pill poppers of the 50s, questions

So, as much as can be gained from the literature of the time, I have difficulty finding out something that intrigues me, namely the pill popping culture of the 1950s. My dad, when he was young, told me of codeine drinkers (the purple slurpers of today), and it seems to me that codeine was the pain pill people would abuse...was there higher concentrations during this period (I have no question marks, so I will instead use %). Also, how difficult was it to score pharms during this period (both through croakers and through the streets% was it a popular thing% what other pills, specifically opiates, where available)%

Anyway, any info would be greatly appreciated, even if you can refer me to articles or books. I know this post may fit DC or another forum, but since most of you guys know your stuff, I imagine I would be better suited posing this question here...

-Swybs

Check out this site: http://apt.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/9/1/62#MARKS-2001
go down to the reference section... that should give you a good start. Good luck, have fun.

The 1950's (actually, up until about 1965) were probably the last decade of basically legal drugs, with very little restrictions on their sale. Until 1956 amphetamines were available OTC, and I forget the year for barbiturates. D/L-methamphetamine was excluded from the inhaler ban and was available in inhalers OTC until the mid-1960's. With that said...ALL the names of ALL available pills at the time that will never be known nowadays. I can do my best to list quite a few, since I have a bunch of old advertisements on my computer.

You had:

Amphetamines:
-Biphetamine was 50% amphetamine and 50% dextroamphetamine, in a time release resin complex known as "black beauties".
-Benzedrine, which was amphetamine sulfate. They came in Spansules, tablets, and liquid...same goes for the next two.
-Dexedrine, which was dextroamphetamine sulfate.
-Dexamyl was Dextroamphetamine and Amobarbital (Dexedrine+Amytal).
-Eskatrol was Dexedrine and Compazine (a tranquilizer), and only came in Spansules (anything with Benzedrine or Spansule is made by the same company...Smith Kline & French).
-Edrisal was Benzedrine and Aspirin.
-Desoxyn Gradumets were time-released methamphetamine.
-Desbutal was methamphetamine and pentobarbital (Desoxyn+Nembutal).
-Ambar was methamphetamines and phenobarbital.
-Amphedroxyn was methamphetamine hcl, in pills and liquid.
-Appetrol was dextroamphetamine and meprobamate (Equanil, a tranquilizer)
-Coricidin Forte was a buncha stuff, caffeine and methamphetamine (like 2.5mg)
-Efroxine was methamphetamine tablets and elixir.
-Norodin was methamphetamine.
-Obedrin was vitamins, pentobarbital, and methamphetamine.
-Raphetamine was amphetamine phosphate, came in injectable liquid and tablets.
- Ritalin doesn't need explaining.
-Syndrox was methamphetamine.


Barbiturates:
Nembutal - pentobarbital
Luminal - phenobarbital (long acting barb.)
Tuinal - Amobarbital (medium acting barb.) and pentobarbital (short acting barb.)
Seconal - secobarbital (short acting)
Amytal - Amobarbital

and "non-barbiturate" tranquilizers that were just as addictive, such as Miltown, Mebaral, Placidyl, Quaalude, Ultran, Premo, Doriden, and Thorazine (major tranquilizer).

Also, there were painkillers such as Demerol, Dilaudid, Methadone, Numorphan (oxymorphone), Levorphan, Dromoran, and Percodan.

I'm not in my fifties, and have never seen any of these drugs (except Dexedrine), by the way. Can't tell you how they were as far as effects go, but if I could go back in time I'd definately buy a lot of Desbutal, Dexamyl, Benzedrine, Amytal, and Tuinal.

I would LOVE to give any (meth)amphetamine/barbiturate combo pill a try.. namely Desbutal

why so many speed/tranq combos? theres probly some sort of synergistic effect (speedball-esque) but it still seems like youre defeating the purpose of both drugs with each other.

~crazyface

what about opiates/oids from this era, how did people score them (same, traditional way as now)? Also, was it a scene or just random (I would imagine) rich or middle class, since dope was around at the time, and I would think people would travel that route...though, I wonder how crazy the dope scene was back then (eg, what was the difficulty in scoring, etc).

thanks for the informative answers, thus far.

swybs

My Aunt got hooked on Heroin in 1949......she told me when smack was not available or when she wanted to come down "Cold Turkey" she would eat codeine tabs....also she would eat or shoot dillaudid tabs....and then there was always paragoric to drink, which you could buy at any drug store.......Percoset and Percodan came along in the early 60's.....Morphine tabs like MScontin were not on the market until 1985 and Oxycontin didn't appear until 1996.........boy are we lucky!

My aunt got hooked hanging around Jazz musicians in the late 40's and early 50's in San Francisco.....she said back then only the "Hep cats" got high on smack....the "cats" were Jazz musicians and there followers.....also those in the "Beat Generation" or "Beatniks" a forerunner of the "Hippies" in the 60's. Either you were "Hep" or you were not....it was closed, selective society......you had to be there to understand I suppose. It was strangely a status symbol to be on smack among your peers....those were the times.............

