Drug Memorabilia

Before the senseless and criminal "War on (some) Drugs" could make its disasters, people used psychoactive drugs as medicines, consciousness modifiers and even sacraments (did you know that in the ancient Rome there were more than 200 shops selling hashish and opium in town?) During 18th century, opium and cannabis extracts were regularly prescribed by doctors and generally speaking there weren't so many abuses and compulsive behaviours, even though every family had his own medicinal cabinet full of freely available drugs. Even the addicts - given great availability and low prices - could usually manage their habit and addiction in itself was considered a private matter, or a health problem in the worst cases.

Below a small collection of 'drug memorabilia': opium and cannabis extract bottles, vintage paraphernalia and even advertising...

The first one is one of the legendary Eden Hashish Centre calendars. Back in the '70s, the E.H.C., situated in Kathmandu, Nepal, supplied any amount of high grade qualities of charas (pure cannabis resin) and ganja (cannabis flowered tops) to its international clients. In 1973, soon after other hash shops opened, threats of the loss of foreign aid from the American administration of Richard Nixon forced Nepal to outlaw cannabis and opium.
(click on images to biggify)

Syringes used in the '40s and '50s by users for injecting morphine, heroin and pharmaceutical opiates like demerol (or for the heroin/cocaine cocktail known as 'speed ball' or 'snow ball'.) Some of them were home-made joining a dropper to the needle, as profusely described by William S. Burroughs in his well known Junkie.

Absynthe spoons. A sugar cube was put on the spoon kept over an abshinte glass, then water was gently poured on it, so that the sugar could slowly melt, falling through the spoon several tiny holes and finally mixing with the absynthe. In other not-traditional recipes, absynthe was directly poured on the sugar cube, it was flamed and then thrown in the absynthe glass while melting.