Science Cannabis

What Next? 263less, but usually phenomenally beneficial when indicated . . . Coca is notonly a substance innocent as is tea or coffee —which are commonly acceptedpopular necessities — but that Coca is vastly superior to these substances,and more worthy of general use because of its depurative actionon the blood, as well as through its property of provoking a chemico-physiologicalchange in the tissues whereby the nerves and muscles are renderedmore capable for their work."By the turn of the century, however, his was a lone voice, the partywas over. It had quickly become clear that cocaine was a dangerous drugof addiction. Apart from its continuing value as a local anesthetic therewas no further medical use. Some of the medical experts who had pioneeredthe introduction of cocaine themselves became victims to thecocaine habit; Freud himself continued to take the drug until the late1880s. Nonmedical use of the drug was rare on either side of the Atlantic,however, for almost another century —when cocaine reemerged inWestern societies in the late twentieth century.TobaccoThe twentieth century has witnessed the rise and fall of tobacco as apsychoactive drug for the mass of the population in the Western world.Cigarette smoking was comparatively rare at the start of the century; salesin the United States averaged one cigarette per adult male per day. Butconsumption rose rapidly to around 10 per day by 1945, by then almosthalf of all adult men were regular smokers — consuming an average of 20cigarettes a day. Smoking among women lagged somewhat behind, becomingcommon only some 20 years later. Cigarette smoking was heavilyadvertised throughout the West, and the advertisements included claimsfor the alleged health benefits of smoking. In nearly every midcenturyHollywood movie the stars seemed to have a cigarette almost permanentlyin their mouths.But things began to change when the link between smoking andlung cancer was first reported in the 1950s. Gradually we have movedfrom viewing tobacco smoking as a harmless form of relaxation to seeingit is a public health problem that should be dealt with by medical treat-