Thorazine (chlorpromazine) was not an addictive sedative / hypnotic (i.e. "mother's little helper") in the 1960s. It was--and still is--used as an antipsychotic for emergency cases of acute manic and/or paranoid psychosis. However, today, haloperidol (Haldol) is much more popular for emergency use and of course, so-called 'atypicals' are the only antipsychotics really prescribed. Chlorpromazine is an antagonist at just about every receptor associated with alertness/movement/sympathetic response, that is, the dopamine D2 & D3 receptors, the 5-HT2A receptor, the histamine H1 receptor and the alpha1 adrenoreceptor. It is a strongly dysphoric compound and was used most infamously as a "chemical straighjacket" for mentally ill individuals in the 1960s.

Biphetamine...that is an interesting one. I think it was known as Obetrol and was (as you said) 50% (d)-amphetamine and 50% (dl)-amphetamine, meaning 75% (D) enantiomer and 25% (L) enantiomer. This drug is still around today, however, it now known under the wildly popular brand Adderall. The company took Obetrol off the market and then "introduced" Adderall (identical formulae) when ADHD was starting to be diagnosed in masse.

Read the book "junky" by william s burroughs. He speaks of scoring morphine ampules and hypo tabs both off the street, from any number of crooked/old/foreign drs, and going down to mexico, where apparently you could get some sort of permit that allowed you to get some large quantity of morphine from the gvmt every month. (or something like that...been a while since I read the book.) I've been fortunate enough to try Dexamyl (d-amp & amobarbital (I think) combo.) It was quite a nice combo. while I still got the nice, euphoric energized effects of the amphetamine, the barb eliminated all the unpleasant side effects. I believe that they were rx'd to bored housewives as an antidepressant. The barb was there to take the edge off the amphetamine. There was, of course, some synergistic action there as well...If you do a search for "the american gallery of psychiatric art" you should find, assuming it's still up, all sorts of drug ads from the 50's and 60's. mostly for benzos, barbs, and amphetamines. I believe that the Dexamyl ad has a characture of a stereotypical 50's house wife enthusiastically vacuuming with a huge smile on her face. Good times, the 50's.

in my humble opinion william s burroughs was an absolute genius the book junky should be required reading in high school.
i read it as a seventh grader, and lets just say it changed some things for me. for the better ? i do not know but it is great reading thirty years later i still pick it up read it now and then


johnnyb

"Language is a virus..."




"We must find out what words are and how they function.
They become images when written down,
but images of words repeated in the mind
and not of the image of the thing itself."
- W.S. Burroughs

tramagesty said:

I believe that the Dexamyl ad has a characture of a stereotypical 50's house wife enthusiastically vacuuming with a huge smile on her face. Good times, the 50's.

Click to expand...

i looked at some of those ads and some from the japanese gallery of psychiatric art. its funny to think how much things have changed in the last fifty years. its probably better for society to not be pro-drugged up all the time but like you said they were good times and selfishly i would like it to be that easy to get high. i wonder what the attitudes toward prescription drugs will be like 50 years in the future? i think more acceptance of reacreation usage but a continuance of the trend away from the prescribing of such drugs for every hurt feeling and itchy ass.

~crazyface

edit- seems like a "drug culture" thread but thats the mods buisiness

I don't think you could ever get "Junky" into a highschool Lit. class, but I did teach it at the University level. And yes, the poster would do well by himself to give it a read.

site with ads for early cociane and opiate products, some early amphetamines too.

http://wings.buffalo.edu/aru/preprohibition

crazyface said:

site with ads for early cociane and opiate products, some early amphetamines too.

http://wings.buffalo.edu/aru/preprohibition

Click to expand...

Thanks for the link.. that was rather interesting. I had no idea and had honestly never thought about the history of drug use and the using social circles.. thanks ya'll for the reading material.

I know my mother used to take some sort of amphetamine every weekend to fuel her home-renovation urges.

Qualoades or something like that, was very popular. Why isn't it popular anymore? All the sudden the high isn't fun anymore??

Methaqualone or something like that.

Yep, quaaludes. they were a barb like depressant from what i hear. if youve ever seen Almost Famous the character of pennylane ods on them in that hotel room.

i was really interested to find out about the methamphetamine in japan post world war two. the japanese military was of course fueling its soldiers on meth (even...well i dont know about "even"... Hitler got daily injections). but when the war ended there were warehouses full of meth and no one taking it, it was sold to the public en masse and japan had a crazily high meth addiction rate following the war.

edit-researched at http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/amp04.htm

japan now- "15,000-25,000 arrests per year amongst an estimated 1-2.2 million users" thats about one in a hundred japanese people being meth users!

after prohibitionizing them in 1952 the 50s saw "as many as 55,000" arrests per year. seems like alot to me

I'd think quaaludes aren't as popular 'cause they aren't prescribed as much (at all?) any more, and since it's hard to get pharmaceutical company produced versions, it's probably quite hard to make in a lab, and so it's fallen into disuse. As a guess.

I don't believe quaaludes are even made anymore. I know they are not available by prescription in the US anymore, and I believe that thye may have been taken off the market entirely, although I did read somewhere they were still made in SOuth Africa. Of course, wether this it true or just someone's wishful thinking, I don't know