hydrochloride.

Meanwhile, their US competitors, Parke Davis (developers of ketamine and PCP) were marketing their brands as a substance that could "make the coward brave, and the silent eloquent". (A fact strangely absent from their company historical archives.)

The flip-side of cocaine use, however, was beginning to be noticed. Some users were getting into trouble. Occasional users seemed to be okay, but chronic heavy users were experiencing cocaine addiction, withdrawal symptoms, and psychosis

 

[Jones]

From Wikipedia:

One of the earliest uses of methamphetamine was during World War II when the German military dispensed it under the trade name Pervitin. It was widely distributed across rank and division, from elite forces to tank crews and aircraft personnel. Chocolates dosed with methamphetamine were known as Fliegerschokolade ("flyer's chocolate") when given to pilots, or Panzerschokolade ("tanker's chocolate") when given to tank crews.

 

[Justa6655321]

My Grandparents were all drunks. They didnt have enough money for anything other than cheap booze.

I do know my aunts were big time dopers.

 

[whiterabbit9]

crazy stories

nah, no one in my family was a junkie

some where drunks (pollocks)

other then that, my cannabis smoking makes my dad crazy

he hates it

he thinks the cops will take your home and everything if you are caught with some

 

[guest123]

hey guys ,, thanks for sharing your stories , sounds like some grandparents held the family together , yours must have been gems bigherb and bagseed...
nice info there indifferent and paz , kinda cool to log some of it together to get a glimpse of the world it was back then , pretty crazy it seems ..
one thing i noticed with the article was this part ;

" The current epidemic has yet to reach the proportions of the narcotic plague which peristed for generations in this country during the late 19th and early 20th centries ."

given that was written in 1971 , i wonder how much closer we are to having the same kind of epidemic in the current day , not sure about u guys , but in australia drug use ,, particularly amphetamines, is out of control and people are popping pills like lollys ...

 

[whiterabbit9]

here it's powder and pills

oh and smoking beasters

the ones that do take the road of powder and pills don't last long

 

[LolaGal]

I can't believe no mentioned Coca-Cola, the lovely cocaine/cola drink. I bet that'd pick ya up!

The current laws suck.....one should be allowed access to all these drugs freely.

I particularly like the Bayer Cocaine Toothache cure. Bet that DID work fast...LOL

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

grandma was a drunk, but what people from the Caribbean aren't?

nothing like that ever trickled down to my parents or me, so i guess im good. no horror stories either. grandma was the best cook, gave the greatest hugs, had all the shit on your parents when they were younger, always wanted you to "take a lil sip" every now and again with her.

my cousin and i did, but that was about it. we took sips but , from watching her, realized that this shit was not to be mistreated.!! lol

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

My granddads were born in 1882 and 1901. These two gave up the booze in their 40s and died at 97 and 95 years old. At 93, one walked to and from work slinging hay in a cow field and the other had his last deer hunting experience, I remember him crying like a baby when we had to finally take his pistol.

I guess both of them had a Coke or a Pepsi back then but neither seemed to be into anything illegal. Paragoric was a common opiate prescription for diarrhea years ago. A friend and I split a bottle we found in the medicine cab, mixed with Pepsi. It was a pretty good buzz.

 

[LolaGal]

You can still get Paregoric......

Also codeine cough syrup is available without a script. Isn't that odd? Need a script for Tylenol #3, but codeine cough syrup doesn't need one???

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

duplicate post

 

[NiteTiger]

On one of the History Channel's 'History of Illegal Drugs', they went into a thing about cocaine 'wine' and marijuana drinks (of course they also talked about things like Laudanum, but on a different episode). One of the biggest cocaine drink producers proudly advertised that their drinks were served in the White House, and the president was even heard to comment on it favorably. The saying was if you did cannabis, you wouldn't go farther than the fields, but with cocaine you could be president.

 

[guest123]

interesting huh ,,, seems cocaine was present in quite a few drinks ,, i think i was born a little too late to sample much of that stuff ,,
i guess when things werent as big a deal as now and no legal stigmas were attatched all manner of folk ingested drugs that are now only used by they ""junkie"" element ...
just human nature i spose to want to get a little ""high""

lolagal .. i also wonder what things would be like if all drugs were freely available to all , with the right eduction perhaps it would be a better option than what we have currently .. who knows ..

kinda cool looking back into time a little though , im enjoying reading this book im reading ...
heres another quote from it ...

"" He who smokes Ganja forgets even his own fathers name. (from Bengal) ""

 

[LolaGal]

interesting huh ,,, seems cocaine was present in quite a few drinks ,, i think i was born a little too late to sample much of that stuff ,,
i guess when things werent as big a deal as now and no legal stigmas were attatched all manner of folk ingested drugs that are now only used by they ""junkie"" element ...
just human nature i spose to want to get a little ""high""

lolagal .. i also wonder what things would be like if all drugs were freely available to all , with the right eduction perhaps it would be a better option than what we have currently .. who knows ..

kinda cool looking back into time a little though , im enjoying reading this book im reading ...
heres another quote from it ...

"" He who smokes Ganja forgets even his own fathers name. (from Bengal) ""

LOL. What's my Dad's name??? Lemme think.....

I think it would be OK to let the pharmacies open. At least one could have a good time! Let's see cocaine for toothache, that'll work....A little morphine for the knee pain.... I don't recall any relatives from the old days being junkies!

I saw on TV you used to be able to order Morphine and syringes from Sears! How do I get this time travelling device working again...??LOL

 

[PazVerdeRadical]

LolaGal, that is because the ones making the codeine cough syrup are making not to sell it to people who have coughs :wink: it is as simple as that and the truth, shit, I know a lady who owns a pharmacy story in Caracas, they keep the codeiene cough syrup (called preveral) in the freeze along side the coca-colas and gatorades, and they sell over 50 bottles of it a day, do the math.

wally, out here everyone is a drunken alcoholic first and foremost, the next big thing is cocaine (powder as well as rock). these are used by everyone regardless of age or economic status. if people started to get tested for cocaine out here, it would not surprise me that 50% of the people tested came out positive. shit, some people cannot start their day without their coffee, cigarette and couple lines of cocaine. bunch of idiots if you asked me...

we have already reached drug epidemic proportions...

Paz