this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2026
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What happened to them? I really don't know the history behind these hard drugs.
They started as medicines and were concentrated, distilled, and extracted to the point where the medicine it became was deadlier than the cure it provided.
Coca leaves are still consumed medicinally/recreationally in some parts of south america.
Poppy seeds have a whole history of being abused and weaponized through the silk road.
Marijuana has faced a similar story, though without the deaths. This hasn't stopped governments around the world from conflating the deaths caused by other things with the use of medicines that in no way cause death.
I have to point out that in medicine we use the derivatives from cocaine, novacaine, lidocaine, benzocaine etc as potent short/medium term anaesthetics. Drugs like these make dental extractions for example relatively painless today. Pure cocaine was used previously but was far more toxic to the liver and had a much higher incidence of allergic reaction than its modern derivatives.